NEW YAHOO GROUP !!!!!

I started my second Yahoo group yesterday! I am soooooo excited!!!!! My first group is a small private one, this one though........open to anyone and everyone!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theartistsblock


I hope this group takes off and soars like a bird on a breezy spring afternoon, but I also know this thing could sink like a dead man wearing cement boots at the bottom of a river!!!!!!

I created this group because of my new found need, want, and desire to get out there and be a part of life! I spent my whole life up until this last year or so locked in a prison of sorts, the bars of that prison were partially constructed of fear, which is a pretty tought material for holding a person back! With the fear gone the bars can not hold me like they use to!

I have had a million ideas of things I would like to do, and have been looking for a group or groups that also had similiar ideas. I have recently joined a few new groups and it has been wonderful to get to know, and I look forward to getting to know better, some really wonderful people and artists! While these groups all share my interests, and I share theirs, there were still some interests, wants, cravings, needs, desires, that I could not find a group for......so I created my own in the hopes that their were others out there like me.

I would love to do a charm round robin and swap. The charms would be for necklace or bracelet. Each participant would start off by sending either a link braclet or necklace and a journal explaining the theme for the necklace or bracelet and color choices, and at least one charm they have made. As the journal and bracelet/necklace makes it way throught the round robin participants add at least 2 charms and beads ( bead: beed n. anything with a hole in it goes!) and journal what was done. At the end of the round robin you have an artsy piece of jewelry! The charm swap would be like an ATC type swap, where you would make a number of charms, and they would be swapped out, or better yet a ATC/charm swap to make an ATC with the same theme as the charm? The charms can be made of anything, as long as it can safely be worn as a piece of jewelery, and it can withstand being worn (ex. waterproof..... so that you could wash your hands, or not have to worry about getting caught in the rain......etc)

I have also become addicted to ATC's, 4x4's, 5x7's, art journals, altered books.......I belong to several groups that trade and round robin these wonderful pieces of art, and I treasure each and everyone of them! The main requirement for these is that they should be mainly original, very little photo copied work in the piece. If I wanted a book full of photo copied art I could whip out my latest Somerset studio, Expressions....etc and a pair of scissors! This does not mean that I do not love, treasure, and appreciate the pieces I have received in swaps in the past that are copied.......I just want and have the need for real honest to goodness texture!

I am wanting to do this in addition to the other groups I participate in and with, not to replace. I cherish the friendships and artistic relationships I have made greatly so far and hope to continue them for a long time and a day, and I am also hoping to expand this group wonderful people!

I have also wanted to do a colors journal swap, ATC swap, etc....like the one for the Somerset book, True Colors............Art doll round robin, the list goes on and on...... I have a million ideas of my own, but I would also like this group to be open to suggestion, because there are alot of talented people out there with a ton of wonderful ideas! An altered, collaged mask swap or round robin...........hmmmmmm.

I would love to see artists of any and all media, fabric, polymer, paper, jewelry and bead making, etc. I think the more diverse the group, the more interesting the artwork tends to be!

I do not plan to start any round robins or swaps until after the new year.......this is way too busy of a time for all of us, because if you are artsy then you are probably up to your armpits in gift making like I am!

So, speaking of being up to my armpits in stuff to make, I am actually going to be drowning and up to my eyebrows if I do not get away from this computer and get working. My studio looks like what Santa's workshop would look like if a tornado ripped through it during the height of toy making season, minus the bruised and battered elves, of course!

Hope to see y'all on the Yahoo group, I have to approve membership, but that is to keep the creepy stalker peoples out!