ALTERED OZ CELEBRATION

The long anticipated day is finally upon us.

Thank you for joining with me for this Altered Oz celebration. The opportunity to come together in celebrating one of my favorite places fictional though it may be is an opportunity I could not resist. If you were here with me for the last Oz party you know I’m serious when I say I love anything and everything Oz so when my dear friend Oma Linda mentioned the Altered Oz party I was one of the first to say, “Count me in.”

Getting to this party wasn’t an easy journey for me and just so you can see how difficult it was I’m going to share with you how I ended up here today. The following is a true story and the real version of what happened.

It all started with that post on Oma Linda’s blog announcing the celebration. I didn’t let a little thing like the fact that I don’t do altered art and have no idea what it really is deter me. Nope, that’s just not my style. I was confident that I could figure it out and put something together. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve always been a bit cocky and perhaps over confident.

I know that there are probably established rules and guide lines that are well known and understood by just about everyone in the known universe except for yours truly. That doesn’t bother me too much because I’m pretty sure there are a few things I know about and understand that you don’t. Besides, I’ve always been good at following instructions and I figured I’d just Google Altered and find everything I would need.

By reading up on the subject I gathered that quite often an object is given a new purpose or look by adding other elements to it to create something else entirely. That is all well and good if you know what that means but it isn’t something I easily understand and I haven’t the foggiest notion of what to do with this little bit of knowledge. It didn’t help reading more on the subject or looking at images of altered art that others had created. I just don’t get it. Okay, okay I’m not quite as smart as I thought.

You’d think that with all of the images of Altered Art that I’ve seen on the blogs I’ve visited I would learn something but no, those images don’t help me either. I have no idea how you decide what to do or how you go about doing it. I must have missed something crucial in the articles I read. I’ll have to accept that I’m simply clueless at times and this is one of those times.

I’m admitting my ignorance and am telling you that I am aware that this isn’t altered art in its true form but it is to me how Oz would appear in an altered universe. Yes, I believe in alternate and parallel universes.

I have put together six scenes in which Dorothy and Toto or Dorothy alone may appear if we were able to see into these altered worlds. The scenes were all done with watercolor pencils on a mixed media paper. I then planned on putting these drawings together in book form or some sort of journal.

I am truly in awe of those of you who put together journals and make little books with pages because it’s a whole lot harder than one who has never done such a thing can even imagine. At least it was for me. I should have started with a ready-made book or journal but that is hindsight. 

At first I thought I knew what I was doing but hadn’t gotten far into the project before I realized I had no idea what I was doing. My project was suddenly dead in the water and I had no idea of how to save it. I thought I’d have to come up with something else but when I tried to think of something else I discovered that my mind had been wiped clean of anything and everything.

There was nothing! Just a big fat zero! All I had was a vast empty space without thought or reason or a single solitary idea. This empty space where once there had been all of these ideas jumbled together just waiting to be let out. I must have come into contact with a large industrial sized magnet that wiped out any creativity or ideas that I once had. I don’t recall doing so but what other explanation do I have? I’d have to stick with my one and only idea for my part in this celebration or admit defeat which is something I’m loath to do.

I’m one of those people who know that if you ignore something it will go away. I also know that if something is causing you a problem instead of getting frustrated trying to fix it if you put it off to the side more than likely a solution or remedy will present itself or you’ll merely forget there ever was a problem. Some people call this avoidance but I am not one of those people. It’s a practice that has always worked well for me. So that is what I did and I wasn’t even a wee bit surprised when an idea just POPPED into that empty space. Things started coming together. I was going to have something to show after all and hopefully you wouldn’t be too disappointed with my offering.

So here is what I ended up with:

and everything fits inside of this.

If you would like to be the one who gets to see firsthand what this journal really looks like leave me a comment saying so.  I plan on letting one of you take this little bit of silliness off my hands. I will choose and announce the winner on Sunday March 17^th.

To see what everyone else who has entered into the merriment has to offer go over to my dear friend Oma Linda’s blog, Olde Baggs ‘n Stuft Shirts for a list of all of the participants by clicking here or clicking on the Altered Oz button on my side bar..

Thank you for taking the time to visit and for joining me in celebrating Oz. Just your being here makes it all worth while.

“Now what do you suppose that was all about?”

”There’s no telling with that one. She’s a bit off if you ask me. That drawing of me wearing Dorothy's dress is making my skin itch.”