Friday, January 2, 2009

Artist's Blocks (Toy #1)

Well, here they are, the first batch of toys for my One Hundred Toys Project, as well as my Creative Every Day entry (not that I made all of these in one day!)

Participating in Art Every Day Month back in November I realized just how stuck and how blocked I was feeling; and, since if you can't think of anything to make, you can always make something about how you can't think of anything to make, I made:

A set of Artist's Blocks. (Har, har har.)

Each one has embroidered on it the letters F, E, A, and R, since that seemed to be the thing that was most contributing to my feeling stuck.



Or one might rearrange them to show off the other sides:



They can also be stacked, sort of (they are a little roly-poly):


Or, would you look at that! One might even spell other words with them:



Speaking of spell, in just playing with them I've found there are an awful lot of other, useful words hidden within those four letters: for example fae, ear, far, are, and rarr!

Art is magic.

14 comments:

Jul said...

How fun! I love this idea, and the blocks themselves are beautiful.

Sharon P Pope said...

Very intriguing!

Thalia said...

Thank you! I think I may make some more, with different words, though perhaps out of something blockier and less round, like paper-mache or something. I do like the idea of being able to stack them.

Genie Sea said...

Way to play with mental blocks! SO fun! I love the idea, and I adore the blocks! I wanna play! :)

Thalia said...

Hey, if you (or anyone else) would like to borrow the idea and make some of your own, that's fine by me; go to town! I hope it helps.

Steve Emery said...

What a great idea! This was a lot of fun! And revealing, too. Fear to Free??? Cool.

I like the color and font choices, too.

Unknown said...

these are most wonderful thalia...you could make random words by rolling them like dice, too

Leah said...

these are totally awesome!!

Anonymous said...

Oh, how wonderful!!! I really really love the one where you brought "free" out of "fear" - way to go!! And that message is _exactly_ what I needed to hear! Thank you!

Rowena said...

Love the transformation of FEAR into FREE. They look like they would be really good to juggle with, too. Juggle that fear.

Although I don't think I like the idea of creative blocks. Maybe if they can be placed in such a way that the blocks become steps for the next level. Other wise blocks gain too much control over us.

Creative steps, a more positive way of looking at it.

Thalia said...

I don't know, Rowena. I mean I hear you; but they feel magically right to me. For me it's not that I'm making the blocks manifest, and therefore stronger; it's that I'm making them visible. I'm operating on the principle that darkness and an unwillingness to look at fears make them stronger.

It's also taking the idea of a "block" and making it neutral by just looking at it as an energy or a raw material. Like you were getting at, you can then build something else out of them.

And I did try to juggle them, but I'm terribly out of practice and they ended up everywhere. :)

suze said...

Love these blocks!

suze said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gretchen Wegner said...

Wow...blocks seem to be the rage these days. These are soooo cool. I had a product idea I was calling the Writer's Blocks but now are called the MuseCubes. You can see some of them on www.musecubes.com (although I haven't changed the website homepage since the holidays, so bear with me). What do you stuff yours with? Cotton, or something firmer?