Unnatural

Here we are, completing our first full cycle of nine challenges. A year ago, Martha Wolfe pulled us all together from around the world to participate in a virtual fiber art collective focused on exploring alternative sources of inspiration.  She proposed we borrow from the theory of multiple intelligences (lo and behold, there are nine!) to inspire our work. What a ride it has been, and what innovative work has resulted.  For this final challenge in the first series, we will focus on the area of Naturalistic Intelligence (good at appreciating the world and nature). 

Now, who isn't inspired by the colors of nature - a red rose, a vibrant orange sunset, a vivid turquoise ocean?  However, your challenge is not to mimic but to alter the colors of nature – to create a work of any aspect of nature with unexpected and surprising color substitutions. Be free. Go crazy! Have fun.

Installation in Germany by Rainer Bonk and Bertamaria Reetz,
 designed around the theme of equality, tolerance and solidarity

I leave you with the words of Dylan Thomas, from one of my favorite passages in A Child's Christmas in Wales, where he describes one of the gifts from his list of "useless presents" (always the best kind): 

"...and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds."

Portrait orientation. 

Gallery opens August 26th.