beyond the paperbag

 

What medium would be both fun to attempt and a challenge? Standing in my local Trader Joe's store one afternoon I had a brainstorm. What if I used brown paper grocery bags as my background? Recycling is important to our family - trying to do our small part to reduce our carbon footprint. But what would happen if I recycled the bags for my artwork? How would my collages transform? What direction could I take it and how could I contain the amount of space I used? (A whole paper bag seemed pretty daunting.)

I knew I wanted to keep these collages smaller, as I didn't have much time to create them each day. Would an embroidery hoop hold the bag? Would I be able to stitch directly onto the bags if I wanted to try my hand at embroidery and stitching words to accompany the collages?

This was going to be an adventure and possibly a total failure, but that's what made it exciting, too. I purchased a stack of 5" embroidery hoops and left my reusable bags at home the next time I went shopping (all in the name of ART!)