ANOTHER BLANK SLATE

This wooden heart was delivered to my door last week. I am one of many local artists who agreed to participate in a local Hospice fundraiser by creating a piece of art out of a simple wooden heart. The hearts will be put up for silent auction at a Hospice dinner that I believe coincides with Valentine's Day.
I've had the heart sitting on an open shelf in my kitchen; we look at each other a lot. That's how I often times begin creations - starting with one element as a blank slate and letting the ideas and images that might possibly follow roll across my brain until something takes hold. This one hasn't been easy for me. It's the hard wooden object that's getting in my way. Yes, I'll add fabric (of course), but I seem to be stuck on dressing this heart, and that 3-d form of sewing is a bit out of my element. With a due date of February 1st not much more than a month away, I decided today would be the day to get started and at least see where my attempts lead me.

So......wanting to put some feminine curves into this heart body, I began to imagine how I could do this. All I could think of were the darts and curves and piecing I did in high school (MANY years ago) when I was sewing my own clothes, so I reverted to that idea. I traced the heart and dissected it with some feminine lines, then cut individual pieces  of muslin and hand stitched them together again. I realized part way through that all I was doing was putting together another flat patchwork  piece, but now that I'm partially completed with this step, there seems to be some dimension to it so I can stuff batting into the covered form to get somewhat of a shapely object to work with.
I haven't yet decided if this is the direction I'll take. The jury's still out on this one. The next step is dyeing to a color somewhere in the red family, but that will be another day. Hopefully sooner than later!
I really love blank slates. I receive a new one each month with my quilt journal group. I participate in my guild's summer challenge that provides a theme and less-than-attractive swatch of fabric with the direction to "CREATE!". My pattern is to hear the task at hand, initially dig my heels in deep, deep, deep, and say something to myself like "no way will I ever come up with an idea for this...", and somehow, as the slate and I spend time together, gaze at each other, and those ideas start drifting and mulling around my brain, I grab on to something and go with it. I'm usually pleased with the results and my confidence builds with each completion. It's an affirmation to me to try different things, get out of my rut, be open, take challenges, accept new ideas.
So here I am again, the blank slate at hand, playing around with ideas, and seeing where we'll go together. There's such joy in the journey!