Chips Antidotal Wanderings

Hi, My name is Cindy. My nickname is Paint Chip.  Here’s a little something about me.

I have always had a creative soul, bursting with energy to expresss myself artistically. In the past I dubbed myself a “Multimedia Art Hobbyist.” It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? I called myself a hobbiest because selling my art was for fun and not to make a living.  Creating art is… well necessary.  I couln’t stop doing that if I wanted it.  An artful life is just a part of who I am. 

I move from one art form to another, changing mediums as I go. When my interests flex and change, I refocus my energies. I’ll play with my altered projects, doll making, and scrapbooking, then move on to gourd art, murals, or wood-burning for a while before returning to my art journals, scrapping, and painting projects again.

I like the feel of paper combined with metal, paints, stitching, wood and other mediums and find that I collage them together in much of my artful play. Scrapbooking, cardmaking, rubber stamping, artful doodles, and canvas collage art projects are interests that I indulge in almost constantly. I always have multiple projects in the works and usually all over the floor, and table tops, and walls, and… well you get the picture. There’s never a boring moment in my art studio and rarely a clean space either!

I’ve recently started working as a consultant and training in the digital scrapbooking industry.  So I’ve gone through a metamorphose from hobbyist to professional.  My computer doesn’t get to cool off very often. The software products that I design with most often include Photoshop, Photo Impact, and Paint Shp Pro.  I truly enjoy incorporating digital art with my various non-digital mediums. I’m forever using printed digi-creations of my own design as well as those from other artists. It’s important to me to print and play as much as it is to click around with that computer mouse.

Although I often play in my art journals, writing IS NOT an art form for me. It’s a chore. My art journals are expressions in color, texture, and cut/paste art much more than they are creative writing. I tell my stories visually.

I’m a big fan of mail art and artistamps, with a line of original stamps of my own design. Wahoo! I’m such a hotshot. hehehehe I have created and traded over 200 ATC’s in the last few years and I always have room for more in my collection. So please don’t hesitate to shout out to me if you are interested in a trade!

I have some performing art talents. Although they are minimal. In my youth I played the clarinet and keyboard and can still peck out a tune or two if I’m bribed with massive amounts of chocolate. I play the Indian love flute fairly well and find this a very relaxing part of most evenings. I can’t sing worth a hoot. But I do pretend like I can when I’m alone in the car. I’ve done puppeteering on a professional level and a smidgen of acting on a totally non-professional level. I dance about as good as I sing. As for cooking or anything that could be considered art in the kitchen…. well let’s just say my husband does all the cooking for good reason!

I am married to my very best friend and together we have a blended family of 5 daughters with our youngest one graduating high school this year. So we will be experiencing the empty nest syndrome fairly soon. We also have a handful of grandchildren. There’s a couple of fur baby dogs that hang out with us at our little house on the prairie and a bird that drives us all crazy with her yelling, if she’s not in the same room we are in!

Unfortunately I have chronic pain issues. With the daily migraines I experience I find it very difficult to hold down a full time job. However, I still manage to do so and I wear several hats at work. The primary one being Senior Data Analyst. Now doesn’t that sound oh so very important?! It’s a fancy title for someone who spends the work day at the computer crunching numbers and programing databases. Not what I would call a “creative” outlet by any sense of the word. I very much look forward to the day when I can retire from the work force and spend my days playing in my art studio!

And that, my friends - is me in a nut shell.