Spring=Mud

The ee cummings poem that was our starting point for this month's Arts in the Cards ATC exchange had me baffled. I couldn't think about charming children of yesteryear shooting marbles and playing hopscotch in the sun when all around me all I could see was mud. Inside, outside, mud everywhere. So, I decided to go with the flow and let the muddy footprints on the carpet and dormant lawn and garden inspire me.

I used some paper fabric that I made from recycled, dried tea bags and coffee filters. I stamped them with handcarved floral and leaf stamps, as well as a commercial face stamp, using brown distress ink. A piece of hand-dyed green cotton that a friend in Norway made, placed at the edges reminded me of grass just beginning to grow, and I added a strip of mesh tape, painted with green Lumiere acrylic, across the middle to give the idea of a garden fence that needs a little repair after a long, cold, hard winter.

The face, while not mine, felt like me looking at a cold, wet, muddy mess and wondering where the heck the pretty spring weather that cummings referred to was.