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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 31, 2005 Collages, found object art and 'Grasshopper Days' By Cindy Blankenship For the Daily Tidings Lo Smucker, retired high school guidance counselor, is a free spirit, a lover of rust and a gifted artist. Like many in her generation, schooling didn't allow much room to fly. A classical trained pianist, she struggles to break free and learn jazz, but when it comes to the visual arts, Smucker soars. A life-long artist, Smucker currently enjoys transforming found objects into something whimsical or with a message, the latter rarely planned with a couple exceptions being her collage, "Peace," created with rosary beads and other found objects, and "Blue Rebel," a collage of fish, with the blue one swimming in the opposite directions (the fish also appears to be the only one wearing red lipstick). "It's amazing how many materials are available when one starts noticing � Bicycle parts are fun � The railroad track offers all kinds of treasures," says Smucker, her enthusiasm bubbling. "Weathered fencing offers a nostalgic background. Friends give me old jewelry and watches to cut up. At present, I'm collecting smashed beer bottle caps - some have beautiful rust (she loves rust for its browns and oranges and blacks) and imperfect shapes. Who knows? They may turn into the eyes of a future metal sculpture." The rusted exhausted pipe she dragged home from a hike became the tail on her "Foxy Feline" metal sculpture, a whimsical cat standing about four feet high, winking with long eyelashes. One of two pieces in Jega Gallery's juried 2003 show "Women with Attitude and Men Who Love Women with Attitude," "Foxy Feline" is one of the few pieces with which she won't part. Some are sold and many more donated to charities for selling or given to friends. Rusted metal wall hangings and sculptures grace the tan and black furnished Zen-like living room on Tolman Creek Road while brightly colored collages and a whimsical border cut with her electric saw from scrap wood brighten the white space of the hall. The old adage about creative types being messy doesn't apply in this feng shui home. "A Grasshopper Day," a collage in the hall, was created with all sorts of objects found in a free sections of a thrift store: old wooden bingo pieces, jacks she spray painted, computer keys, wooden letters. But where are the grasshoppers? "A grasshopper day is a day when you go from one thing to another - a happy, hopping around," she explains with a youthful smile, and one gets the feeling she knows these days well. Smucker's workroom is spring time: light, airy and smattered with pastels. An old white flour sack from her father's barn is the canvass for one wall hanging, the stains transformed with paint and the flowers cut from an old tablecloth. Another wall hanging features embroidery stitched by her mother-in-law on pieces of shirts worn by the Smuckers' two boys when they were little, as well as pieces taken from an old Amish quilt. "I would die if I had to quilt - all those tiny little stitches. I hate restriction," she said. An Eastery collage over her computer was created from greeting cards. She laments the dying tradition of mailing cards, but just for a moment before moving on. The rustic frames were salvaged from an old fence. Two abstracts were created from the scrap wood, lightly brushed with watercolors. "I just have so much fun!" Smucker concludes. "Since each piece is unique to the material found, it never becomes boring. The fun in doing this is only matched by the affirmation of others. Sometime I would love to have a show here, hoping that others would see ideas that would get them into the act of recycling." DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams