Here is the cover of My Garden Scrapbook. I haven't added to it for a couple of years at least, although there are many blank pages waiting to be filled. Tick tock. In My Garden Scrapbook, I have written down the names of flowers and plants in my garden, their medicinal or healing purposes, historical information and other tidbits of lore, drawn maps of what I planted where,
pasted in photos I have taken (like this butterfly on the Mock Orange bush by our front steps), images from magazines (like these china plates from an Irish magazine), and other scraps and snippets of paper and other errata that I keep saving in a large box...or two.
Hmmph. Where was that now?....I mutter as I rummage through boxes and rifle through papers...
In my Garden Scrapbook I also make pages on my dreams. Of what I hope to do. Sometimes the plans are beautiful, but time-consuming (like this healing garden idea by Marjorie Harris), so I postpone things knowing how much work it will be. Don't get me wrong, as someone with hardworking Finnish ancestors laboring away in my DNA, I love hard work and have learned to just keep working no matter what. My problem is I have too much work so sometimes my dreams stay in the pages of my journals. Also, too many dreams.
Sometimes I get carried away. Take this mishmash collage, for example. I must've put it together in November when it was gray and gloomy.
Yesterday, while I was crawling the web, I came across an interesting site that allows you to make mish-mash collages online; it's called Polyvore. Unlike my archive of snippet filled boxes, spiral bound scrapbook, scissors and glue, one's snippets online are taken from websites. Many of the creations (called 'sets') focus on fashion, clothing, shoes, jewelry, perfume, brand names, and other consumer goods. So, when you use a "scrap" for your set then you link the looker to where one can buy it. Of course. TO embed one onto your blog you automatically link to a brand name (see below).
Along with Rising Trends and Celebrity Styles, there are also sets categorized under Art and Expression. Of course, you can see how many hits a set gets so you can get quite popular (or dream to be popular)and get quite competitive in your creativity. Such is our capitalism. It is inside our heads. What I find interesting is that you can read the sets for their cultural meanings (I think I will include this site in the syllabus of my next Consumer Culture and Identity class). You can read them /decode them to see how their makers construct representations of themselves through consumer products. What is selected and what does that say? How do the pieces selected inform each other? What cultural narratives are revealed in the sets?
And, of course, people are very creative. Some of the sets transcend the set aside boundaries, while also participating in consumption, and perhaps...
challenging some stereotypes along the way. Like this set called American Muslimah by Hajar Zamzam Ismail.
1 comment:
Lovely flowers in your garden! The last collage is very revealing... Hugs, M.
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