A Hint of Artsy Bee History

I started out painting on traditional canvases. Back when I took photos of scenery or pets and would recreate them on wrapped or board canvases as gifts. After a while, I realized I wanted more of a challenge, and I wanted my artwork to wander and adventure through mediums. Woah, back up Sam, what is a medium? Let me "art teacher" you really quick. A medium is essentially just the materials used to create a piece of art. However, I mostly refer to them as the type of item I am painting upon (i.e. the canvas itself--so far).

After a few canvases were gifted, I was given a few old handsaws and continued my painting of mountain scenery on those. Although, I created my own escapade on that one by combining two saws into one canvas. From then, I knew that painting on regular canvases was not for me. Everything became a possibility; a canvas; a new medium up for exploration.

When I worked at a taxidermy we would go to a local reservoir and pick up driftwood. This became a fun pastime of my husbands and mine, to find the most uniquely naturally sculpted piece of driftwood. We would go and I would try to find big ones, small ones, curved ones, flat ones, anything that would make a good painting surface. I started making signs with last names, first names, sayings. I would adorn the background with mountain scenes because they are a comfort homebase for my artwork. Something with great capabilities for personalization and details, just like these pieces of driftwood with their textures and cracks.

The motivation continued from there with requests and commissions coming in. "I would love some local scenery on these deer and elk skulls", "Can you paint my Carhart chore coat?", "How about this vintage wooden mandolin cutter?", "My daughter got a record shotput throw; will you paint her shotput ball as a commemorative item?", "We have an old truck at the gates of our homestead; would you paint our last name on it?", "This old cooking pot came from our family cabin; could you paint it on the pot?" I am a sucker and almost never turn down a new experience for learning and developing new strategies and being humbled by new surfaces. Sometimes they fight back a little, but this makes the art of artistry just that much more fun.

Lately, I have been branching into my own versions of "I can paint on that". Tote bags, hats, canvas shoes, wooden boxes, journals,

greeting cards, wooden ornaments hand cut by my dad, and thrifted clothing. Sometimes I have a thought, and the medium chooses me as much as I choose it.

Here is the comprehensive list of conventional and unconventional mediums I have painted on: driftwood, vintage wooden mandolin cutter, thrifted denim jackets, Carhart coat, baseball/trucker hats, tumblers, camera strap, Birkenstock shoes (x2!), hand saws, wooden boxes, skulls, greeting cards, canvas tote bags, old truck door, journals, wooden ornaments, cooking pots, antlers, canvas shoes, conventional canvases, and even a wall at a local coffee shop. If it has a surface and a story, it might just become a Sam/Artsy Bee original. Setting up more social media surrounding my art journey has shown me that if someone were to ask me what I paint on, I would have a heck of a list that doesn't fit in the character restrictions. But more importantly, I have many more tales to tell from these pieces themselves, the way they interacted with my paint and brushes, and the adventure through the process. Here's to forever adding to this list.