Words and Wildflowers Creative Prompts – Issue 58

We LOVE research and learning as a way to get inspired and boost ideas and creativity!! So, Kenzie and I are going to be sharing the inspiration that we collect here in our second newsletter…. once a week!!!

Here’s how it works:

We provide the inspiration. You interpret it however you wish… any medium, any size. It is meant to inspire lettering and floral art combined together. But, you can:

Just do the florals, just do the lettering, or combine them together.
Use the provided quote for your piece or select your own.
Use colors from one of the inspiration images or select your own favorites
Create the floral art… as a still life in a vase, a single flower, a border, a pattern, a bouquet

Hope you will create with us and post your work at #wordsandwildflowers2024 and tag @lorisiebert.studio and @snippetsofwhimsy

Quote of the week…

“Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

—Mary Oliver

Inspirational artist of the week: Henry Darger

Henry Joseph Darger Jr. April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was an American janitor and hospital worker who became known after his death for his immense body of outsider art—art by self-taught creators outside the mainstream art community.

Darger was raised by his disabled father in Chicago. Frequently in fights, he was put into a charity home as his father’s health declined, and in 1904 was sent to a children’s asylum. He began making escape attempts after his father’s death in 1908, and in 1910 was able to escape, walking much of the way to Chicago. As an adult he did menial jobs for several hospitals, interrupted by a brief stint in the U.S. Army during World War I. He spent much of his life in poverty and in later life was a recluse in his apartment. A devout Catholic, Darger attended Mass multiple times per day and collected religious memorabilia. Retiring in 1963 due to chronic pain, he was moved into a charity nursing home in late 1972, shortly before his death. During this move, his landlord Nathan Lerner discovered his artwork and writings, which he had kept secret over decades of work.

From around 1910 to 1930, Darger wrote the 15,145 page novel In The Realms of the Unreal, centered on a rebellion of child slaves on a fantastical planet. The Vivian Sisters, the seven princesses of Abbeiannia, fight on behalf of the Christian nations against the enslaving Glandelinians. Inspired by the American Civil War and martyrdom stories, it features gruesome descriptions of battles, many ending with the mass killing of rebel children. Between 1912 and 1925, Darger began producing accompanying collages, often only loosely correlated to the book. Later he made watercolors with traced or overpainted figures taken from magazines and children’s books. These grew more elaborate over time, with some of his largest works approaching 10 feet (3 m) in length. Little girls, often in combat, are a primary focus of his work; for unknown reasons, they are frequently depicted naked and exclusively with male genitalia. Other writings by Darger include a roughly 8,000-page unfinished sequel to In The Realms of the Unreal entitled Further Adventures of the Vivian Girls in Chicago, a decade-long daily weather journal, and The History of My Life—consisting of a 206 page autobiography followed by 4,600 pages detailing a fictional tornado named “Sweetie Pie”.

Darger’s work was unknown to others until after his death, leading to his association with the outsider art movement.

Hand lettering artist of the week: Edward Gorey

When Tom Fitzharris met Edward “Ted” Gorey in 1974, the two quickly struck up a friendship. Over the next year Gorey sent a total of fifty letters to Fitzharris. Every envelope Fitzharris received was illustrated by Gorey, and filled with surprises: typewritten letters with news and opinions from Gorey’s life, handwritten note cards with unexpected quotes, sketches, inside jokes, and a host of other joyous miscellany.