Anastasia Verner
Anastasia (Stacy) Verner is a storyteller living and working in Tennessee. She has never found one way to tell every story that needs telling, so she tends to amend, tweak, fudge, and fiddle with the traditional methods of making. She’s the first one to ask if she can please dig through your “give to Goodwill” box, and she can often be seen slipping something from the sidewalk into her pocket with a satisfied grin.
With each piece, Verner tries to show people a slightly new version of reality, the Slant Rhyme of everything around them. She hopes this helps people see their sometimes mundane world in a new way, and maybe show them that every piece of life has a little bit of magic in it. It’s all about how you look.
Art With Anything Projects 2020
October
- Painting with ink made from food: Come outside and paint with watercolor ink made from things like spinach and red cabbage. Take home your own bottles of ink to keep on painting. (Outdoors)
- Paper clay mask: Sculpt your own wearable paper clay mask, then sculpt and dye it with natural dyes. You’ll have clay left over to take home, too. (Outdoors)
- Paving stone: Forage for natural materials like sticks, leaves, and grasses to make unique patterns and textures in a cement paving stone. Once it dries, you can paint it to use in your yard or display in your home. (Outdoors)
- Diorama in a jar: Search through the green space around the museum for natural materials to build your own miniature world in a jar.
November
- Balancing wire mobile: Try to balance different natural materials on connected wires to create a floating, teeter-tottering mobile.
- Air dry clay sculpture: Make your own air drying clay from stuff you may already have in your kitchen. Then, make a figurine that you can paint at home.
- Sculpting a “face jug”: Sculpt a clay coil pot and then add eyes, a nose, a mouth, or even make ears for handles to give it a silly face. (Outdoors)
- Printing with nature: Arrange leaves in your own designs and patterns to create unique art prints. (Outdoors)
December
- Shadow puppets: Construct shadow puppets to put on your own puppet shows as the days get shorter.
- Hydro-dipping: Dip things like pinecones and Magnolia leaves in swirls of paint to give them a one-of-a-kind paint job. Then, string together your painted nature as decoration. (Outdoors)
- Snow globe in a jar: Create a wintery snow globe inside a jam jar and use recycled plastic to add snowflakes, stars, and icicles. Shake it up anytime you want a snow storm.
- Bug hotel: Build a cozy spot for insects inside a cigar box. Stuff the box with twigs, moss, bark, and other things that we find outside to make a place bugs will want to come visit in the spring. (Outdoors)