Whitney Ruiz Art

My brother asked me if I would make a sign for him – of a quote both he and I love – and once I agreed I started to send him several ideas.

I actually wasn’t happy with any of them. My brother loved that I had taken photoshopped an image of his own house, but I wasn’t feeling the overall design of it. So I let it sit and stew for a few weeks. I was waiting for inspiration to strike.

Then, one day I was talking with my sister-in-law (his wife) and she mentioned how much she liked rosemaling. Now, I had included the rosemaling in several of the designs because my brother had asked me to. But when his wife mentioned this, the whole image came into my mind, with rosemaling as so the start of the show.

Before I started, I asked my brother 2 questions: how do you feel about circles? and do you trust me? He said he had waited for to ask the second one and gave me free reign over any idea I had.

I started first on carving the rosemaling and it was going fairly well. I painted it and was very pleased with how it was turning out.

Then I went to Hobby Lobby to grab a wooden circle (since I didn’t trust myself to cut one). There I saw some frames with these cute wooden beads on them, and loved the idea of adding them. So I found the size I wanted and took them home.

After a few attempts of getting them to space out properly, I glued them down and started adding the quote and house so I could burn them.

This was little bit of a hiccup because I tried a new technique (which was dumb of me) and the paper stuck very hard to the wood and was a huge pain to get off.

After much sanding, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, so I went ahead and stained it. Never have I wanted an “UNDO” button more in my life than that moment! The stain was way too dark so you couldn’t read the words or see the house. I wanted to cry. Seriously I almost did. I was so frustrated.

I tried sanding the stain off, I tried bleaching the wood with vinegar, and then with actual bleach. I tried painting over the letter with gold paint and hated it. I knew I didn’t have time to start over, since I needed to ship it off in time for Christmas. So I turned to the Lord and prayed. Truth be told, I prayed that the stain wouldn’t dry as dark as it looked wet. But that didn’t happen.

I wanted to try one more idea. I had some white spray paint and thought that might help the situation. So after the kids went to bed, I took it on the front porch (the best outdoor lighting), covered the frame and rosemaling with plastic wrap to avoid turning white, and gave it a shot. It wasn’t awful. So I kept going.

Then, as I was painting over the previously burned lines with black paint, a thought entered my mind, “This piece has always existed exactly like this.” It was such a strange phrase that I was sure I hadn’t come up with it on my own.

It reminded me of Rick Rubin’s book “The Creative Act” where he discusses his theory that all art already exists in the expanse of the universe, but artists are able to transform it into a way that we all can understand. I felt that deep in my soul at that moment. But, being religious, I attributed to inspiration from God.

God knew the end product that I would be pleased with – and that my brother and sister-in-law would be pleased with. I just had to go through some heartache and trial and error and even soul-searching to get there.

I love this sign because of the meaning it has for me – both the quote and the experience I had making it. But mostly I love this piece because I look at its gold beads and swopping floral details and somehow it feels like home.