Dreams Start Here. ATC. Shelby Pizzarro

I couldn't stop thinking about the "Flood the Streets with Art" project. This Friday, Black Friday, artists around the world are making a piece of art to be left anywhere they wish it to be "found".  It is a gift to an anonymous recipient.

Everything about it captured my imagination...it was like a message in a bottle...mysterious, brimming with hope, anticipation to the extreme.  But, what to create...and where to "drop" it...that is where I let my Muse give me a nudge in the right direction.

 My local library, the Dillsburg Area Public Library, has an "adopt a shelf" programme under way. A small fee provides you with an engraved brass plate the Library places on a shelf for a year. You can have anything you wish on the plate, providing it fits within a set amount of characters.

My love of the Library and books goes back as far as I can remember. I was fortunate to have two very insightful parents who nurtured a love of learning in my brothers and me. My Mom and I would visit the Brooklyn Public Library every day, six days a week. It became a place of wonder for me...a place where the answer to anything and everything was possible if you were willing to discover it.

My brass plate is now on a shelf in the Junior Fiction section of the Library in Dillsburg. It is engraved with the words: "Dreams Start Here".  

The substrate for the  ATC is an old library card catalogue card. I altered it with Distress Inks, rubber stamped the word "Dreams",  and stencilled stars with metallic acrylic paint. I added pieces of hand coloured ephemera and handmade art paper...and finally the words "DREAMS START HERE".

I will be leaving this Artist Trading Card in a book on the shelf entitled The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan.  It is the story of a young boy who hears the call of his inner Muse and believes in himself enough to trust his vision.

I hope whoever find the card is inspired to dream…as big and as far as they can…and to let their own personal Muse lead them on a journey of discovery. And I hope that journey starts for them, as it did for me, at the local public Library.

Sisterhood of the Muse