Shelby Deering
Raw materials in the form of printed memorabilia are given new life in a new context in one-of-a-kind art pieces.
Shelby Deering
Jessica Regele, owner of Regal Find, with an example of ephemera art.
I am not a naturally crafty person. Most of the time I find crafting to be stressful. That is, until I took a class recently at Middleton’s The Regal Find.
For the first time, crafting transformed into a lovely and tranquil experience. Among the many classes that the shop offers (you can make anything from a fabric chandelier to jewelry boxes), I chose the one that made my vintage-loving heart skip a beat: Ephemera Art. Start with a blank canvas, add paint, vintage ephemera (printed matter generally meant to be thrown away) and photos to create a one-of-a-kind multimedia piece of art. The shop provides the raw materials — stacks of black-and-white photographs, bingo cards, old price tags, carnival tickets, piano rolls, maps, book pages, old report cards — all beautifully displayed on vintage plates and cake stands.
Shelby Deering
Crafting is also easier, I discovered, over wine and cupcakes from the neighboring Bloom Bake Shop, included in the $55 fee.
Also included was a lesson in ephemera art from shop owner Jessica Regele. She showed the class how to use a paint dabber to create an artistic background on our canvases and how to properly layer ephemera with Mod Podge (a glue and finish used in decoupage). And the thinner the paper, the better.I started assembling my artwork like a jigsaw puzzle.
A couple hours passed like minutes, and I was done. As I walked out that night with my artwork in one hand and a take-out box filled with cupcakes in the other, I was surprised to find myself in a near Zen-like state.
The Regal Find
1850 Parmenter St., Middleton, 608-852-2695, 10 am-6 pm Tues.-Fri., 10 am-5 pm Sat., theregalfind.com
