When it’s good to be bad: Camas library’s Bad Art Night unleashes adults’ creativity

I followed a similar process. I didn’t stop to consider what the final product should be. I just started gluing things to a piece of round cardboard. As I worked, pleasantly absorbed in the mayhem in front of me, I kept an ear tuned to the low buzz of conversation. Some came with friends or significant others and some came solo. The majority were women, and most looked to be in their 40s or 50s.

I struck up a conversation with Julie Peck, 51, of Vancouver, seated to my right. Art-making offered an effortless segue into conversation. Peck was making a piece she called “Pop Art” because all its elements were popping out into three dimensions. I said I liked how she used popcorn-print tape to double down on the pun.

“I didn’t even pay attention to what I was doing, frankly. I thought, ‘You know what? This is bad art,’ ” Peck said. “It was a masterpiece, I’ll tell you that. It’s now recycled art because one of my cats likes the pipe cleaners and one likes the fuzzballs.”

I got up to use a hot glue gun and met Josh Plunkett, 37, of Vancouver. He’d come at the invitation of his friend, Kim Luttrell, 55, from Washougal. Plunkett was adhering glass rocks to a blue-green background. His as-yet-untitled piece was evolving as he added whatever took his fancy. He really went to town with moss and hot glue, he said later, which inspired him to call the finished piece “Forest through a Fish’s Eye.” He was so impressed by everyone’s creativity that he said he’ll be back for the next Bad Art Night and next time, he’ll bring his boyfriend.

“I used to do paintings, so it was fun to get back into that creative process,” Plunkett said. “It actually might have reignited that creative flame.”

Meanwhile, Luttrell was cutting images out of a magazine depicting things she wouldn’t necessarily do but that looked like fun, she said, like extreme bicycle riding or bungee jumping. She’d seen Bad Art Night on Facebook and invited several friends. The event appealed to her because she’d been exploring the benefits of somatic art therapy, which helps people process physical or psychological pain through art-making. She especially enjoyed the last half-hour of the evening, she said, when everyone walked around the room to see each other’s finished pieces and vote for their favorite. It really got people talking, she said, even total strangers.

“I found it fascinating because you could really see into other people’s heads,” Luttrell said.

I’m not sure what my scary mask revealed about me, but maybe it was a bit too grim. I voted for Jones’ piece, “Bird Poop,” in which brown and black buttons were hot-glued onto the fabric she’d grabbed earlier. I was also impressed by the sculptural “Weeping Herons,” a three-dimensional bouquet of birds intricately connected with garlands of thread. Plunkett liked it, too, and said he thought it “could be sitting in a museum as a modern art piece.”

“It seemed very difficult to make unattractive art because there were so many people who had great pieces that were actually beautiful,” Jones said.

In the end, attendees decided that “George and Mildred” was the best (or worst?) bad art of the evening. The winner was my husband, Simon Spykerman. He made a face (“George”) out of red, yellow and orange pompoms hot glued onto a small canvas. At first glance, George’s wild, pipe-cleaner hair distracted from the odd little face (“Mildred”) emerging from George’s lower right cheek. Honestly, I thought my mask was far uglier, but there’s no accounting for taste.

“I actually thought mine was so bad,” Peck said. “I showed my husband my art and he said, ‘Oh, that’s cute.’ I thought, ‘What is wrong with you?’ ”