CommUNITY: Inspiration from Chaymeray "Chay" Wright

CommUNITY Unity Collection

Apr 19, 2023 Hero Arts

Hi friends! Today we are here with an installment of our monthly series, CommUNITY, where we share artwork from artists who we'd love for you to get to know. CommUNITY is about embracing and honoring the creativity of individuals who are often underrepresented. By sharing art from a diverse group of creators, we hope to not only bring inspiration to this papercrafting community we all love so much, but also support and empower individuals to be their authentic selves as they create and share. Look for a new CommUNITY guest artist right here on the blog each month. Today our phenomenal guest is Chameray "Chay" Wright!

Hello everyone! I’m honored to share my crafting journey with you all. I’ve enjoyed all paper crafts since I was in elementary school, but honed into scrapbooking in 2006 and transitioned to card-making in 2008. Over the following 10 years, I dabbled in dessert toppers, party decor, custom clothing, glass etching, paper quilling and anything else I could get my hands on. March 2020 was when I started looking at my cards as little art canvases and discovered the amazing and diverse paper crafting community on Instagram.

Following the events and protests of summer 2020, I made the decision that every Instagram post thereafter would be used to help raise awareness for the social injustices happening all around us. Inspired by the first #PaperCraftersUniteAgainstRacism hop, and the PassTheBrush campaign, it became apparent that a recurring hop was necessary within our paper crafting community to keep the ally-movement going, to bring new people into important conversations, and continue to raise awareness. The PaperCraftersUniteAgainstRacism (PCUAR) hop occurs 4x each year, January, April, July, October.

Since Jan 2021, many of the projects created by 200+ crafters worldwide feature products from the Hero Arts Unity Collection. These products have inspired countless crafters, and have started many necessary conversations about how we can Change the World together. I am using my cards and art to help inspire change, to create a better world for my family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and for humanity as a whole. Representation in all areas of life is so important, including in our craft products, and this Unity Collection is a trailblazer and sets the bar high for other companies to increase the diversity of their products.

I’ve seen so many beautifully colored projects with this American Women stamped image and it inspired me to think of a different way to feature it. I decided to create an abstract background using alcohol markers, featuring a variety of skin tone colors, with 91% alcohol and a heat tool on vellum.

Gold accents pair with the skin tones wonderfully, so I used gold heat embossing powder and Versamark ink to stamp the image and the sentiment. I used partial stamping to turn the vertical Empowerment sentiment into a horizontal one. After embossing, I created a few additional alcohol ink roses to add more interest. I love that this abstract background unintentionally resulted in a resemblance of Vitiligo.

The Overlapping Circles Stencil inspired me to create an abstract background of skin tone rainbows. I used an Hero Paste and the stencil to create a raised texture that was easy to color with the brush tip of alcohol markers.

I used the Rainbow Infinity Dies to cut the clouds. I fussy cut the biggest cloud to make it a little smaller; in order to not cover too much of the background. The clouds are overlapped using foam dimensionals and I heat embossed the Empowerment sentiment in gold. This card serves as a reminder that imperfection adds so much interest and that all skin tone colors are equally beautiful.

I created this card to inspire others to to help fight for LGBTQIA+ rights that are currently under attack. For the background, I heat embossed the Love is Love stamp using a clear embossing powder, followed by ink blending a rainbow of colors, using a heavier hand in the center and lighter towards the outer edges. I used the Sun Flare Fancy Die to cut the blended panel. I glued 3 layers of white cardstock under the ink blended panel pieces to add dimension.

In order to keep the rainbow as the primary focus, I heat embossed the Better Together women image using black embossing powder on vellum and used an adhesive sheet to adhere it to the background. The sentiment was heat embossed using clear embossing powder on white cardstock and then covered with black ink.

Maya Angelou’s quote was the sole inspiration for this card. Similar to the rainbow card, I heat embossed the Love is Love stamp in clear embossing powder before ink blending with yellow, heavier in the center and lighter towards the edges. This represents the light shining bright from within all women. We are all strong, vibrant, and beautiful.

I glued 3 layers of white cardstock under the ink blended panel pieces to add dimension. I created the centerpiece by first stamping the Empowerment sentiment, then masked it before stamping the Better Together women image on top. The decision to not color the clothing of the stamped image was to bring more focus to the skin colors and hair styles of the women. I also used a thin black pen to add additional texture to the afro for one of the women.

Chay, thank you so much for sharing your amazing cards and talent with us today! You can find more of Chay's gorgeous creations over on Instagram, Facebook, or her blog! And if you're interested in joining the Paper Crafters Unite Against Racism, you can sign up HERE!

Thanks for stopping by,