03 February 2010

"Broken Hearts Bear Beauty"


This mosaic is officially finished... as long as it's out of my house, I can't mess with it anymore. I took it up to ABQ yesterday, to my friend Paula's gallery for her February Peace and Love show, and although it's for sale I put a fairly ridiculously high price on it because I don't *really* want to sell it. Not only is it personal but it represents a lot of fun experimentation with various composition issues and mixed media. In addition to the red glass and the salvaged broken mirror, this piece has my own handmade polymer clay tiles (the hand-lettered word tiles and the wings), many different shapes and sizes of glass and coral beads, and found objects including an old metal heart locket, a broken silver milagro, and a fractured mother-of-pearl heart cabochon. I especially love the beaded groutlines, and how the smaller red seed beads (in the groutlines around the heart's edges) look a lot like red blood cells... I'll definitely be doing that again in another piece down the road.

My recent posts might give the impression that I'm only doing mosaics these days... and except for making a few more brass birds-bearing-hearts earrings, this is pretty much true. With my gallery now closed and two of the three other galleries currently showing my jewelry closed through February, I won't need new stock for a while. I've been planning to follow up on a contact in Taos but keep getting delayed because of our El Nino-fueled winter storms. And... although I love making jewelry, I've been wanting more of a creative challenge lately. Mosaic work definitely offers that because most of the time I don't quite know what I'm doing, just what I want to do, and the gap between my imagination and my skills motivates me to stretch and grow. A dear friend also suggested I'm working out some issues in my art, and what better medium to do so than broken glass....

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Your heart is gorgeous, and I don't blame you for putting a ridiculously high price on it.... but if it sells for that high price at least you will know it has gone to a new home... x

Unknown said...

That is absolutely beautiful and I can see why you want to keep it. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who does that. My very first hooked piece which was a doll's face that I used in making a doll went to a rug hooking retreat with me. Generally at these things they have a show and tell 'rug show'. Well, no rug but did have the doll. Someone came up to ask how much it was and really not wanting to sell it I said an absurd amount. She went and got her checkbook as my jaw dropped to the floor. LOLOLOL

Thornton Berry Shire Press said...

This is exquisite! I may steel an idea from you and create my own thing around it...just for me....just wonderful work! thx june