Dec 23, 2010

Audacity leaves arlee

(I'm sure there's a sly joke in that title..ahem, i digress....my apologies to all for the lateness of this entry, due to health and work circumstances.)

Aud A Cit Y is definitely becoming one of the strong women that Gail had mentioned in the beginning of her journal. Looking at her face, one detects a certain note of haughty arrogance, but in her eyes are much doubt and pain as she relentlessly pursues her destiny.




The Eye of Perception has been taken and hidden from her, but as she travels, wisdom and experience are binding her more tightly to the path she is taking than any amulet or talisman ever could.

Onoma After Talitha

Onoma's frill was cut from felt, sewn on,
and then fabric scales were heat bonded on top.
Onoma's eyes are made from two green beads
and some cool metal looking findings.
(My daughter says these eyes look very reptilian:-)
Accessories are made from a variety of repurposed jewelery
and pieces of a music box.

The teeny tendrills are peacock feathers and the hair is made from yarn and fibers
that were needle felted to give them more of a dreadlock look.


Top of head.

Tiny bottle filled with even tinier stars,
wire wrapped and hung around the neck using knotted cord.
Still no clear gender!





Onoma's story continues...

Onoma's journal is lovely and full of texture.
I added two pieces of handmade paper and distressed them to
match the style of the existing pages.
Tiny silk and satin scales were fused to one page.
Wire was used to fix some small star charms to the pages as well
as a tiny bag of the same stardust Onoma wears around her neck.
Just when it seemed life on the ship had settled into a pattern, something strange caught my attention. The crew had been permitted leave on Ingnatious 4 and Captain Di Seca sent me along to monitor their interaction with the locals. Everything was routine at first, but I definitely felt different under Ignatious' red sun. As the rays struck the scales on my frill, a feeling of invigoration filled my body. This sensation grew with every moment of exposure. I began to find it difficult to focus on my security task, looking instead for excuses to linger in the sunlight.
After several days of planetside diversions, leave was over and the crew prepared to return to the Stone Traveler. I was not the only one reluctant to reenter the black cold of space, crewman Clovis kept us waiting at the launch site. As he finally boarded the shuttle, I noticed an unfamiliar smell. While reprimanding Clovis, two things became clear. One, my senses were clearly heightened after absorbing so many red sun rays, and two, the smell was coming from Clovis. An inspection of his person and away bag turned up nothing conclusive. When I next encountered Clovis on the main ship, the smell no longer lingered on him. I would not catch sent of it again until reporting to the captain's office. There was no mistaking the weird, acrid odor, but Captain Di Seca told me I was imagining things and to leave it alone. My curiosity was peaked. What was that smell? Why did no one else detect it? Was the captain intentionally concealing something from his own security officer? And why was I so altered after exposure to the red sun? Did my native planet orbit a red sun? Could this be a clue to help me find my way home?
Rays of red
Dance over my head
And Fill me with longing
For my place of belonging

(I included a poem from a favorite sci-fi author.)

Dec 18, 2010

Prince Charming Grows a Torso

It is said that when a frog loses a limn, it sometimes regrows it. Well this froggie has grown a torso!
The torso is made of hand-dyed pima cotton. The pattern was drafted to provide the impression of a cross between a very broad-chested, broad-backed, and hunky human male and that of a frog. To keep his torso from flopping about above his lower half, a ribbon cumberbund was stitched to his pants and his torso and stuffed tightly. He was also given suspenders and a floral belt buckle and suspender keeper.



The text in the journal entry reads: Meanwhile, the prince encountered a very mean witch who decided to ensure he would lack the lips to receive love's true kiss or is it true love's kiss? It's so very hard to think without a head!

Dec 11, 2010

Anneelaw leaves Robyn


Maybe what Anneelaw loves is to write with her powerful pen. I just liked the sentiment on this charm, and the way it looks hand written.



Anneelaw has a translucent "lampshade", with some wire sewn in for support. I tried to make the eyes the same colors and shape as the eye in the hand. Together (in profile) they make a kind of cubist portrait. I like that this is removeable - it just slides over the glass bauble on the stand.
However I don't think this must stay this way. Perhaps someone down the line will want to stuff the head or mount it higher.

Here's wire and glass beading, picking up the colors Arlee selected. My thread of her life is wire.
Here's a crochet copper band of buttons, some bling. It's waiting to be something - a headband, a necklace, a belt, or just something to adorn the box?
Front page of my journal folder.


Journal pages. Some of the tie dyed paper I made with Jayn - I particularly like the center that has the look of shattered prismatic light.
I have to say that I couldn't get any tool up under the center to move the bolt holding the glass knob. I may have done something different had I been able to take it apart - but maybe not.

Dec 8, 2010

Raisa - MA's additions

My additions include a musical collar 
trimmed with beads,
and arms made from
coiled wire and wooden beads.

The music is from 'Rigoletto'
by Verdi.

Here's journal page # 1....
I repeated the first bars of the  
'Rigoletto' music, along
with some of the
words
and a lace flower,
along with repeating some
of the beads I used on
her collar.

Second journal page...


More of the music from 'Rigoletto',
some music charms,
and a marvelous quote
about music
from Maya Angelou.


Raisa was great fun to play with!!
Hope you like her Yvonne.




Anneelaw WIP's



I don't understand why these saved as black and white images from my phone - but it keeps the anticipation going a bit longer.

I have to say I struggled at first with Anneelaw. I found it hard to work out a sense of scale because of her enormous hand. However I went back to Modernist principles and examined the materials. From there I got the idea of working with wire and glass which reminded me that this was a lamp in another life. I am thinking about translucence, prisms, tangles of wire and most of all the movement of light through our thoughts.

Nov 30, 2010

Lady S. receives arm and more

Lady S arrived in south Tx.
with some amazing additions already.
I added the following...

feathers to her beautifully done wings (by Amy),
a right arm covered in vintage fabric,
a long horse hair braid,
feathers and beads to her hair
a poncho with a vintage button on the front
 (the poncho holds up her wings btw),
brown and copper paint on her body,

The braid is intertwined with a sheer purple ribbon.
This pic above shows the beautiful colors of her wings.

The Isis necklace that Amy gave her is now wrapped around
a recycled sari yarn collar.
I also aged the necklace with a bit of paint.

Lady S. is transforming,
as her journal explains.
She has arrived in Egypt
and the year is 1922.
Is it all a dream?
Where is her father?
Did the Horus mask she purchased
put some sort of spell on her?

Egypt is a land of great mystery.
As she catches a glimpse of herself
in a reflection,
she realizes then,
that this is NOT a dream.

What happens next?
Lady S. travels to Gail in North Carolina
to continue her story,
and for more additions.


Yvonne
in South Texas

Nov 25, 2010

Serenity

As soon as I saw Serenity, I knew I wanted to make her a seahorse centaur. A seahorse is a very serene little critter. Having semi-useless fins, it prefers protected waters like a bay or inlet, and relies on the currents to carry it from place to place. Serenity's posture and long neck, and the shells and moons and horsehair added by Yvonne, all led me to creating a seahorse centaur. Since she was already 11 inches tall without legs, it was also a way to finish her length without exceeding our 12 inch goal by much - she's just shy of 14 inches tall now.

Her seahorse tail is slightly stuffed fabric over a wire armature and is embellished with copper netting (from a repurposed scouring pad) and copper wire. I just had to use the vintage lace with leaves that so closely resemble those in Amy's fabric torso, so I painted it to complement Yvonne's lace headdress and made a paper and lace belt. She could probably use a belt adornment, but I left that for someone else to decide.





She'll soon be heading to MA in Canada. I figured since seahorses don't travel real fast, I better get her off early so MA would have some time with her.

Nov 10, 2010

Lady Sebastien Takes Flight

Lady Sebastian, while waiting for the day of her departure, wandered the streets of New York. On one of these wandering walks, she encountered an import/export business that had Egyptian artifacts which had just arrived. She entered and was astounded at the beauty of the artifacts. One, in particular, struck her, and she decided she must have it. It was a mask, in the likeness of Horus, the winged one.

She returned to her rooms immediately to examine her treasure. "It is just magnificent! Oh, I wish Father could see it!"

She fell asleep, and dreamed.
In her dreams, she was soaring high above the earth.

Oh! She had wings! She could feel the wind ruffling her hair. But, wait - it seems that there are feathers!

"Can it be? I have such keen eyesight!" She exclaimed.
"Oh, wingless daughter - of course it can. You have assumed my form and can fly wherever you will." The voice sounded deep and foreign in her head.


Lady Sebastian arrived and her form immediately spoke to me of a bird. I fought the impulse for a while before seeing a picture of the winged gods and goddesses in Talitha's journal. I found golden wings and painted them to resemble the wings in the funerary paintings in all of my books on the archeology of Egypt.

I painted Lady S's body with gesso and covered her head with paper clay to form her face and textured the hair to make it more feather like. I added paper clay feet as well. Her hair was painted brown and gold and she was given blue eyes and kohl eye-makeup in the style of the Egyptian masks. She has a beak-like mouth to suggest a birdlike visage and she has a necklace with the winged god's charm. Her wings are not attached currently, as there would be no way to clothe her.

Onoma photos


Onoma the alien warrior poet has brown mottled skin and a tail. The armor laced over the body and tail is made from recycled milk bottle plastic, but I hope will become embellished in time. It is meant to be removable and to fit over whatever garments Onoma wears (or perhaps under them as will be determined).



Here are the journal pages.

And here is the transcript of Onoma's story in easier to read format:

Ganymede’s Epihelion 4407
In the outer quadrant nova dust cloud.
Mineral Transport and Salvage ship,
Stone Traveler
Security Officer’s Personal Log:

My first days on this ship have been quiet. Captain Di Seca has tasked me with examining the backgrounds of the new grunts, as he calls the workers on his crew. Their files are nothing unexpected. Of course I also have opened his file. There is nothing unusual there either, as far as I can tell.

The Captain was acceptant of the strange brevity of my own record. I cannot tell him any more than is written – my sudden awakening amongst the detritus of what must have been a great battle, salvaged in the wreckage of the Flagship of Perone, no uniform, no insignia of any kind, no memory and evidently no-one to miss me.

Yet I have a sense of destiny, and the instinctive skills of a warrior that I have no recollection of learning - but that the moves are in my muscles, the clarity of strategy in any situation burns in my mind, and then there is my physique. I have learnt that my race is that of the legendary Dragons of Estavan IV.

There is little written of these ancient and courtly people, other than fragments of their poetry and such complex musical compositions as they have allowed to travel into the populated universe over the last several centuries. The way to Estavan IV is lost.

So I search for clues to my presence in the fleet of the Perone, part of a trade war, with the abilities and skills of a mercenary - and amnesia. I demonstrably know enough to let me be hired on as an officer in this industrial merchant vessel that has the longest and furthest flung pattern of any ship other than the explorer/colony mega ships that will move beyond the galaxy rim. For those one must have family units. They are worlds unto themselves.

I search the galaxy for others of my kind, for what might be my home. I search within for that elusive poetical sensibility that has been touted as the hallmark of my people. To that end, I plan to write poems, and perhaps release the secrets of my own life from behind my eyes. I’m stuck with Galactic standard dialect, for unless I hear otherwise, this is the only language my amnesia has left me.  I can only read translations of my native poetry.

As for the music, well the musicians I have met express eloquent admiration of the technical dexterity and complex ideation of non-harmonic multi-scale songlines – but I find I’m drawn to an old Earth (Sol 3) musical tradition called “Blues”.

 First Poem

For though I am alone
What is left but Unity?
If I am the last of my kind
So then I am my own beginning.
The screen is wiped clean.
The whole universe is now my home.