Love You to the Moon and Back

     I created a piece especially for the Foto/Fiber 2012 draw for Virginia's patrons entitled " Love You to the Moon and Back".  I was inspired by the work of an amazing young artist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania,  Kristie-Lou Brigham, whose work I have purchased and enjoyed for some time.   Kristie is a full time working artist whose passions are wire wrapped jewelry and making polymer clay faces.  She loves to create her faces on natural crystals, rocks and gems and the piece I selected for the FFAC work I created is polymer clay on red jasper, with little streaks of charcoal and grey.  Kristie entitled it " Queen of Hearts".  Well that was perfect timing!  The Foto/Fiber 2012 date is around Valentine's Day ( 15th & 16th) - so much love goes into the setting up of the site -  all the loving gifts artists donate and then , of course - there is the love one has for someone special in their life who faces a battle with cancer. The theme of my piece just had to be about LOVE !!
  

    When Kristie's face bead arrived, I sat it on the white cutting table in my studio and spent some time studying it and getting a feel for it.  Then I started auditioning colors for the fabric base I would create to bead on. Once all the colors were in place, out came the bead auditions, which of course, is a major undertaking.  It seems the greens I selected for the silks and the green beads in my significantly large stash did not want to agree.  Many of them were on the translucent side and showed up as completely different colors when paired with the rusts, creams and greens I had selected. SO, it was to become a challenge but I am always up for that (-:
     I had a most intriguing bead I thought would make a wonderful moon and then little stars appeared. Then ladders to the stars. The title struck me and then came the comet and the fireflies.  As Virginia Spiegel is rather partial to haikus, I searched for one that would be rather fitting to the theme as a tribute to her.  As luck would have it, I discovered one by a mid Heian period Japanese female poet named Izumi Shikibu that just happened to encompass fireflies.  The poet herself proved to have had a fascinating life and is definitely worth reading more about.  Her haiku was printed out in dark red ink on the green dupioni silk and reads:

Remembering you...
The fireflies of this marsh
Seem like sparks
That rise
From my body's longing.
    
A mask was added for intrigue and Venus Rising made an appearance amidst some flared lines of needleweaving. Things then, just started falling into place and Love You to the Moon and Back became a reality.