May 2 & 3: my one-a-day art project
Ended up doing TWO projects today despite being still busy, voting plus it was pouring out. Just clearing space to work is time-consuming. Pulled up my shells to make earrings, and my Frida Kahlo stone, but then had to do a bunch of filing just to get the drawer with my stones open. I also put in a search to find my sketchbooks but in the process found my watercolour paints, probably all dried out though!
I liked the way that the shape of the oval turquoise stones echoed that of The Stone
The Frida Kahlo stone… I matched it to a bunch of stones but in the end only the crudely-shaped stones looked right; the rest were too smooth, too modern, too manufactured. Bone was the wrong color; shell seemed to be speaking a different language.
The best stones to go with my Frida Kahlo stone were orangy reds in the form of carnelian and coral and/or turquoise, especially some of my old ‘natural’ turquoise. Most turquoise currently available now is impregnated with resin (if not completely resin), and has a waxy sheen that looks artifical compared to The Stone.
I got out my Frida Kahlo calendar. Although none of the necklaces she wore resembled my stone, I did notice that they were all very short, chokers mainly, which makes sense considering the weight of the large stones. I also looked up some precolumbian necklaces on my favourite antique jewelry site: http://www.oldbeads.com/americas.html
Already having trouble keeping with the half-hour limit on projects; what if the project takes 3 hours? 40 hours? What if I want to carry on exploring the project and I don’t have time? Originally I was thinking one sketch, one really thought-out photo session, one piece of jewelry… so for now I have done divided this project into two different necklaces:
Project 1: the Stone mixed with turquoise. This is just put together with fishing line, very rough. I originally liked the way that the shape of the oval turquoise stones echoed that of ‘The Stone’. Now I’m not so sure. The big stone looks too white and divorced from the rest of the necklace, although the sea urchin spine picks up some white, and I can probably find another spine with a white edge. Maybe add a shell and turquoise dangle. Hmmm…
Frida Kahlo turquoise
Project 2: the Stone (all right, a different stone, but similar) mixed with carnelian, jasper and coral. Like the necklace above this is just put together very roughly. I haven’t yet decided whether or not to use coral or brown shell for the small beads (or both?).