June ABS Challenge and Frida Kahlo

Tags

52 earrings, earrings, miscarriage, pendant, polymer clay, spiral, van alphen, wire

Again this month’s ABS challenge piece cross-pollinated with this week’s 52 Earrings theme – Frida Kahlo. When she was young Frida was in a tram crash which left her in constant pain and unable to have children. This particularly affected me as last weekend I had a miscarriage myself – I was only 8 weeks pregnant so it was not as bad as Frida’s experience, but it did mean when I saw this month’s inspiration piece I saw emptiness and loneliness.

ABS inspiration painting
“Nighthawks” (1942) by Edward Hopper

“Henry Ford Hospital” (1932) by Frida Kahlo

The focal bead is polymer clay inspired by the architecture of the curved diner window and the view through the window to the street behind. It is open and empty. The wire spirals are links of DNA chains – broken and missing. The ribbon is blood.

“Gone” by Cate van Alphen

Matching earrings

I didn’t actually want a memento of the miscarriage, but this is what came to me. “Playing with polymer” (as I call it) is keeping me distracted, so I’m not about to tell the muse to go away and come back with something better. Perhaps when I am ready, I will dismantle it.

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April Challenges

Tags

52 earrings, beads, challenge, coloured pencil, earring, Gdansk, google maps, polymer clay, texture, travel, van alphen, Virtual Paintout

Or should this post be titled “Where did April go?” or “Things I didn’t make”?

I was very excited to discover the Virtual Paintout this month. The idea is that every month a new location is selected and you “walk” around the area using Google street view and find inspiration to paint. April’s destination was Gdansk in Poland. What a wonderful idea – it had never occurred to me before to use Google maps to be an armchair tourist! I started off a bit like a car-chasing-dog who has suddenly caught a bus – I didn’t know how to take it all in and I started clicking randomly all over the map (with not much success). Then I decided to pick a hotel and travel from there. I found a delightful house with a door intriguingly ajar. It looked so invitingly cool inside and  baking hot outside. Here is the location if you’d like to have a look around for yourself.

Doors open in Gdansk by Cate van Alphen

It’s been years since I did any drawing and I found it required a surprising amount of concentration, but I did enjoy myself (although next time perhaps I’ll choose something quicker to work with than coloured pencil and I’ll select an image which actually includes the focal point!).

“BUT WHERE’S THE POLYMER CLAY?” I hear you cry. Disappointingly nearly all of it is still in my head. I did manage to start on some texture stamps, but not any of the exciting things I had planned to make using them.

Then there are the architecturally inspired beads from the Royal Road I haven’t started yet…

I had a wonderful idea for the Art Bead Scene Challenge, but alas, on Saturday the 28th I discovered the deadline was the 25th!

Still, watch this space, some of these ideas may make an appearance eventually – one of the major culprits for my missing the challenge times is a bead that has been sitting in my “in progress” bucket for YEARS which suddenly demanded to be finished, and has grown up into something quite interesting. Sometimes these things have their own timescales.

Amazingly I HAVE managed to keep up with the 52 earrings challenge.