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#252: Black Lodge Spider (#1 in Twin Peaks series)

I was planning to make a Twin Peaks spider, yes. But as any Twin Peaks enthusiast knows, it's impossible to find just one symbol (or a couple) that embodies the whole mystical enchilada that is Twin Peaks. The show is a gold mine of symbols and mysteries. So I have every intention of making a few Twin Peaks spiders and possible a very cool display piece to put them on.

For this first spider, I was excited to have a use for a garnet-red owl bead and this hypnotic wooden bead. In Season 2, Episode 11, Deputy Hawk tells Agent Cooper about the White Lodge and the Black Lodge: "The Black Lodge is the shadow self of The White Lodge, a place of dark forces that pull on this world. A world of nightmares: shamans reduced to crying children; angry spirits pouring from the woods; graves opening like flowers." Owls, which can represent both wisdom and evil, appear throughout the show but especially whenever there is a UFO sighting. They are the creatures of old Indian tales. Agent Cooper is told by The Giant (after Cooper has been shot) that "the owls are not what they seem," a mysterious phrase of which Cooper never discovers the meaning. And it is known that Laura Palmer was terrified by owls after an attack almost killed her. And if you want a spoiler...the last scene of the brief two-season television show features a flying owl.

As for other symbols in the television show, among them are the color red and circles, both of which are represented with this spider. Red appears throughout and is most memorable as the red velvet curtain in Agent Cooper's dreams. Circles--such as the ceiling fan in the Palmer home--sometimes symbolize magic. There are also various totems that appear throughout Twin Peaks (the locale), and I think this spider is somewhat of a totem.

Materials: black and natural wood bead, red garnet owl bead, flat red wood spacer bead, black glass bugle beads, round wood spacer beads, dark maroon seed beads, rusted wire