I am beginning to wonder...will it be difficult for me to let go of this project? I mean, I really could use the time for other things. This project has consumed a massive number of hours and supplies, so I look forward to saving money, too. But will I experience what most mothers feel when their young leave the nest? Will this have been a project that created in me a new identity or maybe just an undiscovered one, and thus, will I feel like I have to let it go or I won't belong to a puzzle that has been holding me in place this past year? These are all things that I contemplate as I now get closer and closer to finishing.
Are you contemplating a 365 project? I feel like I've been witnessing in support of this concept for months now, encouraging would-be or rusty artists to put their hands to work again on the thing that they love. It is a life-changing experience after all, especially if you follow through and finish it. And don't tell me, "I'm not creative." Not creative? You people who use these words, are you robots? Have you nothing to offer this world? Is there nothing you love to do? Of COURSE you're creative. We're all creative. And I can't begin to tell you how many doors and windows have been opened because I chose to take this journey. Each of us is like no other person, and when we bring our creations together collectively, something new is born that could not have existed without the efforts of each and every person. On our own, when we choose to do the thing we love over and over, we see how it changes us and makes us into better people. I guess I will just find something new to keep me growing once I finish my spider project in January.
So for the Corpse Bride spider, the part of the movie that sticks with me most is the moment that Victor puts his future bride's ring on a twig in the forest, and the corpse bride's arm comes shooting out of the dirt and snow, detached from the rest of her body. So I wanted a spider with her hand, but I had to envision something for the earth. I decoupaged some striped worms on the black-painted pot, and I dabbed some blue-painted gauze around the hand where the bride's wispy blue lace dress sleeve once was, and I tried to keep with the dismal blacks and grays of most of Tim Burton's films. The exception in The Corpse Bride is the presence of a lot of icy blue.
Materials: plastic skeleton hand, jump ring and Swarovski crystal for ring, blue-painted gauze, silver baking clay, mini terra cotta pot (painted and decoupaged), gray and black bugle beads, blue and gray seed beads, silver wire