More Beauty

I spent last weekend in a nice balance of activity and do-nothing-ness. It was a three-day weekend in honor of Memorial Day, and although it was in turns both hot and rainy, much of the gardening work still got completed. One major issue in my back yard is that the dog runs through the gardens frequently enough to destroy them. The solution? Build her a path, and plant some "stepables", which are plants designed to be part of walkways because they can take being walked on a bit. The flagstones for the pathway came from under the deck. At some point there was a patio there, and someone built a very nice deck over the top of it. I don't know why, since the patio itself was well-laid. As I was digging out the stones, I realized that they'd been set in a bed of gravel and sand, so whoever laid it knew what they were doing. There are still many more stones under there, which makes me happy, because now I've got plans for laying them other places as well.

The Finished Garden



I also finished another assemblage. This one was originally meant to be a box project, with a bottom piece and a lid, but once I started working on it, it evolved into two separate but related pieces. Both pieces use similar materials, white ribbon, broken pieces of glass and a mirror, and words cut from magazines. When I started the pieces, I didn't have a specific concept in mind. I had the box, and I had the piece of mirror, which I knew I wanted to put inside the box somehow. Once I did that, adding the broken safety glass inside the lid made sense. It echoed the idea without copying it, and there's something evocative to me about the entire idea of broken safety glass and broken mirrors. The perfume bottle is one that I got from a girl I had a major crush (obsession might be a better word) on in high school, and the red glass and hematite star beads came from my personal collection.

Lid Side


Inside



Then yesterday I scored a big find. There's a consignment shop that I drive past every single week, and I've always wanted to see what was inside. I finally stopped yesterday, and in the back room, behind a bunch of other things, I found a type tray. I've wanted one for a while, ever since I saw an art project that someone had done where they cut decorative paper and lined the bottoms of all the sections, then hung the tray on their wall. I'd like to do something similar, but instead of just paper, I'm thinking about adding other embellishments and making a Goddess-themed piece, making each section something to represent and honor a goddess.

Hamilton Type Tray