Monday, August 27, 2007

July BJP Page

Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll






Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it was that they began; all she remembers is, that they were running hand in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep up with her; and still the Queen kept crying "Faster! Faster!" but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath left to say so.



The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and other things round them never changed their places at all; however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. 'I wonder if all the things move along with us?' thought poor puzzled Alice.



And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, "Faster! Don't try to talk!"



Not that Alice had any idea of doing that. She felt as if she would never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath; and still the Queen cried "Faster! Faster!" and dragged her along. "Are we nearly there?" Alice managed to pant out at last.



"Nearly there?" the Queen repeated. "Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!" And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.



"Now! Now!" cried the Queen, "Faster! Faster!" And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy.



The Queen propped her up against a tree and said kindly, "You may rest a little now."



Alice looked around her in great surprise. "Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!"



"Of course it is," said the Queen, "what would you have it?"








And that is exactly how our month of July went here in sunny, southern New Mexico.



After three tries, my July page finally morphed into its present form. First try was to make a red and white chess board in perspective in the foreground out of peyote stitch -- hated it. Second try was another chess board in black and white in the foreground in backstitch -- didn't like this one any better! Reprinted the illustration on the fabric in red ink, turned the illustration 90 degrees and said the heck with the chess board, then added the challis print border.



Found the red and clear mirror tiles a week later and said, hmmm -- maybe this would work for a chess board pattern of sorts. Hence the stylistic approach to the chess board. Since the birth stone for July is a ruby, I used ruby colored glass stones on the Queen's crown and scepter. The secondary stone for July is the black onyx and black charlotte beads were used for the border trim.



I had always assumed that Alice Through the Looking Glass was written in Victorian times -- it was actually written in 1871. I tried to make the border trim reflect the jet jewelry that was worn from Civil War times through the turn of the century.



Alice and the Red Queen was printed on white cotton fabric with an inkjet printer.


6 comments:

vivage said...

Love the dimension in this piece. Hey, even tho the pics won't enlarge, I used my browser to magnify and it worked great. I'm cracking up at you looking at the tiles and thinking, "Hey, this will work!" it seems like I'm always looking at things in terms of how it will go with my beading.

KV said...

Thanks, vivage!

Good to know I am not the only one who "sees" things wherever I go . . .


Kathy

Lin Moon said...

Alice is one of my very favorites! Life sometimes makes as much sense as those she comes into contact with in Wonderland.... Great beading!

Lillian said...

I love how you weave your tales with beading Kathy :o) Thanks for sharing the stories, Lillian

KV said...

Lin -- I know just how you feel about that Wonderland effect in real life!

Thank you, Lillian -- let's hope I can keep up with this for the remainder of the pages!


Kathy V in NM

Timaree said...

Beading (art all-together) can be such an organic thing. Pictures tell us how they want to be done; we learn to listen to them instead of forcing our view on them. (Hey, that just sounded like a good idea for viewing other cultures doesn't it)! Maybe life is a bit more like Alice in Wonderland than we are comfortable with. Great page.