'Fairest of them All'...

'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Fairest of them All?' I know that the men who were renovating our house thought I was crazy. For any number of reasons, but particularly for me asking them (demanding really) not to throw away the broken closet door mirrors. Turns out that I now have enough mirror to make a small army of mosaic sculptures. I chose black beads and black mirror trim for the details of the dress as the Queen in Snow White was so dastardly and mean. Or simply because black is truly elegant. You decide.

The fun part...

Sometimes the work behind the scenes isn't so pretty. I love to publish posts that show a finished piece, all polished and ready for the gallery. But there is a lot, lot of work that goes before the piece is ready. I am getting ready for two shows currently, one in Bermuda and one in Aspen. I am experimenting with a smaller bust and learning my way around working on a smaller form for Aspen. It really effects what kind of tile you can use and how the I can 'handle' the piece as I work it. For Bermuda, I am prepping all my pieces, since assembly here is unreasonable with shipping. I pre-cut all the tile, I have concreted the styrofoam busts and am gathering all my materials and instruments to take with me. In these photos, you can see how I lay out the plates, beads, tiles to get a sense of how they will look together and what kind of dress design I will attempt. Sometimes I will also sketch out my ideas, I will do this for Bermuda since there will be so many pieces to complete and so many materials to bring. I don't want to forget anything! This is also my favorite part of each piece- the designing. I love laying the materials out and looking at different combinations. Sometimes how I start out to complete a piece isn't how it finishes up. The process can be a little more experimental and organic at that point. For instance, I layed out tile last week that included using a black bead interspersed through out the skirt on the dress- then forgot to include them! Organic or blonde- you decide!