I've been having a wonderful time creating these mandalas. Each one forces me to comb through my stash of small found objects, generally searching for four or eight or sixteen "somethings". I have plenty of things I wish I could use, but not the multiples needed.
After finishing Mandala II with its set of plastic president figurines, I decided that the best "follow up" would be beer caps. It just seemed fitting, and I have quite a collection of beer caps. Even though I'm generally looking for multiples of the same item, one ring of different, colorful beer caps worked out very well. No two are alike. I gently hammered a hole in each one using an awl.
For the center, I decided to look for an interesting clock face. This lead to an entire weekend dismantling two boxes of old clock parts. I got them at auction. I found two clock faces for this mandala ...
... and now have an entire drawer of clock parts for future projects!
Some of the other things I added were shell casings. Each one was put into a vise so that I could drill a hole in the back. There is no glue used to attach any of the bits and pieces. Everything is stitched in place using #5 perle cotton ... except the fountain pen nibs. For those, I've used a beading needle and sewing thread. The tiny slots on these vintage items are otherwise too small.
I've already stapled the last corner of the vintage quilt to a stretcher bar. It will be the last from this quilt that will be 46" x 46" diagonally. Yet, there was more of the quilt. I will have three pieces that have only four original quilt blocks and seven that will be small, single blocks.
4 comments:
This series of mandalas are absolutely brilliant and original!
It's beautiful, and again, your placement of the found objects fits so well while still keeping the integrity of the quilt.
Another incredible piece. I could look them over for hours! It's nice to read how you enjoyed the process of searching for the elements and stitching it all together too.
I love the intricacies of the blocks and how you have gathered the multiples and then made them fit...
I can well understand rifling through boxes of "objects" to find the right amount. Part of my worktable as a multitude of such things on it right now - as I'm making a small flower garden collage...I seem to have a lot of die-cuts of flowers and then I used some (as pattern) to cut out my own painted/decorated paper - the floor around there has a lot of little bits on it!
At some point maybe later tomorrow, I'll have it finished - just creating a white picket fence that is needed but then there has to be more greenery along it as if peeping out from the garden bed...
And then what will happen is there is enough to make another "vase of flowers"...maybe I'll see if a village can appear...
Sometimes I think I need one of those die-cut machines to hasten parts of it all up...
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