The ocean is my passion and for that reason I thought this challenge would be simple . . . it was anything but! I have learned through my struggles of the past few weeks, not to have preconceived notions about things that should be created spontaneously. Try as I might, the brilliant and beautiful ideas I had in my mind did not translate well with the palette and materials I was given to work with. As once again I failed to photograph the pile of sparkly treasures that arrived from Lisa, our faithful hostess, you just need to believe that it was hopeless to try and meld the two visions into one. And so I pondered my dilemma and was reminded through this quote by John F. Kennedy of our genesis:
“I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came.
[Remarks at the Dinner for the America's Cup Crews, September 14 1962]”
― John F. Kennedy
[Remarks at the Dinner for the America's Cup Crews, September 14 1962]”
― John F. Kennedy
Those elegant words served to also remind me of my genesis (only a few short years ago) in the art of beading. The very first project I made was a beautiful spiral rope bracelet which I kept and wear often for inspiration. And so I decided to combine the source of my physical genesis with the first steps of where I began as a beader. I choose a beautiful Green Girl Studios focal with a duo conch shell image for the centerpiece of my work. This pewter focal also includes a quote from Gloria Stein (another wise and wonderful teacher) that reads:
"Let me listen to me and not to them."
And so I present
Listen
a piece which symbolically honors our place of origin as well as our source of life.
Thank you all for your patience and understanding with my late post. I am a dive medic and so it seemed fitting that on the eve of this ocean blog hop, I was called into the hospital for an emergency dive . . . to attend to a scuba diver who did not listen and respect the power of the ocean. After an already long and exhausting day yesterday, I spent from 11:00 last night until 9:00 this morning treating this diver in a hyperbaric chamber. I helped to save a life!!! Thank you Lisa for always being such a brilliant a source of inspiration and for providing all of us with a vehicle with which to realize our imaginings. Thanks also to all of you, my fellow artists, who are an unbelievable resource of motivation and support for me. Please use the link below to view all the projects created in honor of our ocean planet for this blog hop.
http://gratefulartist.blogspot.com/2014/06/ocean-blog-hop-june-14th-link-list.html
"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." ~ Jacques Yves Cousteau
