Act One, Take One
Oooh, you should’a been there. The goosebumps mounded (yep, double high) as I paid 49 cents for an Easter bunny tin containing what I thought were porcelain bisque beads. I was at one of my favorite haunts, the Goodwill store, where I have scored so many treasures. Those good stuff things summon me from within the rubble of odds and ends in tables full of thrown away things with missing parts or banged up bodies; no longer wanted. 
Abandoned and waiting for the right person to come along and love them. Well anyway, I was really strung out and beady-eyed about this particular find.
One Act Only, Take Two
I discovered a picture similar to my little beady find and to my amazement discovered that they are actually Sea Urchin spines. Y…e…t… I was half right. They have been used as “beads.”
Enter Stage Right
The photo of a necklace of Sea Urchin spines by Star of the East, Etsy created by Ester and Estella (mother and daughter) in Marmaris, Turkey.
Sea Urchin spines. I was soooo sure they were of clay. I was soooo wrong about them. Fade to dark.
Epilogue
They are very smooth and lightweight. There are no two alike. One day soon, I am sure they will speak to me and insist that I get busy providing a proper piece from which they will be admired with ooohs and aaaaahs, tings, tangs and walla wa…
Fast Forward to Today
I’d like to thank my family for their support, my dear friends, even though they refused to go shopping with me to the Goodwill (perhaps mediocre friends), and most of all to the artists at Etsy who let me know that it is okay to fall in love with bead thingies and spiny urchin bits and there is life after being misunderstood, mistaken and… mystified by nature! And the spines? They like me! They reeeealy like me!
Epilogue
Pitiful Post Script:
It’s weeks later and I cannot find the spines. I put them away for safe keeping donchaknow.
I mentioned the earthquake of ’89 (yes I mean 1989 young hooligans!) and this painting titled “5:04” in an earlier post.
The goal was to paint my impression of the movement of the Bay Area as seen from the East Bay and to show activity underground. The diagonal “fissure” is done with the application of silver lame and pink foil. This is also the first painting I ever composed using found materials. I found hunting and gathering so much fun that I have continued to add stuff to nearly all of my pieces.
My emotional attachment to “5:04” was strong and I did not sell it until about four years ago. The owner lets me borrow it back for exhibits, so I’m able to visit it occasionally.
I no longer allow myself love affairs with my paintings. Uh uh, not me. I’m now callous, merciless and nasty, brutally sloshing paint over canvases with abandon and willing to sell my wares anywhere, anytime. I’m a whole lot tougher than I was in ’89. I can look at a container of paint brushes and see many dollar signs. I am ruthless.
… what’a lie! I really, really, reeeealy miss “5:04.”
Mum
If your wall is made of “PurdySturdy” (I think it’s on sale at Home Depot. If not, try Lowe’s), have I got a painting for you!
First, let me ask you a question or two.
Remember being told to look both ways before crossing the street? So you did.
When your scrunched up face was straightened out by your grandma’s gruff admonishment, “If you don’t stop, your face will stay that way forever!” you probably quit until she wasn’t looking, right? Yes you did.
Not one of my elders ever said, “Judy, do not paint on a round, 3/4” thick piece of plywood or it will weigh way too much, will be definitely difficult to frame and some people may not know where the top or sides or bottom are. So I did.
The hardware was attached prior to showing RoundFlower in a one woman show in Alameda, California a couple of years ago. So hang it did.
The piece has lived in a lonely, dusty place since that exhibition due to extensive paintus interruptus brought on by a vile visitor named cancer. But it’s out of that place now and all cleaned up. I told it to hang proudly. So it did.
Does.
