Flower Pod

I'm digging the enamel class I've been taking. I like having an appointed time and place  to work. It is easy to get lost in the flotsam and jetsam of life and not accomplish much. But with a plan and a purpose, I am happy.

Last week I made this...

It's a flower pod. Well, it's a flower. No, it is a flower-pod.

It is very long. Where's my ruler? It is seven inches long from the top of the bail to the bottom of the petals. It also doubles as a party horn. ;0)

 

It is made of sheet copper that I put through the rolling mill to get this great bubbly texture. Then it was cut and filed and annealed and shaped and curled and hammered and enameled and sawed and given a dark patina and polished on and on.

 

Inside it is lined with transparent red enamel. And it has enamel and seed beads to create the stamens of the flower. It is a good piece, I think. I like it. I would like to make many of them, some the same and some smaller. But they are a lot of work. And I have new things to learn. So we'll see what comes next.

moccasin flowers

by mary oliver

All my life,
so far,
I have loved
more than one thing,

including the mossy hooves
of dreams, including'
the spongy litter
under the tall trees.

In spring
the moccasin flowers
reach for the crackling
lick of the sun

and burn down. Sometimes,
in the shadows,
I see the hazy eyes,
the lamb-lips

of oblivion,
its deep drowse,
and I can imagine a new nothing
in the universe,

the matted leaves splitting
open, revealing
the black planks 
of the stairs.

But all my life--sofar--
I have loved best
how the flowers rise
and open, how

the pink lungs of their bodies
enter the fore of the world
and stand there shining
and willing--the one

thing they can do before
they shuffle forward
into the floor of darkness, they
become the trees.

Comments

[Julie]

Awesome!!

[Sharon]

That is a work of art and love. I especially like the red peeking through the pod.

[Renate]

Oh Kelly, this piece is supernatural-gorgeous-awesome! Love what you have done (I want a rolling mill!!!), love the enamel on the inside and the stamen...!!!!

[lynne]

LOVE this, kelly! xo

[martha brown]

I LOVE this Kelly! beautiful!

[Flowers Japan]

Some times things created artificially apeal more than the Natural ones. Your Floral designs are just like that, Colors full of variety and finishing at its extreme.