Thy Fearful Symmetry

I have been interested for some time in substituting printed cookie tin metal and other metal scrap for the silver sheet metal I once used -- the imagery can be wonderful and can stand as enameling might, rather heraldic.  So here's my first piece using a cookie tin, old leather bookbinding, antique school book pages, cobbler's linen, iron binding wire, rebar tie wire, an ormolu escutcheon, old Chinese coin, and a glass inlaid shirt button, which all came together under the tutelage of the artist I call Maestro, Keith ("No Glue") LoBue, and what-ho, no glue (or soldering) in this piece.  That day of lessons from Maestro was a real turning point for me, or more like the cairn you place when your trail makes a big turn headed to another mountain entirely.  The cookie tin was illustrated with knockoff imagery from Le Douanier, Henri Rousseau, who was thought to be a primitive in his day, but as so many "primitives" prove to be, was actually a visionary, and its title, of course, refers to the famous Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright, although in this case El Tigre is actually a jaguar, but you can see how Le Douannier understood the thing we project upon this magnificant wild animal.  This piece takes a bit of the form of a hand mirror, as though you saw El Tigre when you held a mirror to your face.  Wild Thing, you make my heart sing!  Can you dig it?

You make everything 

Grrrrrrrrr

oooooooo

vvvvvy

Wild Thing

I think I  love you ...

On Bourbon Street

I visited New Orleans long before Katrina, and the views of shabby facades in the Quarter with hints of secret elegance stay with me even now.  Here's a pendant that evokes those memories, of very humble parts that add up to a lovely, louche, mysterious whole, a tribute to N'Orlins, the Big Easy where an artist can practice and share, live and love.  Long may we have her as our sweet refuge.  Let's keep those Saints marching in.

Whiskey (Bourbon, of course)
bottle cap with lens, cigar box
label, wire, cracked crystal bead

On the back, a fragment of a poem