Long Live the Queen!

Have I told you I love mermaids? Maybe it's the idea of blending two different worlds, maybe it's fantasizing about being Aquaman when I was seven years old in the surf at Coney Island. But there's something wonderful about the idea of people living in a world beneath the sea. What do they used for furniture? Or telephones... well, there, at least, the answer's obvious...

So the above piece came about when I found some atrocious wall deco at TJ MAXX (how often do I say that?). It was a pair of copper colored scallop shell wall hangings. I immediately saw Elizabeth the First-style frilly colors, but from another dimension.

 I wanted to create that feel, but with a certain otherworldliness... if you look closely at the piece, you'll see pearls and green and brown glass gems in her hair... which isn't hair so much as flowing seaweed, with bits of gold and copper leaf pressed into the clay. I did her hair by taking leaf shapes I cut out with cookie cutters and stretching them. Then I saw I had all these other interesting cookie cutter shapes around... stars and suns and crescent moons... why not make her skin a kind of collage of these shapes?

The Queen has a mate... unfortunately, the King is dead. He took an unfortunate tumble at a street fair... but I have a feeling he will soon be reborn into something better... stay tuned.


The Queen is available in my Etsy store.

Aquaman is the property of DC Comics and the  illustration is by the great Amanda Conner, from Wednesday Comics.

Shakespeare in Love is the property of  Miramax Pictures and the image is used here until someone tells me to take it down. Have I mentioned Judi Dench is a goddess?