yours truly ~ not your ordinary photo album

(reposting—after i deleted it by mistake)

another workshop completed under the tuition of  nellie wortman at the artful gathering 2012; it's not your ordinary photo album and i named mine yours truly.

as you can see, it's a mixed media hanging journal/book/album.  i've binded mine with alternate signature of fabric/laces and papers; and will work on the details in time as i fill it up.

now that i look at the pictures, i realized the train is too long; it looks like a mermaid. a lady in the group said that she could see a few birdies flying in that tail.  i will definitely have to look into that later this week when i have more smaller birds coming as the few bird forms that i have didn't work anywhere else i tried. 

i was so absorbed in the cover's heart focal point, i adopted e.e. cummings' i carry your heart with me as my conceptual text.  it won over shakespeare's tempest and sonnet 116.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                        i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

initially i placed the heart shaped quilt as the center piece, but decided with the bird nest instead.  i thought of arranging a heart shaped moss, but didn't go follow through in the final installation.

beneath the flower bed there is layer and layers of treasures: lace spine, the antiqued nails and quilt binding, text of the poem of course.

by the time i finalized the inside pages, i'm sure there wouldn't be so white pages and there wouldn't be a riot of materials hanging down and out.

it took me all day to build this rustic birdhouse.  originally i made it longer which was the shape that i wanted, but it was too dominating so i trimmed it.  that was after i abandoned the worn out red and metal roofed birdhouse.

an artist friend of mine who also owned a beagle once told me that his kumon had contributed in the making of his exhibit series shown in new york.  he asked me if max had contributed anything concrete in my crafts.  out of all the people in the world, he would know if i show him this rustic birdhouse.

the closure of the book...

the canvas serves as the book's back cover as well as the body of the installation.  unlike the cover, i didn't plan to bees waxed the canvas; but i did.

even the back of this piece is adorable.

i'll be staying out of needles for a while. i had more pin pricks on this project alone than in my whole life combined together.  that's because i was pinning and sewing it incorrectly, but now i know (not that i know it correctly either).