Yearn - Dare

This art piece is an unexpected combination of a Gwen Lafluer Art Deco stencil with a self portrait, printed words, square mini-brads, and a real snakeskin. The elements shouldn't work together, but yet somehow they do.

I have always loved Art Deco. I fell in love with the period when I was a college student. When I got my hands on Gwen's Art Deco collection of stencils, I couldn't wait to try them out. I used my favorite go to color--pale aqua--which I painted onto smooth watercolor paper. Once it was dry, I carefully pulled some molding paste through two of the stencils.

Two Art Deco stencils by Gwen Lafluer with molding paste on a painted background.

As an experiment, I decided to add some color to one of them to see how which colors worked and what kind of paint covered the molding paste. At this point it was still just an experiment.

Color was added over the molding paste with assorted acrylic paints and inks.

The color looked pretty good, but the three circles seemed to need something different, so I tried some crackle paint on top.

Crackle paste was applied to the three circles.

I liked the effect, but didn't know where to go from here. So, I put it to the side and worked on some other projects. I kept looking at it and wondering what to do next. That wondering went on for almost three months.

The painted Art Deco background surrounded by sari scraps, Turkmen jewelry parts and other art supplies.

When I received a new shipment from Gwen's shop, I thought some Turkmen Jewelry Parts or Sari Scraps might work with the deco background that had been hanging around in my unfinished art pile, so I "auditioned" some elements. I auditioned old photos and various combinations of metal, coins, photos, and sari scraps. I also darkened some of the color and added spots of brown chalk ink to both the background and in the crevices of the crackle paste.

Audition of carefully trimmed sari scraps on the Deco background.

Audition of sari scraps and old photos with the Deco background. Can you guess who the baby is?

More sari scraps and vintage photo printouts.

A vintage headshot of my mother with sari scrap pearl flowers didn't quite work.

Assorted sari scraps had the right colors, but didn't work well with the background.

A stamped and painted image with Turkmen jewelry parts gave a Medieval feel, but still wasn't quite right.

A Victorian woman plus sari scraps looked interesting.

The Victorian woman with a sari scrap hat and gold Dresden trim also looked good.

Some were so-so, some were dreadful but none wowed me. The Victorian woman with sari scraps and Dresden trim was almost the winner, but the design seemed too safe, too sweet, to cute for that moment.

I started thinking about Gwen's 2018 stencil release and got really inspired by the words on one of the stencils: "What could I do if I wasn't afraid to try?" Although her new stencil was not available at the time I was creating this piece, the words stuck in my head.

With those words in my mind, I threw caution to the wind and grabbed an ATC-size printout of one of my own self-portraits and placed it in the center of the deco background. The printout had been created in Photoshop, using half of a scanned, original oil self portrait placed next to the same portrait with computer-designed enhancements. Weird, but interesting. Kind of fearless. I liked it. I liked the way it didn't go at all with the background. It wasn't at all deco. It wasn't pastel. It looked, on the background, the way I was feeling at that moment, so I trimmed it and glued it on.

The contrast of the self portrait with the Deco background was interesting,
but the beautiful Turkmen circles made it look like a lightswitch plate.

 I didn't love the Turkmen parts combined with the self portrait (although I do adore Turkmen parts!) so I decided to try some words on top of the crackled circles. I rummaged through my collection of printed words and found two that echoed the sentiments that I was feeling: yearn and dare. They were printed on clear Avery mailing labels, so trimmed them and carefully placed them on the top and bottom circles. I liked it, so I peeled away the backing and adhered them to the center of the circles.

The design seemed to need a little something more. I was feeling fearless and a little weird, so I rummaged through my stash of organic supplies (compliments of nature-love and ArtistTribe sister Jackie Neal) and found the skin of a garter snake. It called out to be part of the design, so I glued it on with gel medium. I didn't want it to crumble or fall off so I covered it with matte medium and added some random stamps of an old Julie Balzer stamp with embossing ink, then sprinkled on Seth Apter's Beeswax Baked Texture and heated it until the embossing powder melted.

The snakeskin and part of the background with granular Beeswax embossing powder, just before heating.

The heated Beeswax embossing powder worked, but the design needed just a little something extra.

The piece seemed almost done, so I left it alone. But it also seemed to need just a little something more, so I slept on it.

In the morning, I added three square metal mini-brads on the left top to balance the snakeskin on the right side. The color and shape of the brads enhanced the piece's balance, and the squareness and metal echoed the strength of the words yearn and dare.

While I was making this piece, Gwen's words had me thinking about what I dreamed of when I was younger, and how fear held me back. I remembered that as a teenager I dreamed of being a fashion designer, but I was afraid that I wasn't a good enough seamstress to be accepted in design school. I was also overwhelmed by the application process, and by the idea of creating a portfolio. So, I studied the field that my parents thought was a good choice, and got a degree in a subject that I didn't like. I was yearning for an art career. After getting my bachelor's degree, I decided to apply to a special one-year program at FIT. It took me an extra four years to believe in myself, but the yearning was there, and I finally did dare to go after the career I wanted. I studied fabric design, then became a fabric designer and print stylist, happily working on New York's famous 7th Avenue for many years.