I Have a Boat!
Just a small boat & not quite a pretty as I'd envisioned. But it should burn nicely. :-D Now I just need to make a small Old Bear poppet to set in it & that's the last of my prep-work for the Funeral this weekend, other than printing out the rite for myself & my helpers. I also talked to one of his old buddies from his early days who's driving out for the funeral with a few other old friends. When I started to describe how the Rite was to go, he asked, "Are you an Asatur?", which made me laugh. (In a good way- I was pleased that he'd thought it sounded authentic). I explained that I'm really a Druid but I did a bunch of research on Norse rites for this & told him he'd recognize a number of the prayers & such (and I did add an invocation to Odin at the beginning, for those who might be wondering). I'll make sure the final version finds its way to the ADF website so other folks can find it & use it if they have need. Funeral Rites are about the last thing anyone ever thinks of writing unless they need one & generally in that case you need something *fast*.
Feeling much better today, too. Wednesday is one of the days I have off work (as in Thursday). Hardly any coughing at all & I slept in late. I hadn't bothered to set my alarm because I figured I'd cough myself awake at a relatively reasonable hour- oops. Of course, the extra sleep might explain why I feel so much better. :-) I watched the rest of Blood Diamond & found my angst of yesterday much relieved when I suddenly got an idea for a piece based on the idea of blood diamonds. Even got the title- "Shine On 'Em", which comes from a song used in the movie (side note- it's always an interesting experience when I hear a rap song about something I care about). I've been trying to figure out a diamond piece for a while- ever since I saw Lark's call for entries for 500 Diamonds. Not sure how they'd feel about a blood-diamond piece or if it would even be done in time to even submit (since it'll have to wait until I can afford to buy some little diamonds). The idea of the piece (a brooch) is there'd be a piece of copper, enameled to look like dirt with the diamonds scattered around. Over top would be a piece of red rippled stained glass. Probably a tear-related shape of some sort, or I might look into some traditional African designs for a shape. It'd be especially cool if I could get a slightly larger pink diamond, too, since the one in the movie is pink. Incidentally, it's a really good movie. Leonardo DiCaprio was really, really good, Jennifer Connelly's always great & Djimon Hounsou is *phenomenal*. Favorite moment was when Solomon told the diamond cartel guy that in exchange for the rock, he wanted his family back. The look on the cartel guy's face was great- *blink* "you want what?".
Incidentally, a lot of what the diamond cartel is portrayed as doing in the movie are things that deBeers is known to do or has done in the past. How Archer describes them creating a false scarcity to keep the prices sky-high is true. I think if I were inclined towards guerrilla tactics like the PETA folks, I'd raid their basement & flood the market with all the stones they've been hording. If ever there was a monopoly in need of being broken, it's that one.
But getting back to the piece-- it also opens up some other ideas for pieces based on other major social & environmental issues. One thing I find interesting is that I seem to be reserving the big necklace ideas for personal issues. Social issues are coming to me as brooches, which makes a certain sort of sense. A necklace is a more intimate piece of jewelry than a brooch, after all. But the book idea I had at SNAG came back & I was thinking I could do a book project based around gold mining & the damage it's doing environmentally. I keep remembering one of the photos from the No Dirty Gold lecture from SNAG'05-- a photograph of three streams coming together & each stream was a different color because of pollution.
Feeling much better today, too. Wednesday is one of the days I have off work (as in Thursday). Hardly any coughing at all & I slept in late. I hadn't bothered to set my alarm because I figured I'd cough myself awake at a relatively reasonable hour- oops. Of course, the extra sleep might explain why I feel so much better. :-) I watched the rest of Blood Diamond & found my angst of yesterday much relieved when I suddenly got an idea for a piece based on the idea of blood diamonds. Even got the title- "Shine On 'Em", which comes from a song used in the movie (side note- it's always an interesting experience when I hear a rap song about something I care about). I've been trying to figure out a diamond piece for a while- ever since I saw Lark's call for entries for 500 Diamonds. Not sure how they'd feel about a blood-diamond piece or if it would even be done in time to even submit (since it'll have to wait until I can afford to buy some little diamonds). The idea of the piece (a brooch) is there'd be a piece of copper, enameled to look like dirt with the diamonds scattered around. Over top would be a piece of red rippled stained glass. Probably a tear-related shape of some sort, or I might look into some traditional African designs for a shape. It'd be especially cool if I could get a slightly larger pink diamond, too, since the one in the movie is pink. Incidentally, it's a really good movie. Leonardo DiCaprio was really, really good, Jennifer Connelly's always great & Djimon Hounsou is *phenomenal*. Favorite moment was when Solomon told the diamond cartel guy that in exchange for the rock, he wanted his family back. The look on the cartel guy's face was great- *blink* "you want what?".
Incidentally, a lot of what the diamond cartel is portrayed as doing in the movie are things that deBeers is known to do or has done in the past. How Archer describes them creating a false scarcity to keep the prices sky-high is true. I think if I were inclined towards guerrilla tactics like the PETA folks, I'd raid their basement & flood the market with all the stones they've been hording. If ever there was a monopoly in need of being broken, it's that one.
But getting back to the piece-- it also opens up some other ideas for pieces based on other major social & environmental issues. One thing I find interesting is that I seem to be reserving the big necklace ideas for personal issues. Social issues are coming to me as brooches, which makes a certain sort of sense. A necklace is a more intimate piece of jewelry than a brooch, after all. But the book idea I had at SNAG came back & I was thinking I could do a book project based around gold mining & the damage it's doing environmentally. I keep remembering one of the photos from the No Dirty Gold lecture from SNAG'05-- a photograph of three streams coming together & each stream was a different color because of pollution.