Verse & Vision: A Change in the Weather

"A lot of people like snow.  I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water."  ~Carl Reiner

When I first sat down to read the verses submitted for the Verse & Vision project it was the dead of winter. There were many feet of snow covering the ground layered over ice. The landscape was bleak and lifeless. So I must have been seeking spring at that moment.

If there is one thing that I loved to teach when I was a 7th grade English teacher it was poetry. I prefer poems that transport me or have me saying 'aha' or are so filled with imagery that the words leap off the page and into my heart creating a picture more vivid than any photograph could ever be. 

I read all 62 poems in the bunch pretty rapidly. Partly because I only had so much time to read them all in one sitting, and also because I wanted the poems I chose to grab me and take hold of me at first glance. Plus, I knew it was first come-first served. And if a poem grabbed me at the first glance, then I knew that it was for me.

When I came to the poem "A Change in the Weather" I felt an immediate grab. I printed it out and started sketching my ideas immediately (sorry for the poor scan!).

When the poet, Joy Kirsch, read this verse on Friday, she prefaced by telling the story that back in January a slip of the tongue by a radio announcer sparked her imagination and she wrote these lines.

A Change in the Weather by Joy Kirsch

Early January

Ten below

The radio announcer misspeaks

"Today a chance of flowers"

Oh, yes, please

Give me pansies and peonies

Larkspurs and lilacs

Clouds of cosmos

Roses and more roses

Let the petals fall...

Like Rain

It wasn't until Joy was reading her poem, that I thought that she looked familiar. Turns out, she is a member of my church! It has been delightful to know her through her verse, and now we have an artful bond when we see each other on Sundays.

I am a big fan of pansies, my favorite flower, so that spoke to me right away. I wanted to have a pansy in my design, but that did not happen. However, my design is pretty close to the original drawing above. I originally thought that I would use vintage brooches in an explosion of colors with icy and snowy beads making up the other half. But as I was trying to make this, I just could not make the colors mesh.

But then one day I was at a local consignment shop (sadly going out of business) and there was the large white enameled bloom. I told the shop keeper what I was up to, but that is all that she had in stock. But I brought it home anyway and noticed that in my stash I had a lot of other white flowers. So that changed my direction a bit. 

You might recall that back in March I used a teaser of this piece in my Bead Table Wednesday post. The challenge for me was to get all of the vintage pieces to connect and also lay properly without being pokey. You see, unless the piece is already broken, I like to leave vintage things as they are. So each and every one of these pieces is wired to the next. So if the owner wants to remove the pins (especially should they become valuable in the future - none of them are now) then they can do that.

I present 'A Change in the Weather' inspired by the poem of the same name by Joy Kirsch. 

 Vintage petals

Frosted faceted glass beads for the snow

round bluish opalite coins for the cold

large irregular faceted clear quartz nuggets for the ice

I see this as a ravishing look for a bride, especially if she is also carrying one of these, which is similar to what Miranda Lambert carried down the aisle for her recent wedding that weighed in at over 4 pounds! This necklace is no shrinking violet either, but a complete stunner for the right bride (and for sale at the Gallery Q)!

So now it is your turn...

The weather can inspire so many different emotions. Have you ever been inspired by the weather to create something special?

Do tell!

Enjoy the day!