This ghostly woman in her afterlife finery is a collage of several detailed segments. Her skull is wet molded leather, hammered, stretched and gently embossed into shape. Batwing like folds emerge and sweep upwards from her zygomatic arches. Horn like flounces adorn her frontal eminence, a pair of outer frills emerging from her temporal ridges and two inner ones aside her sagittal suture. She is dyed black and softly dry brushed to give her a countenance of weatherworn dusty stone.
Mournfully curving leaves with pointed tips grow from behind her cheekbones. Arranged in a shape which brought to my mind the wings of a strange rorshach blotty moth They are tooled with veins, dyed black and dusted with a hint of silver. With a baroque arthropodic influence, the lower leaves are the most elaborate terminating in the shape of a spiral stinger.
Her gorget of leather webs was patiently pierced from reinforced garment leather. The silhouette was a drawing done during a period of high fascination with art nouveau wrought iron. The collar can be removed and worn...it has gussets for shaping with an adjustable length of black chain and clasp. In the center is a single black peacock feather, it is a deep purplish black with dark bronzey rings. Remininiscent of the color of black tulips or the poisonous berries of the deadly nightshade.
Her leather lace tiara has a name all its own "Gates of the Iron Forest"...a bit much?...so what, I like it. This single piece has inspired me to design and construct a Victorian Byzantine revival dollhouse complete with gardens, forest and denizens of the diabolical sort. Now all I need is one thousand hours uninterrupted...;)...The tiara is veggie leather meticulously hand pierced over many days and nights. The silhouette itself has myriad visual sources of inspiration...spider webs, slithering branches, scorpions tails, antlers, beaks, scarabs pincers, howling moons and the thorny eyes of perilous night. In the center of her forehead, the third eye, is a faceted labradorite marquis with strong blue labradorescence. I found a snippet of lore on this stone..."a myth surrounding Labradorite says that those who are attracted to this stone have ancestral roots in Atlantis"
This piece was featured in the 2007 Annual Halloween Art Exhibit.