Stuck.

You haven't seen this one in awhile! I deviated away from my general course and just came back round to her.  I think her name is The Matriarch.  

 

I looked on my blogger profile and it said I hadn't posted since June 14th!  Well, all I can say is that things are not normal around here.  I am not used to being home and do not know how to structure my time.  I'm like this at the 'all you can eat' buffet.  I take a little bit of everything that looks good, in no particular order and in the end I have way too much to eat- can't get to it all.  That's my life right now.  The plate is still overly full- just with different stuff.

I thought I could organize myself to share this little bit with you.  Sometimes I am happy with her progress, sometimes not.  Its my first creature and as I really didn't follow a predetermined design concept- well, its been a wandering path to say the least.  I did not know she would be so costumed.  That kinda happened last night around midnight.  And, who knows, it may all be ripped off tonight at midnight.  

See- there's a problem.  As much as I like the gold skirts- they block the light.  Without the light its really hard to see the tiny little butterfly fairy in the belly.  Not only is that visually distressing its just plain distressing because I went through something like reverse child birth to get her in there.  

I thought and thought before I even attempted it.  How would I attach her?  She'd have to hang.  How in the hell would I get a hanger in there- in the right place, of the right length and how would it stay attached?  Then how would I get her up in there on a hanger and make her stay?  This is why you haven't seen much of her....I've been devising ways to get this delicate surgery done and done right.  

My first attempt included wiring her upside down to two chair backs (back to back, each had a back rail that I could wire to) and dripping glue down a straw.  There was way too much glue.  I had decided to try to make things simpler by attaching the hook directly to Madame Butterfly and lowering her into the glue.  Then the plan was to leave her there until everything was dry and then flip her over to a successful end.  Not so much.  I thought everything was ruined.  There was glue all over everything especially Mme. Butterfly who got soaked.  For sure she was ruined!  I WAS SO MAD!!!!!  I thought I would never get that glue out of the sculpture either.  I stomped around and cursed- a lot.  But it turns out the glue was water based and a few days of hanging around upside down between the chairs again, this time with water, was conducive to the removal of said cursed glue.  And Mme. Butterfly was just a little stiffer than before.  Oh, the angst!

When I tried it again I used E-6000 glue and separated the hanger. It dried quick and strong.  I love E-6000 and promise to never stray again.  Then I devised a contraption that would hang the butterfly and gently let go of her once hung.  SEE?  That's what's keeping me from all of you- the maniac in my brain! Why, I won't even go into how I didn't like the lack of color relationship between the yellow greens and the blue-er greens and spent hours dotting tiny daubs of color to try to make them better related only to wipe most of it off the next day.  Long story short- do you think I should do an underskirt of cream fabric so that the teeny butterfly fairy in her belly can be seen better?  And can you believe a 43 year old woman is writing a sentence about a teeny butterfly fairy in a belly?  I think I need a real job........

By the way- friend Melanie from The Positive pessimist may be the one that drove me over the proverbial edge.  She nominated me for two awards and then tagged me for an 11 things about you post!  Man, it takes time to do the bio for those...and its really maddening when the power goes out and you lose everything because you know, you just know that you never ever go back and finish what you started....the pressure is just too much!  Sorry Mel!  There is only so much cleverness in this girl and I think the storm took it.

So the Matriarch remains a work in progress but so much closer to the finish line and I remain hunched over in a dark corner wringing my hands and twisting my brains into pretzel shapes to figure her out.  I don't even care that I almost poisoned the dog with flea medication and that I bought hair coloring that was way too dark and now my hair is just as dark as Elvis's was.  I don't care.  Yep, think I need a job....