Susan's 2nd Round Piece

I'm so very pleased with my piece. It isn't strictly an Exquisite Corpse though. I drew a pentagon and surrounded it with five more pentagons. One side of each pentagon touches the middle one but they do not touch each other. I think Arlee would tell us this is a no-no. I probably should have made the outside edges larger so they would touch. But I'm very happy with it and may decide to fill in the holes with something that would bring it all together....or maybe not.

I began my work with a kokopelli playing a flute to the midnight sky. I had some wonderful paper that worked very well for a rock for him to sit upon and some great blue fabric that looked right to me. I did a tiny bit of stitching on the left side of the rock to indicate a plant. Then I put some feathers in a headband, made a flute out of some stiff interfacing and made a moon from Angelina and stitching. For my corpsemates instead of putting a design of my own making in the five pentagons, I put words so the were able to interpret as they wished. I think this was inspired on my part because my drawing skills leave much to be desired and I didn't want to copy a pattern from elsewhere.

So to the top right, we have Reta's interpretation of maize. I love how she made a cornstock with ears in it and roots at the bottom and tassels at the top and then reinterpreted it as a large ear using what looks like pieces of cut plastic sewn to a backing so they stand out with organza maybe? for the leaves. The picture does not do it justice.

Next is Julie's interpretation of sunshine (I think it said sunshine but shame on me I didn't write it down) This is gorgeous. It is pieced cotton and velvety fabric with freeform stitching and a butterfly and beading at the bottom.


The next one is Donna's interpretation of rock art. It is just wonderful. It looks like a fabric with a background of brown and a pattern on it that looks as though it already had some rock arty things like a spiral on it. Then with what looks like tyvek there is a figure and some little tiny figures she drew on it and the whole thing is overlain with some fibers and all is coated with modge podge or ?.




Next we have our illustrious corpse mistress's work which is so beautiful I have no words. Arlee really did a wonderful job on this one. I think the word here was desert but it may have been cactus. In any case on the right is an element done using reed grass, beads, and raveled fabric (I love this). On the left is a cactus made of painted bubbly stuff, beads, netting and ?...I'm going to have to let her explain the materials. The whole thing is sewn on top of a handpainted polygon with stitching to emphasize the divisions of color. It is so lovely.


Finally there is the gorgeous squash blossom interpretation which was done by Elizabeth. So much work went into this and it is obvious. There is a background stitched with ribbon and embroidery thread. This is overlain with a felted stem, leaves sewn from cotton on felt and then the gorgeous squash blossoms and finished off with three perfect yellow beads.

This piece is worthy of hanging in my living room it is so nice. It is obvious that all involved took care to do excellent work. I am a happy camper. I've put more pictures up on my www.flickr.com/gourdgal site. There are closeups of each polygon. Thank you all.