Mother Love

Two days ago I saw a friend and colleague in the corridor. "How are you?" I ask. She shakes her head and then explains that her mom, who has been very sick for the past few months, died two days before. Knowing she was very close to her mom, I give her a hug. Reducing her to tears in a crowded corridor. As she is running out sobbing I feel so bad for setting her off. In a desire to cheer her up and apologise for upsetting her I proceed to design and make her a necklace. Who would have though guilt (or maybe its sympathy?) could be such a good inspiration! So I spent the whole rest of that day designing this necklace in my head and the entire evening and the next morning putting it together. Thus here it is my Mater Necklace.
Mater is Latin for mother.

The strap is made with ostrich egg-shell beads and amethyst rounds. Lucinda got the ostrich beads for me from the Bushmen of Botswana when she was there on field work. Whenever I use these beads I think of her.

I chose black for the base colour in the peyote tube with a star burst pattern in gold. I wanted the whole design to sort of symbolise mothers. So there is a dove, flowers, feathers and leaves, an owl for wisdom and a clock for time. The peyote strip says mom, I wanted to use the Latin, Mater (hence the name of the piece) but it would have been too long. From the beginning I wanted to use the amethyst heart bead (next to the dove) so that gave the colour palette, black, gold and amethyst.

Part of the inspiration for this necklace was Heidi Kummli's Peace necklace. I have been reading her book The spirit of bead embroidery and on reflection the thinking behind her beading gave a strong influence to this necklace. So thanks Heidi!

So this is for you Lucinda!

PS have a good Christmas break everybody I dont know when I will blog again, so happy new years if I dont get to it next week.