Thursday, January 3, 2008

Mt. Fuji, Falcons and Eggplants




Well, I completely missed the boat. I was going to wish everyone a nice dream of Mt. Fuji, falcons and eggplants tonight which I thought is supposed to occur on the third night after the New Year according to Japanese tradition for good luck. Apparently, though, I'm mistaken and one is supposed to dream of these things for the first dream of the New Year. Perhaps, though, if you dream of any of these tonight you'll have good luck for half of the year? Or, if you did dream of Mt. Fuji, a falcon or eggplants on the New Year, now you know what it means. Oh, well. I'll try to get it right next year. (And why Mt. Fuji, falcons and eggplants, anyway? Such an odd combination.)

It's occurred to me that I haven't quoted any poetry, funny, serious or otherwise lately, so I thought a little William Butler Yeats might be in order:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I've always found this kind of romantic (although, if the Husband were ever to recite or say anything similar, I'm sure I would keel over). I suppose the tone doesn't really fit with the new heart pendant, but I've been thinking of this poem lately, for some reason.

As far as the new pendant is concerned, I had a hard time coming up with a name for it. "Clawed Heart" just didn't sound all that romantic (as I say, unlike the poem). I settled for "Graphic Heart", which I suppose is at least reasonably accurate. This was a very simple design I carved in a stamp block with - yup! - a linoleum cutter. A design like this takes a patina pretty well, I think. This is quite a heavy pendant, as I rolled the PMC out thick to get a good impression of the design.

I'll have one new pendant to show you tomorrow. I'd like to do a couple finished pieces after that, so, hopefully that will happen next week.

Thanks for stopping by!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! I saw your post on the etsy thread about pendants and have enjoyed looking at your shop and blog. Beautiful work and I especially love the graphic heart pendant!

Melissa J. Lee said...

Thanks so much, artsyclay! I checked out your store - your cat face designs are really gorgeous.

Christina J. said...

I really like the pendant. :)

Melissa J. Lee said...

Thanks, Christina!