Cthulhu Dreams

Cthulhu was a monstrous being created by horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft; the creature first appears in the short story, Call of Cthulhu published in Weird Tales in 1928. The story describes the creature as; "… an octopus a dragon, and a human caricature.... A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque scaly body with rudimentary wings."

Cthulhu, was central to a mythos that Lovecraft had created in his stories, describing creatures known as The Great Old Ones, that once inhabited the earth and were waiting for the time to take over once more; Cthulhu lay slumbering in a sunken city called R’lyeh.















This pendant depicts the head of Cthulhu emerging from his watery prison, on the reverse is a couplet from The Necronomicon, a fabled grimoire that is often referred to in Lovecraft’s stories,
‘That which is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die’

I was really into H.P. Lovecraft stories and the whole Cthulhu mythos; and judging by a quick Google image search, I'm not the only one! It is quite amusing to see all the various sculptures, toys, artwork etc of Cthulhu.
With this pendant, I hand sculpted the head using Skulpey clay from which a mould was made then cast it in resin and painted. It was then set into a resin square, with glass beads for 'bubbles'.

Winged Phallus

Phallic amulets were often hung in doorways of Roman houses and shops to protect against evil spirits; the amulets often had bells attached to them, the sounds of which was also believed to ward off evil. Amulets of bronze, brass, coral, bone or gold in the shape of a phallus were often worn as rings or pendants by both children and adults as protection. As well as offering protection against evil, the phallus was also used as a symbol of prosperity and fertility.

The phallic symbol is linked with the god Priapus, who was always depicted with an exaggerated erect penis. Images of him were popular in wall-painting and as bronze statuettes. As well as being considered a protector of property Priapus was the god of the fertility of gardens and farms.

It was after a trip to Naples and visiting the National Archaeological Museum; I was inspired after going into the Gabinetto Segretto (Secret Room) where all the 'adult' sculptures, mosaics and winged phallus' were kept, including the well known Pan and Goat sculpture.
This phallus was hand sculpted, cast in resin and painted with a glass paint; the wings were silvertone and were attached so that they hung loosely and had some movement to the piece. I had seen these mother-of-pearl beads that I thought would look quite good to attach the winged phallus to the memory wire choker.

A Bloody Accident

‘The chief enemy of creativity is good taste’ Picasso

Often the case with me is I like to incorporate ideas that go against the convention, which is why I made this pendant.
The idea of wearing a shard of cracked glass that has blood through it appealed to my sensibilities. I like the idea of ‘beautifying’ or hyper-stylising what conventionally would be dangerous, mundane or abject.

I remember being quite impressed with the Gaultier designed dress for Almodovar’s film, Kika.

For her 1995 Vive La Cocotte autumn/winter collection, Vivienne Westwood designed this beaded dress and jackets; the jacket detail had beaded 'blood' dripping from a slash on the jacket, unfortunately the side where the slash is, is cut off from the photo.

The idea for the necklace had originally started off as a broken mirror, but I was having difficulty creating a cracked, reflective surface to embed in the resin.
The 'blood' is a crimson glass paint that I let seep into a cured resin shape that was cracked- I covered the piece with masking tape to make sure that all the broken pieces stayed relatively close to each other before breaking, as I didn't want to spend time on a resin 'jigsaw'!
I then let colour dry before embedding the shape into the original mould with more resin. The pendant was then attached to a nylon coated wire with red bead 'blood drops' threaded on to it.

On the subject of the abject, during a hot day, I remember seeing a dog crap that was absolutely covered in green bottles; quite a disgusting sight but at the same time it was also quite pretty!
I tried to recreate it to for a photograph, parodying a home shopping channel’s jewelery segment.
NB It wasn’t real crap, it was a mixture of cat food and chocolate and I only got a couple of fly visitors-they obviously prefer the real stuff!

Good Enough to Eat

I was kind of stuck for inspiration and my partner suggested making sweety shaped jewellery from resin; kola cubes were suggested at first, but I was unsure how to get that sugar coated effect with resin-which I'm still experimenting with, so I opted for jelly babies and a cola bottle.

The jelly babies were hand sculpted, as the edible ones weren't defined enough and for me, I didn't think they had a good enough shape (and also they weren't round long enough to take a casting!), and besides I didn't want to be sued by Bassets for copyright infringement on their design.

I decided to make the 'blackcurrant' one have a bite taken out of it (as this flavour is usually everyone's first pick; with lime and lemon usually the last ones in the pack!) and give it a shocked expression.

Mojo

Mojo
1. A magic charm or spell.
2. An amulet, often a small flannel bag containing one or more magic items,
worn by adherents of hoodoo or voodoo.
3. Personal magnetism; charm.

Mojo is a term used in the African-American folk magic called hoodoo. Mojo is traditionally a magic charm in the form of a flannel cloth containing botanical, zoological, and/or mineral curios, talismans and such like; the contents of a Mojo always numbered 3, 5,7 or 9. Once the mojo had been prepared it was ‘fed’ regularly with an appropriate anointing oil to keep the magic working. Mojos or mojo hands were then carried about the person to bring luck, avert the evil eye, gambling or love success.

This Mojo necklace was inspired by the symbolism that is often associated with hoodoo and voodoo (voodoo is a religion and a different practice from hoodoo). It was one of the first pieces that I made and I wanted it too have an old rustic and worn look about it. I couldn't guarantee that the magic will work but at least it’ll look good to wear!

Web Ring

I was quite pleased with how this ring turned out; the glassy appearance of the resin with the silvery spider surrounded by a smoky web; it may seem a bit gimmicky, but the web glows!

As a child, I was always taken with glow-in-the-dark novelties and objects; ‘powering’ up the object under the light then watching it give out that strange green glow.
I remember one time my dad bringing home a ‘black light’ bulb, which provided hours of fascination- till it blew! I have to confess, that even as an adult, glow in the dark and UV lighting still appeal to me, but then I guess I’m still a child at heart!

On the subject of insects: I do like spiders, but there are some huge house ones that I think, no way am I picking that one up! And I always have to rescue them quickly, with having four cats, the spider is running a bit of a gauntlet.

Heart of Glass

I had been working on another resin pendant, ‘An Accident’, but the resin wasn’t adhering properly to the plastic on the shard of CD, that I was embedding. I broke the piece up into small fragments and then added them to a heart mould with new resin, (I was originally using the pieces as ballast); and I got this effect of reflective shards embedded in the heart, it does have a nice rainbow effect when the light hits the reflective CD pieces.
(The title came from the Blondie classic!)

Barbarella Psychadela

Barbarella

...Barbarella psychadela
There's a kind of cockle-shell about you
(Barbarella Ba-ba-barbarella)
Dazzle me with rainbow colors
Fade away the duller shade of living
Lyrics and music by Bob Crewe & Charles Fox

This brooch was inspired by the comic and film character Barbarella.
The little figure was from the Preiser series of miniature models; I thought that these came already complete and ready to be painted, but when I opened the box-they were all in teeny bits, to match up to the corresponding numbers and glued! It was a bit of a frustrating task, attaching miniscule limbs, searching the carpet for the ones that dropped off or finding a tiny arm stuck to the tip of your finger!

Moon Rabbit

I'm a huge fan of rabbits; I used to have one named BunBun, I'd had him since he was just 10 weeks old. Unfortunately there came the time came for him to cross the Rainbow Bridge, I really was so heartbroken.
I ended up getting a tattoo as a memento because he was a such a special pet to me.




It's no surprise that I like the Buddhist story of how the rabbit shape came to appear in the moon, it’s such a poignant tale, and inspired me to make this pendant of a rabbit in front of the moon.
The rabbit was hand sculpted, cast and set in resin; against a moon made from an iridescent craft cellophane (the type they use on gift wrap bows) The moon craters were created by painting a thin layer of glass paint behind the cellophane moon, then dripping water droplets onto the paint while wet.

The 'Rabbit in the Moon' tale tells of a monkey, an otter, a jackal, and a rabbit who were friends. Together they resolved to practise charity on the Uposatha day (the day of fast), that was to occur on the following day. In the tradition it was believed that one who stood fast in moral practice and alms-giving on that day would earn a great reward.
When an old man begged for food, the monkey was able to gather fruits from the trees, the otter was able to gather dead fish from the river bank, the jackal wrongfully pilfered a lizard and a pot of milk-curd from somebody’s house. The rabbit, wanting to offer something acceptable to the man, was only able to gather grass, and therefore offered its own body instead, and threw itself into a fire that the man built.
The rabbit however did not get burned. The old man then revealed himself to be Śakra, and being touched by the rabbit's virtue, drew a picture of the rabbit on the moon to be visible to all. It is said that the smoke-like substance surrounding the lunar image is the smoke that rose when the rabbit cast itself into the fire.

(Adapted from Wikipedia )

This was another rabbit pendant that I had made, I gave it the title A Drop of Happiness (a bit schmaltzy, I know!) It was yet another fiddly exercise-gluing tiny handmade cherry blossoms on to a small twig!