Display

Sometimes during the winter I take up making bracelets to pass the evenings and to create something at the same time as carrying on a onversation or watching television. I wear bracelets myself and was full of ideas, particularly using old necklaces or bags of used mixed beads I found in second hand stores. I needed a display board to display the bracelets, aside from the regular black velvet. A look at a Modigliani portrait led to the idea for the design. A Sahara look would play up the tribal aspect of the bracelets. I asked a friend who sketches to do a face for me, and I kept his primitive look with its uneven eyes, important nose and sensual lips, down to the sloping thin shoulders. Because the tone would be all warm earth colours, I introduced blues to the body to give the lady depth against her hot dry background. People taken aback to see that the beads are real, as it is both beads and eyes which pull one toward the picture.