Its amasing how new projects start, how ideas form. Quite exciting that the universe places bits and bobs together to make images start playing in your brain. And the fact that a love story started it all, well, it makes it sweeter and more possible.
When you have on your table fashioned greenware slabs and exquisite shelllike blank substrates of bisque clay, just staring you in the face, not just any project will do. 
I want to tell you a story about how a prune, a reunited love duo, rose petals pressed in book titles created a new project. My ceramic pieces.

Remember I told you about the 'secret UFO ladies club' a couple of entries ago?
(Not a group that go weak at the knees at the sight of little green men; we just get together to finish objet d'arts) I have another little secret tucked in my paint apron that involves a wedding, a keeper of roses and a gorgeous lady who used to be labelled 'The Prune'. Apparently she used to prune roses and that was her calling card. This lady, until the secret is allowed to be divulged, shall be named  Madame TS. 

I can assure you, Madame TS is not at all like a shrivelled grape. In actual fact, she has a rather endearing face with twinkling eyes and a propensity to looking after UFO women by feeding them delicacies and rubbing sore, overused fingers with 'magic cream'.  She is adored by many, (myself included) but by one very nice gent, particularly so. After many many years, she finally accepted his proposal of marriage last week. It was, since the pandemic and all this isolation business, the best news ever. I get to see two of my favourite humans become recognised as a united couple. The world is good.

And Madame TS, in a typical artistic and romantic fashion,  decided that the wedding day required copious amounts of rose petals adorning paths and walkways to bring in the nuptials in the most appropriate way. 
Not one to let rose bushes get out of hand, Madame TS appeared at my door the next day ready to prune my unkempt, naughty lot into submission and hand me several stems of roses to put into vases.  I then kept an eye on the petals over days and found suitable books in which to press fallen petals. Willing these gorgeous, fragrant soft shapes of gold, swirling raspberry and white to fall off the stems for such a worthwhile purpose. As this was such a momentous occasion, I decided to choose the titles of the books in which the flowers were to dry, kind of to go with the personalities and awesomeness of the couple. And, to add more luck and presence from the gods, I'm adding my mothers heavy metal jewellery box to weigh them down. Kind of like a fairy god-mother bestowing a final blessing by way of a talisman. My mother knew the gentleman's mother extremely well and would approve. 

The rosepetals are quite busily falling so I am onto a few books now. I grabbed three books from my home library randomly. And in doing so, sat sitting going off into a creative haze one again. I have found my project for the clay pieces. 

Can you picture or even entertain what my imagery is going to be about?  Let me give you a hint. Try combining all three titles: So, this is how a project starts. I do have several projects to work on at present, in different mediums, so at least the ceramic one is sorted. Keep an eye on the blog to hear how it evolves. 

This goes to show, that ideas can come from special events and people's love stories, book titles. And prunes. 

Cheers, my creative lovelies. 

JFP X