I was supposed to be out of town this weekend vending at an event, but Thursday night I was feeling absolutely awful. Thankfully I had a couple of minions (okay, my boyfriend and one of our friends) step up to cover the booth for me so I could recover, for which I am incredibly grateful. I had some time to rest up, and I mostly stayed indoors (other than walking to Fred Meyer for hardware for this piece–and, of course, food.) And late last night, when I probably should have been tucked away in bed, I completed the Four of Wands.

This was a much more technically complicated piece than the Three of Cups. For one thing it’s a lot bigger, as are the bones I used. I wanted to replicate the floral canopy seen in most renditions of the Four of Wands, but three-dimensionally. This required more metal bits and hardware than I usually employ in my work–and I HATE working with hardware. I will happily hand-sew leather all day, and glue things to other things, and slap paint all over everything. But tell me I have to bolt things together, and the holes aren’t already there, and I have to measure everything exactly, and I devolve into a whining pile of contrariness. Thankfully, my desire to make this assemblage happen prevailed, and so I pulled myself together and got to work.

All I had to make holes for 1/4″ hardware was my Dremel; we have a cordless drill tucked away somewhere in the garage, but it was pouring down cats and dogs yesterday and I had a big case of the “I Don’t Wanna”s. So I decided to make do with the Dremel and its accessories. I won’t bore you with the process I went through to drill holes in the backboard; needless to say I managed to not injure myself or set anything on fire.

After that, everything was easy. I got the bones into place, wrapped the hardware with yarn, created the bower out of artificial plant materials (whose dye decided to rub off on the bones a bit), and finished off the border with even more yarn. It makes me happy, though some perverse part of me wants to tuck a couple of Barbie dolls in faux-Greek style and little floral wreaths in the bower. Or maybe now that gay marriage is legal here I can use it to stage the long-awaited wedding of He-Man and Skeletor. (What? If I can’t play with my own art then what’s the point of being an artist?)

You’ll notice that it’s a bit different in style from the Three of Cups. I have to create seventy-six more assemblage pieces this year. I would go absolutely bonkers by number fifteen if they were all just tiny variations on the same theme. They’ll all be bound together by their bones (and by me as their creator), but each one is going to have its own personality. You’ll see.

Here: bonus picture showing off the three-dimensional nature of the Four of Wands: