Exuberance!

One of the ladies at the craft group Lucy and I attend is a textile artist.  Gaynor Devaney does all sorts of exhibits at local museums and we all enjoy watching her working on her various projects. I've teased her that she may be a bit mental. Her designs tend to include forest creatures from children's fairy tales.  

I recently watched her make a beautifully embroidered and decorated rectangle which ended up being a 'bedspread' for a wooden cutlery couple (a man's mustached face was painted on the fork; the woman's face on the spoon), tucked into a chocolate box with this ornate bedspread.  She will have spent hours making that and she still had to put the pink striped 'wall paper' on the sides of the box...  To be fair, the box itself was amazing and no doubt it inspired her.  I can't find a photo, but Bill and I definitely need to visit Rococo Chocolates in Chester next time we visit Simon!

Anyhow, this week she had a sort of banner up on one of the partitions.  I recognized the project many of the ladies had done involving appliqueing bits of wool onto other bits of wool.  Personally, it breaks my heart to see wool used in this way.  I tend to think that wool's highest and best purpose is to keep people warm, but of course the many wool lover textile artists in this group don't agree. Gaynor's project was, as usual, quite different from the others', which tended to be wool bags or large pillows. Her's was a parterre.

But it was her fountain that really grabbed me!  

I love lace and buttons and tiny charms and she used all of these with spectacular results. I know she is an artist because though many of her pieces are whimsical to me, they do make me stop and think.  This one really made me happy! Isn't she clever? 

Wouldn't you love to have a fountain like this!?