Art is a heart shrine

The attention, detail, and work that went into the art created for the recent 37days book project is just astounding to me.

The artists were from around the world–from New Zealand, England, Hong Kong, and beyond. Several arrived arrived from Germany, from an artist named Tari Goerlitz. Two pieces about the essay "Love Unlovable People"  featured this 37days "shrine" constructed by Tari (and which I am thrilled she is mailing to me!) I love beads, and fell in love with this construction. In her own words:

“’Love Unlovable People’ was a heavy essay that doesn’t have easy answers. My initial creative visual after reading it was a prisoner’s hands tattooed with LOVE-HATE knuckles clenching prison bars. I had no idea where to get a hand model and to arrange a visit to the clink in ten days time so I just kept visualizing tattoos. I thought a lot about heart shaped tattoos. Hearts pierced with swords, hearts spiked with pins, hearts wrapped in barbed wire. I started working on a heart shrine. I cut wings out of Styrofoam, gave them a nice glittery edge and filled them in with seed beads. The shrine is embellished with beautiful hand-made polymer clay beads by my generous friend Kelli Schwert.

When I initially moved to Germany, Kelli and I bonded through our mutual love of Smurfs. During one of our mail art swaps, she shipped me a baggie of her homemade beads and I was astounded that somebody out there actually makes these miniature masterpieces. I doodled the essay title, complete with spikes all over the word “unlovable.”  I photographed everything, brought it into Photoshop and put it all together. Although my time living in Germany has generally been a positive one, I had a real ugly experience while buying supplies for this project. I thought it was pretty ironic considering the essay is all about finding love… even for the nasty critters out there.”

To Tari and to Kelli, my thanks for this beautiful expression of meaning.

(Note: I’m having some difficulty uploading the photo of the finished artwork Tari describes–will keep trying!)