Monday, January 25, 2010

For Out of Death Comes Life




In this complicated life on earth we experience loss over and over again, from the grocery run that yielded none of your favorite jelly, to the indelible ache of death.

We lose keys, we lose lovers and we misplace our dignity now and again, but if we're lucky enough to have pluck and support we move through our grief and into a wiser, larger soul.

We shed our outmoded selves. 
We welcome in strangers who become friends. 
We learn the hard-to-explain lesson of wisdom with each heartbeat that carries us past caverns that losing has carved into our heart.

There is no life without death, and there truly is no death without a life.
In the spirit of winter, grief and rebirth I built this clutch from scratch, each rivet hand-set, each stitch hand-pulled.

Immortalized in leather is the Wright's Beach bird skull that in real life is a silent blessing on the third shelf of my studio hutch.

On the back is the skull's shape, reversed and inlaid with a panel of leather featuring an explosion of ripe roses.



On the inside, held firm and steady by nearly 100 rivets is a vintage cloth with the warmest touch, edges hand-frayed to create an inviting softness.



The bag closure is a buckled soft leather pull.

It measures 10X5 and can be filled with all the essentials of a night out or a day with friends.

This is most assuredly one of a kind, not to be replicated, but to be cherished by someone who understands what beauty can come from something that hurts.

In the Leather Shop soon.


19 comments:

Dave Schipper said...

Incredible designs kid.

Dave

Good Girls Studio said...

You make my heart sing!

susie said...

Love.

Anonymous said...

Goodness, Allison, you've outdone yourself.

Corinna said...

Oh, Allison. It is magnificent. Bittersweet and achingly beautiful. Wow.

jessi sawyer said...

Absolutely stunning.

reconstructing sarah said...

so beautiful. i dearly love it!

MrsLittleJeans said...

I love this....rich color, beautiful design!

Have a great trip!

xx

The Noisy Plume said...

Well that's some incredible magic.
Incredible, incredible magic.

This is magic too:
"but if we're lucky enough to have pluck and support we move through our grief and into a wiser, larger soul."







See you in a week, sugar beet.
Bring a karaoke machine, we'll go ballistic and then we'll have margaritas.


WHEEEEEE!!!!!

Love you!
Can't wait to squeeze you!
Can't wait to talk bird in my sleep and have you laugh at me....can't wait. Just can't wait.
XO

sylvestris said...

As Jillian said: Magic. Powerful, wonderful magic. That is one great confluence of work and thought and heart.

XO
Dorothy

Runs4fun said...

absolutely special...out of the heart, mind, soul...and through the hands---you create such incredible pieces! xoxo

Heather King said...

Beautiful and Symbolic♥ Rebirth, Something that has once passed is transformed and has been born into something beautiful that one lucky lady will carry one day :)
~Heather

resolute twig said...

this is an amazing design and a beautiful post. I love them both.

Anonymous said...

oh my goodness. to repeat what everyone else has said: seriously, truly incredible. you have such talent. :)

Anonymous said...

Beautiful design and rhetoric.

Allisunny S. said...

You guys, thank you so much, truly truly truly. This bag means the world to me, and it means so much that it translates to others, too.

Big hugs to you all!
Allisunny

Lucy said...

Hi Sunny! I´m often visitor of your blog and I would like to award you a "Sunshine award". Please follow this link- http://fun-ljuda.blogspot.com/2010/01/sunshine-award.html

gallerydarrow said...

That is dang beautiful, Allison!!!!

E said...

Beautiful in every sense of the word. I gasped when I saw the inside. Wow, what a surprise.