eye painting workshop part 2

This post is part 2 of one from last week, in which I wrote about a workshop I led at the Rockport Public Library, inspired by antique Lover’s Eye paintings. While last week’s session focused on the paintings, this week was all about the setting.

Each child’s painting was mounted in the center of a lovely handmade-in-India box (many thanks to my friend, artist Jay Gibson, for the donation of the boxes). Then the kids were asked to do three things:

design a setting of “jewels” around the painting;

design a setting of jewels around the mirror which we mounted to the lid of the box; (note the “jewels” around the mirror below)

and write a short story, note, or poem

that would be mounted on the inside of the lid.

I had cut out a small trapezoid shape at the bottom of the folded papers, so they would stay fastened when mounted.

One boy thought that the folded, fastened paper was itself like an eyelid…

The across-the-board deliberate process of the selection, design, and setting of the jewels was intriguing, and of course, completely unpredictable.

And while each work was the result of its own unique journey, the spirit of all of the works emanated from the eyes mounted at the center of each box.