By Resa McConaghy:
Ever dream of making an Art Gown that bursts forth from the drab of winter?
Then, it blooms into the brilliance of spring!
Surely that Art Gown would be a flower garden.
The Making Of:
It all began when a friend sent me about 40 pounds of old fabrics. In the package was a damask pillow case that worked with a shiny, coppery brown fabric. It seemed a bit earthy-coloured for a gown. I thought, Well you need earth to grow flowers!
The shiny, coppery fabric is odd: rubbery (perhaps used for upholstery), annoying to work with, and exceptionally lustrous. The box also included many scraps of colourful acetate linings and scriffles of a delicate net embroidered with gold and pearls.
The colourful acetates picked nicely into the subtleties of the damask. Shapes were cut out of the net scraps, overlaid onto the acetates, and stitched on.
Gold buttons from another friend’s buckets of buttons were used as centres to gather the flowers around.
Then began the biggest mess ever made in the making of an Art Gown . . .
The mess was worth it!
I couldn’t take enough pics.
This girl was a joy, from morning . . .
. . . until night.
I hope you are all having a wonderful spring!
It only comes once a year.
A Light Exists In Spring
By Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade has suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
An established costume designer in film, television and digital media, Resa McConaghy has worked on productions for Showtime, ABC, Disney, CBS, CBC, Hallmark, and more.
Her mission: to enable the articulation of character through wardrobe.
Take a look at Resa's other Art Gowns: