Assemblage - Component of the month (Art Elements)

For the component of the month at Art Elements, we got wonderful runes made out of bronze by Niky Sayers. The one I got was strength.

She also send a note with all the different meanings: Strength, sacrifical, animal, the Aurochs (bos primigenius) species of wild  ox

It took me a while to decide what to create with it. Also I got a really bad cold, some hardcore drugs with heavy side effects and was "out-of-order" for about two weeks, so also not the best starting point.

But there comes my wonderful/horrorful work table with so much stuff lying around. There is an order from time to time but I am not the one to keep that during creation... or when I only have limited time available, I prefer to use it for creating and not sorting.

This time it was a blessing because in one of the boxes were a lot of book covers I made last year (I showed you them over at Art Elements here). I took the rune and hold it against different book covers until I settled for the ones covered in dark brown leather (it was too thick for book binding but I still like it!).

Then I had a look what else was lying around me and started to create an assemblage of mixed materials to put on the front cover. So no way you can put this little book in a shelf but as an art book, it was never meant to be!

So, there is a branch with roots I found in the park and had to take with me, wonderful snail shells as well as broken shell pieces from Formentera, a hand I made with polymer clay (yes, body parts are also lying around ;) ), tiny semi-precious stones, and then some mixed media kind of paints I made myself (there will be more about this soon over at Art Elements):

I used some wonderful brownish/grayish sketch paper to sew the leaflets (110g/m2) and glued it in with a wonderful green paper with golden dots. Sadly it was too thin even though it didn't appear so.

Last but not least I attached a bone game pieces I got from a secret santa. I made the dangles in the "Use your stash" challenge at Art Elements and was not sure for what to use it. My ideas were earrings or necklace but Jenny (also at Art Elements, see below for her blog!) gave me idea to use it with a book. Thanks again for the idea! You see, I used it :)

And Niky, thank you so much for such a wonderful component that challenged me in the best way!
Please have a look what all the other participants made with Nikys runes.

Guests:

Kelly Rodgers

Deb Fortin

Art Element Members:

Laney Mead

Lesley Watt

Caroline Dewison

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Susan Kennedy

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Jennifer Stout Cameron

Claire Fabian (you are here)

Lindsay M Starr

Niky Sayers