'GOTHICA'

'GOTHICA'

I made this lantern from two distinct pieces.  The black metal support is from a rather cheap dollhouse chandelier turned upside down and then repositioning the chain supports.  The 'glass' is from a toy dome that had I was able to detach from its original use and then glue to the overhead black frame.  The lamp lights but I  didn't want too much glare so I didn't turn them on but when lit the veining on the glass which is the skeletal remains of a chinese lantern plant, glued onto the surface, looks like a forest of trees in leaded glass.  God did all the work there, all I did was highlight it.  This project made me happy.

the right side of "Gothica' has a Realife blue chest of drawers with working lamps, a bowl of gourds, blackberries in a basket , a squirrel, and a piece of architectural fragment and a religious icon on it.  A stack of old newspapers in a bundle that Janine made for me is off to the side perched on a crate. A line drawing of a raccoon is nailed
  to the wall.  The yellow chest opposite supports the gothic mirror above it and an iron grotesque, grapes, books, candlestick etc.

Here is another look at the right side of 'Gothica' called this because of the Gothic mirror over the old
french chest.  I hand painted the chair and made or remade nearly all of the items inside.  I started this project over 12 yrs ago but put it aside until this past spring.  I needed a quick fix.  Something I could actually get finished and so I started playing with the story and here is what it turned out to be.
This used to be an abandoned out building on an enormous estate and held weaponry for the huntsmen
and servants of a baron.  Over time the shelter was forgotten and a very pernicious vine took over and  
obscured the entire structure.  New owners surveying the estate happened upon it and chopped back the vine to discover a little sanctuary where all was cool and quiet through the heat of the summer.
There was never a door but one was fashioned and used in the winter but otherwise it is always opened.  The vine they had to let stay as it now was a supporting feature of the wall and it is kept tightly in check as it tries to crawl again across the ceiling and the walls.  Not wanting to modernize the space, much has been left as it has always been with the exception of electricity but even that is minimal and often the lights of the ancestral candelabra is the only means of illumination.  It is beginning to get chilly in the evenings and the wool flannel lap robe is at the ready.  The last harvest of the summer garden has been brought in and its distribution has yet to be decided.  We will have to wait until the gardener returns....