Morning Glory

This week has been a little slow and not particularly productive at work.  Plus my daughter got sick and had to be picked up from school in the middle of the day.  I always feel the weight of juggling work and family life and strive to find some time to be myself.  Artwork brings me peace of mind.

So I decided to take the lemons life gave me and make lemonade.  On Thursday evening, my sick daughter was taken to her grandparents and my husband had to work late.  After coming home and hanging out a bit with my younger daughter, I put her to bed and decided to dedicate some time to myself.  For years I have been carrying a box of unfinished beading projects from one apartment to the next.  I used to make a lot of french beaded flowers in the past.  So I picked up the box of my budding projects and found three beautiful flowers of morning glory that I have made ages ago.

They looked so bright and fresh and inviting.  Like something that could instantly lift up my mood.  They just needed a little more TLC to be ready for prime time.  They also offered a sense of a short, simple path to completion, which is so rare to come by in my daily life as a scientist.  I needed that sense of fast (though not instant) gratification.

Two evenings later the project was complete.  I connected the three separate flowers into a single branch, finished off the stem and added a couple leaves.  I had a frame that has also been lying around, waiting for the next project to be completed.  At first I wanted to put the floral branch on a completely black background of fabric, but then got inspired by one of my recent projects with neurons.  So just like the cyan hippocampal neuron I wrote about, this Morning Glory refused to be restrained by the limits of its frame.  Its flowers and stem reach beyond the enforced boundaries.  This concept speaks to the limitless beauty of nature, whether it is seen on the street or through a microscope.

The item is now available at my Etsy Shop!   Come check it out and sign up for NeuroBead Exclusive!

via Primp