This month, we have the always lovely and talented Julie Lee as our Guest Ambassador, straight from our Relics & Artifacts® Tribe on Facebook.  Let's get to know a little about Julie.

"I live in a tiny Edwardian workman’s cottage, a short train journey from London with my husband, Terry, our son, Isaac, daughter Matilda and beloved ginger and white cat, Daisy.

Our home spills over with our collections of ‘treasures’, precious for the stories behind them. Story-telling and Art have always inspired me. I taught creative writing and worked for many years as an English and Drama teacher. When I retired from teaching and my children no longer clambered onto my lap for stories, I discovered mixed media - a great opportunity for me to tell stories in a new way with paint, mediums and unusual found objects. I believe that jewelery should have a tale to tell too, so the earrings, brooches and miniatures available in my Etsy shop, Magpiehaven, wait to tell their stories to anyone willing to listen to them."

Julie worked her magic and created a beautiful, winter inspired canvas to showcase today.  Let's travel into the workings of her magical story-telling.

"Do you ever touch the surface of a clean canvas, or run your finger tip over the pure white of Relics & Artifacts® and hear the whisper of snowflakes as they touch frosty window panes? Does that untouched landscape seem to hold a world of stories? I turn a new canvas in my hand and look into it and it offers a door into the past. Drapes open on a window over the frozen River Thames 1613.
 

Like winter’s puppeteer, I harness icicle enchantments and create a toy theatre. In my mind’s eye, skaters pirouette where the ferryman’s oars once left their silvery trail. And, at the Palace of Whitehall, glimmering twilight wraps a frosty cape over brick and stone.

Horses neigh and a bustling group come swirling into view with the flurries of snow: a troupe of players – no vagabond travellers; but the King’s Men arrived to perform a magical tale for James’ court. In my mind’s eye a dancing bear, leaves his giant footprints in the snow. Ah, they are to perform Shakespeare’s ‘Winter’s Tale’ ideally suited for the marriage celebrations of Elizabeth, The Winter Queen.  The Winter’s Tale – with the most bizarre of stage directions, Exit, pursued by a bear - tells of frozen-hearted King Leontes who suspects his innocent wife, Hermione of infidelity with his friend, Polixenes.

I am part of the audience again as, pure as angel wings, Hermione declares her innocence before the entire court, but there is no mercy from her jealous lord and she is carried out of his sight. Even when Paulina, a loyal noblewoman tells Leontes that his wife has died in childbirth, leaving a little daughter, he shows no remorse. Leontes orders the child, Perdita to be taken to a deserted place and left there to perish. But in tonight’s enchanted circle of candlelight white magic rules: Perdita is rescued and grows into a lovely young woman; Hermione’s icy statue metamorphoses from cold stone to living woman and spring blossoms with a marriage between Perdita and Forizel, Polixenes’ son.

As I work, my hands powdered with snowy plaster, I hear fairy music in ancient halls bedecked with evergreens. I see the glimmer of beaded brocade and pearls on white velvet dancers as the sky darkens outside Whitehall and the Frost fronds etch their forests across leaded window-panes.

Supply List:
Relics & Artifacts® Rising Spirit I
Relics & Artifacts® Spirit Treasures
Relics & Artifacts® Ancient Heart
Tim Holtz Ice Skate Charms
Tim Holtz Distress Glitter
5” x 5” square box canvas
Micron Pigment pens
Butterfly Charms
Plaster Wrap
White Gesso
Heavy Gel Medium
Acrylic Paint
Watercolour Paint
Bead Gel
Heavy Gloss Gel
Pearl Glaze