A Saami Snowflake

So the finished snowflake! I finally mailed it in to Dana Farber before I took off for Mom's 50th in CT this week (woohoo!). I thought I would join the ranks of flake posters (check out the Blue Rose Girl blog for Anna Alter's and Alissa Imre Geis'). Feels great to be finished, and I'm excited to see where this little traveler and her red bird guide will end up. I'd like to say a big thanks to all my bulletin-responding friends for their input! :) These are the front and back done on Arches watercolor hot press paper and adhered to the wooden whitewashed snowflake. Mixed media: watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, graphite.

The red bird is a bit of a symbol in my family now, since my grandmother passed away in 2004 from Leukemia, since she had her own special story as to why she loved red birds so much. Her name was "Pocca", she was one of those grandmothers who allowed her grandchildren to name her and then strongly defended this namesake despite it originally being "Mocha Pocca". Haha... she was wonderful. So there is the red bird, a bit of hope at the top of the girl's massive hood, looking ahead as a tiny guide, and woven into the tribal fabric on the back.

For her costume design: I have recently in the past few years, fallen in love with the Saami people of northern Finland and the surrounding icy regions, which connect over into the north of Asia as well. They are reindeer herders, and even today, fight for maintaining this way of life amidst modernization. Their traditional clothing is so celebratory and beautiful, even in such a bleak (to us!) landscape. They are a beautiful people.

So there, all done. This one and all Robert's Snowflakes will be on auction on the Dana Farber site, and will be able to be viewed by late August, so keep checking to see the 2007 collection! All proceeds of all snowflakes will go to cancer research. If you want to see them in person, there will be 2 special gallery showings: Child at Heart Gallery, Newburyport, MA: October 3 - 22; Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA: October 30 - December 2