They were meant to graduation gifts of sorts. I decided against cards for something a little more creative.
Ribbons are at the very bottle of the square shaped bottle. Dried rose petals are filled half way. I spent over $40 on freeze dried rose petals that ended up not fitting inside the bottle. The colours are pretty and they look fresh. Too bad it was too brittle to put inside. A scroll made from beige paper sealed with a golden seal is slipped inside. I bought parchment paper, but that went to waste, too, because it was too thick to roll up. To finish everything off, a maroon satin ribbon. I burned the edges at the cuts to prevent it from unraveling. I wish I could have found Victorian style keys to tie with the ribbon.
You can tell that I’m quite the photographer. I still have materials left over. If anyone is interested, I’m willing to throw a bottle together for $5.00 plus shipping. Send me an email.
There are many interpretations of one story, and a big part of that judgement is based on the era. Take “Beauty and the Beast”, for example. Some of the more popular interpretations include teaching values like what to look for in a husband and raising issues like an abusive spouse. The former would be more relevant when women were dependent on their husband whereas the latter would be more appropriate during the women’s rights movement.
In this piece, I took the idea of vanity and ran with it. In time, although the issue has disguised itself in many different forms–from Neolithic’s Medusa to today’s Ugly Duckling–the social importance of being beautiful has not been eroded. The concept is rehashed into “Beauty and the Beast”.
“When Beauty is the Beast” is a little clever, but straight forward way of saying that this very concept of beauty is the ultimate villain in the story that divides Belle from her sisters and the prince from Belle.
One of things that Disney neglected the making of their version of Beauty and the Beast is Belle’s transformation. The beast was a selfish, barbaric animal that learns to love. Those who read Beaumont’s version of the story will tell us that the prince was a kind and gentle man who was turned into a beast by a wicked fairy. It is Belle who undergoes a transformation in that she learns to see past the Beast’s appearance and love him for all he’s worth. This is the idea that I’m going to translated into this painting. Recall Shrek; when the spell was broken Princess Fiona’s reveals herself to be an ogre.
