Andrea Manard
Memphis, TN
“The Long Walk Home”
“When I was a child, our house was a long block from the elementary school I attended, and I had to walk to and from school every day. I had to go the long way, snaking through the neighborhood, instead of the short way, with busy streets. Each day after school I would reluctantly trudge home, dragging my feet. But when autumn came, the walk I so dreaded became a treasure hunt. The spectacular array of trees along my path offered up a bounty of treasures to my nine-year-old self: giant acorns and dinner plate-sized oak leaves, pine needles and “helicopters,” and seed balls I used to draw with on the sidewalk.
I tried to recapture those magical treasures in these pieces. I chose crackle paste as a reminder of the crumbling blanket of dead leaves, painted over it with my favorite fall colors, and spread a mixture of extra heavy matte gel medium and mica dust on top to add sparkle and glue the cracked pieces in place. Last, I added copper skeleton leaves. To my delight, the copper reacted with the gloss gel I used to adhere the leaves and each leaf turned a little green.”
See more Fall-themed art in the September/October 2009 issue.