Day 5

by Sue Vander Hook
(North Mankato, MN)

The inspiration for my art journal page was my mother, Carmen Emily Mayfield, who died in 1982 at the age of 60. The page memorializes her (her picture is at the bottom) and her Aunt Carmen (her picture is at the top) after whom she was named. The buttons surrounding my great aunt's picture are notable since she taught my mother how to sew, and my mother eventually became a custom seamstress. The August calendar at center-left circles my mother's birth date, and below is the date of her death. The initials to the right of my mother's picture are interesting. "CEM" are her initials for the name we knew her by (Carmen Emily Mayfield), but after her death, I found her birth certificate and discovered that her name was actually "Carmen Emma Lee" (and thus "CELM" by her picture with the "L" a bit disjointed from the rest).
The background was painted with several colors of acrylic paints and streaked with a paper towel after each layer. Then I used bits of paper, photographs, and a dried rose petal and covered them with a couple coats of matte medium. Finally, I embellished the page with knotted brown fiber and a silver key.