Yesterday was the reveal of the Challenge of Music blog hop hosted by Erin of Tesori Trovati. I spent quite a bit of time listening and working to Marillion over the last month as I worked on my piece, and other things in the jewelry studio. My ideas from the album “Script for a Jester’s Tear” were more than I could fit into 1 piece, so I have a second offering inspired by my favorite song onthe album – “Chelsea Monday”. 

The sketches for a 2 part setting to house a plastic lens. 

Test fit of the lens in its copper tabs. Metals stapled together in the back. 

The pendant: hammered copper, brass, Gilder’s paste. Image transfer of labyrinth and wisps of wool roving in the plastic lens. 

The finished necklace: moonstone briolette, vintage copper chain and aquamarines. 

Here are the lyrics: 

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress 
Hiding in her cellophane world in glitter town 
Awaiting the prince in his white Capri 
Dynamic young Tarzan courts the bedsit queen

She’s playing the actress in this bedroom scene 
She’s learning her lines from glossy magazines 
Stringing all her pearls from her childhood dreams 
Auditioning for the leading role on the silver screen

Patience my tinsel angel 
Patience my perfumed child 
One day they really love you 
You’ll charm them with that smile 
But for now it’s just another Chelsea Monday

Drifting with her incense in the labyrinth of London 
Playing games with faces in the neon wonderland 
Perform to scattered shadows on the shattered cobbled aisles 
Would she dare recite soliloquies at the risk of stark applause

She’ll pray for endless Sundays as she enters saffron sunsets 
Conjure phantom lovers from the tattered shreds of dawn 
Fulfilled and yet forgotten the St. Tropez mirage
Fragrant aphrodisiac, the withered tuberose

Patience my tinsel angel, patience my perfumed child 
One day they really love you, you’ll charm them with that smile 
But for now it’s just another Chelsea Monday

[Hello John, did you see The Standard about four hours ago? 
Fished a young chick out of The Old Father 
Blond hair, blue eyes. She said she wanted to be an actress or something 
Nobody knows where she came from, where she was going 
Funny thing was she had a smile on her face 
She was smiling, what a waste]

Catalogue princess, apprentice seductress 
Buried in her cellophane world in glitter town 
Of Chelsea Monday

That last bit in parenthesis is spoken at the end of the song. And yes, it does imply she was found dead, drowned. That immediately  – to me – references Tennyson’s “Lady of Shallot” ( I will post at the end if you are interested.) When I listen to the song – I dont think of her death. I think of her escape. And  I am not by nature a depressed person to select such dark songs. I just listen to the song and hear a different  ending. She followed her dreams, she escaped her fate, she found her wings…

The song is refering to the London neighborhood of Chelsea, where I loved to wander when I lived there. It was a short ride on the #49 bus from my flat in Shepherd’s Bush…My time in London was pivotal in who I am today as an artist and a person. I spent a lot of time alone exploring, alone with my thoughts…drifting through London as it were…

And the labyrinth is a powerful symbol. One path, it offers you blind turns, twists and turns, but only one path. At times you feel you are going back to where you had just been. If you stay on your path, trust in the journey, you will not be led astray. The path to the center, your center, although you may not always be able to see where you are headed, you are headed the right way. 

So I am very satisfied with the results of the time spent with this music, and this challenge. This piece I will wear often. It speaks loudly to me. I look forward to hearing your thoughts! 

The Lady of Shallot – Text: here

Images: here and here and one more – here

and the song brings to mind this painting as well…