Getting to Know You Collage

Belinda gave us a challenge to create a collage with one word that summarized us best. It took me a while to figure out my word. After that I sat down and started slinging paint and picking stuff out to put on it. Unlike Wedding Girls, "Zeal" came together perfectly. I see one compositional error I made (or at least I think it is one), but I'm not sure how to correct it and not sure I want to. Overall, I'm happy with this and feel it represents me to a T.

The parts of the collage have a special story. The background colors are phthalo blue and phthalo green--my favorite watercolor colors. I also have included iridescent medium, which I am in love with. The randomness of the pattern is expressive of my visual-spatial learning style--creative and somewhat random by nature. The medallion was a gift from my son and is an Irish cross (I am more Irish than anything else) It represents both my family relationships and my relationship with God. The wire rose expresses another dichotomy of my nature--the feminine part vs. the tough, resilient part I have been forced to develop because of life circumstances. The mokume' gane circlet in the upper left represents the wholeness I have found in my life as well as the moon, with its cycles of change, representative of the changes that take place as I move from the "mom" stage outwards towards the post-parenting part of my life. The shampoo glass bead in the mid-upper right (which is the element I feel I didn't place so well) doesn't have a particular meaning except that it is something I made myself in the flame, and perhaps it represents the way we are refined through the fires of the trials in our lives to take a different shape, as the glass rod did in becoming this bead. Or what the heck, maybe it all just looks pretty together! =-)