My Irish Eyes!

 

More serendipity!  I made this piece last January and it has been sitting around waiting to get in a gallery.  Sometimes a piece needs “a little more” to be interesting enough, since there is room above and below the heart, I was inspired to add the chipboard letters.

 

Mixed Media BEFORE adding letters

Cathy from Sunrose Gallery is coming over soon to pick out new art pieces so I hot glued the “LOVE LIFE” glittery chip board letters to see if this would “TRICK”, oops I mean inspire, her into finally taking it. LOL (Oh the life of the artist!)

 

Back in January, I had a stack of German Die-cut hands and needed an idea for using them and found this image in a Google Image Search.

 

Inspiration from Google Search

 

YAY! Hands, Heart, and you know me, who doesn’t need a crown. The image was a “Claddagh”. HUH. I didn’t investigate the word claddagh because all I wanted was inspiration to empty my drawer of the die cut hands.

Well, I haven’t told you but I had an identity earthquake this summer.  45 years ago my Grandmother (on my father’s side) gave me an antique rocking chair where she solemnly advised me to “Take good care of it because it originally belonged to my great grandmother who was a full-blooded Cherokee Squaw.” That meant I was 1/16th Cherokee Indian.   My father went home to be with Jesus when I was six years old, so I had never known about my Indian heritage.  Grandma passed away shortly after her gift of the rocking chair.

The knowledge of my ancestral heritage “grew” on me through the years.  I joined Ancestry.com to discover more about my roots but only encountered dead ends.  Folks laughed at me about my obsession with beads which I blamed on being “Cherokee”.  My heart has always melted by a guy in a pony tail….MORE PROOF! LOL!

My brother got his DNA tested earlier this year and we were SHOCKED there was no American Indian in his DNA lineup.  So I sent in a sample and…. boo hoo ….no American Indian in mine. BUT I discovered I have lots of Irish….WHO KNEW????  Now I know Grandma fibbed or was misled herself.

Since I was updating this piece I thought it was appropriate to add “LOVE LIFE”.  This morning as an afterthought I googled “Claddagh”.  “The hands are symbolizing friendship, the heart, love, and the crown, loyalty.  They have also become a symbol of the Irish pride, icon of the Celtic heritage of people around the world.  WHO KNEW?  So my Irish heritage has bloomed in serendipity.  If Cathy doesn’t take this for the gallery, maybe I should keep it in celebration of my new found identity!