Inspiration: Love

I had to study Latin at school and one of the few things I remember (apart from that I really like the design of their villas) was that they have multiple words for love.  It introduced me to the idea that there are different types of love and that it is not understood in a universal way.  After all, love is a luxury in a relationship if you just need to survive but a necessity between parents and children for the next generation to prosper.

When I was younger, I had a very idealistic, romantic view of love.  I think I assumed passion and love went together indefinitely as well.  I have been with my husband for nearly two decades and  that first flush of romance and passion has settled into something warm and deep, comfortable yet fun.  I still love romance though and it's one of my favourite genre of books.  I understand now that those first heady flushes are not sustainable, it's a transient feeling, but I would rather have what I have now than hunt for greener grass, because the hunt would never be finished.

I see us growing old together and remaining happy.  It's hard to envision life without him and tricky to remember what it was like before we met.  I suspect things would have shifted if we had had children, but we never did.  We have always been able to prioritise our relationship so we have not grown apart.  We both have our own hobbies and friends that relate to our interests.

Roses are great symbols of love and the background to my love design was designed using petals...  but not from Roses.  Roses don't blossom in February without help but Camelias do.  In Cornwall, we have an unusual climate for the UK and camelias grow well here.  They actually seem to have very similar symbology to roses and the different colours have similar meaning.

I like to take one of my photos with some nice texture and colour and blow it up, turn it in to a piece of beadwork using software and then pick bits I like and play with them to create abstract designs.  The camelia was largely red but the shadows came out more maroon.  When I came to bead it, the maroon and deep reds did not translate well at all.  I didn't like it.  I played with the colours extensively before settling on rich purples with more red than blue tones and some beads with hints of magenta.

I really adore how it turned out in the end, but its hard to photograph.  Many of the pink tints come from AB finishes and I just have not found how to get these to show well, yet.

But I like the idea of love being red, purple and pink more than I like it being red and darker red.  It feels more balanced, more representative of the wide range of feeling love includes...  well kind of, I don't think it represents some of the gentler forms of love, familial for instance.  It would need more white and yellow.  But its a Valentine's pattern really, so I guess it never needed to cover the whole range!