Love is Love 

Love is a universal human experience.  When people share a deep attachment and affection it is love in whatever form it takes. And, don’t we need more love in this moment?

I started this series in the springtime to be launched in June, Pride month, but really, it’s for every day, every month, every year.  So cheers to love and to you and yours and love however you celebrate it.

This series is painted over three slabs of clay.  First I stamped LOVE many times and then made little heart impressions with a candy roller from the 1800s. Next, I painted colorful circles in the order of the rainbow colors - because rainbows!! What a great symbol for all kinds of diversity.  Finally, I airbrushed Love is Love in black and again in red. 

I cut dots cookie-cutter style; this time I used two sizes of circles and some little stars.  These dots are the first to be made into bolo-style necklaces/ties rather than bracelets.  Every dot is numbered so that the wearer can find where it came from on the original slab.  All the dots are a small piece of the larger picture.  We are all a piece of a larger picture. (Process photos below)

A note on rainbows.  I love them!  In second grade, I suggested Rainbows as the name for my soccer team and as I remember, it won in an almost unanimous vote.  I had rainbow sheets in middle school and a rainbow on my first key chain when I got my drivers license. I drew rainbows on everything from plates to notebooks, and collected rainbow stickers and used a rainbow leather tool on crafts.  And of course I loved to go out into my culdesac and find one in the sky on a sunny, rainy day.

Some perspective here, as a Gen X-er, rainbows were just rainbows when I was a kid.  In the late 1970s, Gilbert Baker, designed the rainbow flag as a symbol of the gay rights movement in San Francisco.  It took years to gain nationwide attention.  I was a young adult when I heard about the Rainbow Flag.  By then, my rainbow sheets and key chain were long gone. It was time for rainbows to take on a fresh meaning for me.  This beautiful sight in nature, now symbolizing of all kinds of love.