First, get an idea.

Shape the cement board.

Choose a piece of mirror.

Glue on the mirror with special glue.

Smear Stucco all over the shapes and let dry three days.

Paint with outdoor paint.

    That is the simple version of how I created these eggs.  I gave one to my mother.

    "Oh my God, Suzanne,  that is gorgeous!" she gushed.  "You are so talented."  There is a catch in her throat as she realizes how successful I could have been and she wants to lament my lost life.  

    "Everyone is going to want one of these.  Nancy, will be pleading for one. You could really sell these."

     "Sorry, Mom, but I only made two and I have no desire to make more.  I'm not a factory. "

     "Well, I'll just have to be sure Nancy doesn't see this.  I guess I should thank you for giving me one.  They are really beautiful sparkling in the sunlight."

      "I know you like sparkles, Mom.  That's why I made one for you."

       Can  I explain how I am not a craft person?  I do art because it is alchemy - it is the act of creation itself that calls to me.  Finding the way to make an idea into something real that you can touch and see.  I like to share my Art with a capital A but I don't want to go into production mode.  I have tried that.  I have created many lines of items and just need to get a production line going and start cranking them out.  I did art shows, craft fairs and my environment is usually full of projects in progress.  I stop at becoming monetarily successful at what I do and that makes my mom crazy.  I like that.

    It struck me today that this is the same reason I do not want to lose weight.  It would be something that my mom would glow over.  Oh, I can just hear her going on and on about how good I looked.  That is something that makes me ill.  I have a thing about pleasing her.  It is a passive agressive behavior that is unseemly in an adult.  

    I am trying to be an Artist.  That would make me someone who explores the nature of reality and experiments with our perceptions. That is the reason I enjoy writing too.  Unfortunately I get ideas that are symbols like eggs.  This series started out as a seed concept, a call to Spring.  I try hard to go beyond this kind of cutsie art.  Art with a capital A makes you stop and think.  Craft is cutsie stuff that your mother wants you to make copies of and market to her friends.  

    We went to a cutsie farm today.  I could sell my eggs there.  Put them in cartons and hang them up with price tags dangling.  It was a beautiful spot.  If I was a good daughter I would mingle there and be part of the group.  Contribute to the good of the marketplace.Maybe I'm just lazy but the thought of making hundreds of eggs deadens me. Maybe I don't need the money bad enough.

  A fairy garden, coffee spot and lots of people milling around.  I skirted the farm and went thru the Sweet Pea Maze.  We loved the fountains and Wisteria Arbor.  It was a marketplace and we didn't spend a dime.  We probably won't go back.

   It made me think of the Monet gardens outside of Paris.  Giverny.  He painted the light and was a cantankerous old fellow with a house full of paintings.  He painted with flowers, putting them in long rows of color that defied the formal plan for a garden.  He transcended reality and in turn he gave us a fresh view of our world and explored in depth what this stuff that we see all around us is made of and what it can become. Artists still flock to this site because of the spirit he left there.  It was not a place for cutsie art.

      I guess what I am saying is that I may not be a success in the eyes of my mother and her inability to understand what being a real artist requires is something that has always held me back.  "Artists are crazy." was one of her frequent laments.  Yes, Mom, I am crazy.  I put my hands in boxes of cut mirrors and enjoy the reflection of my flesh in the shards.  I'm not afraid of a little blood on my Art.  In fact that makes it all that much richer. 

         I keep trying to go beyond craft to Art and it is a long journey. The eggs are pretty dam cute.  I do not mean to denigrate craft or my mother.  Good workmanship is a worthy goal.  But so is exploring the physics of our world and trying to transform this earthly existence into something that we have never thought of before.  Something original.  Beyond eggs.  Beyond Easter. Beyond Mother Earth.  To the eternal renewal of life itself in spite of all odds.