Shattered

This week's theme at the Butterfly Effect is "Broken Pieces"

It's easy to feel fractured in this modern life of ours.  There are so many things that demand our attention, and so many roles we play in our own life and the lives of others.

When I'm creating, I feel calm and peaceful and whole - which only serves to emphasize the areas in my life where I'm not quite as content, furthering this feeling of being fragmented.

Of course one of the things I do best (and perhaps all women do best) is hold all those pieces together with a smile on my face, even when I'm being pulled in a bunch of different directions.

This piece started with a collage sheet I made months ago and never used. I'd layered dozens of squares of paper (some of my painted papers combined with scrapbook paper and book pages)

I also had a series of self portraits I took last year - close-ups of portions of my face.  I printed them and layered them into an approximation of my head.  I cut the whole collage into pieces and linked them back together with jump rings.  I attached a string to each of the pieces and "installed" it on the wall with the strings wrapped around push pins.  I think I might find an empty frame and  tie the edges of the collage to the edges of the frame - maybe with fishing line so it looks like it's floating.  not sure.

Here are a few detail shots:

Now I'm off to the Butterfly Effect to see how everyone else has interpreted this theme.