Flame Banner

Time to dig out an old but fun project, and subject it to public ridicule: Flame Banner, from 1995, rebuilt slightly in 2003. A very few people might have seen the early version of this hanging in the 1995 DragonCon art show (or maybe 1996, I don’t remember.)

Dimensions: approx. 60 h” x 11 w”

Materials: cotton, linen, acrylic paint, acrylic fabric medium, cotton embroidery thread, 1/8″ satin ribbon, rock crystal, freshwater pearl, glass beads, oak, high-strength beading wire.  

Techniques: handpainted yellow flame cutout applique on black linen. Hand-embroidered inside flame with white and yellow thread, outside flame with cobalt, green, and turquoise thread designs. Embellished with freshwater pearls, rock crystal beads, and glass beads. Edges finished with seam binding, beaded ribbon fringes, and large rock crystal beads.

Inspiration: heraldic design from my original fiction. Yes, there’s a dragon head in there, as well as a braided flame.

Also: I may have been fangirling quite a bit at the time over C.S. Friedman’s incredible Coldfire Trilogy, and her gorgeously sensual descriptions of costumes and artifacts.

Excuse: because I could.  And because I once had this ridiculous fantasy of having the piece hanging at a book signing or an SCA event. I eventually left the SCA, and the authenticity police would have frowned on this piece anyway. I found out how real book signing events go. I silenced my clueless inner original-fiction cosplay fangirl in favor of the equally-clueless but slightly more with-it mainstream artist. I changed the original fiction so much the heraldry no longer applies.

So the banner is now an artifact without a history, which I actually find more interesting.