PENRHYN LOVE

We sailed to the remote northern island outpost of Penrhyn Atoll in the Cook Islands and were inspired to connect with the school in Te Tautua village for a mosaic project. I wasn’t sure what we’d create, but their ‘theme’ for the month was ‘love,’ so a simple heart motif was an easy and obvious choice. There were about 25 kids ranging from 4-17, so I split up the layers of the heart so they’d each have the ability to find a space to mosaic (a lot of love to go around!). To save time, I filled in the ‘background’ with white shells (between their decorated rings) while back on our boat, Allora. The students were just eager and brilliant! At one point, one of them told me that the red seeds that I’d collected in French Polynesia were actually called, ‘lucky seeds’, that they eat them and that they were lucky I was there!

26” x 32”

Materials: Shells, Paua, Lucky Seeds, Coral (found ashore), Fly tying materials, Sea Urchins, Smalti, Operculum, Smalti, Vitreous, Gold,