In memoriam

This is a really crummy photo of two beads I altered in memory of two of our young cats that died in 2006. Vitis, the whiter cat, was killed in a hit-and-run and Svisston, the blacker one, died of disease a few days later. Their sister is still alive. Randa almost suffered the same faith as Vitis a couple of years later, but after being nowhere to be found, she came home on the fourth day after the accident and today she has fully recovered. (You can read the whole story about her accident here.)

I wanted to create something special to remember them by. In this case I ended up takin two 10 mm peruvian ceramic beads in the shape of cats, one white and one black, which I then painted with acrylics. Using a photo as reference, I managed to make the generic cat beads turn into indviduals very much alike their models.

Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do them justice: the close-up magnifies the details of the brushstrokes and the light and shadows are too harsh. Still, I wanted to show this photo as an example of how a beader can create keepsakes to remember beloved pets that has passed on. These beads still hang, together with the heart-shaped photo locket, above my bed.