This was a pretty big and complicated piece, for me. I'd never done a fan before, just beaded single feathers. Steve sent me the eagle feathers (with the requisite permit-it's illegal to have eagle feathers in your possession unless one is Native American, and has a permit), and fan handle and told me to go for it. I wanted to make something that reflected, but didn't exactly copy the traditional feather fan. Part of the work, straightening the feathers a bit was definitely a first for me, and was a bit scary, but the methods outlined in David Dean's book worked.
I did some threadwork on the feather shafts, beaded the handle, and decided to do a definitely untraditional motif on the wider part of the fan handle.
I added wild dove feathers to the front, to symbolize peace, and fringe to the bottom of the handle.
I hope this is something he likes, but if not, it can be redone...it's only beadwork, after all. :-)
2 comments:
Beautiful! And having beaded a rattle handle, I KNOW how long this took you to do!
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