The story behind The Dolphin Studio’s 2024 December image…. Told my the artist
I got started as a used-clothing recycling artist/designer back in the 1980s. Over the years people have given me the loveliest of textiles… family heirlooms… handmade wedding dresses, hand embroidered crisp linen napkins with family’s initials stitched in. Handmade lace tablecloths made by Italian grannies, intricately crocheted doilies… and the like.
Preservation is not my response, preferring to cut-up, reconfigure and make useful those sacred family fabrics to be appreciated, worn, and celebrated.
That was until my M-I-L passed away in 2023 and I wound up with her grandmother’s handmade lace tablecloth. It was treasured and carefully packed to travel from Germany before 'carry-ons' were a thing.
It is not possible for me to cut it… and I didn’t want it to go another minute unseen or appreciated…
I love growing flowers - plants in general but especially flowers. My Irish dad spent hours nurturing, tidying, planting, weeding, and designing his flower beds, donning our home with fresh-cut flowers for as many months as the weather allowed. Dancing color explosions and sweet, spicy, sometimes peppery waft are etched in my memory.
In the dead of winter when the world is resting beneath the surface, Amaryllis burst into action filling space with their unbelievably regal display of gloriousness. My dear friend Peggy is an avid gardener and professional landscape designer of the most magical sort.
She gives me an Amaryllis each year that is usually just a little smaller than my head. I keep them going from year to year… They are my winter faeries who hide away between their annual stellar wintertime performances.
I drew an Amaryllis, filling the tall format of our calendar and decided to turn that drawing into our December image…. We used Lucy and Violet’s great-great-grandmother's handmade lace tablecloth to create the stencil for the lace curtain part of this print. It was a joy to shine light on our family heirloom and celebrate the handwork of our ancestors from my both sides of my kids' family together with this image.
Did you notice three highlighted dates this month? Three people in my immediate family celebrate birthdays this month! My birthday is on the 12th (which just happens to be the day this post is published), then my sweet hubby, Chris, on the 15th and Lucy on the 17th. Ben was born on November 23 so 4 of the 5 of us are Sagittarians...
It is really a blessed life - thank you, dear reader, for being part of it.
Stephen Spencer
December 13, 2024
This is a beautiful story and a beautiful calendar page for December. I loved how you used your grandmother’s lace to make the print.
My wife pointed out that the petals in the lace reminded her of poinsettia petals. Is that a coincidence, or was this a holiday tablecloth?