Forbidden Love

Dear Diary,

This is the finished project I made in the Artful messages class at Art Unraveled. It was a great class. One of my favorites. Our teacher was just delightful! The class was taught by Olivia Thomas. She is from the Phoenix area. I deviated from her supplies and instead of using felt for the back, I painted a doily I purchased at Merchant's Square. I loved painting and stamping the fabric. We started with a plain muslin piece of fabric and la-de-da-ed it up with different colors of paint and then used black and white as an accent color for stamps.

I call this piece Forbidden Love. I have had forbidden love on my mind lately. My alma mater used to be an all girls college but twenty years ago they started letting "smart men" attend (Court Order). The current president of the university has been rallying for a name change. She and a panel decided on two possible new names for the University. She unveiled these names August 10. Neither of them include "for Women". Most of the Alumni have been up in arms about the idea of a name change. This topic has monopolized the letters to the editor for a long time.

When I attended, it was just girls. I had heard and read about that form of forbidden love but thought that kind of stuff just happened in places like California (Not that there is anything wrong with it). There were several different types of "desire" running rampant on that campus. It was the 70's. Most of us did desire to get a quality education but also wanted to find our heart's desire whether it be the P.E. major down the hall, Our good looking English Professor, a lieutenant from the Air Force Base or a future alcoholic wife beater from the local bar. I don't know where I am going with this except to say that when I saw the picture of the two women, the idea for this all came together in my head. I especially like the back made from the doily. It has a rose embroidered on it. Shakespeare's quote about the rose will be added to the back as soon as I can get a toner copy of it to transfer to muslin. I thought that would be the perfect quote for all of this hoopla about the name change. What is in a name? It will still be my former university even if the name is changed. I'll have the same fuzzy memories and quality education as before but the name of the university on my diploma will be obsolete.