This new work in progress is the second and larger spherical moon that I have attempted. The first, You Promised Me the Moon, was in memory of my late husband Lindsay. I didn’t plan to create another such sculpture. In fact, while completing the quite different Head in the Clouds (2024) and considering what I might embark upon next, I explored many other possibilities…though my escapist tendencies continually drew me back to the Moon.
In the end, I quit resisting and acquired a 5-inch wooden sphere. I methodically cut up, stretched, and glued on the piece of fabric that eventually was used to anchor the beadwork. (A single string of beads was stitched down to encircle the moon’s “equator.” There are no other attachments.) One day, as I sketched on imagined lunar craters, Billie Holiday’s “Blue Moon, You Left Me Standing Alone” began to play, demanding that my sculpture take that name and coloring. What choice did I have?
On December 26, 2024, I finally picked up needle and thread and began bead-working. That day, my mother (aged 99), went into the hospital. Sadly, she drifted away a few days later. Similarly to the lyrics of the song, this sculpture began in sadness and was followed by joy. The joy I have in the memories of Mom.
Blue Moon (You Left Me Standing Alone)
Glass seed beads and thread, worked in peyote stitch over cloth-covered wooden ball
Diam.: approximately 5″
Available for purchase
Below are views of Blue Moon when it was in progress. The slightly discolored and pale smooth area, at the top, is an exposed patch of the underlying cloth, on which I sketched the moon’s surface features. (NOTE: All the beads are of roughly the same size. Any 3D appearance is achieved by shading, alone.) The view showing my hand is intended to give a sense of scale.
Leslie B. Grigsby Beadwork 