Tools & Talismans #1 Christine Haynes
The very first photo I received for my Tools & Talismans series was from seamstress and pattern designer Christine Haynes. I remember looking at the photo and wondering how I was going to pull off painting all that metal in the scissors, and differentiate the gray metal, from the gray shadows. Many shades of gray later, and lots of white space to allow for the "shine" and highlights, I had 3 pairs of scissors and a variety of objects that Christine works with almost everyday.
These items are all precious to me because they are either used daily or because they are from a dear family member. As a seamstress and pattern designer, my scissors at the bottom and my trusty mechanical pencil are used everyday. My life wouldn’t work without them! The other scissors were my late grandma Ruth’s that I inherited when she died, along with the rest of her sewing tools, including the tape measure.
The tin of snaps were my mothers and I remember her using them when she sewed when I was young. Somewhere along the way the tin snuck its way into my sewing tools.
The plastic lady made from beads is one of two similar items I inherited from my late grandma Loretta, and the silver charm is the tag that was wrapped on my late father’s cremation bag of ashes. My mother, brother, and I took it off as we said goodbye for the last time and set him free. —Christine Haynes, author, teacher, and pattern designer
Tools and Talismans is a personal painting project where I’m documenting {in watercolor} the tools and talismans of 100 different women — creators and healers, thinkers and makers, wordsmiths and visionaries. — join me for a year of paintings.