Flower people dancing to a mambo beat -- another journal spread

Another month, another journal spread in my first Round Robin experience. The theme for this month's journal is "I love this quote because…"

At first I was flummoxed. I do write down quotes I like, but they're usually not inspirational or uplifting. More ironic and existential -- and not so easy to turn into a colorful collage. 


The other spreads in the journal are uniformly positive. I didn't want to "harsh the mellow," as my husband would say. So I chose a favorite song lyric:

Green grass grows around the backyard shithouse,

That is where the sweetest flowers bloom. 

We are the flowers growing in God's garden,

That is why He spreads the shit around. 

-- David Byrne, "Cowboy Mambo"  

The theology may be simplistic, but the tropical beat is definitely advanced. (Listen here.) I translated it into this strange -- but not too surreal -- collage.

Tropical flower people in terra cotta pots! The faces come from my 1970's era Simplicity catalog; the fancy foliage and blooms are illustrations from an old indoor plant guide. 

Originally, I planned to make the background out of used coffee filters. I figured the gritty brown stains would look a lot like dirt (yes, dirt -- not that other stuff). But then I remembered the handmade paper I made in a workshop a few years ago out of dried mulberry leaves. The paper is rough and burlap-brown, with wispy edges. I stamped a sheet with green and brown leaves.

I outlined the flower-lady heads in gold, but I'm afraid they still get lost in the busy background. I only used the last two lines from the song -- no need to invite an outhouse into the journal. Still, I'm happy with the way it turned out.