Opal
Opal
Opal
Opal
Opal

Opal, 2013

Created from a picnic basket, a vintage dress, plants collected at the Nature Conservancy’s Santa Fe Canyon Preserve, and dried flowers from the Santa Fe Farmers Market.

One morning while creating this dress, I awoke with the following poem in my head.

More and more, the spirits of the land
felt forgotten by humans,
and before they disappeared altogether
they decided to make themselves seen.
So branches, flowers and seeds
wove themselves together
and created a sprite to say:

As you pollute the air, the water, the soil,
as you cause plants and animals to die away
as you change the very earth itself
DON’T FORGET US.
While you live your lives–
dancing, working, singing, loving, praying–
remember our wildness in yourselves!

Nancy Judd, 2013

Watch this short video and read the blog post about creating Opal to see more photos and learn details about how this piece came to be.

Kevin and Jennifer Box purchased Opal and have generously loaned her to me to display in public locations to spread her word of environmental stewardship.