Threads of Gold

"Threads of Gold is an annual arts educator professional development workshop and student art exhibition reaching 300 teachers and over 200,000 students across Houston. Threads of Gold is inspired by gold - the symbol color for childhood cancer awareness, and a material laden with symbolic significance across cultures and history." That quote comes from thefarisfoundaton.org website.

I had the privilege of collaborating with an art educator who wanted to use underwater photography as a medium for art education and to highlight the Threads of Gold project for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September. I didn't realize at the time that the photos we captured would help illustrate the journey each family must travel when dealing with childhood cancer.

Together, we chose long lengths of golden tulle, scattered with tiny glinting star-shaped sequins and pinpoint metallic dots to help frame her in a halo of light and fabric. She wanted to pose using the Lyra hoop in the pool for support. Underwater, fabric moves gracefully like smoke or liquid light. We draped the fabric over the Lyra hoop, allowing it to flow and billow with the water, and weighted the end with dive weights touching the bottom of the pool. This allowed her to move in, through, and around the hoop, using the fabric to weave with her poses. The surface light caught the sequins so the entire veil seemed to sparkle faintly, like a scatter of stars suspended underwater. The effect softened the hard metal circle of the hoop and framed her in a weightless golden cloud.

For her wardrobe, we chose a gold metallic bodysuit from my client closet. The light bounced off her metallic suit, adding a sense of slow, dreamlike motion to her poses.

Look at the hoop first. It's a hard, unbending circle of steel, and it doesn't give, an dit doesn't care. For families facing childhood cancer, the diagnosis feels a lot like that: a cold ring that suddenly surrounds everything.

Life inside that circle gets heavier and slower, like moving underwater. You hold on. You learn to stay still when you have to.

Every breath becomes something you notice.

Now look at the gold.

On its own, a single thread of that fabric is almost nothing, sheer and fragile and easy to miss. But it keeps arriving.

A nurse who remembers a child's favorite song.

A neighbor who drops off dinner.

A stranger who donates, shares, or simply shows up.

Thread by thread, the gold wraps around the steel.

Until the circle no one chose becomes something softer. Something that holds.

And those tiny stars stitched into the fabric? Those are the kids: the brave and the bright.

They are woven into this cause forever, including the ones in our hearts.

What drags a family down is the same water that lifts the gold, if there are enough threads to hold.

One thread is fragile. Thousands of threads hold a child up.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is every September. I was proud to be able to help the teacher with her Threads of Gold art project. This is a wonderful example of collaborating with clients.

If you have a special project or idea you'd like to collaborate on, reach out and let's work together to create beautiful art

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Threads of Gold

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