Auction #23: A Hat For The Moon

This cocktail hat is based on Camilla Bruce’s short story, “Berry Moon: Laments of a Muse.” In some ways, it’s a straightforward illustration of the story, which is about the interplay between inspiration and fiction, or more precisely an illustration of the words of the story, which are dense with image and texture and color. The hat is divided, with a clutter of objects – a rose, an origami frog (a crumpled candy wrapper in the story), pebbles – beneath a bent dark red moon caught in a net along with words, mostly pronouns, words devoid of specificity but full of implication in their relation to each other.

All the materials used in making the hat were either recycled or repurposed, just as the muse’s inspiration is repurposed in making fiction. Much of the fabric is recycled from Anita Rowland’s wedding dress, with the rest recycled from a shirt I made a few years ago. The fabric beads wrapped in gold thread and the semi-precious stone beads are from Anna Vargo’s stash; the small semi-precious stones used as cabochons were Elise Matthesen’s (”Here, do something with this,” she said). The origami frog is made from holographic wrapping paper.

The extremely soft-sided fabric box holding the hat is an improvised liner for the utilitarian box, intended to make shipping the hat easier. Sometimes improvisations spin out of control, and that one certainly did. It will serve to protect the hat, as long as the buyer keeps the acid-free paper as padding.

The hat has two toupee clips to hold it on the wearer’s head. They snap open like little snap barrettes, and as long as they are able to grab a few hairs in the combs, they’ll hold the hat on most securely.

Kate Schaefer