Brooches made from crazy carpet, a late update from January

I made some brooches using a crazy carpet this winter

Every year during Quebec Carnavale, a winter celebration, there are a few parallel events. One is the Révengence des Duchesses.

During the Carnavale de Québec, from 1955 to 1996, there was a contest held to find the queen for the mascot, the Bonhomme du Carnavale. Seven duchesses were voted on, taken from the population and representing different neighbourhoods. All young, attractive girls, it was essentially a beauty contest, and has returned with a less beauty focused attitude in the last couple of years (though all the girls still seem to fit a particular mold…).

The Revengence des Duchesses is a reaction to this. Anyone can be a Duchess, young, old, male, female, the organisation aims to put ”the content before the container” and I love the message.

Every year they have an exhibition at the Musée Nationale des Beaux Arts and an auction to help raise money, they ask local artists to create pieces out of crazy carpets. If you’re not familiar then you are not from Canada, or anywhere in North America with snow. A crazy carpet is a piece of plastic that is used to slide down snowy hills, they cost about five dollars or less, are essentially uncontrollable, don’t protect you from anything, and I bet everyone here has great memories of using them.

I made a series of three brooches in the shape of flowers using two different crazy carpets. I built up a form using cardboard and plaster, cut the crazy carpets into strips and glued them onto the forms before adding more plastic and painting them.

I made the brooch backs using powder coated copper and sterling silver. I threaded wire soldered onto the brooch bottoms through the center of the flowers and added the pearls.

These brooches were all auctioned off, but they can be available as a special order. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any requests!