GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) -- As Grand Rapids gears up for ArtPrize, one of the largest art festivals in the country, hundreds of pieces of artwork are beginning to fill venues across the city.
Among them is a life-sized female skeleton encrusted with thousands of donated pieces of jewelry.
The work, titled No Ordinary Love, comes from London-based artist Elizabeth Eade, who traveled nearly 4,000 miles to showcase her creation during her first-ever visit to Grand Rapids.
Over the past year, Eade received letters and packages from nearly 1,000 women across the world. Each delivery contained jewelry, sequins, rhinestones or trinkets -- items once tied to moments of love, grief, joy or memory. A belly button piercing once belonged to a woman's late best friend. An heirloom wedding tiara, a mother's necklace, engagement rings, beads and brooches are all featured.
"All these things were once given with love and received with love," Eade said. "All the stories ... I felt so responsible for people sending stories to me and how I was actually going to do them justice."
Each object in the piece carries emotional weight -- from 24-karat gold and diamonds to plastic pearls and worn metal. Eade even added a few of her own: her great-great-grandmother's keepsake, ballet dancer charms from her aunt and tiny bumblebees once worn by her mother.
"I wanted to make something that was about all of us," Eade explained. "This piece has all sorts of things. It does have some sort of valuable pieces on it; it has a lot of pieces that aren't worth anything except for in the story and this is about stories. It's not about worth as in diamond worth, it's about worth as in our memories, how we feel as human beings, what our life's composed of."
Eade said it was only fitting to debut No Ordinary Love, a communal creation, at ArtPrize -- a festival rooted in community.
No Ordinary Love will be on display starting Thursday at The Art of Life NOW Gallery on Division Avenue.