Tree of Life Quilled Marriage Certificate

Here's a marriage certificate I quilled for a couple late last fall. The bride-to-be contacted me to create a novel design that would be a surprise for her fiancé on their wedding day. We considered a variety of ideas and she decided on a tree of life. She said they both love vibrant colors and had decorated their home in greens and purples; in fact, they would be wearing green and purple for the wedding! The leaves were quilled in shades of green and the outlined trunk was deep purple.

Riva Brown of Living Letters Studio hand lettered the lyrics of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" and drew signature lines where the guests would sign as a pledge of support for the couple in their marriage.

I enclosed a signed provenance paper to be kept with the certificate or separately. A provenance gives details of an art piece - who commissioned it, created it, when, where, and in this case, a brief history of quilling. Sometimes it is placed behind the document inside the frame - a nice surprise perhaps, to whomever reframes the piece and finds it... oh, maybe fifty or a hundred years from now!