Aerianth and Volath's Clutch, January 2007

The theme for this cluch was "On the Stage". The clutching log can be found here.

Makeup Spill Egg

A collage of color washes over this glowing orangey-tinted egg, leaving stripes of ocean's depths blue, wilting foliage brown and rouge-kissed red amid scribbles of feature-defining black curlicues. Smears and smudges mar any particular shape from standing out, instead resembling a spill across the egg by a rather limited artist's palette. The wider end of the egg even appears to have been stippled with a sponge, leaving a menagerie of hue and value to create the illusion of an artificial beard's waves and depths.

Inspiration: A stage performer's personal makeup kit, complete with base foundation, lip color, eye liner, rouge, eye shadow, stipple sponges for dirt or five o'clock shadows, and fake hair.

Nolee

In the Spotlight Egg

Dark enough to nearly be missed against the black Istan sands, this egg is only distinguishable by it's glossy sheen, and the bright white splotch at it's top. Like a beacon in the night, the white fades down across the shell, disappearing into the darkness at the egg's base. It's rather unremarkable besides the path of white, it's only other features being the rough texture and ovoid shape that define it as an egg.

Inspiration: Inspired by the brilliant beacon of the spotlight illuminating an unlit stage.

Balinne

Stage Fright Egg

Swirls and eddies of dusky brown and beige drift swiftly along and around the contours of this egg. The flowing whirlwind of shifting patterns accented even further by barren valleys and hills following the violent lines of motion. Buried partway in the black sands, this egg gives the illusion of a shimmering orb, its focus centered on whatever gaze wonders at it.

Inspiration: Inspired by the actor's horror, the frozen moment, the beating heart and the forgotten lines: stage fright.

Kaelana

Overstuffed Wardrobe Egg

A number of colors swath this lumpen shell, though it's dominated by antique creams, olives and drab burgundies. More noteworthy is the appearance of texture, as if this patch here - a sandy brown in hue - were shaped from rough canvas, while the patch beside it, dark blood-red, might have been fashioned from fine crushed velvet. Misshapen as it is, there's a sense of having been dashed together in a hurry about this poor egg, almost like a heap of clothes and fabrics were dumped in a pile, and the pile - inspired - took on the form of life.

Inspiration: Inspired by the wreck of fabric and garments in the bottom of a costume closet after a show closes its run. Be thankful it doesn't smell!

V'lano

Tulle on the Twirl Egg

This egg is covered entirely with a fine web-work of tulle. Pale, whisper pinks layer over soft ivories in a decidedly airy and feminine arrangement. The delicate laces gather densely here and ruffle into each other there and seem, in general, to be twisting upward towards a white apex as if the whole egg were frozen in the midst of spinning.

Inspiration: Because plays and musicals aren't the only things that happen on stage, here's an egg based on the classic ballerina tutu.

Griere

Dramatic Mask Egg

A dark and foreboding egg lies separated from the rest. It rests deep in the sands, as if it wishes to escape from view. The base color of the egg is an intense black, darker even than the sands it hides in. However, on the side facing up is a bright white oval with eye-shaped 'holes' in it, making it seem like a large mask has been forgotten out on the sands.

Inspiration: Inspired by theatrical masks.

Amira

From the Rafters Egg

A band of latticed darkness wraps around this egg, the glows of the cavern shining on it giving the illusion of bright lights hanging below it. Staring too long at the surface may give one a sense of vertigo; shadows and shapes meld together and take form, giving a sense of depth as though yards lay beneath the dark band. A sea of dots that could be faces stretch out and disappear under the sands that nestle the egg and a stage takes the center, it's glossy wood floor waiting for the cast emerge.

Inspired by the view from the catwalk.

G'tive

Discarded Bubblegum Egg

While this egg retains the proper ovoid shape of an egg, it's texture and color seem to be trying to fool the eye into seeing it as a more shapeless blob. A dull pink that is tinged with grey, the surface of the egg seems to have a sticky, malleable quality to it. Smaller than the average egg, it lurks amongst some of its brethren as if waiting for someone to accidentally discover it.

Inspiration: Based on that annoying, icky blob of gum you find under seats.

Tzivya

Opening Night Jitters Egg

Flickers and flecks of exuberant colors - red, yellow, green, brown - skitter across the shell of this largish egg. No one hue stands out from the others to provide a moment's rest for the eyes or jangled nerves. Instead each new shade - ruby, olive, violet, fawn - simultaneously blends into and sparks against the next with an eager excitement.

Inspiration: Those last few moments before the curtain opens are always the worst for an actor's nerves. What will the crowd be like? Will the orchestra be in tune? Will I flub my lines again? Will everything just click tonight? What if, what if, what if?

Tolemic

In the Pit Egg

Despite the shroud of darkness covering this egg, action is not entirely hidden from sight. Hints of color can still be seen; the muted skin-tone arrow of a cellist's bent arm points upward, several irregular spots of white cover the middle, fine shirts under black suit jackets. Just below the bent arm a reddish-brown glow of dark wood, caught in the light of a stage light can be seen, and a three-quarter turn reveals bright patches of brass.

Inspiration: The often overlooked orchestra, in the shadows providing the music that helps bring the show to life.

Niklo

A Thousand Burning Lamps Egg

The most obvious thing about this medium-sized egg is, inescapably, its shine. It glows from every angle, each glance yielding a new glare of brilliance, as if myriad crystals hang from golden wires among a thousand burning lamps, each filled with amber oil. Darker spots of burnt umber or warm shadow grays appear and disappear among the light, reflecting the black of the sands nearby, especially around the top of the shell. These mock-shadows create a sense of depth, suggesting a structure not solid, but made of many complex parts - like a chandelier, ready for glorious hanging.

Inspiration: Inspired by the ostentatious crystal chandelier almost every older theatre has, either in the lobby or, in some ill-fated scenarios, in the auditorium itself.

V'lano

Script Egg

The nearly white, matte surface of this rather large egg is liberally peppered with semi-glossy, midnight characters of every seeming shape and size - a veritable field of nonsense words and symbols penned by some unknown hand. As one more closely studies this ovoid for any semblance of meaning to the calligraphy. Whatever work this egg brought forth upon its smooth surface, unfortunately remains hidden and indistinct - subject to individual interpretation and the whims of light and the moment.

Inspiration: This egg is based off of the scripts (paper and ink) from which the actors learn their lines.

Caitlyn

Powdered Wig Egg

Curls and tufts and clouds of white swirl into a mélange of whites; bluish white, saffron white, tufted white, gray-flecked white; all these and more wait to trick the eye. This egg is where the pure unfettered blanched hues meet the dirty messy flecks of powder that seem to speckle this egg from top to curled, er, rounded, bottom. It almost looks as though this one is wearing a precariously balanced powdered white wig, resting on the peach-toned shade of the egg below the pristine white canvas.

Inspiration: The powdered wigs so common in Restoration-era comedies, particularly the works of Marlowe and Moliere, replete with their oily-sheen and the thick crust of baby powder caked onto each clumping strand.

Nolee

Red Velvet Swag Egg

It's a large, solid egg, with a shell that undulates slightly across its big broad sides. The color might make it look more dominating, too; it is an undeniably red egg, a rich, dark velvety shade of dense pile and glistening sheen. The combination of rubies and wine and that odd uneven shell gives the hues a gathered look, like material strung up in luxurious swags.

Inspiration: What's a stage without a curtain? And really, what sort of proper curtain isn't fancy red velvet?

Griere

Honourable Mentions

Unfortunately we weren't able to use every egg we were given; here are the ones that didn't make it to the Hatching Sands:

Anticipative Apprehension Egg

Enshrouded in the veil of a black curtain of sand, barely more then the apex of this egg poke above the surface of the hatching grounds. The ovoid shell making this egg discernible from the sands about it is coloured with a gradual splashing of further highlighted shades of cream and ivory, drawing the eye and forming a harsh contrast with the toneless expanse of sands.

Inspiration: The mixture of excitment and nervousness before a show/play/orchestral thingy.

Kaelana

Into the Woods Egg

A shadowy forest has sprung up on this curving surface, gray and brown branches reaching, twisting high into leaden skies. Though the egg is small, there seem to be people - or things? - here, their figures hidden deep within the forested surface. A flash of red marks the egg's tip, a squirt of white pools at the base. Deep, deeper, deepest within the tangle of branches and trunks, a strand of gold teases the eye, ducking in and out of the trees, shifting from gold to straw to honey-blonde with consummate ease.

Inspiration: Sondheim's "Into the Woods", a musical about fairy tales. There are always princes in fairy tales, always witches and forests and hopes and dreams. What if all of the forests are the same forest? What if there is only one witch? What happens when you finally grasp what you thought you was your heart's desire?

Tolemic

Harlequin Egg

Mottled and speckled, this egg would surely be tossed out to roll down the hill, wobbling on its pointy apex, were it not for a mother's love. Splotched in purple and yellow, with diamonds outlined faintly in vertical lines down one side and up the other--'tis a wonder this harlequin of an egg is tolerated on the dark Istan sands.

Inspiration: One of the commedia dell'arte's beloved stage archetypes is the Harlequin, that mottled and piebald clasher of colors and planner of jests galore. Jester and wise inspiration for Shakespeare's insightful fool characters, Harlequin has been known by many names.

Nolee

You're On Egg

An almost flawless circle of yellow-tinged white crowns the top of this egg, as if it were a spotlight and this was the star of the show. At the edges of the circle it begins to fade off into blue, which gets darker in color until it almost appears black. Speckles of yellow and orange being to appear lower down, sparse at first, nervous, hesitant, and then thoughts and spots are collected and the performance begins in a bright, bold splash of red.

Inspiration: The first line of the show, when the audience falls silent, the spotlight hits the stage, and there's that time of breathless waiting. Then it seems to burst and the performance begins, all in one smooth, sudden moment.

Niklo

Every Hundred Years Egg

Hazy colors fade and blend like smoke in a fog: pale blues and greens, lavenders and greys twine dreamily into a soft mist, almost like being in love. The markings coalesce at the base of this average-sized egg, though a faint angle like a roofline or a running leg, can just be seen through the sheltering clouds. It's impossible to discern where one color ends and the next begins.

Inspiration: "Brigadoon" is a Lerner and Loewe musical first produced in 1947. It tells the story of a mysterious village in Scotland which appears for only one day every hundred years. Two American tourists, lost in the Highlands, stumble upon the village. The original production ran for 581 performances.

Tolemic