Allan Appel Photo
Shakeera Mitchell and Ceeonna Covington with their creations.
Pink and sparkling peace signs. Hearts of many colors including a tiny black one surrounded by butterflies. A cryptic expression — “YOLO” — and a secret date: 7.22.13
Those were some of the designs and messages that appeared in the community room of the Wilson Branch Library Tuesday afternoon as a dozen kids from the nearby Boys and Girls Club summer camp dropped by to bedazzle.
Trinity Willet and Laniya Flagler test the hot glue gun, which makes the dazzle adhere.
The campers and their counselors are regular visitors at Wilson, said branch librarian John Jessen, who organized “Bedazzle.”
The afternoon activity during the last hour of the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. camp day was supposed to focus on bedazzling, or adorning with sparkling beads and other decorations, a pair of your old shoes, thus transforming them into high art, or the art of high fashion.
Unfortunately, none of the campers brought shoes except the ones they were wearing, which were off limits because they had to be worn home.
So T — shirts sufficed for the bedazzling, which various dictionaries define as being so brilliant as to lead to a kind of artistic confusion and even momentary blindness, aesthetically speaking.
Quite a challenge for these 11- to 14-year-old girls. Even for campers like Destiny Furlow who attend the Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School.
Destiny was working from a purple T‑shirt grabbed from a bunch at the club and toted to the library. A thin young dancer, she could have fitted four of her selves into the garment. No matter; she set to work first by taking white fabric paint and carefully printing “7.22.13” at the upper left across from a printed insignia. How would she would cover that? She thought she might solve with a patch of baby blue felt to be glue-gunned on later.
Destiny at first would not reveal the significance of the date.
In the meantime, her table mate, Gabby McWilliams, also a Betsy Ross student, had written out in pencil the word “YOLO.”
That’s what she intended to put on her T‑shirt and bedazzle around it with circles, stars, butterflies, and other beads from the containers that Jessen and his assistants distributed.
Asked her what “YOLO” meant, she carefully wrote out more letters beneath each letter, so that it now read, up and down: You Only Live Once.
Ceeona said her heart was black because red or pink would not good on lavendar; she also got permission from her mom to cut into a fringe the bottom of the tank top.
And what did that mean to her?
“Like you only live once. Do your best, and don’t go to prison,” she answered.
After Gabby’s explanation, Destiny relented and explained her own choice of message: 7.22.13 is the date that has changed her life, the date she decided she is going to become a professional dancer and when she started taking private lessons to make the dream a reality.
None of the kids was able to finish before their moms came to pick them up. It was okay for them to return tomorrow, or at the next opportunity, to finish bedazzling.