Aqualien is a music festival totem designed to be a beacon of light that reunites friends in a crowded place. My past two totems I used a Halloween decoration as the inspiration so this year I chose a cauldron because I had seen all these kits where you could glue lights and plastic ornaments on a cauldron as a decoration and I thought that would be perfect to use as a base.

Then I started searching for random figurines on Amazon that could potentially go on top and eventually found this garden statue of an alien mermaid! It was fate.

Ideas kept coming to me especially at night and legit kept me from sleeping. Like the idea to bedazzle a tiny cowgirl hat with cow print and glue lights to the bottom which unexpectedly turned out looking like a ufo on her head which made me so happy 🤓

I had a ton of little charms from my jewelry making days including tiny potion bottles that I filled with tequila and edible glitter and added them to the bubbles.

She was finally done and we took her to ACL and the first compliment I got was “oh she’s a vibe” and yes. Yes she is. People were obsessed with her all weekend and she brought so much joy to the festival. It made my heart soar. I especially loved all the little girls who looked at her with hearts in their eyes and all the fellow crafters who said “that took a lot of work to make” Thank you for seeing me 😍

Aqualien is me. I too am a mermaid alien cowgirl sitting in her magical disco cauldron spaceship just living my best life. She is me and she is you 🖤