After some silly banter about monkey spiders with fellow oddball Keith Busher (of Precious Mutations), the topic of flying monkeys arose, and I remembered that I had this fairly ugly clay bead that would be the perfect focal bead for a winged monkey spider, matching the colors of the monkey vest in the Wizard of Oz movie to a T. What is Dorothy without her ruby slippers, Glinda without her pink bubble and starry wand, or Dorothy's walking companions without their deepest desires for a brain, a heart, and courage? Why, nothing of course. So it is with great excitement that I introduce the creepiest of my Oz spiders.
The real story of where the winged monkeys come from in L. Frank Baum's original stories about Oz, as described on Wikipedia, is this:
The Winged Monkeys were once a free people, living in the forests of Oz. They were carefree, but rather mischievous. One day the King of the Winged Monkeys, as a prank, tossed a richly dressed man into a river, ruining his costume of silk and velvet. The man, whose name was Quelala, was good natured enough, but his fiancée, a sorceress named Gayelette was furious, and punished the Winged Monkeys by making them the slaves to the Golden Cap she had prepared as a wedding present for her betrothed. The cap allows its possessor to command the winged monkeys three times.Quelala used the Golden Cap only once, commanding the Winged Monkeys to stay away from Gayelette. Eventually the cap fell into the hands of the Wicked Witch of the West, who used the Winged Monkeys to conquer the Winkie Country, defeat the Great Oz, and capture Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion, destroying the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman in the process.After the witch was melted, Dorothy took the cap and used it. The first time, she commanded the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her companions to the Emerald City. Then she asked them to carry her home to Kansas, but they could not, thus resulting in her wasting the cap's charm. Her third request was to carry her and her friends over the mountain of the Hammer-Heads. Clockwise from top: Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Glinda, Elphaba, and Dorothy.Dorothy finally gave the cap to Glinda, who ordered the monkeys to carry Dorothy's companions back to their homes in Oz, and then to cease to bother people. She then gave them the cap as their own to free them.Materials: clay bead, blue rondelle bead, blue/white swirl bead, various blue bugle beads and seed beads, Tim Holtz metal wings, blue wool yarn, pewter and aqua blue wire