Clara Bow was born in 1905. Bow’s young life was fraught from the beginning. Her mother underwent a high risk pregnancy in order to have Clara. Unfortunately when her mother was in the last weeks of pregnancy there was an enormous heat wave in New York City, and of the day she was born Bow said, "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life."
Her father was kind and gentle, had “all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't...everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling"” He loved her mother but, according to Bow, this adoration was not returned, and it wounded him.
Well, it can be difficult to be in a relationship with someone who has untreated psych issues due to a traumatic brain injury she sustained as a teenager. Her mother suffered from seizures afterward, and behavioral changes as well. Little Clara learned early on how to take care of her mother during a seizure, and, in a way that breaks my heart, would say that her mother could be mean to her but “didn’t mean it”. I don’t know what therapy was like back then for TBI; more likely that there wasn’t any, and the patients were seen as belligerent, crazy or even possessed. Either way, her mother’s condition was left untreated, which led to some harrowing experiences for Bow. One night she awoke to a knife to her throat, held by her mother. Bow’s movie career was just gaining steam and her mother saw this, and decided that Bow would be better off dead. Bow escaped the attack and later on her father locked her mother into a sanitarium. Sarah Bow died at 43 from a seizure; Clara was reportedly so upset at the funeral that she tried to jump into the grave with her mother. I imagine that after taking care of her mother her whole life it must have felt like the roles had been switched, as if Clara was losing a daughter.
As a child Bow was a tomboy who was made fun of for not having the right clothing, or having much at all. She turned to violence and eventually could “lick any boy in the yard” (so much more of a Might makes Right era than today!). Her childhood was marred by another severe incidence of violence when a boy who was her friend burned to death right in front of her. Later on people would be amazed at Bow’s ability to cry on cue, but after reading all this I’m not surprised at all that she could call up tears at any time.
Bow’s first crack at fame came when she was 16 years old and she entered an acting contest held by a magazine publication. She won, only token gifts at first (gown, trophy). But she kept after them about getting an acting job, and finally was given a bit part in a small picture.
Even before her most famous movie, It, critics were taken with this sincere, bubbly little star. They commented often on her ability to become the characters, to be real and to have the ability to call up any emotion at a moment’s notice. (“Rehearsals sap my energy,” she once said; “just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”)
When I was thinking of Clara Bow while coming up with my jewelry piece, I was thinking that I would make it somewhat feminine but not too much; as a former tomboy myself I know what it’s like to both admire and have the urge to turn away from ultra-feminine things.
With that in mind, I kept pink and red out of it. The base frame is handmade out of copper wire; accent wires are in gunmetal finish. I’ve attached a large blue trumpet flower for the focal point, then smaller blue and white flowers to fill it in. A small blue glass dangle hangs from the bottom. I’ve hung the whole thing on a large-looped gunmetal finish chain. You can see the Etsy listing here.
Do you think she’d like it? Is it “It” enough? I hope that she would find it sincerely beautiful and real, because those were the feelings I had while I was making it.
Thanks for taking the time to read. If you like this piece, please check out my shopsat Etsy and Handmade Artists.