All In A Day's Work!

Amazing the things you can do with 14 hours.
I realize I am FAR less amazing than Mother Theresa, Olivia Chow, Alice Munro or Tina Fey. I am far less capable than every soccer mom that ever drove a minivan, and Martha Stewart would drive her BMW X3 over me on her way to the organic pumpkin store. But I have my own accomplishments.
I learned a new recipe, Thank you Swantje, for amazing Banana pancakes. And I made up one. "Vegetarian Garbonzo Bean Creole" You have to be resourceful when the cupboards are bare and you have to eat a balanced meal out of the last dregs of random ingredients available til grocery day.
I made some cool stuff today while  processing food, laundry, and mail. I played  with the dog,  recycled and composted everything that needed to be, had conversations with three of my children, checked in with my dad, talked to both of my brothers, and the nurses station at my moms longterm care facility

Now,  to totally round out the day my husband returned home this evening with  the flu. We all know the when the fella's get sick they're pitiful.  My thesaurus does not provide a sturdy enough extrapolation of the word "drama" to describe the wretchedness of this. ( Upon discovering this frightful fact,  I took a responsible 15 minute walk and returned to disinfected everything  in sight, hopefully to rid my life of my cold and Mike's flu.)
...AND I made all of these pretty things. My trip to Fancy Lucky was wonderful.  Every piece I'd made went right into the gallery...With Easter a month away, I'm stashing egg-stra pretty fuzzy things just in case!

Egg-stravagant colors!

Woolly Springy Thingy's

I'm felting oodles of Easter things, spring things... anything that elicits any shred of proof that Shubenacadie Sam, the groundhog isn't a sadistic furry fibber. He foretold, over 5 weeks ago that winter would soon give way to growth and greenness and warmth. Well Sam, you have 7 days to make an honest gopher of yourself. There is a quarter inch of frost on my apple trees and its -10 so you'd best get on it!

On Tuesday I will visit Fancy Lucky Art and Craft Gallery. It is located  in historic MacDonald House on Lawrencetown Beach. With a house full of surfers, I've been to the site many times but never to "Fancy Lucky". Now I'm embarking on a blind mission to create pieces that might fit a venue I've never visited. Fuel for the task  presented itself in a note on my email via the Saltyhag Studio blog, inviting me to come and bring my work. So I'm felting at spring fever pitch, with the goal to have a broad array of work to put forward.
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A quick photo session netted these lovely results. Above is a sweet little guy that I made just this morning. He has wire armature and is semi pose-able. I love it!! Just below, a true harbinger of spring the Robin, with a nest of lovely eggs. Of course the ornithologists would be non-plussed as the eggs are at a scale a little large for the parent. (didn't assign a gender but the brighter breast would suggest its a male who is sitting on them) so the missus was likely non-plussed too!

Cheer-upp! Spring is coming

The page header is a rainbow of easter eggs in nests. Then for fun we needed a whole warren of easter bunnies. This fellow first. Maybe 4" tall... Then this little cutie... about 5" from nose to tippy toes. The goofy fellow below is quite large. As well, he's a little cartoonish. I may pose him permanently with some sort of prop. He sits about 8" tall.
                                                 
It has been a really busy week. I've experienced "drivenness" this week, I have barely stopped to eat, sleep, clean or groom. My family will stage a protest if this keeps up!!!
All of that focus is just a surprising gift when the task is as much sheer fun as these projects have been. I can't wait to take these to the shop to gather a little feedback. I promise to return soon with many new spring inspired treasures.

Humble Sheep and how I Love Them.

"LaFermiere by Julien Dupis

Don't you love it!  Sheep are the bomb?..the dope?..the new black?...what's the current terminology? I am thinking about these docile ditzy critters and wishing I could convey my thanks. Wool has been the soft cozy epicenter of my existence for over a year now. The fervor with which I throw myself into this work has been surprising, satisfying.  I have been addictively, joyfully engrossed.  The end result, seems to have everyone else smiling too.
Through this past year I've made countless sheep in wool.  In previous  years they were resplendent in papier mache.  ( In fact, my first order with P'lovers in 2007 included 6 pair of rams and ewes. ) Seems fitting to write a retrospective to illustrate where their peaceful pastoral presence has inspired me thus far.

Prototype rugged old 20 year-old sheep

Above was the Sunday school collection sheep back in 1996,  when Seth, my youngest was only three.  (  Alarmingly I think now, his head used to come off and the student's pennies and nickels were dropped inside. ) These two were made some time ago for my brother Robin and his wife Kim. He graciously sent their photos a few days back.

Robin and Kim's flock

As well, I completed four sets of these fellas during my time at the Crafter's Room.

 Lastly this big fella now resides with Sadie's other Grandma, Margot Miller. Imagine explaining to airport security what this was doing in my suitcase!

"Yeah, just lemmie get this..."

When I began needle-felting last year the very first sheep was this big booty-ed white one made from the wool included in my first kit given by my Isaac for Christmas 2012 and some dark fleece given to me by my best buddy Elaine.


She was the first of many, most of which sold at the Crafter's Room where I've been volunteering my time. They were all colors shapes and sizes, very simplistic and very quick to construct, with the most endearing results. Below  is a shot of them in the display at the store.

A varied flock of Crafter's Room sheep.

Also at the store I had an inventory of note cards in pen and ink. Amidst that collection was this lovely sheep.

pen and ink with minimal watercolor wash

In due course my dear brother took a shine to the sheep and increased his collection to two more, another big booty brown and a teeny little pink to go with big mama white. Clearly, these humble ovines persist in bleating their way into my thoughts.

Robin and Kim's flock.

Recently I've rediscovered an amazing resource.  Sara Renzulli,  a needle sculptor in Maryland is gracious enough to instruct on line.  In a quick look back over my blogs,  I found that in fact I'd first enjoyed her work, at www.sarafinafiberart.com,  back in March of last year. A single lesson from this humorous articulate and gifted artist took me from here... 








..to here, in a single day.

So I shall continue this love affair til I've run out of steam,  this last week has been thrilling with the catalyst of a new and boundless resource. I feel as though I'm growing in leaps and bounds. For now there are needles and lots of fleece so I must find the next "something completely different". Back to work!

Cute Iron on patch from company called MT Coffinz

Teaching an Old Dog Some New Tricks

      I've been in a blogging hiatus it seems.  With the opportunity to be juried by a new and prestigious retailer, I have been imagining being seen through their eyes when I make my presentation of pieces created in hopes of seducing their acceptance.  I am prone during times of self-examination to always believe I'll be found wanting. That though often I can  in a million things,  I seldom sit still and thoroughly learn the real "how-to of things.  I'm always too itchy to  go "hands on".

The most recent fruits of my labor.

      That's a good thing according to Einstein, who believed that knowledge can only be achieved through experience. Experiencing new art forms and methods,  however,  often leads me down a rabbit hole of fruitful but lengthy digression.   I have always felt blessed with and innate sense of the creative.   Having a dependable "feel" for things is often to the detriment of actually learning  the true process.  Tried and true rather than trial and error would save time when I have a deadlines and demands.
True to form though, trial and error have been the order of the day these last few weeks as I teach myself to "wet felt",  an exciting departure from the needle-felting that has consumed this last year.  My first few pieces have encouraged me to go on.  Getting a feel for consistency and weight is the challenge so far but here's my very first piece,  a seamless tea cozy.

My first seamless wet-felted tea cozy

      At the onset,  wet-felting affords  much less control so WAY-Y out of my comfort zone. The results  to date have been fantastic! ( Of course I might have more control if I had a full grasp of my teaching videos,..turns out the best ones I've  found are Russian or Scandinavian!  Here's one I love,  even though it's  entirely in another language the girl's face and manner are most endearing..   http://youtu.be/0W2nWsz3irA  (  my favorite moment is at 4:13 when she flips over the piece and says " Chhhhpook!!... )   Anyway,.. I watched the whole video and then I made this!!



      It really has been fun. The next pieces are all tea cozies too.  One piece is a cool seamless spring one to which I will add a needle-felted riot of flowers, butterflies. bees and lady bugs.  I  need a little time to embellish it so I promise to post a photo of  it when it is finished. The other,  a crow/forest design shown below,  is wet felted in two pieces and will be blanket-stitched together.  For now, the journey is always worthwhile.



      Plato stated;  "Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."  Oh, and by the way...wet felting involves oodles of bubble wrap!

Come to my Window, I'll Be Home Soon...

Years ago I had an obsession. It led my kids to believe, on top of my many personality quirks, that I was becoming a crazy birdlady. A throwback to Miss Jane Hathaway from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’. I was lead by an opportunity which arose when my very best friend gave my son, Isaac, a Sibley’s bird guide and binoculars for his 11th birthday. Though as an artist I am continually gob-smacked by every nuance of nature, through Isaac I began yet another new journey into observing the world around me.    We live in rural Nova Scotia and especially in the migratory season, every look through those glasses was fruitful and inspiring. 

      In the meantime, I was hooked. I started a “life list”. I burst with glee whenever I added a new name. I joined a nature Nova Scotia website. Moments, maybe too many, were spent on the porch or just peering out our miriad windows seeing brightly coloured birds that in my time, in this very environment, I had never seen before. There they were swooping in to pose for me. The warblers in spring, what a shock. My first “never before” bird was a Yellow Warbler. It’s body flashed a luminescent yellow-golden and green with, as a male in breeding plumage, a streak of rusty orange on his head. He was the first of many new birds that in my lifetime I had never taken time, in stillness and quiet, to observe.
Did he just stop by on his way elsewhere? Had he been around through all of my years and thus far gone unnoticed? I wouldn’t have known my own back yard to be part of this creature's habitat. What else might we not know is living quietly under our noses and how should that shape the way we travel through this fragile, yet endlessly surprising planet.     

      I have had a relationship with “P’lovers” The Environmental Store for over ten years. Their website, www.plovers.net reveals a passion for all you could want in conscientious, earth friendly commercial practice. Thoughtful selection of original, local, nature inspired products both practical and aesthetic is their trade mark. These few photos featured below will soon be part of their most current inventory. (The ornithologists however, will have to forgive the artistic license taken on the needle felting of the northern cardinal, the yellow warbler, the American bluebird and the black capped chickadee.)

Webdreams...

   

     
      Wow!!!  It has been for ever.  Incessant needle-felting is the new day-to-day, its process, the interest, the sales, the orders, the workshops to-be and the blast of attention of late have me involved to the point of chaos. My blog nearly abandoned, I must admit the anticipation of a website makes me want to swallow hard and reach for the Geritol uttering senseless babble about keeping up.

      Overwhelmed as I have been by just word of mouth..I'm taking a deep breath and being sure I am ready for the attention that might come with more internet exposure. I'm trying to give some thought to how to present myself.   My son-in-law  Robin, who is far more gifted than I could ever dream in the ways of web design, has offered to build a website to promote my work,  taking the plunge and adding a retail component. It's along distance love affair. Ontario to Nova Scotia is a stretch with me hoping to convey the images and ideas that would represent "me"( whoever that might be ) and he so far away, with the wherewithal to capture it..

 
      The last time I had a moment to post I was finishing and order for P'lovers, a wonderful shop in and urban setting. At that time, I was hoping for big things. The whole summer was a bit of a nail-biter as sales came pretty slowly out of the starting gate. To keep from fidgeting about that, I took part in and awesome Arts Festival in a refurbished and revitalized old local school. I was accompanied by a fellow artist and new friend Sharon. She schedules and sources creative programming within the senior residential facility where my Mama resides. She recently asked me to teach felting in four different workshops there in the fall and winter.
     
      Our day together at the old school was delightful, though not the relaxing quality time we hoped to spend. We  thought we'd could spend the day as impromptu mini teaching day. Sharon is an artist as well is beyond eager to add needle felting to her "repertoire". As it turned out we barely had opportunity to touch a needle to wool as the public response that day was flabbergasting,..I have never talked so much. ( Those who know me would find that incredible considering my usual..) 

     
      Then suddenly life went boom. After checking in every two weeks or so to hear that my stock wasn't moving at P'lovers, suddenly they were OUT of stock,..all of them and they requested a new order due ASAP. That order now filled and delivered just this past Monday I was asked how quickly Christmas fuzzies might be available to be juried, ordered and made....so for the last three days I produced a few pieces for them to choose from. They are pictured in this blog.
   

Also, just today the old school's organizers have asked me to consider work shopping there too! The pace quickens, the pulse nearly flying out of my veins. Workshops looming orders to fill and commissions for Christmas...Gotta try for one more piece before sundown. Happy trails! I promise to return  with another post with more expedience than last...

     
     
   

Take a walk Down Memory Lane

      

      My gorgeous grand daughter has just mastered the "E-I-E-I-O" part of "Old MacDonald had a Farm". Imagine how cute that sounds on speaker phone when her Mama calls and she clamors to talk to her Nanajan. Imagine how mushy-gushy Nanajan is going to lose it when she gets to hear it in person in a few days when I fly up to visit! There she is below with her Dada on Father's day,..suitably "chapeau-ed" for a trip to the farm, sippy cup in hand and an adoring smile on her face. 

      With Mac Donald's farm in mind, I must master the felting of things that burst forth with a "meow-meow" here and a "cluck-cluck there". I have another order to fill that will put me on track. I mentioned Memory Lane Heritage Village in my last blog.

      I am honored to be asked to contribute several pieces to their gift shop. It's a hands-on working village. with interesting vignette's of life on the Eastern Shore in the '40s and '50s. Special programs and events fill the summer and fall months. Among so many other things there are lovely sheep and chickens and very happy barn cats and kittens on site. Lucky me to be able to pay tribute to these furry favorites.