While She Naps

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween from Pharoh and our fairy!

a crow alights

Just in time for Halloween a black crow alighting. 

I was imagining something like this and it feels so good to be able to create it in fabric.

This is the first piece in a what I am hoping will be the biggest and most cohesive body of work I've ever made.  I'm thrilled to be having a show in March with the amazing  David Hale at Young Blood in Atlanta. David's bird images are so inspiring to me and I think flocks of three-dimensional soft sculpture birds will play off of his paintings so well. 

This past week I've met nearly all of the deadlines I had between now and March (this means that the last three days I've sent work to Three Graces, Art Star, Lark and Key, and Beehive Co-op - hello post office!) and now I have such wonderful freedom to play and create for this show.  I hope you will get excited with me as all the new work unfolds.

And taking a cue from this month's Martha, one of my jack-o-lanterns is now teeming with rats.

Happy Halloween to you!  My little Pharoh and fairy are beyond excited to go trick-or-treating tomorrow night.  

taking flight!

I was sitting at the computer two days ago browsing the hundreds of amazing craft blogs I keep up with and saw these adorable birds made by the ever creative Heidi Kenney and suddenly I had an image in my mind of how to make a bird in flight. This was one of those drop everything and do this right away kind of projects.  The floor is a mess, there are bits of fabric and freezer paper everywhere, but this bird is now flying in my studio.

I had to run out for super thick Pellon double-sided fusible interfacing yesterday morning to make the super-stiff wings.  This stuff is so amazing.  I'm having a big show in the spring at a very cool gallery down south (more later about this), and I have so many ideas now about flying birds.

 

 

This guy is the first draft.  I am redrawing bits of the pattern to streamline how he looks.  And I've made it flexible enough that there can be birds in different stages of flight - climbing into the air and alighting.  But I'm so glad he is here because now I can build more like him!

a bird and other stuff

A new little bird in fall colors. 

We had a wonderful Sukkah party this year.  Our backyard is ledge and had formerly been pretty inaccessible.  We recently finished a major landscape construction project back there that includes a field stone wall, a raised bed with a new Japanese maple, and 8 steps up to a new patio.  The patio has our bird feeder and will have a new bird bath in the spring, along with a miniature Japanese maple. The whole thing is lit at night and is irrigated and is just amazing now.  We are so excited. And it was completed just in time for the party.  You can see a bit of it here.

I made peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses on each one, Barefoot Contessa orange pound cake, scallion cream cheese (Roxanne nearly polished off all the lox herself!), spiced almonds, and warm butternut and chickpea salad which was really yummy.

I got a lovely collage in the mail from Lisa Solomon yesterday.

It is hard to photograph. The details are so delicate and feminine.  Her long-legged bird arrived in California.  A fun swap. 

owl

A new owl today.  This is the first in a series of three new birds for Art Star in Philadelphia.  I love the body fabrics on this owl. It has subtle script and bits of line here and there and the muted fall colors are perfect right now. 

My poor cut finger is starting to heal and my shoulder, which has been so sore from the tetanus shot, is also finally beginning to feel better.  I've been baking and baking for the Sukkah party on Sunday.  I've made spiced almonds, and peanut butter cookies with Hershey's Kisses in the middle, and today it's lemon pound cakes.  The weather looks promising - cool and sunny. 

the sukkah is up

We built the sukkah on Sunday.  It went up very easily this year and looks so beautiful out there on our patio.  Here I am wielding the drill

And here it is all finished.

The party is on Sunday and we will have lots of pre-school aged kids running around, eating and playing.  I have a craft project planned (you knew I would, didn't you?) and it is, of course, bird related.

Some owl paper bag puppets.  These were easy to put together - construction paper triangles and circles for the face, button eyes, furry felt bellies and pipe  cleaner feet, and fall leaves for wings.  I hope the kids like making them.

I had jury duty this morning.  And yesterday afternoon I badly cut my pointer finger on my left hand while cutting zucchini and had to go to the doctor to get it bandaged up properly.  So not the most fun 24 hours, but thankfully Charlie has been home for the past two days. And I got some time in my studio this afternoon, albeit with a bandaged finger.  Charlie took this photo

I finished a tall bird for my swap with Lisa Solomon, but didn't photograph it before boxing it up.  Maybe she will take a picture for me when it arrives. 

rooster in mustard and orange

A new rooster today. 

I had this one almost finished and then set it aside to make the crab. 

At least one more bird coming before I try another animal. 

Charlie and I went to Cirque to Soleil on Friday night which was fabulous. It is amazing to see the creativity that this show brings together.  The two guys on the "wheel of death" had the most inspiring costumes, like devil birds with looped feathers all the way past their ankles. 

And on Saturday afternoon we went to Dowse Orchard to pick apples. 

We've already made apple crisp and applesauce and I made cheddar cheese crackers to go with sliced apples. 

I am collecting white pumpkins and gourds this year. They are all out on the front porch and I love all the whites together.

patchwork crab

I've checked out a big stack of sculptural technique books from the library. Most of these are pretty old, 1960's and 70's, and the text is rather dated, but the images have gotten me inspired to branch out again.  It has been birds birds birds here for nearly a year and a half now and I don't feel finished with them, but I do crave the excited of creating new forms. 

After a late night perusal of Wire Sculpture and Other Three Dimensional Construction by Gerald F. Brommer (1968)

I felt the immediate need to make a patchwork crab.

You might remember the last crab like this. I'm from Maryland originally and I love crabs.  I love making the button jointed claws on crabs. It is like a double tab - one on top and one underneath - with the claw inserted in between.  The claws can move back and forth this way for some little crab playtime. 

And this time around I was able to work out a technical problem I had in the last one with attaching all those skinny legs - I made this crab an apron, like real Maryland blue crabs have, to cover the attachment points. Here is a view of his underside. 

And, as I am sure Roxanne will point out when she gets home from school, this crab has already been cooked. Raw crabs are blue.

october at the farm

Running to the field to pick the very last raspberries of the season yesterday at "our farm" (Land's Sake in Weston where we have our CSA). 

Amazing late afternoon, early fall sunlight on my farm helpers.

And we even got three carving pumpkins as part of our share yesterday.  Only a few more weeks of the harvest are left and we are trying to savor every moment. 

A Sweet One

Happy New Year to you and yours.