I love using various found objects and repurposing them in my art, especially in my assemblages.  The piece on the right is called Durga, and is composed of a shelf divider from Habitat for Humanity, a broken bowl, old jewelry, fabric miniblind end scraps, found bone and a sand dollar, and bits of wood found on walks.   Right now, it’s on exhibit for the Craftland Show at The Scrap Exchange in Durham. 

I’m lucky to have a Habitat for Humanity store and a place called The Scrap Exchange not far from where I live in Raleigh, NC.  These are both terrific resources for finding good materials that can no longer be used for their original purpose. 

The Scrap Exchange is having an extravaganza of events between now and the first of year, including Craftland, a show celebrating the creations of artists who make art from reusable materials or from materials that have an earth-friendly component.  Craftland will be up until December 31st. 

The Scrap Exchange is visible all over the Triangle area (which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) for hosting open craft sessions at various craft venues.  There’s nothing more joyful than watching children parade their headdress creations at First Night, an annual new year’s celebration in Raleigh.

My family and I just got back from a week in Lake Tahoe, and feel fresh and new thinking of those beautiful vistas and cool mountain air.  We watched the drama of salmon spawning, hiked up and down and up and up, and sat still and breathed in the scent of vanilla from the Ponderosa and Jeffrey pines.  For two of our days there, we  walked through a hushed wonderland of snow — in shirt sleeves because the sun was so warm.   What a wonderful place.

The natural world centers me spiritually, yet I’m prone to forgetting that fact day to day because of my struggles with the heat and itchiness of my home state.  It’s beautiful, too, but six months of the year it makes me uncomfortable enough to estivate, a word I learned when I moved to North Carolina.

The beautiful landscapes I’ve visited crop up often in my work.  These two are from my travels in the Southwest US:

This rushing river under the Northern lights is based on a photo from my friend Scotty’s trip to Alaska.

This is the view from my wide bedroom window (lucky me):

Some of my landscapes are based on fantasies or juxtapositions of places I’ve been.   This large silk scarf includes a view from the courtyard of the Cloisters in New York City,  a tree from my imagination, a woman from Renaissance art, and a dragon from ancient Chinese art. 

This tree in the snow with a pink sky is pure fantasy.

This long hanging landscape uses some artistic license, as the landscape is based on walks in North Carolina, but the cranes are Japanese.   It’s a beautiful piece on which to meditate!

I’m grateful for all of the beautiful places in the world I’ve been lucky enough to visit and meditate on.

These may not exactly be “essential” and you may not even care to wear them all at once, but what a satisfying set of possibilities you’d have if you owned all these beautiful hand-crafted things! Shop the Wear It Out Market for these and more!

coat by Vigilante Labs
earrings by Metalsgirl
wheel pendant by Mannybeads
handwoven scarf by Banner Mountain Textiles
handbag by Truly Unique by Elise
hat by DreamWoven

Centerfest is one of the bigger juried shows around North Carolina, and it’s happening this weekend.   That’s one of my scarves in the poster below . . . cool, huh?  I’ll be in booth E13, so come by and say “hi,” or “hey,” if you’re so inclined.

A few months ago, I got an email asking if I accepted credits cards and if I shipped to Australia.  I said yes to both questions, and received an item for 50 of the same item.  My items are one of a kind paintings, so I thought this was a little strange.  I contacted a fellow Etsy member in Perth Australia, and she couldn’t find any evidence of this guy and his company.  His web address was a dead URL, so I never contacted him again. 

A few weeks later, I got a query from another small business owner who’d found my name while doing a Google search on the Australian customer.  That small business owner went one step further than I did, and was kind enough to send me a copy of the response he got.   I’ve received quite a number of questions from other small businesses lately, asking what I knew about this customer, so decided to reprint the essence of his response: 

Thanks for the total quote of my order.  The total cost of my order
is quite correct and okay by me and I’m ready to pay the bills send me
an invoice via email and i will email you my Credit Card.  But i just
got a response from my shipping Agent that he cannot receive payment
via credit or debit card from me at the moment. So i want you to help
me charge another $850.00 USD to a shipping agent who is going to pick
up my ordered items from you.

The $850.00 USD that will be sent to the shipping agent is for the shipping of my order plus other items i ordered from different countries which will be deduct from my credit card.  Also, I’m compensating you with the sum of $110 USD for the transfer fee and for your efforts. Please note that i should have given the shipping agency my credit card for him to deduct the shipping funds but he told me that he doesn’t have the facilities to charge or debit
credit card, so that’s why i bring my vote of confidence in you and i
don’t want you to betray the vote of confidence i put in you, so i want
you to transfer the funds to him after you have make the charges and
the money charged from my credit card is in your account,then you can
now make the transfer to the agent via western union.  i will have love
to do this myself but there no western union here around me, So the
charges you’ll make on my credit card will be:  $ ——-.

Sounds pretty scammy, doesn’t it?

POEM

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine . . .

Jacques Crickillon

by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,  
the crystal goblet and the wine.  
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker 
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.  

However, you are not the wind in the orchard, 
the plums on the counter,  
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way you are the pine-scented air.   

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.   

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.   

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world, 
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.   

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley,
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.   

I am also the moon in the trees 
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I am not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Billy Collins, “Litany” from Nine Horses.
Copyright © 2002 by Billy Collins.

Alcohol works as a resist with dyes, so by alternating alcohol washes with silk dyes, you can get some beautiful shading effects.

This silk piece was given a subtle background pattern by using the parfait method (more about parfait on another post).  I used water-based resist to draw my design.   Once the resist had dried thoroughly, I used a cotton swab to dampen the bottom of the petal shape.  I dipped a paintbrush lightly into indigo dye and applied the color to the top of the petal.  I then quickly dipped my brush point into water and washed it over the alcohol area of the petal.  This gives a pretty gradation in color. 

I repeated the technique across the scarf on both the petals and leaves — you can see the rich effect it gives.

Alcohol dries pretty quickly, so you’ve got to work quickly once it’s applied to each area you’ve defined with resist, but the results add a lot of depth and modulation to your silk painting.  Here’s a view of the finished piece, which is listed in my Etsy shop. 

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

                                     – Pablo Neruda

I was asked to teach a craft class at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh as part of a memorial gift in the name of my dear friend, Nancy Kevin.  Previous experience has illustrated that no one has any fun when I’m in charge of children,* but since this was for Nancy, I agreed to do it.  I took my camera to the class, but was too frazzled to get any pictures of the kids’ completed projects.   Here, though, are the directions in case some other intrepid soul is better suited to working with children.

I ordered some inexpensive blank mousepads from eBay and played around with different dyes and paints to see what would work on the mousepad surface.  I decided I liked Dye-na-Flo’s colors and the way it reacted with salt for this project.  It’s also fairly economical (unless you have an out-of-control nine-year-old boy in your class).   Note well:  Being a dye, it’s also a stain-maker, so if someone has sent their darling daughter to crafts class in her best summer sun dress and not sent a smock, be prepared for trouble. 

1. Fold a square of freezer paper snowflake style and cut designs into it to make a stencil.  Don’t let the children’s designs get too complicated.  Use a little bit of glue from a glue stick to hold the stencil in place on the mousepad. 

2. Apply the color with a fairly dry sponge, being careful to hold the stencil in place.  If the sponge is too wet, the color will seep under the stencil.

3. Sprinkle kosher salt over the dye areas while still fairly wet.  Carefully lift off the stencil. 

4. Wait a few minutes to let the salt settle and do its magic.  Have big plastic bags available for children to take their projects home, because you certainly don’t want to wait around for their parents to remember to pick them up.

As you can see, even if the stencil isn’t held in place, the results are still satisfying.  Thank goodness.

(And thank goodness I know that Nancy has a sense of humor, watching me from above. )

* I once dragged a noisy child into the supply closet with me to have a private religious education class when my husband was trying to teach the rest of the class.  Don’t even ask about the shrieking Girl Scouts on the weekend camping trip.  “Of course there are bugs:  we’re in the woods, girls.”