have a frightfully good weekend

Happy Halloween!

Kto to jest, Stara Baba...? To jest moja Mama! She was only 8 or 9 when this photo was taken.

deep paper cut

Peter Callesen's ethereal paper cuts are made from the ubiquitous A4 paper that usually carries a much less enchanting, 2-dimensional message. I love that he works the whole sheet of paper into each of his pieces, the delicate forms nestled in the resulting negative space as though they magically popped up out of the plain white field whence they came.

from here

lofty living

Sometimes I really miss our loft space...

not that I don't adore our cozy little bungalow, & the fact that it doesn't have all of the things I don't miss about the loft: the upstairs neighbor whose cover band rehearsed right over our bedroom, the enormous centipedes that we would routinely see scampering across our bed or wallowing in the sink, the bedroom wall that would turn into a waterfall when there was a heavy rain, the fact that when anyone in the building had a leak it would inevitably find its way into our bathroom.

But, oh, the exposed brick & rough beams, high ceilings, historical oddities and space space space... these I do miss. This Manhattan loft has the best of all of these things. I would move in in a heartbeat.

from here via here

ex libris

These enchanting art tomes by Mia Cabana & Oliver Scott gave vibrant new lives to discarded library books. How I wish I had seen them in person when they were on exhibition at sticks and bricks earlier this year, but if you visit photographer Oliver's web page & click on his Portfolio/New Works, you can see his magical photographs of these fascinating pieces, as well as others.

There is so much talent in these hills...

busy busy

Thanks to the sight & sound of migrating birds now that autumn is here, our avian friends have certainly been on my mind judging from the new batch of scrimshaw pendants I've recently made.

plus a few more designs for a wonderful local shop, these with lovely leather cords.

& a Queen Bee thrown in for good measure

a (mobile) room of one's own

as in a room of one's own that you can take with you...

I have often dreamt of having a little vardo, a small, portable retreat that contains just the basics, snug & charming, a place to concentrate on quieter things. One of these would work very nicely tucked in our backyard, until we're ready to take it on the road.

from here

cardboard cameras

More beautiful cardboard...

These incredibly detailed cameras were made by Kiel Johnson, an artist whose father was a printer, & who apparently inherited a love for paper as evidenced by these meticulously built pieces. The ennoblement of common, everyday materials like cardboard, when used to create practical, everyday structures & objects, really makes you look at your surroundings with fresh eyes. Art elevates!

from here

cardboard heaven

Nina Lindgren's beautiful cardboard metropolis reminds me of a beehive, a humming vertical neighborhood where you can imagine much hidden & arcane activity going on. Her work, while large scale, is composed of so many finer details that it welcomes you to get close & peep inside & imagine the interior lives of its inhabitants, attributes that make the piece feel very personal, & which I find most compelling.

from here

about my scrimshaw work

A sneak peek of a new line of scrimshaw jewelry I've been working on, plus a few examples of pieces past.

Here's little more about my artistic inclination towards this traditional craft.

As an artist, I have always preferred drawing, having always loved simple line & form. Scrimshaw is a perfect medium for this, & combines my love for small, detailed work as well. I also love to see the hand in things, & appreciate & play up the wabi-sabi inherent in working with natural materials.

Bone is more porous & tends to have more irregularities than ivory, which creates beautiful striations & distress marks when ink is applied to its surface.

pieces past, all spoken for

I studied biology as well as art, & grew up very connected to the natural world with parents whose idea of a family outing often included camping, hiking, canoeing & climbing mountains. I take great exception to poaching, the inhumane treatment of animals & the abusive practices of factory farming.

In an effort to find the most ethical natural material possible, I do not use ivory & tusk, the traditional materials for the craft, although reputable pre-ban & fossilized sources do exist. A local bead merchant helped me find my first bone sources, from water buffalo that were raised for food in either Asia or Africa, the hides & bone used to make other useful & beautiful things. I sometimes use vintage bone pieces that have been salvaged from old jewelry & decorative items, in an effort to recycle & re-use this precious resource.

love, ink

Pendants based on vintage tattoo designs, etched for all eternity on snowy white bone tiles.