Joyful Stitching

adoration des fleurs

A page in an Altered Book. The poem is printed onto "scrumbled and dab-painted" paper bag. The acrylic paint has metallic flecks, which makes it challenging to photograph. The "frame" is a fibrous paper, a lovely fern-moss green. frame machine sewn onto poem center. then adhered to book page with Golden® matte medium. Pressed flowers in corners are covered with sanwa tissue, and adhered with the same medium. circa 2003-2005, best guess.

Attribution for poem varies ~  Count Your Age by Friends, Not Years. Count Your Life by Smiles, Not Tears

 

above: pressed flower detail, corner of "count your blessings" collage art.

A mixed media collage, an Altered Book page ~ celebrating found items, spring, and my love for pansies and violas. Background is a paper napkin from an afternoon tea with friends, always a luxury.

I first covered the book page with acrylic paint. I then cut a "frame" from the napkin, and adhered to page with a thinned gel medium. The pansies were crochet left-overs from another project, most likely an edging or doily, or maybe from the jadeite bowl that sits beside my armchair, and crocheted items sit in or get pitched into, while watching baseball or hockey. I do have oodles of them, which is hilarious when I think of it!  Pansies were attached to the page, by sewing beads through the center of the pansy and and then through the book page. This left the edges of the crochet pieces flexible. I really love this piece ~ I think my Mama would have as well.

note: to see more detail, click on photograph, then if you wish to see it larger with even more detail, click on the photograph that you have just opened. I hope it works that way...

 

 

Diogenes Lantern

Diogenes with His Lantern. Mini-book, bound in an altered-book. cover. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. Culture and change, myths. mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media.

Diogenes with His lantern. mini-book bound into altered book. Stamped and painted image, with pressed flower opposite. Golden® mixed-media, acrylic paint, rubber stamp. 

Diogenes with His lantern. Myths. Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. babies and current or past "current events". Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. Einstein and common reader. Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Diogenes with His lantern. woman who runs with wolves. Mini-book, bound into altered book. Golden® mixed-media. 2003.

Base book is a German language textbook, with interesting history. It was mine originally - high school German class (circa 1962). A younger sister ~ Juliette ~ used it in her high-school German class (circa 1968). It went the "rounds" as old textbooks do, and arrived "out of the blue" in my mailbox about 1991 from it's 6th "user" on endpiece. Owners signatures and miscellaneous information such as date, teacher/professor and various scriggles.

Materials:  paper cuttings/findings - totally random and seemingly unconnected - from old newspapers, old books and catalogs and "who knows where it came from" scraps of this and that caught my inner-eyes at one moment or another. Stories within stories, that speak with and for themselves, or perhaps in a way, closes the book on those stories.

Sisters United

Sisters United ~ Empowering Indigenous Women, Children, and Communities. Logo ©Candace English.  

Sisters United was started in early 2019 by Candice English and her company, The Farmers Daughter Fibers. As a budding and successful entrepreneur, the Blackfeet artist could no longer turn a blind eye to the effects that historical trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, and violence are having in both the urban and rural indigenous communities in Montana.

...a grassroots organization that helps create opportunities for Indigenous Women and Children, offer financial support in the ground work to find Missing Indigenous People, and fund essential programs to heal our Indigenous Communities and to keep them safe."  Sisters United ~ Who We Are

Photo © Lindsey Fowler.  The slippers/socks  shown in photo are her design: Red Cedar Slippers.

The design is also in a booklet from The Farmers Daughter Fibers, called Wood and Smoke ~ Collection 1. 

I am supporting this incredible initiative or project, developed by an amazing Woman, with many women including fiber artists.  Equally of  importance  to me are the lives of Indigenous Women. There are many similar initiatives and projects. Here is just one of many: Well of Grief. 

It is time to knit fall/winter blankets - lovely and comforting woolen things. Maybe something similar, or along the lines of this one, "Crazy Woman" in Mountain Colors.  Reds, oranges, turquoise, cream or brown. A red thread hidden, trade beads. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Horns, antlers, buttons

One of several from my studio shelving - a vintage "egg basket", with antlers and horns ~ "shed" and otherwise. The egg basket(s) came from my mother-in-law's dairy farm in Oregon, circa 1960's and 1970's. The horns and antlers collected from 1960's through 2010. I love to tramp around the mountains in Washington, about the very end of winter or early spring, and hunt for "shed antlers". I am very careful to not do this before the "new horns/antlers" come in for the current season, which is very disruptive to the development of the "new horns/antlers".  Some states have requirements with regard to the timing of hunting "shed antlers" ~ seasonal hunting openings for instance.

The horn antler on top ~ that looks like either a hand or shaped as a finger-less mitten,  is the shovel portion from a moose ~ Southeastern Alaska. Circa 1960's and 1970's.

Caribou antler buttons, North Central Alaska. Circa 1980's.

Caribou or reindeer? They’re actually the same. “Reindeer” is the name given to caribou in Scandinavia and Russia, but caribou and reindeer are the same species (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus) wherever they are found in the world. caribou or reindeer?

Caribou is a traditional food of Indigenous Peoples of of Northern North America. Where I am from, these Peoples are also referred to as First Nations.

  "Migratory caribou, also commonly called barren-ground or tundra caribou, were highly valued by cultures living in Arctic and Subarctic areas including the Athapaskan, Dogrib, Hare (Sahtu), Loucheux (Gwich’in), Kutchin (Gwich’in), Inuit (including Nuvorugmiut, Caribou), Inupiat, Inuvialuit, Naskapi (Innu), Chipewyan and Algonquian. Migratory caribou were sometimes referred to as reindeer and also called deer at times". Migratory Caribou

 

Deer horn buttons. When making deer horn or any other horn or antler, one must take every precaution to do so safely. Always wear a mask that will filter the ultra-fine particles of horn/antler, as it will stay permanently in the lungs, exactly as does crystalline silica dust (causes silicosis and other dire lung diseases).  This applies to all cutting, grinding, polishing. I use a Dremel tool, and secure the horn in a small vice. These are polished and sealed with an acrylic water-proof finish. 

Interesting read: Deer Antlers in (Primitive) Survival

 

 

 

 

Nests and feather

The striped strips are very fine plastic-feeling fibers. Nest builder had an eye for beauty. I don't know what bird built it. It fell from very high limb-crotch of a black walnut tree. beautiful. It feels sacred to me, or some other deep response I can't define. It's a nest.

delicate, and very small

My eyes are delighted with the two colours of grass or stems of some kind, that the builder used.

Nest in barberry shrub; end of 2nd winter.

Nest originally in a limb-crotch of crab-apple tree. such a lovely oval shape.

Earlier in the day that I found this feather, an eagle, a bunch of ravens, and a hawk, had had an unusually fierce territorial dispute. Unusual because what I see most often are crows harassing a hawk or eagle, not ravens. Raw, noisy, primal goose-bumps action.. Later in the day, just before dusk, I found this at the edge of one of my blue spruce trees. Not certain yet what bird this is from, or if it is just coincidence that it was laying/lying almost directly underneath the dramatic air-fight. 

 

Growing Figs

These fig plants came as bare-roots, from Bald Peak near Gaston, Oregon. The original trees were on my sister-in-law's family property, planted there about 75 years ago. They are similar to Brown Turkey figs, and absolutely delicious. I put them in pots early April, thinking heavy frosts were gone. 4 very hard frosts after that, I thought they would never grow! Here they are 4 months later, growing their hearts out. A dream come true - growing figs. No matter what transpires for me, the fig trees will still be in this ground, outliving me I hope,  for a long time into the future. Glorious trees!