Taxidermy Foam and a Lesson

Another trip to Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts has left my mind moving in all directions.  The class was called Finding the Souls of Forgotten Things and was taught by Geoffery Gorman.  I was first introduced to his work in 2011 when he was featured in the magazine American Craft.  I was so enthralled that I cut out the article pictures and glued them into my Ideas and Really Cool Stuff book, with his artwork falling into the really cool category since I knew that there was no way I was going to get the opportunity to learn how he made his pieces.  As I perused this year's catalog I was immediately stopped by a picture of Mr. Gorman's work, with him teaching the class. Weeee!!... wait, it was a two week class.  Hum, how was I going to swing this?  Once again, I am blessed to have a husband who knows how important these classes are to me.  With his and Mother-in-law's (room and transportation) generosity I was able to enjoy another art filled time.

Classes start Sunday evening, usually with a quick introduction of class members and an overview of what is to be taught.  This allows us to be off and running on Monday morning.  This technique starts out with carving taxidermy foam into the desired shape.  Mr. Gorman's focus is animal shapes but we were free to choose our path.  Having never done carving previously, my first rabbit attempt looked like a very small dinosaur head.  It just kept getting worse the more I tried to fix it.  It finally somewhat resembled a piglet.  My second attempt was a success.  Next you cover the foam, wrap in wire, add adornments, then rust.  The 2 yellow beads, which I used in the eyes along with bottle caps and shinny black beads, just fell of my tool box when I was searching for something else. One of those serendipitous moments. The nose and ears were cut from a metal cigar box. To give Mr. Rabbit some life, I added a crank movement to a thrift store box so the head will bob and spin around.

The bat was my first project attempted.  I have been watching (almost addicted to) YouTube videos of rescued and rehabilitated fruit bats in Australia.  They are adorable.  These bats are not like the bats we are accustomed to here so I had to introduce the teacher to them so he could see where I was heading with my project.   His wing span is 16 inches with a body height of 14 inches including his legs.  I had hoped to have movement in his wings but it has not happen as of yet.  This is not from the lack of trying and I have the pulley positioned on the wooden stand for this reason.  It will happen at some point, he will let me know when he is ready.  I started with this because the shapes were not complicated and I could get the technique figured out.  It still took some time to get the body as I wanted, it was huge and needed to be correctly shaped but once that was done I knew what size to make the head.

He really came to life with the addition of the ears.  Both the ears and the nose are made from used bike inner tubes. I wish the shinny beads had been available for his eyes like with the rabbit. This is something I can do at a later date.  I love the depth they add to the face.

There are 2 more projects that were completed during class that I will share next time.  Well, one completed and one I would like to add more wire to and rust again.


Our family has grown in the last three weeks with the addition of out first grandson.  He had to be in the NICU for 5 days which was unnerving (apparently it is not as uncommon as one would think), but he is doing well.  Daughter-in-law has to go dairy free while she breastfeeds so she may be out of sorts for a while, she loves cheese.  We are hoping he will outgrow the problem.

So life has been a whirl wind: 2 week art class, busy work week playing catch up, grandson coming into the world, 3 trips to his hometown while in hospital(1.5 hrs away), another busy week playing catch up and now I have a cold. Husband has been taking good care of me making sure I am hydrated and fed.  Next weekend is a family reunion in North Georgia and the next is a visit to the grand kids, both of which I am excited about.  I am glad to have the cold now to get it out of the way.  That's how it works, isn't it?

Wishing you a peaceful Sunday!
Hilari


#arrowmont #craftexperience

A Pop Of Yellow

This all started with a trip to the beach and a thrift store (you know how I love thrift stores).  Even with all my art supplies and ideas waiting in the hotel room, I could not help picking up a smallish, silver plated tray with a cutout decorative edge.  And per usual, a book that I could disassemble, if the need arose. Our day of sightseeing having come to an end, I settled in to play with my new finds.  Having no clear plan, which is highly irregular for me, I ripped and attached paper using wire through the edge cutouts.  I knew from the beginning that it was not working, but with no mental direction I kept trudging down this unfulfilling path.  I kept right on until I had that whole tray filled with hand ripped paper.  Knowing it was a hot mess I showed it to BFF, hoping for a different perspective and maybe an "Oh Wow, That looks great!!"...no, she squinched her nose and said "Hum"...more of the reaction I was expecting. After the two days of manhandling this downtrodden piece I chucked it in my art bag and moved on to a project that was more to my liking.  This was the state it sat in for a year and a half.  Another shelf mocker.  As with the others mockers, I would pick it up now and again and move it around hoping for inspiration.  Not much hope for this one.

One afternoon I heard the forlorn piece calling that it was ready to come out and play.  Ok...lets see where you want to go.  The first thing was to lessen the amount of paper I had crammed onto the platter, so I removed an inch thickness from both the front and back letting the rest of the paper fall into place with a more open feel. Next I addressed the top of the pages by cutting them into a softer shape and highlighting them with blue chalk, taking away the previous rough square design.  That is when the piece shouted its plan and off we went.  Of course it needed to have some movement like the other completed shelf mockers.  I knew what I wanted to happen...to have both the ship and the crescent moon rock left and right independently at their own pace. To add more mental thought, they needed to be off center of each other so they were not in a straight line...boat in the middle as the central point and the moon off to the side to fill the visual space on the right.  A wire mechanism needed to somehow attach to the underside of the metal platter filled with paper, not your normal way to make automata.  

A bit of Devine intervention came into play with already having a stand that fit the platter perfectly.  Why I had this and where it came from I do not know, but I have been shifting it around the workshop for a few years.  The height gave me the starting point for making the mechanics.  As I said in the last post, all the parts are dependent on each other and where you start affects going forward.  So with my first parameter set I grabbed the drill and committed to to the placement the boat and the moon.  Ok, good, now how to get them to do what I want.  This is when time stopped.  An afternoon spent manipulating wire...boat sailing properly but moon going in circles, tweak, boat now sailing front to back, moon still going in circles, tweak,  moon good boat stuck, tweak… again all parts interdependent... but finally boat sailing pretty smoothly and moon cresting over the waves as desired.  All attached and moving but there was a dead space on the left side, no movement or color so I added the bright yellow star that swings freely.  This is exactly the pop it needed to finish it off.

With our proximity to the Smoky Mountains, our area is known for our lightening bugs, or fireflies, if you prefer.  Last fall Husband was thrilled when I brought home a 2 person metal swing in need of a home from a neighbor (something else to mow around) but I knew it would be wonderful for this, and it is.  For a short span of time, around 3 weeks, I love to spend the twilight watching these bursts of yellow pop and zip around.  After seeing some of the stunning professional pictures other have captured of the twinkling masses, I set off to see what I could do.  I mostly looked like a lunatic skittering around the front yard with cellphone in hand.  These little guys are apparently a bit camera shy and zoom away quite quickly when you set your sights on one or they stop blinking altogether if found resting on a blade of grass.  After many failed attempts, I captured one in mid blink and with that my job was complete.

Mr. Squirrel is sitting on the front window ledge staring in, letting me know his bird feeder is empty.  Sometimes he will share his bounty with the birds and a family of chipmunks but usually it is just he and his squirrel buddies feuding over who will gorge next.

Off to feed the masses.

Peace,

Hilari

[I have attempted to correct the weird font change and highlight to no avail.]

Wackadoodle

As I said before, this year is about creating for the sake of creating...what that actually means is that I am pulling out half done projects and trying to interject some life into them...and getting the pieces off the work bench and shelves.  So far I have been pretty successful with the ones attempted.  Due to time passed and new revelations as to how to proceed or simply forgetting how the outcome was supposed to be, I have attended to a couple of these hanging chads, the above piece being one of them.

The caricature design loosely came from a Christmas card, which when translated with wire became his own identity.  I made the book long and thin to match the shape of the head, covering it with fun balloon paper from my stash.  And that is the state in which it sat for months.  Some days I would pick it up and wiggle it around to see if an idea for future progress would pop into my head, but alas, it was always replaced on the shelf, waiting.  Along side it sat a sturdy hinge piece with 2 holes ready for future attachments found during one of my wanderings.

On a day when the wind was blowing ideas around just right, I gathered the book reader and the hinge and started digging around in my stash. I enjoy working with the hand drills because I like the look of the mechanism and the movement is already created for me.  My brain worked out the connection of the pieces and with a trial run I had great expectations.   I tightened a dowel into the top of the hand drill and one through the hinge, connected with rope, with the intention of a simple up and down movement of the hinge.  Nope (I should be used to this by now), once again wrong mechanics.  The rope twisted around the drill shaft when the crank was turned.  Well, yeah, of course.  It is always so simple to see after the fact.  By this time I had already carved the hole for the handle and attached it to the base with  a dowel and a piece of copper.  There was no going back.

Ok...up and down ...up and down... I have a tendency to hold the problem piece and give the motion I want until I either figure it out or put it back on the shelf...this has taken hours in some cases. Thanks to a yard sale can filled with odds and ends...I have a hard time passing these up due to what treasures might be contained within...I had a yellowed, plastic wheel with a handle attached.  Score!   This would give me the up and down when the drill handle was cranked.  Now I had to figure out attachment of the wheel.  I had some copper tubing that I flattened one end and screwed to the back of the base at the height I needed to have the wheel float over the top of the bit holder. With a bit of finagling, I was able to get just the right amount of hinge rise to correspond with the circular movement of the handle.  When the handle is turned the reader pops up and down in a joyously  erratic way.  Hence the name Wackadoodle.

Today had the opportunity to be a full day, but with decisions made, it is going to be a day of rest.  It is ok to be the piece on the shelf, just sitting quietly.

May your day be full of peace,
Hilari

A Thrift Store Box

There are times when you purchase an item, or 2, that you have no idea what you are going to do with, but it, or they, are just too good to pass up.  They are placed into a drawer, forgotten, or even worse, they sit on the shelf in plain sight mocking you.  The box mocked while the ceramic head lay in wait.  In truth, 3 boxes mocked and 4 heads chatted together while exiled.  All were thrift store finds so that makes it better, right?

 When making a piece like this I have to think 3 steps ahead to make sure I do not attach a part to soon.  The time turner, disassembled from a travel Boggle game, is a stand alone mechanism. (I thought it was unusable but in actuality I had not fully released it from the plastic holder. In a panic, I now have a 4 pack coming from the Netherlands to sit on a shelf and mock) It is created and attached with no other pieces affected by its placement.  The book on the other hand is interwoven to the moving parts as well as the placement of the head.  The head also determines where to place the peep hole for her face, which has to be cut before all is connected.  When the handle is turned the book opens and closes a bit.  This "bit" is gauged by the depth of the box.  I have to figure out, usually by thinking backwards, where to start.  In this case I had to start with the head, moving to the size of the book, which told me where to attach the wire mechanism.  After all the thinking and attaching, it did not work.  The string, which is connected to the book covers, kept wrapping itself around the wire and aggressively jamming the book to the box.  Not what I was going for.  It took a while, sitting in silence, wrapping and unwrapping, again and again, because, as we all know, if you keep doing the exact same thing over and over you will figure out the answer.  Well, in this case it worked .  It was a tension thing.  Once the book was held tightly by the string there was no slack to wrap.  And now the music can be turned back on.

In a song by the group System of A Down they sing "Between the sacred silence and sleep".  I love this time, not awake or asleep, because I this is where my creativity flows.  Somehow I can see the patterns moving throughout my pieces, the connections become clear, ideas become sharper.  I am not granted this enlightenment every night but I use it to the fullest extent when I am aware enough through the sleepy haze.  And then there are those times that the most brilliant ideas fade away into dreams.

The rain has stopped and the sun is out so it might a day to see parts of the world other than my workshop.  I really love being in my workshop...maybe I will just open the window and let the world come to me.

Peace,

Hilari

My Bucket List and A Destination

Last year was a destination, not a journey.  I was creating for sale, which is creative, just not for creative's sake.  Let me preface this by saying that my mother and I are not travelers.  We did not inherit my maternal grandmother's want to travel the world, she said she would be the first to sign up to go into outer space.  When I told Mother her birthday/ Christmas present was that we were going on a bus tour to New York City (the destination) I could hear the wheels turning: New York?...why?, I have to pack, leave the comfort of home, be around a bunch of people, etc.  I knew what she was thinking because I felt the same way when the idea popped into my head, but seeing NYC at Christmas time (or anytime) was on my bucket list, I was working towards it and we were going.  I got through it and I knew she would as well.  And what a delightful time we had.  We had lunch in Grand Central Station, walked in Central Park, visited Harlem, Chinatown, and Little Italy, Times Square, rode the Staten Island Ferry and saw a very cloudy Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Christmas tree, and many other wonderful touristy things.  The trip was much more than I had hoped and I am so blessed to have been able to share it with her.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip.  Our day had been full of sights and sounds and after dinner we had the option to return to and immerse ourselves in Times Square or stay on the bus in the piece and quiet.  Each relieved that the other did not want to go, Mother and I, along with a few others, enjoyed the tranquility offered.  As we sat on a side road biding our time I watched the interactions of a barber and his customers.  There was conversation and camaraderie,  distance leaving me only to guess the topic at hand.  I like how the rain drops distort the image, adding to the inability to know exactly what was transpiring.  

I am feeling a bit lost with what to do with myself after the push towards the trip and making holiday gifts.  I am quite sure I will not feel this way for long. Something wonderful will catch my attention and I will be off and running.  The destination was very special, so now is the time to enjoy the journey.

Peace,

Hilari

Simple Yet Deceiving

Hooray...Good Job...Go Team.  When the red knob is cranked the hands will clap and smiles ensue.   This was one of the mechanisms that I had trouble understanding and wanted to conquer while at Arrowmont.  Once again my teacher was able to give guidance and I was off and running.   I started with a solid block and cut out a rectangle by drilling holes in each corner and using the scroll saw to sever from hole to hole.  As I have stated, I do not like making boxes because they call for precision, and of this I am lacking. It will not replace the need for making boxes in the future but for this application it was perfect.  I drilled 2 holes through the top crossbar and 1 hole straight across in each sidebar. Using wire, surprise... surprise, I ran a piece through the side holes and bent it so it will move in a circular motion when cranked.  To make the hands move I had to feed the wire through the top holes, cross them, and loosely connect them to the cross wire.  Because the wires are crossed, the circular motion makes the loose connections move across the wire which in turns makes the hands open and close.  A bit confusing but when seen it is an Ahhh moment.

I highly suggest watching Blair Summerville: Lost and Found - Worlds Largest Collection of Rustic Automata on YouTube.  It is quite incredible what he makes out of found items.  This is where I caught a glimpse of this piece and the idea for the mermaid from my last blog.

Yesterday was my first try at home made apple cider.  Using our crockpot, 10 apples, one orange, cinnamon, sugar and cloves, I made the house smell terrific.  Although the juice came out a bit weak...the recipe said to cover the apples, which float, so therefore I kept adding water...I believe with the addition of more spices it may be salvageable.  I shall be testing it out shortly.

On this rainy evening I am off to a comfort meal of ham slices with mac and cheese.  Can't get much better than that.
Peace,
Hilari

A Different Perspective

As I stated in a previous blog, there are times that the process just flows and all goes according to plan.  The pieces are cut straight, the fit is perfect and the motion is smooth.  (See X-Box Widow post)  This was not the way in this case.  I came across a bag of nice wood cuts at a yard sale, and having a particular project in mind I handed over my three dollars. After using the allotted number for the initial use, I had a few of these 2 x 3 inch blocks to play with.  The first manipulation, cutting the openings inside the rectangle, worked like a charm. After that, all was a time consuming mess.  My first thought was to have the movement wire driven.  The wire worked wonderfully for the piece in my last blog.  I drilled tiny holes in the side walls and the top for the wire to move through easily and formed the wire to make the balloon spin.  All was going so well.  I turned the crank and nothing, no spinning or movement at all. The wire was not able to move through the hole due to it jamming up. Ok, simple solution, just drill a slightly bigger hole in the top.  After more adjustments, I realized that the movement made by the wire manipulation was not going to work. Not just needs more time to figure out but the actual wrong type of motor, so to speak. Wire put side, I grabbed1/8 and 1/2 inch dowels.  More adjusting and now : spin, jam up, slightly spin, hop a bit, jam up again. Gggrrrr!!! Last ditch effort is to go up in size again from 1/8 to 1/4 with drill bits and dowel. This was the answer to the problem that plagued me for many hours. She is still not as smooth as others but she has taken all I have to give her. 

We just returned from the Angel Tree outside of Charleston, S.C. for a wedding this weekend and the bride asked me to design her wedding Thank You gifts.  This is why the wooden blocks were originally purchased. I had the glass vials in my stash, also from a yard sale, so with these, the blocks, a drill press, sandpaper, and a tree stamp from ETSY, these bud vases came to be.  Thank goodness she did not want girls spinning balloons.

Before we left, Amazon dropped off a glass orb to play with during our weekend travel. It creates a fisheye effect while holding it in front of the cellphone lens. I have to say there was a bit of a learning curve but once I got the feel for what I thought the outcome was going to be it was fun to play with. It was by my side all weekend and I got some interesting shots. I even captured the bride and groom with a bit of help from the bride's son. It was a lovely weekend and a great pleasure to share all our love with BFF and her new husband.

I am now off to snuggle in bed and watch a Hallmark movie...She is not interested in him, He likes her, She now likes him too, there is some dissention, neither likes each other, and then in the end all is right between them. Sometimes mindless tv is what is called for to end the day. May you find your true Hallmark love, if you haven't already. Hilari