Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The Long and Short Of It All - Edition #1

One of the things about my way of creating that gets wonky sometimes is:

I have a longstanding habit, when choosing the "What next?" from my list of ideas, to go with the smaller, most immediately rewarding ideas. Often this is at the expense of moving forward the larger, more complex ideas that I really want to bring to a completion but that I can't seem to keep moving forward on as time allows. Instead, always seeming to choose the quick idea, or a multitude of them as it often goes, to "finish something".

Nowhere is this more relevant that my 2014 To-Do list and I am resolved to do something about it! 

So first, why is that an issue? I make oodles of fun creations that actually move through my shops very well. They make me infinitely happy to create them and I always find time to write a bit of a story to go along with almost each one. . . couple that with an ever growing list of requests and custom pieces and the time left to work on the larger stories and idea is already at a minimum. 

But those ideas haunt me as they are always the thing I most want to do every day.

Internally those larger. story based projects are the direct reflection of everything I loved about my childhood and want to re-embrace into the fold of mid adulthood and beyond. They are the lifeline from that era, the link in time to all I am and all I do.

They are my "Tardis" through time and space that take me back to the most wonderful and,  yes, sometimes less wonderful of those years too.

And ohhhhh I am a time traveler above all else. . . 

I am hoping, that by sharing the ideas here in a series of posts of their progress and intent,  the visual reminder of them each time I come to my blog will remind me that they are waiting for me to grow them into full reality.And with each large project I will also post a small, quick idea that came to fruition too. :)

So then

The LONG of It:

The Noble Ice Elves of Spangladasha:

Started this massive idea at the beginning of the year and it is only in the last 4 weeks that it sort of fell off the radar a bit. The little guy below, Fenewen, was the first to appear here. He toldme his story and I was beyond hooked. . . T

he idea is to create a total of 50 Noble Ice Elves ( not all at once mind you) and send each one, as it is adopted, off into the world with an atlas/maps of their land, Spangladasha, and scrolls that tell the story of the elves journey to our world and their purpose here and beyond.

The very-large of the idea is to send quarterly updates to each person as the elves are adopted letting them know the general location of other elves across the globe (by city/country only) and continuing the story through mailings of scrolls, symbols, etc etc as well as updating the Etsy listing with the story as it progresses as new elves appear.  So even I will not know exactly where it is going until it gets there.

Fenewen
I LOVE his furry compact body, the crown of polymer clay bones and his "petrified" driftwood power source with it's "ice crystal" attached!! And the ever growing map of the land he and his kind hail from:

Spangladasha - Realm of the Noble Ice Elves

Soooo much more to do obviously. Scrolls, books, wax seals, printing the maps, special packaging etc etc. The Noble Ice Elf story is about 5 pages now. That's about as long as I want it so I'll have a years worth of updates already in the bag. I just need to rewrite, edit and re-edit. 

Hoping to have 6 or so of these guys ready for Fall release! 

And that, my dear friends, is just ONE of the large ideas brewing in this brain lately. :)


The SHORT of it:

The Shen Amulet

So, the Egyptian pieces in Shadow of the Sphinx are a direct link to my early creative worlds  I imagined myself often in that time, often as a simple scribe or lay-person working for a Pharaoh. It was a far broader role to me than to rule all of Egypt. lol

The endless list of ancient pieces I have to inspire me has allowed me to continually experience a new thrill when working on these amulets and statues. And often, the ideas allow me to create quickly as with the Shen amulet below.  There must be hundreds of iterations of this one amulet/symbol alone.  So the inspirational source is endless.

Shen Symbol - Polymer Clay Amulet with Bronze Patina Finish


Trouble is I often get caught up in the fun of making smaller things and just let the larger ideas sit a bit too long. . . but then again, Fenewen is always on my work table and he won't be patient for long I suspect. . .

Wishing you all a creative and magical day!

Soon again. . .


nicolas

6 comments:

  1. Oh Nicholas! I am completely smitten with Fenewen and the whole scroll, story, map idea. Absolutely charming.

    I too seem to allow the little projects to take over... but I find that gives the big ideas the proper time to brew and wait for just the right moment for them to come to life. For me making is a long process of thinking followed by a flurry of cutting and pasting :)

    Can't wait to see more of your elves.

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    1. Nichola,

      Agreed! I too think the time it takes for a project to come to life is important and I do not want to rush anything I do. I just seem to let the little ideas swarm and consume the bigger ones over time. And I often keep waiting for the block of time, once I am ready to move forward with a larger idea, to magically be there. So I am trying to just get in the mindset of "one hour at a time". . one figurine, one scroll, one small aspect. . . keep moving forward. So glad to see you here as always! Thank you!

      ~n

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  2. Wow, this is so exciting! I love the Noble Ice Elves! What a wonderful idea! And, your pendants are breath taking! Keep on creating! Hugs ;o)

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  3. Stacy thank you so much for your comment! I am happy people have been responding to the idea of the elves as I reallllllly want to move into making more figurines, art dolls and telling stories with them as characters. Just have to take it one step at a time. lol

    xo

    nicolas

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  4. Finally got back here.... Fenewen is so completely wonderful!, I think the plan to work on the long and the short is great. It is such a struggle to DO IT ALL but it looks like you are being successful with both sides of it.

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    1. Thanks Andrea! I needed SOME sort of a plan. . . it has gotten to where "I'm sure I'll get to it" usually means bye bye project! lol And I KNOW you understand the pull of many creative ideas as well. What a wonderful curse to bear. :)

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