Hero

A wonderfully creative blogging friend of mine has issued an intriguing challenge thru her blog. Once a week she chooses a single word for a theme and asks her followers to create something. . .  just one little thing. . . no matter how small or incomplete, that sums up that word of the week.

It's the kind of challenge I love and have decided to approach it as a way to fill out the cast of characters for our own little paracosm of Bewilder and Pine. So, when I saw the word for this past week was "Hero", I knew exactly where the theme was going to go.

What came from that word and the inspiration was this little guy. . .  Moxley Wynn

Isn't he a total cutie?

Heroes come in all sizes, of course, but little Moxley has a very large presence around here.

It's going to be reallllly hard to part with this guy one day.

So, little Moxley Wynn is inspired by a lifelong love of mouse/heroic characters from a variety of times and places. Starting with a nostalgic soft-spot for Mathias and Abbot Mortimer from Brian Jacque's "Redwall" on up thru the recent comic book phenomenons "Mouse Guard" and "Mice Templar". The mouse, as the underdog. . .  as the hero. . . it always just seemed to make perfect sense to me.

Moxely is just the first of the Forest Guide Mice I will be making. He is crafted from polymer clay and armature wire and hand-painted. His staff which comes from the magical woods of our local forest haunt, Kilchis Point,  features a little hanging polymer lamp and a few tiny polymer acorns too. A little lichen and fishing line whiskers really brought him to life.

The best part of having just a week to make the piece is I can't over-scrutinize and worry about how  each detail looks without just diving in and making it.

So HUGE thanks to Nichola and her wonderful and inspired idea!! I look forward to the next. :)

Hoping that you all have a little hero like Moxley to help you find your way "home" creatively.

nicolas