The Bewildering Pine - Fourth Friday October 27th

Welcome to my first Fourth Friday Post. Every month, on the fourth Friday I will be writing about, and sharing insights into, the Bewildering Pine; a world I've been creating, in one form or another, for as long as I can recall.

I should start by explaining and separating the two main parts of this series and that world.

One, the "Bewildering Pine" is the fictional world where my first (in process) novel length book, "The Ledgerkeepers", is set.  It's a fantasy world that pulls from the many influences and inspirations I've had over the years for just such a world. The world is populated by "old world elves",  simply referred to as folk, and not the High elves of modern fantasy.

And the second aspect, the Bewilder and Pine, which is the creative outlet for my miniature making. It's my Etsy shoppe and where many of the larger ideas I have been formulating began.

Here, I really want to focus mainly on the book, that world and it's ties to my childhood and adult life but some parts of that world are derived from the experiences and products in the shoppe, and the shoppe in great part inspired the book and everything else that will come beyond it. . .  so I will want to dive into both over the coming months.

Today, for the first installment, I do want to focus on what the undertaking of the writing of this book has meant to, and done FOR, my own heart.

It would be easy, I think, for an outsider to look at my miniature work, my writing here and my views on life in general and assume I am stuck in a loop of nostalgia and whimsy, not that there would be anything wrong with that. . . and to a degree it's true. :) I've come to a place in my life where I tend to keep most anyone who I feel is too caught up in the outside or "real" world at arms length. Not because I want to pretend that world doesn't exist but because I believe how much that world affects us is almost entirely up to us most days.

Simply put, if  I allowed that world to inundate my daily thoughts and emotions, I could not do what I do for a living. It's not an escape, it's the way I go about and make sense of that very same world while at the same time, giving life to, and protecting, another world I've held within for so many years.

Somewhere along the way I decided that we each have our roles to play, I won't say it's our destiny or our calling. . .  or even our path. . . just that we may choose what we do with each moment we are given and for me, that choice slowly over the years became one of deciding that I wanted to put as much beauty and joy into the world as I can every day.

I discovered early on in the Etsy/maker-of-things world that the more I attached stories to my little creations, the more people responded to them. The more stories I created, the more the world that is now the Bewildering Pine of the book, started to creep in and influence my making and the stories I wrote to go with.  Tart Carts, crooked towers, shop and village names, houses with different architectural styles, little enigmatic elves who live in the woods or in hermit like solitude. Monks with face like mimes. Old tongues and sacred traditions lost. With each addition another little piece of the puzzle fell into place.

Now, this is going back some eight years to the beginning. In the last few years, the separation had begun to widen in my heart and in my creative desires. I started spending more time on the "side project" which, at the time, I could not have told you what exactly it would become. The world of the book is now vastly different from the world of the Etsy shoppe.

There are still bits and pieces that remain constant but as characters, locations and I suppose, most of all, the plot for the Ledgerkeeper's story started to reveal itself to me, I saw the chance to speak about more than just a fantasy world. It's aim is to be a novel that speaks to cultural identities and traditions, how things change, why things change, and, of course, how everything is not what it seems when story is a foggy subject at best.

As for the writing, this has been a crash course. I've never even attempted to write something like this before. Not seriously. Poetry yes, short stories, yes, letters of all kinds to friends and family, yes.

But to sit down and say, "Right, I want to write a novel!" No, that never crossed my mind once really.

What I've learned more than anything in the last year since I took up the task is WHY so many people start writing a novel, a short story, a memoir and then quit. Because it's reallllllly HARD and it requires something I feel blessed to have been able to find in an already busy life. The space and a routine to do so!!

I believe it's the hardest creative thing I've ever set out to do.  It requires persistence, time commitment, belief in it and in yourself. More than all of those, I think, it requires a desire to say something through your fiction. To tell your story or offer a viewpoint.

Nothing has ever brought me face to face with my own resolve and motivations like writing.

I chose the genre of fantasy for obvious reasons. Mostly because at the start of a fantasy story or novel is the world building part of it. That world that only exists in your head has to be fleshed out. Mapped out too. Not all at once but, at some point, you have to think about it all. The cultures, the limitations, the food, the climate, the magic etc.

Often you'll hear writers offer the advice "Write what you know". For some, like David Sedaris, that can mean your close family. For others like George RR Martin, that means the world you've been toying with in your head for your whole life.

To me, the love required is the same and evident in both I think. So yes, write what you love as well as what you know. The great thing is, you can learn so much that you don't know when you start! I may have a fantasy world in my head but it's littered with real world objects and situations that need to be right for the story. How does a water clock work? How were certain vegetables farmed 500 years ago? What happens when you have two moons, not one. The list is endless.

I love fantasy. Myth, legend, magic, the realm of Faerie, elves, surreal nature.

The funny thing is, I've decided to go a whole lot less in the original direction I assumed I would.

I've left magic off the board in this world for the most part. What magic does exist is born more of our own old world beliefs and traditions and the faith of folk in that.  I've seen first hand in my life how powerful that can be. So, if it's tinged with magic in the Bewildering Pine, it has roots in something you may recognize. There are no great powers, no mages and wizards. No dark forces. . .  at least, not magic ones.

The main characters as well as most of the supporting ones are all based on people I have known as well. From childhood friends to folk I know in the small town I live in currently. All wonderfully unique in their own ways and human to a fault.

I personally fall in love with books for the characters, not just the worlds the author created for them to dwell in.

My favorite books of late all share the core foundation of having very strong characters as well as the world around them being interesting too. But that doesn't mean they have to be a total creation of the imagination.

A Darker Shade of Magic
A Green and Ancient Light
The Queen of the Tearling
The Foretold
The Night Circus

All of these portray vastly different worlds: Four parallel Londons,  a non-descript,"post war" European setting,  a realm from our very own possible future, an Amazonian tribe/landscape and the underbelly of 19th century London.

What they all have in common are main characters that are stronger than the need to suspend your disbelief because they are relatable. Now, I won't ask you to read any of those if fantasy is not your thing. . .but if you want a short story that sums that same idea up, of the character being more important than the system of magic and the world, I'd suggest seeking out "The Night Market" by Holly Black. It's simply one of the best short stories I've ever read. It's got a bit of fantasy, a bit of magic too, but it's all revolving around the main character, her love of her family and the ending is the true magic of the story, of the world. . . of each of us in our world. It's well worth the read.

So here I am. over a YEAR into this project and just moving forward every day. I spend two hours each morning from 5:30am to 7:30am sitting in the silence of the early hours at the laptop writing, researching, plot sketching, exploring.

Each day starts with feeding and loving on our cat, Bhu, then venturing out to walk to the old-school bakery which is just a block away from our place and opens at 5:30am ( I know, lucky right?) and the day starts with something like this

French Press and a fresh apricot danish. Sorry about the lighting. . . but it WAS taken before 6 in the morning!

Finding that space, that time and making it a routine was key to getting along with the writing. It has also been the best adventure ever! Bringing this world to life and creating the characters and all the little details is like nothing else I've done. I 'm hooked. It's no longer hard. No longer a chore. It's just one more thing in my daily routine and I try not to let anything keep me from it.

In the future I want to talk about the beauty of routine and how it is such an important part of my days. I learned it at retreats visiting a Zen monastery years ago. Their set hours for meditation, meals, down time, work etc were a novel idea to me who, as a creative soul, could not stand the notion of incorporating that into my own daily creative world. Yet. . .

Immediately I saw why it worked but I still fell off the "routine wagon" very quickly afterwards. In the last 8 years or so, learning to keep to a schedule has become essential with all that I want to accomplish and make.

The routine I have now is set in stone and it has to be a pretty extraordinary thing for me to break it..

I'll also want to discuss finding your "voice" thru writing.  For me, that has been the hardest part of taking up a novel. Different writers create in different ways. It was yet one more reinvention and I seem to have found my own methods to get me there along the way.

At this point in the Ledgerkeepers, I have a prologue and four very strong character chapters. One for each of the main characters. Each also explores a little of the world around them and each, before I found my voice, were wayyyyyy too long expositions of pure world building and description ( a common flaw in fantasy writing) and less of the characters.  One of these chapters, for example, was near to 70 pages of discovery writing which I condensed and stripped away to what is now an 11 page first chapter. I found the characters and found THEIR voices, their motivations and their desires.

I'm excited to start sharing some of that world with you all here. And while I am not quite there yet, I want to put out there that I am going to be asking for Alpha and Beta readers in the coming months. (beginning in January most likely) If you have any interest in being among the first to read what I am creating, you can let me know and I will put you on the list of people to open the early chapters of the story up to as it falls into place.

As an alpha reader, I'll ask you to only focus on,  and give feedback for four distinct things:

1. What bores you
2. What confuses you
3. What don’t you believe
4. What’s cool? (So I don’t accidentally “fix” it.)

That's it! No long explanations are necessary. Just simple observations as you go. No other input is required at that first stage. I'll likely post the chapters here with password protection on them and send you the password when I am ready. I tend to like rather short chapters, 8-12 pages on average so it's not a lot of time commitment with each. 

Here and there I'll be posting little excerpts on the open blog too. In addition to "The Ledgerkeepers", I am also creating a book born from the world building itself. An "atlas",  I suppose, with many of the descriptive details of the villages, architecture, maps, belief systems, flora and fauna, folktales and the ancient origin stories for all of the type of folk who dwell in the world of the Bewildering Pine. As if someone were archiving the world from within the world itself. 

Alright, I think that's going to be good for this month's opening installment. I know it was a bit scattered but we'll find a direction with it in the next month or two. 

Welcome along for the ride! I look so forward to sharing more of the world with you in the coming months on fourth Fridays. I hope you will enjoy it too. 

Thank you for coming by and reading! XX
Nicolas

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Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:

1st Friday of Each Month - New work ( New to the shops and a look at the making of one item each month)

2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me) 

3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)

4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)

Making of a Maker - Third Friday Post - October 20th

The Road to Here

If there is one thing I have wanted to share most from my experiences in life, it is how I became a maker of things. And by that, I mean the long road to "here". From those first inspirations and indulgences as a child to the present moment.

This weekly third Friday post will focus on exactly that.  And maybe even exploring side-roads to talk about what and where "here" is exactly, since it is always changing. 

If there is one thing I want to put across right off, it's that what I offer here is just ONE individual's perspective on how it can be achieved. I cannot even be sure I see it clearly in retrospect. I can only talk about the beginnings, the course changes, the bits of luck, inspirations and decisions that led to here and now.

I do NOT think my way is the right way for even a good chunk of folks who want to be artists or indulge in creativity full time. What my path is, is one more viewpoint that perhaps you can take something from it all and go forward with it in your own pursuit of becoming the working artist you want to be. 


So where to begin? 

How about this, I believe you can reinvent yourself time and again ( I certainly have) but what I've come to learn, all thee years later, is that you have to embrace, or at least make peace, with who you are inherently. Where you come from. What "made" YOU.  

You don't have to live in and with it every day if it was, as it sometimes can be, negative or shadowy, but I think that you do have to give it more than just a nod of acknowledgement. 

How many times have we all seen that artist's statement, written in the third person, that just doesn't tell you anything about the artist at all? Oh, it's a list and who's who of degrees, schools and mentors to be sure. But then you turn and what you see on the paper or canvas or in three dimensions doesn't seem to have anything to do with that at all. I see that less and less, of course, and I'm happy that we seem to be moving beyond that as a whole in our world. I don't care where you went to school, where you reside, how long you've been drawing those concentric circles etc. . . I care about where you came FROM. What inspires you now and what did then. Who you are inherently and how that is honored today in your life. 

I came across a "modern artist" who was quick to tell you, in third person, about walking the same streets of Europe that the masters did and sitting at Van Gogh's cafes, living abroad. . .  but who was a midwest farm kid by birth. I never met that particular artist but I am guessing that no matter how they cover it or try to rearrange the parts, the farm-kid's spirit and essence is still there in everything they do and all that they are. Yet it seemed they were trying so hard to separate themselves from it. I know because I did that for years too. But now I'd say it's important to embrace it. You can reinvent yourself and still honor and pay homage to those beginnings. 

I say that because for me, going back to that origin, creatively, became a huge part of my road to here. Childhood imagination. The same one I used to escape school bullies and that filled the many hours I had alone in my room as a kid, was still there waiting for me when I ran out of "adult artist" costumes to try on.  

Keep in mind that before I came to this realization, I DID create sooooo much. I performed the music I wrote on stages, had gallery shows and was part of collective exhibitions here and there. 


What Interested me then was making something from nothing. Even in those childhood, neighborhood sports-playing days we were always making due with less. Less players, less equipment, less than ideal places to play. Gravel instead of grass, slanted side streets instead of level lots. . . sharing gloves and bats, hoping someone brought a decent ball. . . but regardless, we played just the same.


Outside of sports, which was never a full time interest, my attention was put into to creating worlds. With action figures, costumes, props etc a few of us spent entire days lost in scenarios from space exploration to digging out of post apocalyptic ruins, to medieval knights. Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Lost in Space, Planet of the Apes and so on.  Strangely enough, though it was becoming quite the thing and I was aware of it, I never got involved in role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons in those years.
We were, perhaps, the last of the "outdoor" generation of kids. Even on the worst of days weather wise, we spent as much time outside as we could. I mean, when else were we going to be able to pretend we were on that snowy, ice planet of Hoth other than when we were slogging around in the midst of a 12 inch snowfall with gusting 40mph winds! 
But I've discovered the amazing worlds of Role Playing Games as an adult and I can see the parallels between the experience we had in our outdoor imagination-born adventures and role playing in the tabletop gaming world. 


Paul Lafarge, an essayist, author and long time D&D player and enthusiast, writes how gaming is like reading a book:  


"You start outside something (Middle Earth; Dickens’s London; the fascinating world of mosses and lichens), and you go in, bit by bit. You forget where you are, what time it is, and what you were doing. Along the way, you may have occasion to think, to doubt, or even to learn. Then you come back; your work has piled up; it’s past your bedtime; people may wonder what you have been doing. In a society that conditions people to compete, and rewards those who compete successfully, Dungeons & Dragons is countercultural; its project, when you think about it in these terms, is almost utopian. Show people how to have a good time, a mind-blowing, life-changing, all-night-long good time, by cooperating with each other! And perhaps D&D is socially unacceptable because it encourages its players to drop out of the world of competition, in which the popular people win, and to tune in to another world, where things work differently, and everyone wins together."

As we grew a bit older, reaching 'tween years, that small group of us who relied on imagination separated further from the sports playing kids just as the reached that peak competitive phase. My social/play group dwindled to three and, often times, it might just be two.  

Of course, the advantage I had over even the D&D kids was that I didn't need a group to have my most memorable fun. The worlds that I explored individually in my alone time, and there was an abundance of it, were the best. Still, to this day, I can recall the games, the characters, the little places in my mind that I would return to again and again. 

So lets lay the groundwork for this Third Friday post series like this:

I am a product of many events, circumstances and actions. Like all of us, I made choices, took roads that were more or less traveled and, at times, had to double back to find my way forward again. But in the midst of all of that, there has been a firm, foundational knowledge that the world around me is a magical place. A place of possibility. And that the world we experience and see is just a fraction of what is out there for us.

When that world around me became less than magical, I changed it. When the people around me became less supportive, too destructive or just got too caught up in their own version of the real, adult world, often meaning they gave up on their own dreams and creativity, I left them behind. When the places I've lived became less than magical, I've moved. And I'm aware how that could seem like I am running from something but, in truth, I am protecting something deeper. 

And I'd say the greatest lesson I learned was to treat your creativity like a gift of creation itself. I have come to think that our creative pursuits should be treated much like having a child (or kittens, baby birds, puppies. . . whatever you prefer) Your idea for a creative life is born or hatched as the case may be. . . And it needs your attention, care and, especially early on in it's infancy and development, your nurturing and protection from certain influences and experiences. You wouldn't turn your child over to just anyone to "rear and raise", and you wouldn't take just anyone's advice about how to raise them. . . so treat your creative work the same way. It's your dream, your pursuit, your passion. Your child. 

It most certainly can be harmed by the wrong hands, the wrong mouths, the wrong hearts. 

And, most of all, what parent out there would tell you their life didn't change drastically when their child was born or, to a lesser degree, when a new pet came into the house. We rearrange our lives to take care of them, yes? You put aside many of your other pleasures and indulgences to be there for it at all times, right? 

Then that is how you should approach your creative notions too.  

Ultimately, if you are really going to develop the creative soul you wish to bring forth. Even the idea of "success", of making a living from it, is just another point on the map, and the map we draft is a lifelong pursuit of putting beauty, whimsy, color, imagination, words, imagery, ideas and thoughts. . . even utilitarian items. . .  into our world. 

I make a living at what I do. I work harder than I have at anything else in my life. More hours. Like a small child, it's not something I can put away at 5pm, turn off the lights and go home. Since I reached that goal, I've come to realize that it's just another rung of the entire ladder of my life's journey. I want to evolve and grow with it. Whether I can make MORE money from it is immaterial because I know i can adapt and change MY life to suit it. 

To close this first installment of the Making of a Maker, there is a poem I adore that I actually was first shown by my Zen teacher. She thought it was perfect for me then because at the time, as I tended to from time to time, I was struggling with these same issues of the making and care of a creative life. To this day, some 15 years later, it remains one of my favorite poems and I think that it sums up the creative soul, the maker, that dwells in all of us so well. 

The Way It Is
William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. 

It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Thank you for reading, following and commenting! 
Keep MAKING!!!!!

Nicolas XO

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Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:

1st Friday of Each Month - New work ( New to the shops and a look at the making of one item each month)

2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me) 

3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where this is my full time job.)

4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)

Inspirations and Oddities - October 13th

This is the first edition of my Second Friday blog posts.  In these I'll be posting links to what inspires me and my work. Blog posts, Wikipedia pages, imagery, books etc etc

So without any delay, here is this month's entry on "Inspirations and Oddities"

*****


"I’ve written in other venues about the “thrill of the hunt.” And by that, I mean the hunt for that one back issue of a comic series you loved, that old album by the band you loved, or that out of print book by that author you loved. These “hunts” were a big part of my youth, and the very concept is gone now. Everything is easily found on the Internet with a few keystrokes."  -  Monte Cook

The world is filled with inspiring and amazing things to take in. As a child those discoveries led to the worlds of my imagination. We didn't have everything at our fingertips and, as Monte suggests in that quote above, it is now common to find almost anything within moments on the internet. But is that true? I really think there are still untold worlds to discover. Pinterest, for all of it's amazing possibility, seems to narrow the treasure trove based on algorithms that they think shows us what we want to see when beyond those first pages of results one finds a world deeper than the most favorited or popular of images.  Instead, it's when I choose an image, then look at it's similar images and then pick one, repeating the process a half dozen times that I finally come upon something I really want.

I have to dig, search, follow trails and spend time to get there. The best of what is out there is often not found on page one of my search results but buried in the depths.

My news feed is devoid of the glut of negative world events but loaded with National Geographic, Scyfy, Smithsonian etc. I'll download a dozen previews on Ibooks just hoping to find that one self-published or lesser known gem. I want the mystery, the new, the inspiring and the possible.

What I am saying I guess is that I am not certain the thrill of the hunt had been totally removed. . . just that the means to enjoying it are changing with technology. What I worry about is that the DESIRE for the hunt is being lost with the ease modern technology provides.

These days I compare the internet to taking pre-arranged travel tours. Back when I used to travel in my early 20's. I usually had a departure and return date and then filled the between with whatever I was inspired to do or see that day. I only took one arranged, group tour, and that was of Greece and Turkey because it allowed for seeing 5 of the Greek islands and a much desired stop in the ancient ruins of Ephesus. While the entire group often went everywhere together, taking in all of the exact same locations, restaurants and sights, I always set off on my own to find the out of the way places and local cafes.

In Ephesus as they took in all the planned sights along the ancient streets, I spent my time there sitting on the actual communal benI walked along the streets following the wagon and chariot ruts cut into the heavy stone over their ages of use.

In Greece, at the temple of Poseidon, the group all took the usual photo op and hurried out of the wind down to the gift shop while I stood alone facing that stiff wind overlooking the Aegean sea and tried to imagine what it was like to stand at that temple when it was in it's prime.  In Delphi, when they ran off to lunch and gift shopping, I wandered down to the temple of Athena where we had spent all of 10 minutes as a group, so that I could sit there alone and imagine myself coming to Delphi though the olive groves of the valley below, hoping to receive the oracle's wisdom. . .

The whole trip went like that and every time we reconvened on the bus or at the hotels, I'd be asked all sorts of questions about where I went and what I did. Where I ate. What I saw. As if I was on a different tour! 

All I did was go off on my own and explore. . . that's what it takes today to find the "treasures". 

In this monthly post, I hope to share a bit of it with you. :)

Hoping you'll find a little inspiration here! PLEASE feel free to send me links to what inspires YOU! Let's help each other in that hunt for the unusual and the treasures of the internet!

xo

Nicolas

*****

I use the word paracosm a lot. It perfectly describes my childhood experiences in imagination and also what I strive for daily as an adult. I'm definitely in the world of my making more than not which leads to being a pretty blissed out guy.  I am often asked "Are you ever in a bad mood?" and, of course, the answer is yes. I'm human (really, I AM!) But the smiling face people see most of time is DIRECTLY related to my paracosms and the world I dwell in most of the time.

Much of the outside world is not allowed in. No horrors of the news, no clocks, phone on silent always, no pop-ins from other people. I put strong boundaries around it to keep it safe and it pays off. I get to create, imagine and invent each and every day with little interruption.

Four years ago, one of my favorite bloggers, Andrea over at Falling Ladies created this blog post:

Paracosm  - In the four years since I have returned to that post time and again for a bit of inspiration and just for the magic of the world Andrea hints at there. Often I am hoping to find more of it somewhere that I did not see before. . . that's the power of magic! Thank you Andrea!

Here are a few more for this month:

The Hermit Monks of Karouliya - I needed a remote, hard to access setting for the "monks" of my world. But my world is not very vast and is self contained sooooo . . . this post inspired me greatly. The website, though loaded with active content and ads that sometimes frustrates me and my laptop, is alike a random WOW generator! I go once a month and find at least two or three things in our world that I never knew existed.

The Hama Water Wheels - How about water wheels for moving water in a tech challenged world? I'm a visual person and while I could see waterwheels in my mind quite easily it was nothing as grand as these gasp-worthy structures dating to the Byzantine world.

The Singing Tree  - Need an inspiration for a truly new musical "instrument" or ancient mystery? Oh, it's out there!


And a monthly Book Suggestion too!

I just finished listening to Neil Gaiman read his "The Ocean at the End of the Lane." I'm neither a fan nor a critic of Gaiman's work. It's hot or cold for me. I love some, can't get thru a few chapters of others, but this story may be one of my all time favorites. It's really about that struggle between the worlds of childhood and adulthood and every bit of it is magic. Both Sofie and I agreed that it sounds "true". Like there is no part of it that you can't imagine being possible.  And of course I identify totally with the boy in the story. I was that boy. I had magical encounters of my own and I often returned to them time and again when life seemed overwhelming.  they remain like polestars to me today.

Magic IS everywhere and I just need that reminder sometimes.

First Friday - New Work - October 6th

First Friday - New Work

Hi all!

Welcome to the first post under my new blog format. First Fridays are reserved for giving you all a peek at some new work. This might be work in progress, truly new creations and/or a series of in progress pics of one or more pieces to give you all a little insight into the way things take shape around here on a daily basis.

It can take a week or two to complete a piece from it's beginning. Mostly this is due to working in batches thru the various processes and, with two completely different shoppes to stock, create for and manage, that can often stretch the time it takes for completing a piece even further. At any one time I can have between 2 and 3 dozen pieces going in some form. Yep, that's why my  actual "work area" can be as small as 4 or 5 inches square!

This week's post will give you all a little inside look at how I create some of the statues in Shadow of the Sphinx. I began this piece, a 9" tall standing statue of Nephthys, the Goddess of Mourning, about 10 days ago.  I get a few requests a year for Her in one form or another, the most popular being Her kneeling pose. Looking back, I am amazed at how this shoppe has become a bigger and bigger part of my creative world. The requests I get are so varied and not limited to Egyptian/Kemetic antiquity. I've done Mayan, Inuit, Greek, Roman, Norse and Celtic pieces too when requested and  always think how wonderful it would be to expand that in the shoppe itself but I can barely keep up as is most months without setting off down yet another road!

The most satisfying part of this work is that, for me, the ancient Egyptian pantheon has been a part of my life since I was 6 or 7. I've written before about how I painted hieroglyphs all over my bedroom closet walls at 12 hrs old, much to the chagrin of my mother when she found them, and how I used to make statues, crowns and amulets out of tin foil and my grandmothers endless craft supplies.  And I believe I have mentioned how I used to draw a few of the ancient deities, Anubis, Bast, Djehuty, Auset on the tops of my feet in pen or marker to protect me from nightmares and school bullies.

So it should be little surprise that when I came into working with polymer clay, the first thing I actually thought to try and make was a small Egyptian statue. And it was sooooooo bad. Those foil ones that I made when I was a kid were more realized (foil is a very underrated material! ) But something made me stick with it and keep trying. :)

Over the 7 or so years I have been doing this work, I've figured out a lot about how to make statues, faces, and all the little details that are involved. There are no tutorials, no instructions from the masters of old. . . just lots of antiquities and images to look at. I added in the making of amulets and, eventually, all sorts of non-traditional polymer pieces. I did have a little experience working in clay, but quickly found that it's nothing at all like working with polymer.

Of course, I am always going to be a rather undisciplined maker-of-things, which when it comes to statues means I cannot guarantee the height of a piece at the beginning. I use my eyes to tell me if the proportions are correct and I do not worry about perfect symmetry or balance (except in the faces).

Now, here are some images and short descriptions of the process along the way from start to finish on making the Nephthys statue I completed this week:

Every statue starts as lumps of raw clay. Basic proportions are made for the body, head and base or plinth the statue will eventually stand on. I'm not exact here since so much will be added and cut away but, over the years, I've become pretty adept at starting with the right amounts. Basic body shaping helps to get that where I want it. 

Quick form of the body allows me to gauge the finished height a bit better. Once I have that form, I'll make the head to size and then put feet right on the base, this is to allow me to preserve the tiny details like toenails etc because the body will still be handled quite a bit. Arms are added to the body and ears to the head and posture starts to take shape. After an overnight rest so the clay firms up again, I sculpt a little tighter to the the finished form and add the neck plate/aegis, sculpt the hands to the body and insert the tiny Ankh charm in the right hand. At this point, the statue is fired in the oven for the first time. 

Once the statue is fired, I'll add the headdress and start some of the clothing details.  The tall headpiece is a rendering of Nephthys hieroglyph, thought to be a house/building/column with a basket balanced on top. When the statue is fired a second time, painting begins. First a layer of acrylic matte as seen in the second image and then, when dry, the first layer of the metallic pigment, bronze in this case. 

A second layer is added after another overnight drying. Then the final coat of pigment and the reactive patina are applied. In the middle image you can see how quickly the changes begin to appear. I began at the top, working down the statue and you can see the greener coloring coming through on the headdress even though it was only done a few minutes prior to the rest of the statue. The final image shows the patina about two hours in. It's pretty close to done but I'll give it the rest of the day to sit and develop. Then a final sponging of the metallic pigment back overtop creates 
the final look of the piece. 

And there She is!!! Nephthys in her final form. Over time, the pigment will fade in luster and look truly aged. The headdress is removable for shipping, easily inserted into the head on a guide wire.  

So that's a peek into the making of one of my statues. In future first Friday posts, I'll focus in on smaller parts of the process like making heads, clothing etc. I never make two the same, always trying to give each customer a slightly unique look to their statue. In this case, I combined aspects of two traditional renderings of Nephthys from antiquity to create this one. 

And here are a few more pieces of New Work as well!

Hope you enjoyed this peek into the making of some of my things! Thank you for reading and for inspiring me as well! 

nicolas

New Fairy Houses with Patina rooftops!

Reliquary gargoyles. . . finished a few weeks ago but they still need their story! :)

New Clara Voyant mini tombstone for Halloween!

A new blue reactive patina to simulate the look of ancient faience work! Totally maddening and hard to control but soooo worth it as this little Taweret/Hippo shows. . . She is is just under 3" tall!

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Nephthys is a member of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis in Egyptian mythology.

Nephthys was known as the goddess of mourning. She was the goddess of night, rivers, sleep, and nature as well. When Nephthys became the goddess of mourning she also became a guide and protector of the dead. When people died their ''Ba'' would be tested by 40 gods, many of whom met up with Nephthys.

Nephthys had many siblings. Her parents were Geb the god of the earth (a goose) and Nut the goddess of the sky ( a female form arched over the land with stars over her body) . She was the sister of Auset/Isis, Osiris and a twin of Sutekh. 



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Beginning in October of 2017 I started to follow the following format for my blog, posting every Friday and under the following headings:

1st Friday of Each Month - New work ( New to the shops and a look at the making of one item each month)

2nd Fridays - Inspirations and Oddities (Links and thoughts about what inspires me) 

3rd Fridays - The Making of a Maker (advice and shared experiences of how I got "here" to where being a "maker-of-things" is my full time job.)

4th Fridays - The World of Bewilder and Pine ( peeks into the world of the Bewildering Pine, the stories and books to follow and all around fantasy world making)