New Work - "First" Friday - November 9th

Soooooo. . .  Yes, I did it. I forgot that the 2nd was the first Friday and when I sat down yesterday to post some new work. . . I felt so silly! :) 

So with FIVE Fridays this month I decided to go ahead and start the month today and count it as first Friday! 

Here is a selection of work from the last month! I hope this finds you all well and preparing for the holiday season ahead. 

I am going to try and post pics of my holiday baking as we go too. First up is Sunday the 11th, that's St Martin's Day and in the Polish town of Poznań, the village bakes and sells  hundreds of thousands of the crescent shaped sweet rolls on Novemebr 11th. I'll post more about it with the images later next week. 

For now, hoping your weekend is wonderful!

XO

nicolas

I had not made Burano houses or a Gondola for years and never at this tiny N scale size! I love them!! 

A Fairy House with the door on the second floor

A All Hallow's Eve scene with Dracula on the crypt's balcony

A Carnelian Shen amulet

A tiny, blue Anubis Statue

A custom request for a miniature scene of Hagrid's Hut! I loved making this but it will be OOAK for sure. :) 

A Book, A Bug and a Bit of a Revelation - First Friday Post - New Work - April 6th

Hello all!!

It's been a month since I've posted and, as many of you know, I 've been away for much of it.

The month started with a cross country train trip home to PA to see my mom. She's doing well all things considered. Still able to live on her own, drive etc. I cooked a lot, laughed a lot and learned a lot. (Family stories that you just never get as a kid or even as an adult, until you ask!) More on all that as time goes on. Anyway, that was where the first two missed Fridays went. I was off-line almost the whole time and LOVED it!

On the return trip, the train had to sit on the siding as a freight train passed. . . and that left us right outside the entrance to Glacier Park at sunrise! 

Not for everyone but I have always adored the landscape of the Dakotas. This is North Dakota.
I love the sparseness and the extremes. 

The Book: While away I finished a wonderful and inspiring book, The Witches of New York, by Ami McKay. I love a good period piece and this one set in the Victorian era of spiritualism in NY is filled with amazing scenes and characters. Its beautiful, full of magic and dreamy. . .  but gritty and relatable and I highly recommend it. I just have to say, where can I get a pet raven?!

The Bug: The last two weeks of March were spent recovering from my trip and from getting sick for the third year in a row, after my return. I don't know what I expect. It's a terrible time to travel with so many people sick and the trip, in all honesty, is exhausting. Physically (it's hard to get good sleep on a moving train) and emotionally with being both home (childhood home)  and away from home (Here, where my entire life and future are) all at once.  It took the last two weeks to get back to normal and so I let the posting of blogs slide.



The Bit of a Revelation - While away I've thought a lot about time and how I spend it.

I am fortunate, beyond my wildest dreams, that I get to make a living being creative. At the tail end of last year, and maybe this is human nature, I began thinking of how I could make things "better". I'm not even sure what that meant really. But it led to me thinking I should do more of this, or try more of that, or create new online presences etc etc.  While away, I realized that I am doing exactly what I want to be doing, Every single day. So why did I think I needed to do more?

I'm still not sure really.

On the train rides I talked to many people from all over the country and what always strikes me is how many (nearly every single person) react the same way when I tell them what I do for a living.

Their response falls along this line. . . "Oh, you can really make a living doing that?"

It's always stated, it seems, with a mix of exasperation and true joy.

It jars me to remember just how difficult that is to accomplish and also, when I set out to do it, that I never thought of it that way at all. It was always just going to be the next thing I do for a living when I sold the coffeehouse.

I was certain of it. Had no doubts. I was determined and willing to put in whatever time it took to make it happen. Never giving up.

The thing is, I never stopped in the last eight years to think about what I would need to do to continue it. I thought about that a lot this last month and the answer was pretty simple.

Follow the exact same path you always have. For me/us that means making and listing new work every single day and just letting it carry us where it will, trusting that the critical mass of listings, the continued desire to improve and the exposure will bring the customers.

In a sense, I'd come to allow the thinking me to overtake the intuitive. It's easy in a world where you can feel so "out of touch" if you are not on social media or connecting somehow when it seems everyone else is.

I kept feeling I should branch out, try new venues or promote my work more. The truth is, we have never done or had to do that and I cannot see why we would take time away from making and listing new work to do so at any point unless what works for us now stops working in the future.

Inspiration is always one reason to venture into those waters, I know, but I've come to think that there is such an overwhelming amount of visual out there to inspire and that too much of it is, for me, not good.  If I take in too much I can lose my way because, YES, I want to do SO many things! Try new ideas and go down rabbit holes at every turn. So I try to limit my inspirational online dives too.

All that is to say that I came back seeing clearly that the focus for the rest of 2018 is just this:

Create, create, create!

My shops currently have less than half the stock they "should". That is, in part, because I have been selling items as fast as they make it in there but I have always thought that a shop with 80 items is more attractive to a buyer than one with 20.  Especially as the holidays approach. (Yes, I said it, the holidays are NEAR. lol)

A long time ago I used to love to toss around a saying that I picked up in my old, urban/city-hardened art days:

"There are only two kinds of artists, talkers and doers. The talkers rarely make the time to do their art and the doers rarely have time to spend talking about it."

I've always been a mix I suppose and in those early days of my adult life was I was certainly more the talker. I didn't say that type of thing to rouse or poke others, only to light a fire under myself.

It was a reminder.

It's easy to talk about what we want to do and far harder to put ourselves on the line and just take action and do them.  Somehow though, when it came to creativity as far back as childhood, I was more the doer, never the talker.

So I am going back to those roots.

My shops and my "Ledgerkeepers" book

That's it. At least for the rest of this year. . . and, honestly, it's quite enough! :)

So I'll be putting off some of those new outlets and inspirations for now and getting back to what got me here and allowed me to become a maker-of-things

And that is, simply
The Making

Which I have been doing since getting past the flu bug and below are a few of the newest pieces. :)

Thank you for coming back and I look forward to posting weekly again and to catching up on all of your blogs in the days ahead too!

XO Nicolas

I love the idea of using large flowers with a tiny house!!

I just wanted to come up with a house that had a mushroom "feel" without being a mushroom.

When I was home, I reconnected with the root of my love of ancient Egyptian/Kemetic Art.
I never tire of making Sekhmet lioness pieces and these busts have been very popular lately. 

A request for a red and gold Anubis led to this. I LOVE the colors and may make more like it going forward too!
It feels very elemental and warm. 

Magick! New Work - First Friday Post - March 2nd

Hey everyone!

A week to go before I leave for my cross country train trek! Just going to stick to new things for this post, new work and few notes to share.

First, I am finally going to be getting my Instagram up and running. I have made the switch to an iPhone and the app loaded. I wanted to try and make it happen through my iPad but it was just not working out and then, as if by fate, my old flip phone dies. Luckily we had a spare, older version of an iPhone laying around here from the last time Sophie upgraded hers sooooo Yay!

I'll keep you posted and/or come find you when I get the first post up there!

For now, here's a sample of some of the newest work from the last month. Enjoy!!


I've been a lover of magick and ATW (that's All Things Witchy) since childhood. It comes and goes but it's really strong right now for some reason. . .

I got to thinking that Magick might be a fine theme for March, especially for my inspirations and oddities post later this month. So I want to present a selection of new work that really speaks to that part of me and the child within!



Let's start with Anubis or Anpu, one of the most magical of all the ancient Egyptian deities to me. I think of Him as more a guardian through transitions and change rather than an underworld figure.

I've been working on a series of bust icons recently and this is the Anubis / Anpu version. 

Tiny scenes never disappoint when it comes to inspiring magick! I am looking forward to making more detailed scenes like the large cliff tower that I showed last month and this smaller N scale one I wanted to feature this month. 

N Scale Tower on a Cliff

Gargoyles. . . oh they took my breath away as a child! I want to expand my gargoyle universe in 2018.  I was recently reading about "get lost" boxes which are a form of old traditional magick.  In days gone by, you might put a representation of the thing you wish to be rid of in a special box and bury it at a crossroads. I decided it would be soooo much better to have a gargoyle keep it for you and watch over it.  This guy comes with his own little box and tiny slips of paper for you to write what you'd like to rid yourself of down and let him do the rest.  Names are VERY important in both Gargoyle society AND Magick. . . His name is Baztertu, a Basque word for banish.

I am SO excited about expanding my gargoyle world!

 After not having made mini Moai statues for some time I got back into them this month. I sold a half dozen I think and am really enjoying working with them again. They have a certain Magick to them as well, these sentinels of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and yes, as a child I made these out of bunches of aluminum foil too! : )

I love old world architecture. Especially European and Medieval architecture. I don't usually make very many buildings that are true to those aesthetics but when I do, I always find them to have a bit of that elusive Home Magick in them. . .  or Inn Magick as it may be!

A dear customer requested a red and gold Sekhmet Lioness statue. Why not? I LOVE how She turned out and this Lady of Light is even more fiery in these colors! I stumbled upon that Golden-finish freshwater pearl in my bits and bobs and it was the perfect topper for her headpiece.

This Sekhmet feels VERY fiery to me! 

Little shoppes are potential magnets for odd fee, gnomes and the strangest of Magical items! 

Description from this listing is below:

Owned and operated by Myrrea Plumgeisse, an ageless and well-travelled gnomess and lover of all manner of things arcane and strange, the Quill and Ink shoppe provides the folk of the Pine wth a variety of implements and supplies for all their letter writing, scroll making and wax seal needs.

These include many curiosities and ephemera associated with magical use of paper and ink to peruse.

Folks in the Pine speak with joviality and awe of the uniqueness of Myrrea's vast collection of supplies, from the vials of natural ground pigments for inks that are mined from the Little Rock Hills to the large, handcrafted cabinet of curiosities which contains 48 drawers each with a plethora of various quills, nibs, grinding stones and blotters.

Folk love to browse the handmade paper section which includes sheets made from local plants like Geminanna or Wallroot for spell casting or the ever popular meadow lace leaf paper which is used as a healing device. If one places a tiny slip of it upon the tongue, it removes the symptoms or ailments that were written upon it as it dissolves.

Don't miss the special inks made from grinding up the Mood Sphere's of Tolos. Little smooth, round black stones which, when ground, create an ink that changes color when the paper it is written upon is held in the hands.

Of course, there are the less fantastic of supplies such as quills fashioned from the feathers of the Pine’s birds, an array of sootstone and many carry satchels for the most important of writings.

You’ll find a few other bits and bobs around the shops counters that have little to do with the written word but are just as enticing!  All throughout the Pine there are many folk who drop by the diminutive Quill and Ink shop just to say hello and take a gander at what Myrrea has brought back from her latest travels and adventures.

One of her best known sayings, when folk ask why she does not refer to the shoppe as a “Stationary Shoppe” is, “My dears, there is simply nothing stationary about the written word and what it can do!”


And one last one for March, a very special little Faery Windmill upon a Star!

Fashioned after a windmill found in Estonia I believe but I m not sure. . .

Thank you for dropping by and have a MaGiCkAl DAY!!! ;)

nicolas

New Work - June 2nd

June is here! for a lot of you it means school is out, kids are home, vacation is close at hand. Whatever your summer holds (or winter if you are down under) I hope it will be a magical season!

For me, if you aren't familiar with my own feelings, summer is my least favorite season. I do think I have a reverse SADS and, when it is sunny for too many days in a row, I get pretty cranky.

Now, this year we had more than our fill of rain so I think I will be ok even if it is sunny for the next three months. So far, fingers crossed, no day has been hotter than 74 and that was just once a few weeks ago.

Last month I tried a little different approach for my shoppes. I focused almost exclusively on Shadow of the Sphinx and tried to fit as many custom pieces in as I could. This was, of course, at the expense of Bewilder and Pine. This month I will reverse that and spend the majority of my time on the Fairy world. I may experiment with working this way, alternating focus months going forward, as it seemed to be a really productive month for me. Now, after almost four weeks with very little "fairy activity" , I am reallllly quite excited to make new fairy houses and little scenes again!

In other projects/news, work continues on my book, "The Ledgerkeepers".  As it's my first attempt at writing a full novel (yikes)  a lot of it has been experimenting with ways around and thru the process. Discovery writing seems to be the ticket for me. I am very adept at coming up with what some writers refer to as the "WOW! moments" but filling in all the spaces in between seemed impossible to figure out ahead of time. So I just pick a spot in the story and go! It twists and turns and opens new doors that lead to new characters, plot twists, little pieces of the world emerging etc. What I love is it's almost like I am discovering it all myself for the first time too. When I look at how the story has gown in scope and how much of that comes from just that sort of free writing without an outline, I am shocked.

I still sit down first thing each morning for between one and two hours and write or research or plot and plan. I'm hoping to be able to share a bit of it here before the summer is done.

The Bewildering Pine website is also coming along. Once I realized the Ledgerkeepers book was going to be a novel  (Or series) and not just a set of short stories and descriptions I knew I wanted a place for all of that to call home too. So the website will house little descriptions of each town, the points of interest and the dozen or so types of elven folk and outer-world traders that inhabit the Pine. There will be maps and charts as well as descriptions of shoppes and societal structures. The website is also on schedule for a late summer /early autumn launch. There will be a blog, a newsletter, a separate shop with perhaps a few exclusive offerings from the world of the Bewildering Pine and all the magic and whimsy I can manage to stuff into that tiny cyber-space!

And last, a Bewilder and Pine print newsletter that I likely will not kick off until the website is up and running but I have a template for it all ready to go. Printed once a quarter I think it will be crafted as if from a press within the world itself, articles and columns by regular elven writers with news from the world of the Bewildering Pine and other realms as well.

Whew!

OK, that's about it for now. . . Welcome June!

So, here are a few of the new items that I finished in May. It's heavy on the statuary and amulets this month since I spent so much of the month working in that world. The one thing I really was able to step back and appreciate this month was how I have developed a very distinct style working with ancient statues. They still resemble their ancient inspirations but I think there is a very distinct style I've forged thru the years with the creating of some 1000 statues and amulets now. That's the beauty of giving something time and effort to develop. Having faith in the processes and just following it along the path willingly. :)

Thank you, as always, for dropping by!

xo
nicolas

Custom Sekhmet Lioness Statue

Mini Wadjet Cobra Statue just 2 1/2" ( 6.25cm) tall

Esma, the second Mouse Market of Muridae Figurine

A very Narrow Fairy Tower from an area of the Bewildering Pine called the Narrows!

One of my Favorite Egyptian Deities to make, no-one is completely sure what animals inspired it but the Anteater is definitely one of the likely suspects!

A very simple Rising Sun amulet

Etsy featured these not too long ago and I have been unable to keep them in the shoppe!. I'll be making a handful in June!

Anubis the jackal and Nekhbet the Vulture. They make a nice couple! :) 

Bes, a multifaceted, multicultural Protective Deity who was well represented by the ancient Egyptians.
 I LOVE the fancy headdress and the tongue sticking out!

New Work - August 1st

Another month came and went soooooooo quickly!

I wanted to give you all a quick update on the writing of "The Ledgerkeers",  the book of short stories I am creating built around the world of the Bewildering Pine. It is going so well right now and I am currently fleshing out a bout 20 different short tales with another 10 or so to go. The challenge is in trying to create lots of little vignettes about the folk, commerce and daily life while hinting at a darker undertone to the Pine's distant (and future) history that I hope will lead to a full fledged novel later on down the road.

Right now I am still hitting the 750 words a day writing goal, 6 days a week!

I also stumbled upon a delightful writing podcast called "Writing Excuses" which has also been a huge help just to keep the brain thinking and working on all sorts of aspects of the process. I highly recommend it. It's 15 minutes per podcast so it takes just a bit of time each day. and the backlog of shows is well over a hundred episodes so there are topics from worldbuilding to pacing to dialogue to descriptive details . . . and you know I am LOVING the details! Always the fun is in the details.

I just ordered a few books, one called "Dirty Old London" that I used an online excerpt from for a story to help flesh out my bake-house / tart cart scene. It was so detailed and brought the early victorian era to life. I am amused by the thought of an entire book on Victorian London's filth and the ways they tried to keep it in check as well as the underside of what we think of as the romantic aspects of that life. I may only use a half dozen details from a book like that but each of them is a true little gem for bringing a world alive!

And finally. . . setting a larger goal, I just booked my trip home to Pennsylvania in February on the Amtrak train. It's a 2 1/2 day trip and I am looking forward to it because, this year, I got a sleeper car for the longest leg of it from Portland to Chicago and back as well. I intend to spend most of that time finishing the final drafts for the stories for the book. I'll have a tiny room to myself and all my dining car meals paid for and I can just focus on editing, reading and watching scenery. This trip gives me a definite goal to have the first drafts and first revisions done by the time I leave.

I've also decided that, once done, I am going to print and hand-bind the first 25 or so copies here, maybe more, we'll see.  I have the flame-throwing Epson 3880 printer to do heavy duty canvas  paper cover work and page layout so I may end up just doing them by hand all around while I shop it for publication.

Of course, I realize I still have to think about illustration, map printing, cover art etc etc etc  So maybe February is a bit ambitious but we'll see. . .

Now, as for August, here are some new pieces I finished the last few days. I had one of my tiny houses featured in the Home/Living/Terrarium section of the Etsy email a week or so ago and it's been CRAZY!

I decided to begin making even tinier houses as I know a lot of terrariums are too small for some of my regular fairy houses. So these cuties may be just the thing for the very tiny indoor garden fae who need the smallest of dwellings!

The houses on the left and right are just 1 1/2" tall!

And these are meant to evoke some of the Venice, Italy color and style in tiny, tiny scale too!

Little Fairy Garden figures for the wee gardener. :)

That's a Hob above, a Brownie here and a Nisse below

I've been working on transferring some illustration skills to these little figures, just simple lines and forms and not too much unnecessary detail. It's working well I think!

I showed you my first dragon a few months ago and here is the next, her name is Roxo (purple in Portuguese )

And I am getting more elaborate with some of the bases on a few statues in Shadow of the Sphinx.
Anubis looks rather pleased to be perched there. :)

Well, that's the news for now. A busy month ahead again with the start of stocking for the holidays. On the calendar is the making of 20 Fairy Houses on Stars and a range of stand alone towers and houses too.

I can't believe i only posted twice last month. . . I hope to have more consistency this month and I look so forward to seeing your lovely comments and thoughts here, as always!

Thank you!!
XO
nicolas

Signposts Along the Road - Anubis

The other day I sold my newest version of an Anubis/jackal statue in Shadow of the Sphinx. The woman who purchased it wrote to me and asked if I had any advice on how to connect or work with Anubis as He had been appearing to her quite a bit lately. 

I did.  

I was a boy of 7 or 8 when King Tut's treasures first toured the US. The country was, as I recall, caught up in the mania of the story of the boy king. My father, living in NY city at the time, sent me a program from the exhibit. A strange gesture because, as far as I know, he had little interest in such things and I, as a young boy, had never even heard of ancient Egypt. 

I was completely taken by the treasures and the story of the tomb's adventurous and painstaking discovery and unearthing. I was in love with the idea of discovering steps beneathe the sand that led to such a marvel. I am sure I must have dug a dozen or more holes in the woods or back yard hoping, the way any young boy with no idea of the scope of the world might, to unearth just such a discovery myself.

 Of all the wonderful things" the tomb yielded, I was taken most by the life-sized jackal headed guardians that stood on either side of the door to King Tutankhamen's burial chamber. Beautiful depictions of Anubis, the "God of the Underworld"  Osiris an, then, the guide through it.

Ancient Egypt became a doorway for me. I devoured every book on it I could find and it led to discovering and reading about other ancient cultures as well. The Greek and Roman empires, The Druids and Celts, Phoenicians, Mesopotamia, The Mongols, The Turks, the Japanese Shoguns,. History became a deep love for me that would, and will,  inspire ma and last through the rest of my life. 

Still, when it cam to Anubis, I was more reverent than smitten. Anubis seemed to hold such power even though I could barely understand the concept of a "psychopomp" or an "underworld". That feeling sort of sat within me for a few years until the day when Anubis was one of the deities that, at age 11 or 12, I drew both on the tops of my feet and on my closet walls for protection (and likely as part of some imaginary scenario I was lost in playing at that time). 

Then, as most childhood obsessions do, in my teen years He and ancient Egypt sort of faded.

But never completely. 

In high school I attended a scholars program that included art and we explored man ancient forms f art. There, in the class books, was an oversized book of Egyptian artifacts. And when we moved here to the coast after leaving the city to take this run at being full time "makers-of-things", I discovered that exact same book, which I had not seen in about 20 years, in an old used book storein the town I moved to!

In the years between I always seemed to have an Anubis statue around or have one given to me when I didn't. An Anubis pendant was mysteriously left for me backstage after a multi media performance I did about 15 years ago. 

I had a Siberian Husky mix for 10 years, who was named Isis (she had the name when I got her!) and who, as many people remarked, was so physically similar to Anubis (including the large ears) and lay in a pose so close to the classic Anubis that it was more than a little eerie. Also, it would be appropriate to say that she chose ME as her provider (a long story but the first night I "found" her, she gingerly stepped over to my side and then lay on my chest in the classic Anubis pose. I recognized that in her immediately. And while she died almost ten years ago, I can say that it was her being in my life that sort of kept me in place and helped lead to what would become the creative life I lead now. So many pieces fell into place that would not of had I felt the freedom to just move or reinvent my life over without any consideration to how it might affect her. She kept me in place until the crossroads had fully appeared. 

But it was not until I began making statues and amulets 6 years ago (and Anubis was one of the first since I indeed had a statue to use as a 3-d model) that I rediscovered my love for reading about the deities of ancient Egypt and exploring their role in that society again. And, in those years that had passed, so much had been discovered and revealed about them. Things I never knew in those early years. 

Anubis, it seems, had a bigger, more expansive role than just the guide to the underworld. It's now known that Anubis could also be seen as a deity that would appear for guidance at any form of "crossroads" in the living world too. The term psychopomp originates from the Greek words Pompos (conductor or guide) and Psyche (life, breath, soul, or mind) and Anubis is just one of long list in mythology that includes Hermes, Persephone and the Valkyries. So to think of Anubis, after all these years as something the living could connect to, well, it made much more sense why Anubis has been a part of my world for so long. 

Crossroads. . . as a child, it's hard to look back and say how big of an influence that glossy King Tut exhibit program was. How big an impact those standing, anthropomorphic Anubis guardians were going to be. But it is absolutely true that, in my adult world, Anubis seemed to be a guide that came along, in one form or another, each time I needed him . . . if only to watch over me, keep me where i needed to be, or to inspire.

Today, I am always happy to make an Anubis statue or amulet and to send it out into the world for others to, hopefully, work with and find their way thru the crossroads of life.

Below is another version of that Anubis I spoke of at the beginning and a few new pieces from the Shadow of the Sphinx shop too. All of them are important to me in their own way. All have had their place in my life. But none more so than the guardian and navigator of crossroads, Anubis. . . 

Thank you for visiting!

xoxo

nicolas

My latest Shadow of the Sphinx version of Anubis

The "classic" pose.

I'm introducing a new series of busts for smaller altar spaces. This is the lioness, Sekhmet, with solar disc and cobra. 

And one of Wenut, the Hare or "The Swift One" 

Recent Commissions in Shadow of the Sphinx

A trio of statues from Shadow the Sphinx that were all custom requests. always a favorite of mine as I get to make pieces that are not normally in my shop but then, as it turns out, end up getting seen and requested again!

I hope you enjoy the peek at these custom pieces!!

XO
nicolas

The Set Animal,  also known as Sutekh and Seth.  . The God of the Desert, Storms and Chaos

Hecate - I DO venture outside of the Egyptian pantheon work quite often actually. This Hecate was one of my favorites to create this summer.

An Anubis Sphinx - no actual record of one ever having existed in Ancient Egyptian iconography but, in my mind, the two are perfect together. Guardians of mystery and time. When this was requested, I jumped at the opportunity to make it! Plus it is just SO darned cute!!!

Nefertem - "The One Who Never Closes" - A Solar Deity often associated with the blue lotus and with the creation of the sun in earlier dynasties.  The headdress represents a lotus blossom.