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!

The Origin of My Protectors

When I was a child, I had decided that almost any fear, any threat, any possible monster lurking in the darkness could be conquered by following a set of rules to invoke the protection of the something good and greater.

There was a late-night weekend show called Chiller Theater that aired throughout my childhood. It was a double feature (though for a few years it was a TRIPLE feature I believe!)  of old classic and otherwise mostly B grade monster and occult films every Saturday night starting at 11:30pm.

The host of the show, Chilly Bill Cardille, was best known to the world for his role as the news reporter in the original "Night of the Living Dead". ( I also lived quite near the cemetery from that movie and had friends who lived directly across the street from it. . . such fodder for over-active, young imaginations!!!)

The whole production of Chiller Theater was a real camp-affair! In-studio skits between commercial breaks and films took place on a castle inspired set and included Cardille as well as a host of characters with names like like Terminal Stare, Georgette the Fudgemaker and Stefan the Castle Prankster. 

But even with the levity of those breaks, the movies were often quite scary to me (as with all the classic Karloff, Lugosi, Price films!)  So began the practice of pulling myself fully up on the reclining chair in the dim, flickering tv light and covering myself with one of my grandmother's hand crocheted afghans. In my mind, as long as all my extremities were covered completely, I was safe.

On occasion, like getting a snack in the kitchen during a commercial break, or in the heat of summer, I needed more active safety measures. What I concocted was a series of little internal "tests" which, if passed, allowed me the same measure of safety outside of the protective afghans. 

These tests were things like; holding my breath through a commercial break, staring at a digital clock til it changed the minutes, having my snack and being back in my chair by the movie's return, and sometimes I just repeated certain phrases in my head when moving from one chair to a couch or to the kitchen or to my bedroom. Those are too silly to repeat here but they were all for the result of an invoked protection.

Basically, little, internal talismans and rituals.

And those old movies were really the least of my fears. There were even scarier "modern" horror shows like Night Gallery or Sixth Sense. My childhood bedroom, ages 4 thru 11 was a frightful place. Nightmares, pitch black darkness, strange things. . . too many to mention. But my grandparents house where I spent most of my time while my mother worked and where we lived from 11 yrs old onward was nothing of the sort. It was the epitome of the word "sanctuary". And, despite and/or due to the extraordinary circumstances of several life changing events that happened there thru the years of my childhood, my belief in the unseen and protective, grew and never wavered. 

So it should be no wonder that upon reading and learning about the pantheon of ancient Egypt somewhere around the age of 11, I immediately took up the idea of amulets, protective symbols,  animal deities and rituals! That's a love that continues to this day and never loses interest for me.

My crafty kid-self went mad for the little amulets and statues. I spent countless hours at the library researching anything I could find about the pyramids and ancient civilizations, one leading to another and so on.  So there was that, coupled with my already strong belief in the unseen and "other" worlds of the fae and the such. All of it making a very strong impression that formed the foundation of so much in those early years

It's why, all these years later, after so many years of struggling so intensely to find my creative place in the world, I have come to create items like these: 

Now, of course, between ancient deities and fairy inspired works, I feel like I am sending these little protective creations into the world for others to invest themselves in. I cannot imagine anything more pleasing than to be putting so much of my early self into what I do as an adult and sharing it. 

It keeps those days and beginnings close and reminds me of them constantly.  The good and the bad. But mostly good. 

I often think of those days now, building blanket forts, cardboard space ships, tree-houses and crows nests, invoking protective measures in my internal world in countless ways. Childhood is, after all, a very uncertain and overwhelming place. I am so grateful to have had so many outlets then. . . 

It's always interesting to follow the thread that runs from the very beginning of things. To see where the here and now came from and to  understand, for myself at least, that the journey is a constant. So all of it matters. Especially those little details. . . especially now.


Thank for reading and for sharing in this journey, and this inner world, with me. :)

nicolas


PS: I find it very amusing that upon searching the internet for Chiller Theater, I came across a site that lists every weekly showing over 20+ years and the films that were played for each and every Saturday night from the beginning! Are you kidding me?  Man I love the internet!

New Work from Shadow of the Sphinx

Just time this evening for a few images of four pieces just finished for some of my delightful customers. Enjoy!!

Small 5" Statue of Seshat the Goddess of Writing, Arithmetic and Architecture

Serqet or Selket - 7.5" tall - Scorpion Goddess - Protective Deity - The form I chose borrows from the famous gold statue of Her that guarded Tut's burial sarcophagus/shrine.

The Sutekh on the right I posted yesterday but he goes with this second Seshat as a pair. Aren't they a formidable duo?

A Tidy History with Sutekh the Egyptian God of Storms and Chaos

I had no way of knowing when I was a child that the "Osirian" character of Sutekh from the Dr. Who, 4th Doctor Serial, "The Pyramids of Mars" would one day be a major part of the world I create now.

I am certain this Dr Who episode was shown around the same time I was given a book about the tour of the treasures of King Tuts tomb which were in America for the first time and my world opened to the first ancient civilization that would shape my imagination in ways I could not grasp.

The character of Sutekh that was out to destroy Tom Baker's Doctor with his bulky mummies frightened the 7 yr old me while the protective, anthropomorphic and animal creatures I found in the books of Ancient Egypt were presented in ways that made them feel more like companions of my own.

It was only in the last few years I understood that the Dr Who Sutekh and this fellow below, more commonly known as Set or Seth, were one and the same in origin. And since I have been creating Him in statue form for my shop, they have become one of the most requested which inevitably is due to Set's association with Chaos and Storms. So much a part of all youth isn't it?

There is still much mystery as to what exactly Set is derived from. . .

And I tend to stylize the often boxy ears a bit but I find Him to be a regal form. :) 

So these days, when I make a statue of Set, I always think back to that wonderful time of discovery. As with so many of my creations, the past and present are inextricably linked. . .

If you have never seen The Pyramids of Mars, it is available as a streaming watch on Netflix under Classic Dr Who. I highly recommend it if you would like to know why Tom Baker is such an icon to fans of the show. He made every episode shine and in this one, he is at his very best. :)

So here's to Sutekh. . . Set. . . Seth. . . whatever you choose to call Him. a mystery and an inspiration for a lifetime. . . or several millennia. . . again, whichever you choose. :)
nicolas

Taweret and the Lure of Egyptian Art in My World

One of the reasons I love revisiting the origins of creative aspects in my life is that, over time, they can take on different forms and meanings. They reveal themselves slowly across the years, even disappearing on occasion only to comeback strong somewhere down the line.

They are always evolving and unwinding. 
They are the threads. 

At the same time, I do not want to lose my grasp on where they began as I truly feel those beginnings are always important and never pass into a state of irrelevance.

While it is always easy to say that Ancient Egyptian art has been something I have been deeply drawn to since I was 6 or 7, it is also true that, over time, the meaning of that has grown with me.

The pieces I have been creating these last four years have been allowing me to explore new avenues for their reasons of existence in my life. Always allowing me to deepen that connection and revisit those wonderful days of ancient history/discovery from my youth.

So, when I create a piece like the Taweret statue below, I am reminded that this link is now close to forty years old. From the first time I saw Her portrayed on tomb carvings and artifacts I was smitten. Some of it was the way my young imagination tried to grasp that this animal, the hippopotamus, was truly a part of Egyptian life. . . not something just seen in a magazine or in an urban zoo. I'd think to my young self, "Yes, I'd have made a statue honoring them too!!"

Sheis magnificent and what I love most is the way ancient artists captured her shape, her toothy grin and her delicate legs.

Taweret: Patron of Childbirth and Protector of Women and Children

Now, when I create a piece like this of Taweret, I am always aware of the connection to those early days when I felt that my drawings of Egyptian deities were protecting me somehow.  So much so that I drew them on the tops of my feet whenever I felt the need for extra "help".  Anubis, Bast, Horus, Sekhmet and Djehuty were all a part of my childhood circle of guardians. . . . but seriously, if you have to pick an animal to "protect" you. . . isn't the hippo going to be at the top of the list due to sheer size alone?? : )

I feel so completely honored that, in recreating these pieces today, I am able to send them off all over the world for others to honor in their own way and for their own personal reasons.  It feels as a service is truly being done in their creation and that each one is part of the growing understanding I have of their place in my life today.

What never changes is, at my core, they are all protectors of my dreams, my creative path and my life.  It's why they always have a place on my work table and by my bedside. The magic I found in them all those years ago is just as strong today. Except now I make them out of clay and not tin foil and paper as I did as a young boy. lol

Hope you enjoy seeing Her. :)

xo
nicolas

Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine - #2

Here are my September selections of work samples from my three Etsy shops.

My Antarctica
"From the Inside Out"
Photographic Construction 8 x 10

Bewilder and Pine
Miniature Onegai Jizo Statue

Shadow of the Sphinx
Full Ibis Form Djehuty Votive Statue

Thank you for looking!

Whatever it is you are seeking in this world, I hope you find it in everything that you see!!

nicolas

Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine - #1

I'd like to also begin sharing my work from my creative studio here. For those who do not know, I have three very distinct shops on Etsy.  So, once a week, I will feature one selection from each shop here to give you all a feel for what I do and how all those wonderful childhood creative pursuits have now come back full circle and are allowing me to make a living from my love of making things. :)

Theory of Flight - Blue Herons Limited Edition Print from My Antarctica

 Visual art has been there within me since I was able to finger paint. lol but in truth I just took up the art of photography about 6 years ago. The digital realm allows for me to create things I only see in my head that would be either impossible or impractical to try and stage as a photograph. In the case of Theories of Flight, the backgrounds are Encaustic swirls of wax and color and the image is a photo etching over top.

Sekhmet and Bast from my new Mini Copper Patina Votive Statues from Shadow of the Sphinx

 From the time I first saw images of the tomb of Tutankhamen I was hooked on ancient Egyptian religion and art. The more I read about it the more I was drawn to the humbler everyday practice of votive worship and the more my own creations reflected that. Simple statues for everyday home altars and offerings.

My newest Burano Italy HO Scale Houses - SOLD - From Bewilder and Pine

I am forever under the spell of Venice Italy. Who wouldn't be? The houses of Burano island are just over the top. The colors and the distinctive walkways are so mesmerizing to me. These seem to go out of my shop as fast as I can create them which, I assume, is because so many others are also under the Venetian spell!!


I hope you enjoy my work and I hope you will visit the shops to see more~

Until the next,

nicolas