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 - November 2nd

Well now, this post is a day late. How is it every year I forget how quickly the holidays ramp up in both sales and requests from our few retail sellers?? as I go merrily along just making things and dreaming up new ideas. . . time just slips away. :)

I feel overwhelmed already. . . not by the business but by the desire to make sooooo many things that I know would be sought after this season. But I have a larger picture in my head for the year to come, as you all know. So I keep at it. Staying the course. Writing 1000 words a day, editing, mapmaking, researching. . . just this past week I had to study up on seagoing transportation of livestock in ancient times,  the feasibility of two crescent moons in the sky at the same time,  bog butter,  ancient currency, cisterns and honeyguide birds. It's all a lot of fun really, but  just leaves time for little else right now. . .

But without any more delay, here are some new items created in the last month! Enjoy!!

xo

nicolas

Dinn - a smaller member of my Gargoyle world. I've decided that a grouping of gargoyles is called a "quarry". :) 

I am really loving this particular red these days. . . 

My first wizard in the "Little People" collection. . . though certainly not the last!

Hadn't made a Tiny Robot in months. . .  I just love how they turn out all "rusted" and such. :)

I am enjoying giving each town in my Bewildering Pine world a distinct architecture.  

I haven't made many cow goddesses like this Hathor. But I love when I do get a request! She makes me feel peaceful. 

A large, 9" (22.5cm) Nephthys, sister of Isis, Goddess of Ancient Egypt

In reworking the features of the Bewildering Pine world for the stories/book, I decided while houses and cottages vary by town, the shoppes all have a similar architecture no matter where they are located. Reason? That's yet to be revealed. . . 

Little Gingerbread houses on wintry stars . . .The house is just over 2.75" (7 cm) tall!

Well, that's what's new here. . . hoping Halloween was a delight in your corners of the world! I did manage to carve a jack-o-lantern and roast pumpkin seeds this year, the j-o-l was appropriately named "Punky". . .  and I am looking forward to making a turnip lantern for St Martin's day on the 11th! And holiday baking!! Recipes to share soon. :)

Small Magic - The Eyes Have It

My dear blog friend Andrea, at Falling Ladies, has begun a monthly collection of stories and experiences of what she has termed as "Small Magic". You can find this month's post by Andrea by clicking HERE:

And the original "Finding Small Magic" Post on her Falling Ladies blog is HERE:

I hope you will take a moment and check them out, add your own (even just a link to a picture or a sentence or two is PLENTY! It need not be as wordy as I tend to be. :)

I have so many ideas for my own contributing posts about "Small Magic" as I feel my life has been, and always will be, filled with it. But for today I am going to tell/retell an old story about one person's kindness and heartfelt advice that, looking back almost 30 years, changed my life in more ways than I can count or ever be thankful to him for.

I applied for my first "real" job when I was 17.  As a busboy at the Italian Restaurant that my mother worked at as hostess, manager, waitress etc. In fact, the restaurant was brand new having been built by the city for the two brother's who owned it because their old, tavern-like Italian restaurant had been torn down to make way for a new steel and glass tower in the heart of the city.  So part of the deal was that they got a 200 seat "supper club", with a parking garage, for nothing but agreeing to give up their corner lot which now is in the middle of the massive downtown office complex.

So, two brothers, Michael and John. Two completely different personalities. In fantasy terms, John would be the Ogre and Michael the High Elf. lol

My mother had gotten me an interview for the position and, even though I look back and know that it was a done deal and I'd get the job, at the time she impressed upon me the need to make a good impression and to do well in the interview. I was terrified the interview would be with John. but, it turned out it was with Michael.

I adored Michael. Whenever I would come into the old, tavern style restaurant he would always take time to say hello, tousle my hair and invite me back into the kitchen and give me a taste of something wonderful. A taste of meatball marinara, a dish of Spumoni Ice Cream, a piece of veal parmesan. . . heaven!

I had no doubt I could do the job. I had been "working" since I was 13. Cutting grass, raking leaves, cleaning gutters, painting and gardening, a newspaper route (remember those?), and even a few shifts working at my great Aunt's Arco service station. So I was confident I could be a busboy.

It was also just a part time "summer job" before my senior year of high school so I felt I couldn't really go wrong. If it was a terrible job, I only had to stick it out three months and then weekends thru the Christmas office party season.

I went to the interview and, to this day, recall none of it. I was nervous, of course, but I do remember feeling fine about the answers I gave and the great sense of relief when it was over. Michael was very professional and shook my hand when I sat down and again when I left.

When my mother got home that night she said she needed to talk to me. I thought I wasn't going to get the job. I was looking forward to the money and the experience so I felt a little disappointed that I might have lost the opportunity.

But I DID get the job. However what she wanted to tell me was that Michael had told her "He's such a good kid and of course he has the job, but you have to tell him he has to look people in the eye when he talks to them."

Apparently I did not look him in the eyes even once after sitting down for the interview. That's probably also why I do not remember a second of it.

Of course, now I look back and I see it all very clearly.

I was far from a shut-in or wall flower. All of my school report cards, grades 4 thru 10 had said some variation of "Great student -  talks too much!" But outside of school every possible moment was spent in my imaginary worlds. It's what got me thru the toughest times in school. Knowing at the end of the day I got to go home and disappear into that endless world of my creation.

But around adults, in the "real" world, yes, I was definitely not comfortable with that. I wanted little or no part of that world and I avoided it like the plague.

But Michael's words that day, spoken out of love and concern for the well being of someone he saw as a bright young man with potential, were something I definitely needed to hear. Something that only  a person looking in from the outside might see clearly. And something only someone with a heart of gold might take the time to mention to my mother for no reason other than he cared.

It shocked my mother as she never noticed that aspect of my personality but, that makes sense too as our family world was small as well. Familiar faces and relations all the time really. Very few strangers or outside influences. And those, so brief and unimportant, that my situational shyness ever attracted any attention.

I took the advice to heart and find that, in looking back, it was invaluable to my future self. Owning coffeehouses, friendship, relationships, managing and running restaurant kitchens. How would I have ever been able to do any of it without that ability to look people in the eye?

And I learned, as many people do, that there is a certain magic and power in that ability to look another human being, especially a stranger, directly in the eye.

And I notice these days that I still tend to drift to this habit. Especially when in the midst of, or just exiting, my creative paracosm and imaginary worlds. It takes me a bit of time to reconnect with the rest of the world and I find myself averting eyes and connections for a bit. Like a swimmer coming up from the depths of the underwater world and taking in all the sound and sight of the land-side world. It takes a moment. Or two. Or more.

Small magic. A big heart. I had the pleasure of working with Michael in that restaurant for two years before he sold his half of the business back to his brother and got out. His leaving opened up the space that I filled working part time in the kitchen and then, as fate would have it, I ended up running the kitchen of the restaurant within a year after that.

I never forgot Michael's words through it all or after all these years and I cannot explain the myriad of ways that advice helped me in life.

And because I think life is cyclical and not linear and that we will be given opportunity after opportunity in life to revisit all our old habits, shortfalls etc etc, I am gifted with that chance every so often. I catch myself looking away or down. I find myself as that 17 year old again disappearing from the "real" world. Then I remember his words. . . his concern. . . and I reconnect with the world around me all over again.

Small magic.

For the work of a lifetime.

And here is a little visual "Small Magic for you too! :

A new gargoyle friend. . . Zunge already found his place of service in a home that has an entire quarry of my gargoyles!

New Work - July 1st

Well June certainly went by in a whirl. . .

Ok, quick update. I spent much of the month cramming in custom orders left and right, and was very happy to do so knowing that most of (I say "most" because I never hit all the deadlines just so) July, August and September are mine to do as I wish! Which is to say, stocking both Etsy shops as much as possible for the season to come and exploring many, many new ideas!

Even with the load of custom work, I had a great month with so many fun requests and the satisfaction of all the completed projects that did get out.

And the writing of the short stories is taking shape nicely too. Still too early to share anything but soon, I promise!

I joined a site called 750 Words which is for writers who want to get into the habit of writing every day. I promised myself I would write at least 5 times a week and the goal being 750 words each time.( about 5 pages in book form) So far I have exceeded the required 750 every day I have written, sometimes doubling it.

It feels so good because the most intimidating thing for me when I began is that the idea of writing with a project/goal in mind seemed just overwhelming at times. When would I find the time? How could I ever write complete stories?

All the world-building has paid off though as so many of the ideas and little details are already fleshed out. . . and new ones arrive every day to continue the creation process. Now I think my biggest worry is "How will I know when I have enough?" and "Will I be able to stop?" :)

Also this week, as a treat to myself, I took an afternoon and went to our county's main library. We have a branch in our little town and via the internet can have any book in the system sent to us here in a day or two but it is literally a one room operation. . .  though it's one room filled with books! :)

Still, I love to hit the main branch once in awhile to spend time just browsing and reading. I found two books on the "New" shelf that are completely inspiring to me as I go about writing. One is called "The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh" and is about the landscape and locations within the actual forest that inspired the Hundred Acre Wood of those Winnie the Pooh stories. The other, is called "Ivory Vikings" and is about the set of Ivory chess pieces discovered in the 1830's, that date to Viking times and the identity, skill and artistry of the woman who, in all likelihood, carved them. It's a grand peek into the 400 year history of the viking sea trade as well.

More on all that another time. . .  the month left me with quite a few pieces to show for my monthly new work post so I hope you'll enjoy!

Cottage from another town of the Pine, named Sylvan, with their crooked chimney stacks.

And I love little gabled, nooks (for reading or spell practicing) of houses so I add them often to mine. :)

Finally getting these back in the shop this summer. I needed a better support design for such skinny, wonky, top-heavy houses. The metal door charms help and a thicker but flexible wire inside. Trial and error. . . and more trial and error. lol

These are not "new" actually but the addition of the long "meadow grass" growing on top of each level is. 

An original Anubis Amulet. I've been working on making functional, smaller amulets while still trying to get decent detail. Not easy in polymer but my confidence with it keeps growing.

Chatsworth Village (Alpine) Houses I mentioned last month. The available selection is starting to grow!

This may be one of my favorite anthropomorphic pieces that I have ever completed. Thoth, the Ibis headed deity of creativity, time and writing.

Another Mushroom House!

A fine garden Gargoyle, named Callalla, for watching over ones magic gardens!

and finally, a custom pair of statues. . .  this is Nephthys and Sutekh (or the Set animal), both based on traditional statues and styles from antiquity.

Sooooo, that's it for now! Wishing you all a lovely weekend and an enchanted summer season as July opens before us!

Thank you, as always, for dropping by!

XO

nicolas

New Work - June 1st

Hello dear ones!

I am excited to show you some of May's production! I'll be sharing more about this later in June but I took the month of may off from almost all custom work to focus on a little experiment.  What happens if I forego the custom order route for just making what I want to make? How will it effect sales? Would I feel more rejuvenated and happy simply making whatever I feel like making every day again?

Well, the answers to those questions I will share soon but a little hint is that I'm spending June making sure I complete all my current custom orders (which has backed up from not taking any in May) and keeping July, August and September as completely free of commitments as possible to do the same for an extended three month period!

This is not to say I am doing away with requests or custom work, just changing the way I approach it, frame it and work on it so that I can continue to explore what I love most, the unending course of un-contained imagination. :)

Ok, more on that, as I said, in the near future. . . for now, here are some of the new items created last month for my shops! I hope you enjoy. . .

This was a request for a birthday gift for a 10 year old that I could not refuse. . . 6 x 6 inch "Fairy Village" frame/shadowbox with tiny N scale houses, winged fairy and enchanted landscape! 

Living on a tidal bay inspired the idea that a fairy tower, perched on the shore of such a place, would need a door high enough to withstand exposure to the high tide while offering access at lower tides too! 

Formerly my "Alpine Fairy" houses, I have reintroduced this series as the Fairy Houses of Chatsworth Village so as to be able to write/sketch them into my world of the Bewildering Pine. I'll be adding two more to the shoppe today. 

New Mini Garden Gargoyles with their own little flowering pots!

The completed trio of Ancient Egyptian deity "busts" I spoke of a few posts ago. . . Sekhmet, Bastet and Khnum

Two Aten symbolic pieces that were a request too. I am fascinated by the reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiri. They moved the entire capitol city of Ancient Egypt to the desert (Armana) and reorganized the pantheon putting worship of the Aten, their solar Deity, at the top. These were Tutankhamen's parents. During Tut's short reign, the entire process was reversed, the new city dismantled, and much of this period was stricken from all text, tablets and monuments.  

Yes, I know, everyone is making tiny elves these days. . . but I wanted to add my own little twist. Hard to see in this image but he is in a flat mini basket with teeny pine cones, moss and green fluff. Clothing is made from handmade papers and twine. Hair is a shock of mohair

This little one is ready to go on an adventure with the handle basket!
Same idea as the one above for the clothing and hair here. 

And that's that. . . a selection of where my imagination went this past month. Much excitement to share in the coming weeks: Book progress(perhaps even a peek into one of the first stories?), Illustrations/sketches, new work, childhood memories, less custom work, more new ideas, a peek at my little town, the joy of our container garden and more. . .

Hoping June, be it the onset of your summer or winter season, is filled with magic and enchantment in your world too!

xoxoxo
nicolas

Work In Progress: January 20th

In progress. . . the story of my daily creative world. : )

I'd be the very first to say I usually have far too many things under construction at any one time.  I will, on any given day, have 10-20 pieces in some stage of completion or design. I'll usually. . .  well, sometimes. . .  prioritize custom pieces but, after that, what I work on on any given day is really just what I feel like working on.

This is not always the best course of action, admittedly. There are days where my actual "work space" is down to about 6 inches square and I am surrounded by pleading eyes and waiting limbs and moss-less houses and half sculpted creatures!

I'm really trying to be a bit more con top of that and I think showing some of my in-progress work each week will help me push things thru instead of setting them aside for long periods while I get blissfully lost in the newest projects and never-ending inspirations!

So. . . some new things on the work table this week! Just wanted to share these as they are in progress and I'll update them when they are all complete. . .

Fairy Belles - These are the new iteration of something I tried two years ago but never really liked the results.
They actually have a jingly little bell in the hollowed bottom of the figurine that can be rung to summon fairy magic!

Two figurines in process. I've decided to focus on a feature story for my Bewildering Pine World that includes creatures known as Hobs ( like the little fella on the left) and Grimalkins ( the familiars of Hobs, as seen on the right) 

The Hob above (no name as of yet) will have a very dapper Victorian waist coat and tie and likely a bowler hat that he will be doffing! The Grimalkin (also as of yet unnamed) will look like the larger, completed one in the next image. 

Grimalkin is an old English archaic word for a cat! I love the Pewter finish and the claws that will match the eye color.

This is how I make the Fairy things on Stars! This one will become "Theia Straedoor's Tart Cart" on a Star with
mossy roof, stairs and fences, cooling table for the special, tiny Joonberry Tarts and the usual trees and landscaping!

And one recently finished addition to my Foxgoyle/Land of Kitsurada story/world. 

A mythic Kitsune, 9-Tailed Foxgoyle! 

Her name is Okudara and I think she's quite the creature!

So that's what's cooking here! Hope you are making magic today in your world too!

nicolas