First Friday New Work - Álfablót - November 3rd

Hey everyone!!

Well the holiday season is off and running already around here. My custom work slate is now practically full and I am already a little behind this week.  I'll have another start to finish, work in progress, series of pics for December but this month I'm going with examples of completed new work from the shops.

Speaking of the holidays. . .  we are going to be following along this holiday season with a wonderful book, "The Old Magic of Christmas" which talks about the old traditions and origins of the holiday traditions in many European and Scandinavian countries and, most importantly (for me) the baking that accompanies it. :)  It's ALL about the baking isn't it?

So I'll be baking up a host of special holiday season treats this year. Icelandic Snowflake Bread, Cattern Cakes, Lussekatter, Sisky and others as well.

Tonight we are celebrating Álfablót, a welcoming of the elves, or Álfar, in after the harvest. In Scandinavian tradition this is a local celebration in homesteads after the harvest as winter approaches and the celebration is not only to honor the ancestors, but also other spirits, such as the elves and the land spirits, the "Landvaettir". This is a home/family celebration, doors are left ajar to let the elves in and strangers were not welcomed near the homesteads during the celebration. 

You want to celebrate Álfablót between Samhain and Thanksgiving, tying it in conjunction with the moon (waxing better than waning) and not on a recognized day like St. Martins day (Nov 11th) when the elves would have to share their day with anyone else. :) 

We'll be welcoming the elves with this invocation: "Let them come who wish to come, let them go who wish to go and do no harm to me or mine". It is not considered auspicious to converse with the elves beyond that welcoming. Simply to welcome them in and provide the feast. Of course, we in the human world may talk among ourselves as we would at any gathering.

We'll set out a red table cloth hoping to draw a few elven female spirits, the Dísir, to the feast night as well. There will be no electricity after dark as it can disturb or irritate the sensitive elder folk among the elves so candles or a hearth fire is best. Simple foods like bread, meat and milk are preferred for feasting with the Álfar.

I'll try to photograph it and post pics mid week. :)

 Next weekend we will be celebrating Martinmas or St. Martin's Day November 11th by making Turnip lanterns (if we can find big enough turnips) and Martinmas Horns. They can be made with a cookie dough or with a yeast dough and are filled with apricot jam and a touch of marzipan.  I'll probably make the yeast variety since I don't get to do nearly enough yeast baking these days!

For now, I hope your November is off to a lovely beginning and to close this First Friday post, here are a few new creations from the Enchanted studio.

Thank you, as always, for dropping by!

Nicolas

I love the sod topped houses of the Faroe Islands. The black houses (color provided by pitch on the real houses)
are as much a favorite as the red ones which I also make! 

Three Mushroom Fairy Houses on Stars. Always a holiday favorite and I am
trying REALLLLLL hard to get ahead on them! 

A custom request for a little Glitter Shoppe on a star. New Pink trees and the druzy disc
on the roof gable add something magical too I think.

I've been making these translucent "alabaster" Egyptian pieces. In making them I realize how much I count on the aged patinas to cover the dings and blemishes where as these require more attention to getting the smoothness of the sculpt.

A special request from a customer for this piece with two angels sitting on the bench conversing,
representing two family members who had passed.

These are hand-painted N scale figures that are about 1/2" (1.25cm) tall and check out those tiny little metal wings!

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)

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

Long Absence and New Work

Two months? Has it really been two months since I've posted. . . anything?

Well, it's been a crazy two months. Off to a busy start this year. Throw in a couple of eye surgeries for cataracts, (the second one coming in a week. . . and if I hear "Oh you're awfully young to have cataracts." one more time. . .  it's little consolation!) The first surgery went great and the new lens they implanted is crazy-good! My vision has not been this good since I was 5 or 6 and no side effects at all.  . well, except I did have a hankering to watch some old "Six Million Dollar Man" episodes after-wards but that went away.

But I have been busy with my work and so thankful for the wonderful customers who have been so kind and patient as I get back to full tilt productivity.

Below is a sampling of the work I have been doing this month and hopefully, after the next surgery, I'll be able to really go, go, go this summer!

So here is what I am up to. . .

The smallest pieces are always my favorite!

There's a TINY mailbox in front of this one. The textured walls are a new feature I plan to use a LOT! lol

He's got a rather pleasant disposition for "God of Storms and Chaos" but everything can't be all gloom and doom can it?

A custom piece by request. . . but I loved creating the night-time sleeping Elf motif!

Two rather pleasant fellows in their own right!

A custom landscape for an Australian customer. I'd really love to get more into finished landscapes as an offering in my shoppe one day.  Perhaps for the next year to come.

Osiris. . . My Egyptian statues get larger and larger as my comfort and skill level grows.  I've only been sculpting forms like this for four years so I am still learning a lot. He is one of my finest though I believe.

Another house with mailbox and picket fences. And the textural roof and walls. LOVE those!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the peek into what's been going on in my creative world. In addition, there's been loads of story writing and idea jotting and plan making.  . little books, fairy stories and maps, more than I can squeeze into a day!

Hope all is well in all of YOUR creative worlds too!

xo

nicolas

Feeding the Soul

Even with the holiday coming far too quickly and custom requests piling up, I always make sure to take time and set it aside to create and finish pieces that are simply what my heart desires. Feeding the soul this way is the most important thing to avoiding any sort of burnout or the burden of overwhelming to-do lists and custom work. Nothing inspires me more than those precious hours. . .

The first piece is one I showed in progress awhile back but it sat here just waiting for the finishing inspiration. Those finishing touches came in the form of the two bluebirds and the treasure of "gold coins" and "jewels" in the tree hollow.

Dreamweaver Series #1

The bluebirds are made completely from polymer clay and no painting! A first fo me but I enjoyed the process

Little gold mica coins and Swarovski "jewels" really completed the piece for me.

Also I undertook a redesign of my Onegai (Wish Granting) Jizo statues.  I recently went back and looked at the evolution of these little statues over the last four years. Yikes! The first ones were really cute but so "rough" by comparison. I love the tiny, rotund bodies on these and the fact that the little bells on the hat actually tinkle! :)  Definitely a Wish Granting form if ever I saw one! :)

Anyway, that's all for today but in the next few days I am excited to show you the first version of my hand-bound fairy journal! Includes foldout maps on the end pages, pressed flowers and lots of wonderful elf illustrations! All in a very magical  2" x 2.75" size:)

nicolas

Reinvention - In Progress Pieces

Three items, all reinventions of older work with new ideas, techniques or stories / themes.


Have wanted to revisit these little guys for a year now. Originally called Grumpusses, they were garden or terrarium trolls who were, well, rather Grumpy. I believe i made 6 of the originals and they all sold but I knew I had to evolve their story. . .

Now these new editions are called Grumpus Garden Gnomes and, while they are NEVER grumpy with their human companions, they ARE quite grumpy with each other as each sort of sees itself as the self proclaimed "King of the Fairy Vegetable Garden".  This guy, who obviously favorites fairy carrots, has gone so far as make his own crown to claim the :throne" which,of course, is completely disputed by the Bok Choy,  Radish and Cherry Tomato Grumpus gnomes who all have their own crowns. . . I recommend owning more than one only if you are up for the role of peacekeeper in the fairy/gnome realm too.  

Still needs some inclusions in the "moss coat" and some sort of cuffs and bottom "hem". . . and a name. . . King Carotene perhaps?

These guys are 3 inches tall and perfect for little terrarium and fairy gardens.

Next is a new rendition of my wall-hanging pieces.  I've done little villages and fairy scenes but, again, wanting to get more into figurines and art dolls, I came up with this idea for little scenes.

The bamboo box is 6x6 and the little sweet dreaming elf is just 3 inches long. Still want to ad something in the tree's knothole and along the branch.

So sweet sleping among the tulips and the mushrooms! Of course, this will have to wait for the final story to be written too.

And lastly, this is the second edition of my Fairy Houses of Giddings Hill. Giddings comes from the street that ran along my childhood home bordering a lovely dense wooded hill.  These will come in 6 pearl colors and have different windows and adornments as they are developed.

My favorite part of this house is the winged accent with the crystal at the point of the roof!

These are around 4 inches tall and 2.5 inches wide!

Hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks into some new work and the constant path of reinvention I like to indulge in with my creations!

Have a wonderful day!

nicolas

A Month of Gathering

Back in 2004, a few years before he died, my father and I spoke often about life. We were never close when I was a child as he and my mum divorced when I was four. This was, for all intents and purposes, a very good thing for her AND I.  He was very stodgy, quite mainstream in a narrow and limiting way and he had little room for self expression and the roads less traveled in life.

I cannot imagine who I would have turned out to be if he were a directive force in my developing years. . . but people change.

We reconnected when my grandmother, his mother, died when I was 19. Slowly, we built the strands of connection after he accepted my plea that, "I don't need you to be dad anymore.  . I need a friend."

And a very good friend he turned out to be.

So that day, as I recounted all that was going on in my life, how I was pursuing my love of music-making and music production for others. How I was thriving owning a coffeehouse and creating digital art and poetry. (this is all about 5 years before my creative life as you see it now even began)
He listened quietly and patiently and then, when I had finished, he offered the following.

"Son, I've never told you this but I wish I had lived (he was 61 at the time) my life more like you. I would do it differently now but back then I always was so concerned with climbing the ladder of success and making more money and having better this and better that. There are so many things I thought to do but did not have the courage or the inner strength to try. And I see you, living your life this way and your voice is filled with joy and I feel every new experience brings you closer to something bigger. Maybe even closer to a sense of "purpose"? "

"But I am going to give you one piece of advice" he continued. "From here, the choices in your life will get tougher because you are still seeking  and yet you have managed to eliminate all of the things people usually fill their lives with that are less than fulfilling. You love your job. You love where you live and you love the people around you. You have several creative outlets that take up every moment of your free time.  . . and I know you, my son. You are going to keep finding things that you love and now? Now the choices are going to be between two or more things you love and where will they fit in when the days will always only be 24hrs long? And you don't do anything half assed. . . so where is the time going to come from and when those new "right things" present themselves? Because one of them may be "it". So remember that you'll have to make room for them. And that it is ok to let go of something you love as much as something you don't.

Oh, how right he was.

So the last 6 months as I've "struggled" with the lack of time that being a full time, all the time, maker-of-things requires and found myself overloaded with custom orders and requests as all the while the new ideas pile up and up and I cannot tend to them, And then, beneathe it all, this "new thing". . . this sense of something greater being right there all along. . . oh yes, it reared it's head and asked to be heard.

I once again took stock.
Made lists and looked deep within for the answer to what stays and what goes. . .
 And here is what has changed from that kid who got that piece of advice 10 years ago.

The "new thing" is that I DO feel a sense of purpose in what I do now. It's the one thing I have done in my life (and I have done and tried more than my share) that feels really close to perfect and complete as far as being part of the thread I have known since childhood.

But these days I feel pulled to leave something behind. Something more than just bits and pieces and assorted lovelies. . . though those are as much a part of the "purpose" as what I have planned

My father was right,

I do not do anything half-assed. I don't know how.  The details are everything and no matter how much I love something I make, I find myself looking to make it better and just a bit more innovative next time around. Good enough is never good enough even if I am the only one who sees it.

In truth, when people ask me for advice on making it with an online shop or with creative self employment, I usually include this one little piece of advice. What ever you do today, you can do better tomorrow and you have to want that, without fail, first and foremost or you'll not get far in the creative world.

First, you have to make room for it. . . and it requires lots of room.
Then, YOU have to
Grow
Change
Innovate
Reinvent
and
REACH


It's time now for me to reach. . .

I am setting a larger goal with the worlds I create.

They have been these lovely bits and pieces with little stories (also a must in the creative world I think.  . tell a story!) that often are there before the pieces themselves.

But I want to bring them together and give something more through them.
A larger story that ties many of the smaller pieces together.
A world that is tangible and ever growing.

In my head, they always were this but, if I have one shortfall, it's that I often do not have the patience to write in such broad scope AND detail. I offer little detailed glimpses when an entire world is right there waiting to be brought to life. 

And that world is what I want to leave behind. . .hopefully to inspire others as I have ben inspired by those that came before.

So this is what I have been doing the last month. Losing myself in reading about ancient civilizations, myths and stories I have loved my whole life and making notes, creating names, filling in gaps in my own stories and letting that world emerge. . . one village, one character, one myth at a time and, as is my way, the details sometimes come out first.

These are a couple of Elvin "reliquaries" I created this week that are just 1.5 and 2.75 inches tall. . . . perhaps containing mythic dragon scales or bits of ancient magic cloth, or a troll's tooth. . .  or a thread of pure spun gold from time before time? Who can say?

What would YOU imagine to be found within an Elvin Reliquary?

More on their story in future posts. . .

Which is where the blog fits in with my future plans. 

So many bits and pieces to keep track of and I am not an organized person by any means. So I will be posting more often and shorter posts with just that.  . . bits and pieces of the larger story. . . threads that are all being woven into the larger world of my imagination. . . into the world of Bewilder and Pine. . . I hope you'll come along with me on this journey. It's going to be an adventure, I promise! :)

And my father, on that day I referred to earlier, added one more thing at the very end of the conversation that I took to heart then and still do to this day.

"No matter how busy you get. . . call your mother more. Because you'll regret it if you don't one day."

Thanks dad. . . you really were a true and beloved friend.


Thank you all for stopping by!
Soon again. . .
nicolas

Spring Brings. . .

It is a fact that I am far more an Autumn/Winter soul than anything else and so, usually, Spring is not my favorite season as it seems to always want to usher in Summer. . . my least favorite time of year.

However, along with Spring comes the rebirth of the landscape and a sense of renewal all over. Rebirth is always such a theme in creative work it seems. This year it takes on new meaning for me in my little world.

Last month I hit the wall in some respects creatively. That wall, which is always quite close, is the very inflexible 24 hours in a day rule that someone long ago made up as the rule . . . and boy has it stuck!

24 hours a day.

I've fought it my whole life. Going so far as to try, at 19, to restructure my own definition of the week to consist of six 28 hour days and sleeping only 6 times a week. However, that schedule, as you might imagine, has it's problems. Most rooted into the fact that you are the only person living on such a schedule and, three times a week, you are "mid-day" when the world is sleeping. That was fine for me as a devoted night owl at the time. . .  but not so good for others in the house. lol

Anyway, more on that experiment another time. I gave in after a few weeks and have been on the old 24 hour system since.

Last month I found myself overbooked on custom work and turning into a real grumblepuss some nights when I found I had no time left to just make what I most desired which is, after all, why I create in the first place. But it is a balance I know. I just let it get all out of whack after the holidays and I do so have trouble saying no to my wonderful customers who return again and again.

So, I set the goal in mid March. Get through all of the custom pieces on the schedule by the first week in April and then, once there, stop booking my weeks full of custom work and start spacing them out.  My main concern was that people would not be willing to wait 6 to 8 weeks or longer for a piece but that turns out to not be true. I am, as of now, into June with requests and still no one balks at the wait.

The best part is that this week I finally have been able to begin again in just making whatever my heart desires. It seems like it has been ens since I could just daydream and play. . . and while it has only, in reality, been a handful of weeks, I am glad to be "home" again. I think it is SO very important to feed that muse inside and to allow it to drift and wander wherever it may. Otherwise even the most wonderful of creative work can seem less shiny and fun. And that is no way to go. :)

 That said, I wanted to share a peek at what Spring has conjured in my world.

As you know i have several forms of expression and styles that are dear to my heart. Egyptian antiquity, model railroad miniatures, spiritual statues and visual art to name a few. . . . but fantasy creatures and fairy worlds are the nearest and dearest of all so it is no surprise that I have found myself lost in places and faces like these below.

It has been nearly impossible to keep fairy houses in stock so I set out to create something a little more 'expandable". A world of their own. What I cam up with are these "Fairy Houses of Mossy Lane". The houses will be sold individually of course but I could not resist starting on a "set" to shoot them on. The base with it's cobblestone road is just begun really. I'll be adding flowers, benches, and, if all goes well, even tiny little HO scale fairies with handmade wings. I am tickled with the results so far!

And creatures. . . Spring seems to regularly manifest ideas in this realm too! I listed the first of these guys the other day, inspired by a tiny detail in one of Arthur Rackham's wonderful fairy tale illustrations. Another going in today and, it seems, two more have sprouted (they grow out from under the caps) this morning!

And for me, the story is the thing! So the midnight oil is being burned with a lot of writing and creating the backstory of these creatures and place.

The only issue is now that my to do list of what I want to make is as backed up as my custom list was last month! No rest for the wizards . . . and still just 24 hours in a day!

Enjoy the week dear friends. . .

nicolas

The Long and Short Of It All - Edition #1

One of the things about my way of creating that gets wonky sometimes is:

I have a longstanding habit, when choosing the "What next?" from my list of ideas, to go with the smaller, most immediately rewarding ideas. Often this is at the expense of moving forward the larger, more complex ideas that I really want to bring to a completion but that I can't seem to keep moving forward on as time allows. Instead, always seeming to choose the quick idea, or a multitude of them as it often goes, to "finish something".

Nowhere is this more relevant that my 2014 To-Do list and I am resolved to do something about it! 

So first, why is that an issue? I make oodles of fun creations that actually move through my shops very well. They make me infinitely happy to create them and I always find time to write a bit of a story to go along with almost each one. . . couple that with an ever growing list of requests and custom pieces and the time left to work on the larger stories and idea is already at a minimum. 

But those ideas haunt me as they are always the thing I most want to do every day.

Internally those larger. story based projects are the direct reflection of everything I loved about my childhood and want to re-embrace into the fold of mid adulthood and beyond. They are the lifeline from that era, the link in time to all I am and all I do.

They are my "Tardis" through time and space that take me back to the most wonderful and,  yes, sometimes less wonderful of those years too.

And ohhhhh I am a time traveler above all else. . . 

I am hoping, that by sharing the ideas here in a series of posts of their progress and intent,  the visual reminder of them each time I come to my blog will remind me that they are waiting for me to grow them into full reality.And with each large project I will also post a small, quick idea that came to fruition too. :)

So then

The LONG of It:

The Noble Ice Elves of Spangladasha:

Started this massive idea at the beginning of the year and it is only in the last 4 weeks that it sort of fell off the radar a bit. The little guy below, Fenewen, was the first to appear here. He toldme his story and I was beyond hooked. . . T

he idea is to create a total of 50 Noble Ice Elves ( not all at once mind you) and send each one, as it is adopted, off into the world with an atlas/maps of their land, Spangladasha, and scrolls that tell the story of the elves journey to our world and their purpose here and beyond.

The very-large of the idea is to send quarterly updates to each person as the elves are adopted letting them know the general location of other elves across the globe (by city/country only) and continuing the story through mailings of scrolls, symbols, etc etc as well as updating the Etsy listing with the story as it progresses as new elves appear.  So even I will not know exactly where it is going until it gets there.

Fenewen

I LOVE his furry compact body, the crown of polymer clay bones and his "petrified" driftwood power source with it's "ice crystal" attached!! And the ever growing map of the land he and his kind hail from:

Spangladasha - Realm of the Noble Ice Elves

Soooo much more to do obviously. Scrolls, books, wax seals, printing the maps, special packaging etc etc. The Noble Ice Elf story is about 5 pages now. That's about as long as I want it so I'll have a years worth of updates already in the bag. I just need to rewrite, edit and re-edit. 

Hoping to have 6 or so of these guys ready for Fall release! 

And that, my dear friends, is just ONE of the large ideas brewing in this brain lately. :)


The SHORT of it:

The Shen Amulet

So, the Egyptian pieces in Shadow of the Sphinx are a direct link to my early creative worlds  I imagined myself often in that time, often as a simple scribe or lay-person working for a Pharaoh. It was a far broader role to me than to rule all of Egypt. lol

The endless list of ancient pieces I have to inspire me has allowed me to continually experience a new thrill when working on these amulets and statues. And often, the ideas allow me to create quickly as with the Shen amulet below.  There must be hundreds of iterations of this one amulet/symbol alone.  So the inspirational source is endless.

Shen Symbol - Polymer Clay Amulet with Bronze Patina Finish

Trouble is I often get caught up in the fun of making smaller things and just let the larger ideas sit a bit too long. . . but then again, Fenewen is always on my work table and he won't be patient for long I suspect. . .

Wishing you all a creative and magical day!

Soon again. . .


nicolas