New Work - May 1st

Happy May Day!!

It's been a month.

I went from having the the flu at the end of March to Sofie being sick with a nasty cold and then I got that cold as well!

Three-plus weeks of at least one of us feeling under the weather.  When we were finally all better we found ourselves far behind.

And the weather itself. OK, I am a HUGE fan of inclement weather. Rain, snow, wind etc but it has been raining just about very day since I got back from my trip. Yesterday was the first sunny day we had in weeks and it was glorious! I mean, it's May! I definitely get a reverse SADS effect when it is sunny every day for stretches and I wasn't exactly feeling blue in the rain, it's just taking walks, errands etc etc become sooo unbearable after a while and you find yourself waiting for a break in the weather or  just for it to be raining not as hard. :)

I've enjoyed many aspects of the last month despite the illness. Things like reading more and having time to peruse things I never seem to find the time to look into.

Yesterday an article on a Han Dynasty tomb that was recently unearthed while a subway was being constructed in China caught my eye. Inside the tomb, that of a mildde aged woman, they found four 1/6th scale weaving looms complete with all the accompanying tools for weaving in miniature as well. Even cinnabar-dyed thread strung on the loom for weaving. Add to that the number of carved figures, male and female, each with a name engraved upon them and also to scale.

Amazing.

That sent me to Pinterest and down the rabbit hole which led quickly into all sorts of my usual searched for dolls, ancient fabrics, sculpting tips, fantasy art etc etc.

I realized it had been months since I have allowed myself that sort of down time to just seek out inspiring things. New things. Undiscovered things.

Sometimes I try to keep myself from diving into the new because my "to-do" list of ideas is so long, so unending that I will never get to them all as it stands right now. But I've come to accept that that's ok.  The whole list may not get done. I can add things to it as the new ideas reshape and reform the older ones.

Mostly, I need that new inspiration. It keeps the creative fire going inside and I am never more in tune with my own creative self than when I feel like I have multiple, unexplored ideas orbiting my head like moons!  It pushes me to go beyond what I already do. Try new avenues and explore the possibilities.

It's funny too how easy it is to forget that. Like I have to deprive myself to get the full hit again when I rediscover the truth in it. lol

What inspires you? What pattern does inspiration take in your world? Are you an active seeker or does it hit you randomly?

Well, the month is over and I am excited about the one to come. I'll be back with more posts and catching up on comments soon but here is just a small peek at a few of my latest April creations. :)

Here's to hoping you've been inspired of late and that the month ahead will be filled with it for you as well!

Happy Beltane!

nicolas

New Adobe Fairy House

Wepwawet, similar to Anubis but the not as well known member of the Jackal Cult of ancient Egypt. 

I've ventured into more original pieces in the Shadow of the Sphinx shoppe such as this winged Auset Throne Altar Piece.

Tiny Village on a Resin Garden Bench. 

Slight variation on the Jizos in the shoppe with a Swarovski pearl in the flower center. 

Another Mushroom Fairy House. I really never tire of making these. ;) 

Custom Nephthys statue from April's requests. 

Custom Seshat also completed in April for a lovely customer. 

I rarely "paint" statues anymore, preferring the aging patinas instead but this idea intrigued me.
Indigo and Silver patina sponge finish on a Seker statue. 

Request for 8 of our little groundhogs for a birthday cake! How could we refuse? :) 

PS: Next post: Secrets and what  I miss most of the of the days before the internet.

A Snail's Tale

 A few weeks back, while enjoying the first salad of the season prepared entirely from our little container garden, we found a tiny, tiny (less than pea size!) snail in the bottom of the salad bowl, swimming (swimming may be a strong word for it) in remains of the lemon-honey vinaigrette dressing. . .

Certain we had caused the demise of the little one but still, holding out hope, we set her out to dry on a leaf of one of our orchids and went about our day. At dinner, she was still there, not having budged at all. Neither of us could bring ourselves to dispose of her so we went to bed and, the next day, had pretty much forgotten about her in the rush of emails, shipping and making.

That night, as we sat down for dinner, Sofie noticed that she was gone! She thought, perhaps, that I had discreetly removed her but when I said that I had forgotten about her altogether, we started a frantic search. Had the cat found a tiny new plaything? Had she dried up and fallen to the floor? Did we imagine her or was she just a dream?

Turns out, none of the above. . . she had come back to life from her "death-by-dressing" and found her way onto the plastic plant tag in the orchid pot. She had crawled about a foot from leaf to tag! We got out a quart mason jar, put in a layer of organic soil, a rock, a piece of garden lettuce, carrot tops and parsley and half an eggshell and gave it all a good soaking. . . she took to it right away and explored to her heart's content without a sign of fear. . . which is why, after deciding she should stay,  we named her Alexandra the Great!

And now, two weeks later, she is thriving and has become our new permanent house guest! She's grown so fast and we delight in giving her fresh greens and eggshells each night as well as soaking her world a few times a day. We've been reading up on snails and it seems they can live 12-15 years. . .  OK, I wasn't expecting that long of a stay from our houseguest!!

She's a marvel, having grown about 4x her orignal size in these two weeks. Most of the sunny days she hides under the half-eaten lettuce leaf or curls up beside her favorite rock but yesterday she was out and exploring during the day and I took the opportunity to get a few macro shots of her (she is still really VERY small!) to share.

Another of nature's unending small miracles. . . Alexandra the Great. . . we can't wait to see how big she gets and have already been shopping for a larger home/empire for her future, larger-snail, self. : )

Alexandra the Great conquers yet another obstacle!

LOVE the shell spiral and colors. And her amazing antennae!

Thanks for dropping by!

xo
nicolas

The Inner Nine Year Old Strikes Again

It's funny, The more that I have been thinking about the idea of wanting to please my inner nine year old, the more that comes to me about what that actually means.

On the surface, it seems easy to do. Seek out the tv shows, music, games etc that one loved so dearly in childhood. It is all, thanks to the internet, at our access after all. But, in truth, I wanted to go deeper than that to something more essential.

First, I chose to think of my inner nine year old because, in truth, I can barely remember anything of relevance from that time. No single major events. . . but a world of joy and imagination.

A few years earlier? Yes. . . I have recall as far back as 5 or even 4 and I know I can recall some key moments from even those years.

Everything pretty much from age 11 on?  Absolutely. Crystal clear.

And I have glimpses. Little bits that come to me that I THINK might have been from that time.

But with nothing concrete to grab ahold of, it seems my mind goes in search of something deeper and, in all honesty, I am not sure what it means or how one would exactly embrace it.

This is what came to me the other day.

Do you remember being anywhere in that 7 to 10 age range and having made a plan to go outside and, perhaps, play a game with your friends? Maybe tree climbing or rope swinging? Maybe to the pool? Maybe the weekend neighborhood wiffle ball game or unexpected sled riding on a snowy winter morning? Anything from that time that was something you just couldn't wait to do or be part of when the time came?

What I want to know is this. . .

Do you remember the urgency with which you ran to do said activity? Do you recall being so filled with excitement that you literally could not contain it and hit the front or back door of your house RUNNING? The latch pushed and the door thrown open in one single motion while almost at a full run. . . the door swinging as you bounded out and across the porch, or yard, or down the steps. The inability to contain the fervor for whatever lay waiting you in the coming hours just beyond that door?

 Or maybe you were running to come back inside to catch a favorite show or movie on TV.

Yes?

When was the last time you experienced that same thing as an adult? Now here we are, as adults, we shuffle here and there, keeping composure and cool. Always wanting to be in control. We may be feeling something that would inspire such behavior inside but, outwardly, we are often not able to let that same childhood joy show.

So maybe pleasing that inner 9 year old is about allowing ourselves to really feel the utter joy of those simple things again.  Dropping the adult overtones and just basking in that cup-flowing-over of happiness and anticipation.

I feel like I DO have an adult's sense of that joy. I am truly excited to get up every morning and begin my day. It's always a French press cup of coffee (yay adulthood!) and a fresh pastry from the bakery a block from our place. But I have never, in four years, RUN down the stairs, out the door and all the way to that bakery. Though my excitement for an Almond Bear claw or a Cherry danish is no less now than it was back then. Maybe MORE so since I can go and get one whenever I want and I do not have to ask for it from a parent. : )

I feel super excited to create every day too. To invent the things that I do and ship them out all over the world.  To make up the little stories that go with them and make booklets and maps and all manner of creative outlets that are part of the world I dwell in. . . but I think I can let that joy out a bit more than I do as an adult as well.

And, just yesterday, as I was thinking of all of this, I saw a little girl of maybe 7 or 8 with fairy white-blond hair, picking the first dandelions of the season across the street. Selecting them ever so carefully with her discerning eye and then, bouquet in hand, turning abruptly and running with that same urgency I've been talking about across the park to give them to her mother who was sitting on the bench just 100 feet away.

THAT is the urgency I miss.

Maybe it's harder as adults because we are supposed to have our emotions in check. To maintain that cool exterior and the idea of keeping it together. But really???  JOY is supposed to be that visible. Excitement for what we are doing should come with such outward expression.

So I will be running to the bakery at least once this week. And unashamedly beaming at the job I am blessed to be able to do here. And maybe, just maybe, more of these little facets of the joy of the inner 9 year old will be revealed?

Do you have any you'd care to share? Please feel free, I am all ears. . .

nicolas

And just one new thing to share. . .

Another HO Scale Fairy House. . . I rediscovered the word "Chantry" while researching ideas for this cottage. I think, if fairies were to borrow from our old-world architecture, stone and belfry bells and heavy wooden doors would be musts!

A Dose of Fairy Magic

Beyond the crafting and selling of items there are many aspects to being a maker-of-things that I absolutely did not expect but so enjoy.

 At the top of that list is the connection and interaction that develops with many of our customers. The exchanges that go on beyond the transaction are often born out of the desire to share stories or experiences or just random thoughts on the world of faeries and possibilities. And these can create longstanding bonds that may extend for months or years.

I have grown to love and cherish these interactions so much.

Once in awhile we also are given the chance to share thoughts and messages that seem "fairy-sent" 
 and such was the case today when one of our customers, who recently purchased a fairy house from us, was remarking that she did not feel fairy spirits were likely present in her own home due to something she does that she believed would be a detraction to fairy spirits.

Because this "something" falls into the category that I would consider to be purely modern "human ideals" and more specifically a cultural idealism of the last 20 years or so, I felt inspired to send the following along to her. . .  by the way, her message ended with the question "Are you truly believers?"


The reply:


Oh we are true believers!

And let us say that we do not think fairies discriminate against certain "earthly",human ideals There is, in the heart, something greater than human idealism that fairies are drawn to and, we believe, that intangible energy and heartfelt awareness is what creates that fairy presence around us.

Openness and a compassionate, welcoming heart. The desire to revisit or resurrect that magic of childhood or of any period of one's life where possibility and imagination ruled or were in our awareness. Even just the desire or the need to know that we are not alone here. . . . all of these things are, in our experience, the true portals to visitations and fairy magic.

There is an old ctale, Gaelic or Celtic I believe, that speaks of the "little man". A sprite who tends to move objects and personal items to places the owner realizes are out of place and often just moments after they have been set down! Even this type of sprite, which is among the most common of the "visitations" humans receive is usually presented to someone for reasons we cannot always fathom. But "they" know we are in need of some magic in this world and so it may appear in many different ways. Gentle nudges to our consciousness. . .

In YOUR world and your home, just be open to whatever comes and presents itself as a sign. The simplest things really. . . occurrences that you may have not even given a thought to before can be recognized as these visitations and signs. . . just stay open to the possibility as all of them are the doorways to deeper wonder and possibility. All of them come with no strings attached.  . no more of a "price" than our belief and the space made in an open heart.

Perhaps even a message like this, though flown through the cyber-spaces from our fingertips, may in fact originate somewhere else and is "given" to us to pass along? Who can say really. . .

We hope THAT magic and possibility is what you find in everything that you see. ;)



nicolas



Now, I LOVE writing such messages. I love pulling people back to this side of the landscape and horizon. Sometimes I think it really is about just giving people permission to open up and believe.


That's what it took to get me to a place, after so many years, of believing I deserved to do what I do and be a maker-of-things and that I could be a vessel for that magic to enter this world. Now it seems like I cannot imagine a time when I did not know this or believe it as such. . . but it took countless gentle and not so gentle budges and impressions. Moments of being "steered" one direction or another to keep me on the path.


I have known since I was a child that I was indeed "watched over".
 
Once or twice in enormously life altering ways and then again, in dozens of those slight, imperceptible changes of direction along the way too.

And the purpose is, in my way of seeing it, always small. I was, for years, too caught in the grandiose ideals of my own life and purpose and not ready to see that the simplest and most natural of our abilities are often the roots of the greatest purpose we may have.

Thank you faeries for all the love and guidance in all the forms presented thru these years.

I never forget. . . 


nicolas

Do What You Want, Be What you Are

So I want to begin sharing more of the day to day process and inner workings of being a full time maker-of -things.  Let me start by sharing a little picture with you.

This is my studio work table on a random morning taken about a week or so back. Now, the funny thing about this picture is, I almost did not use it for this blog because, as I looked at it, I thought "Oh that's too neat. . . it looks staged." I'll pause while those of you with a neater bent to their organization and creative work spaces gasp and shudder at the thought. : )

In actuality, all I removed from the scene were paint rags and some scraps of notes that were not relevant. The rest, as seen, is pretty much how my work table looks. . . on a good day.

That little clear space on the front/right table, on the clay mat, that is where I make almost everything in my shops. All the rest are the parts of projects that are going on right now, things drying, things waiting for their day in the photoshoot sun, things in progress etc etc. This is the eye of the storm I suppose you could say. . . because it is always a clam and workable space to me. And, in the chaos, it all makes sense.

The point of this simple little post is this:

Too often I think we unlearn things that were simply inherent to us because our "teachers" believed their way to be better.  In the end, as we grow up, we fight our natural tendencies because we may have been taught that they were not good ways to be. Nowhere is this more destructive than in the creative realm.

In my world, that "teaching" was an endless string of contradicting statements that for years kept me from being the wonderful mess-maker that I am.

Family "teachers" said:
"When you are done (playing) put everything away! It's a mess!"

Except so many of my "games" were paracosms and ongoing worlds that didn't end when I had to stop playing for dinner, sleep or some other such nonsense. . . . They went on without me so how could I just pack them all away? How could I slip back into them seamlessly if they were neatly stacked in a closet or forced under the bed?

Art teachers in school said:

"Focus on one idea or technique. Don't try to do it all. Finish the project you've started. Perect what you are doing"

Except that I never was a one thing at a time person.
Not in reading books ( I have 5 going right now)
Not in traveling. The first time I went to Europe I looked at the map of the continent and said, "Right, 17 days and I'm going to 14 countries! (umm that did not work out once I hit France. . .  and so I DO learn you see!)
Certainly not in creative projects, which, I believe, tell ME when they are ready to be finished and not vice versa. So some sit for days. Weeks. Even months till the finish is apparent to me. 

In my first "career" of the culinary arts, I was taught by the chefs I worked for:
"Don't try to do too many things, just pick a cuisine and master it." (So, needless to say, I fell into the Fusion/cross cultural cuisine trend of the 90's with all my heart and soul!)

Oh the list goes on and on. . .

It took me years to learn that I have this pattern of creative chaos and that it works perfectly for me. 
Let every idea come forth.
Jump at making whatever makes me happiest
Figure the rest out as I go along.

That's being me.  That's who I am. Yet I spent a great deal of my early adult life trying to "do it the right way" by what I had been taught was best.

And while I had to do some work to learn how to make this authentic, natural me into a workable model that could make a viable living, it really only came together when I finally sloughed all that old, repetitive programming off and let myself be the creative soul I was born as. . . working with, instead of against, myself.

That's what allowed this to now grow into a full time occupation that suits me perfectly.

The interesting twist to the story is this. For all the "creative" mess one may see in my life, in my daily way of being a maker-of-things, let me tell you where my life has no mess and jumble.

Basically that would be in every other department.

There are few people who get my time, few outside distractions are ever allowed in, I make very few obligations/commitments and selectively extend myself and there are just very few things I feel compelled to do other than create. I have not heard my phone ring in four years and, like the old days, only return calls at the end of the work day when done. I moved to a place where I can walk to almost everything I need (including places in nature where I can be alone) each day.

That too was something of old programming that I had to break.  We are told to "do one thing" when it comes to work, art, careers, interests or anything we want to "achieve". . . but then we are told a well rounded life includes all that excess which pulls us in 20 directions at once.

How many people I have known that felt that a well rounded life was about having all THOSE diverse interests filling up their schedule and making the hours something to be counted and rationed?

How many people have I listened to as they lament not having the time to do the things they really love while constantly rushing off to yet another engagement or obligation?? How many friends have I watched running around frazzled all day long, every day, so caught up in being "busy" and saying it as if being busy were an accomplishment in and of itself?

But I'd swear, if you ask me, busy is a modern synonym for "messy" in regards to living life.
And when I did it, it just made me feel further away from what I most wanted to be doing. 

And so my advice to others, about a creative life, when asked,  is:

Neat or messy, one thing or a whole basket full of ideas, or anywhere in between makes no difference
Do what you want but be . . . what. . . you. . .  are.
And what you are IS inherent. Yes it can be molded and tightened up and tinkered with.
But the core of it is going to be something you always and already were. . .

Because following that path and being just what you are is always going to lead to happiness doing what you most want to do.

So as a word of advice from a mess-maker extraordinaire, messy is cool. . . it's fine to stray and wander and indulge in many wonderful ideas and pursuits. . . just tidy up the REST of life and let the true you rule the creative day.

xo
nicolas