Enchanted Dragon Towers

Many of you know I am HUGE when it comes to stories. . . especially in relation to the thing si create.

Well, I just finished this little tower and it's dragon guardian, Amethyra, the other day and wrote the accompanying tale to go with it this morning so it is now listed in my shop.

This is rare. I have, at last count, a dozen completed items here that are awaiting stories before being sold/listed in my Etsy shop. Some have sat for weeks. . . waiting.

I cannot seem to list anything if it does not have some sort of tale to go with. The stories are, ultimately, what I feel give a bit of spirit to the work. I don't want to define everything I make in detail because part of that is, indeed, for the new owner. . . but at least something to offer a starting place for their own adventure to take root.

I am trying to get better at letting go just a bit on it but, when a story comes together like the one for these towers did, I feel like it is worth waiting for when it is not exactly there at the start.

So, without further delay or blather on my part, here is the Enchanted Dragon Tower and it's accompanying tale. : )

It's 6" tall and about 3" at the widest point of the dragon's body

I've been wanting to make dragons for some time but think I finally like the version I have here.

Coiling it around the tower works well but I also intend to make a few with the dragon perched/coiled on the roof top!

 I really enjoy the look of the offset doorway for an even more enchanted effect. :) 

¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨  The Enchanted Dragon Tower  ¨¨°º©©º°¨¨¨

There are so many stories and tales about dragons in the world that to try and convince you there might be one more you haven't heard would seem a bit presumptuous. . .

But this little enchanted dragon tower is really born of a dragon story unlike any other that I, personally, knew of before hand.

Seems that a little, creative elven girl named Alythia had been having a hard time of late with her magic studies. She wasn't really very much into the books and lessons that other young creatures of the Pine seemed to so easily grasp. It wasn't so much that she felt badly about this as she had many, many other things that interested her far more than study.

For one, she loved to tell stories that she made up during her time alone at home. She also loved to spend as much time as she could wandering the countryside and talking to all of the creatures she encountered. Fauns, fairies, brownies, gnomes, sprites, goblins. . . made no difference to Alythia as she had a real knack for making friends and she often found herself telling her made-up stories to the new friends she met along the way. They always hoorah-ed and clapped at the end. . .

One day while venturing further into the surrounding forests than she ever had before, she came upon an old stone tower deep in the pines. It looked like it had been abandoned for eons with browned, dry moss, dead weeds filling the flower boxes and a lack of luster that only comes with years of neglect.

Stepping up to the door she recognized the faint markings she found there from one of her "Ancient Spells" textbooks. Theses symbols were enchantments that, as she recalled, were supposed to keep whatever had been locked inside.  .  well. . .  inside. The seals had been broken though and so, ever the adventurous spirit, she cautiously forced opened the heavy, creaky wooden door and found her way thru the dark lower level and up the stairs to the lookout window high above the forest floor.

When she got to the top, she was completely transfixed by the view! Such beauty and gentle hills sprinkled with wildflowers all around for miles. She had never known the landscape to look like that from the ground.

She made a wish, right there an then, that she could spend her life in a tower like this one just creating her stories day after day for it was truly the thing she enjoyed most of all.

Well, after a bit of daydreaming, Alythia eventually made her way back down the stairs but, as she did, she felt that something was. . . different now. . . the tower itself no longer seemed old, musty and dilapidated but, instead, seemed light, airy and almost like new!

She walked outside to discover the outside too looked rather refreshed with bright green moss and colorful stones and, the flower box that had only held dead weeds when she entered, was now overflowing with juicy red flowers!

And as she stared up at the beautiful scalloped rooftop with it's clinging moss, she felt a warm East wind blowing on her neck. . . except, it turns out, it wasn't an East wind at all.

Nooooooo, it was, as she saw upon turning around, a very beautiful, purple dragon with golden horns, eyes and wings!

The dragon, without speaking with a voice, introduced herself as Amethyra and she told Alythia that she was the guardian of the enchanted tower.  A tower that could grant almost any wish a being made while looking out it's "dream Window".

Alythia was startled. . . but not afraid. "But what of the sealing spells on the door? So they not speak of "keeping something inside"?

"Ahhh" said Amethyra, "Actually the spell was a warning to keep folk OUT of the tower. Because what is kept within is the power to grant the enchantment of one wish. But the spell is a little. . . off, shall we say? It grants the wish, but it only does so if the wish-maker stays within the tower."

"So", Amethyra continued, people have wished for great wealth, great bounties of food, fine clothes, great power even. . . but they may only have such things as long as the remain in the tower."

"And what is your part in this?" Alythia asked.

"Ohhh, I am the guardian of the tower" said Amethyra. "It is my charge to protect the tower and anyone who dwells within it. But should they leave, all they have wished for ends up turning into dust."
 
"I wished I could stay here forever and write stories." said Alythia "Can that really be a dream that the enchantment can make come true?"

Yes, that is why I appeared to you." Amethyra answered, "If you wish to stay, you may. The tower would be your only home and you would want for nothing as long as you remain inside and do not break the seal once the enchantment is enacted."

Alythia thought long and hard about this while Amethyra coiled around the tower to await her decision. In the end, after much internal debate, Alythia decided to take up the offer and she lived, for the rest of her many years, in the solitude and beauty of the Enchanted tower.

She thrived in the solitude and she was quite content with Amethyra as her only company. She took very good care of her little tower home and wrote stories, every day, without fail.

It is said that what she created lives beyond time and measure. The root of those stories, older than can be traced and forever retold in our times thru our own creations, link us together across worlds and dimensions.

Her gift became the very essence of what we call inspiration and, to this day, people seek solitude (mostly sans dragons like Amethyra, sadly) for the time and space to create their own stories and offerings to the world.

Leprechauns!

Had a commission recently to create this set of two Leprechauns, Sigge and Dilton, and the Codding Fox Public House for a client's first fairy garden! I would LOVE to move into more figure work and am pretty settled on this sort of size (3.5 to 4 inches) and composition. I do not know if I will ever get into making clothing from fabric but I do love creating these outfits made entirely of Polymer clay (hair made of wool roving).

Below the images I placed the little story that was included in the listing. . . of course, all my work HAS to have a story to inspire it. ;)

Thanks for looking and I hope the magic is flowing in your world. . .

nicolas

Sigge Fritch and Dilton Beedle are two of the many regulars who frequent The Codding Fox (est. 1813), which is a tiny little Pub in the back reaches of the Bewildering Pine. Here, among the tall spruce and cedar, a small colony of Leprechauns has dwelled for many, many years in Heathgrove, a tiny village found in the shadow of Aster's Keep, a long-abandoned castle once used before the closing of the time rift by the last remaining "Otherkind" in this world.

The Codding Fox (codding, in the language of the Leprechauns, means kidding or joking) is always a gathering place among the inhabitants and on any summer night, you might find almost everyone seated around the tables inside or on the benches outside enjoying a refreshing pint of their favorite tasty beverage and telling tales and yarns until the proprietor, Miss Delaney, kindly asks them to head home.

Now, not everyone in this village is particularly good with remembering their coin as they head out for the evening and so, every now and again, the tabs which Miss Delaney allows the locals to run in the Pub begin to mount. Kind soul that she is, Miss Delaney will never request payment or ever embarrass a patron who has not paid in several weeks. However, on occasion, when it's time to pay her own monthly bills, she will invite the tab-runners to come down to the Codding Fox for a special event. This, it turns out, is an evening of tale telling in which the winner is absolved of their debts and the rest are required to pay in full by weeks end.

Now, it must be said that, in truth, all the Leprechauns are quite able to pay their bill. Leprechauns do, after all, have a tendency to do well with gold and fortunes. . . but it is storytelling the Leprechauns deem their greatest asset and it is the desire of every Leprechaun to be the winner of just such a story contest. So, no matter how many tales they tell on a given night, the Leprechauns are careful to keep their very best tales for this sort of event.

The rules are simple. The tale told must be new and unheard before by all in attendance. It must be no longer than 4 minutes long (this rule is absolutely necessary if you have ever heard a gathering of Leprechauns tale-telling) and it must not involve the misfortune of anyone other than the teller of the tale. (The kindness rule Miss Delaney calls it)

Sigge and Dilton are two of the regulars of this event. Sigge, who is quite a few years older than Dilton, has won the event a handful of times while Dilton, still learning the finer points of timing and truth-stretching, is looking for his first win. This night, in the poses you find Sigge and Dilton in, the two friends are practicing their tales on each other before the contest begins.

All agree that the best part of these evenings is the round of new stories to be heard, many of which will be repeated again and again for travelers and newcomers to the Fox over the coming weeks and months, and the fact that all libations, on these nights are also on the house.

Needless to say, The Codding Fox and Miss Delaney are somewhat legendary among the Leprechauns and it s no surprise that this little Pub is often considered the finest establishment in any corner of the realm.

So the next time you are wandering north through Heathgrove on a summer's eve, stop by for a dish of Miss Delaneys hand-cranked Brambleberry ice-cream, a dish of traditional Colcannon or a Pale Lucky Clover Ale and let the stories of your table mates and hosts whisk you away and, once the evening is over, may they stay with you now and for ever more.

The Chronicle of Secret Riven

"On the nights when she wasn't too tired, she studied folklore and tales written in languages she could now read fluently. She welcomed the return of old, almost forgotten enchantment. She discovered again the promise of wonder . . . no matter what good and evil was involved."

from "The Chronicle of Secret Riven" by Ronlyn Domingue

I have been engrossed in this book the last few weeks. This is the second volume in the "Mapmaker's War" trilogy by this author. If you have not heard of or read these books, i highly recommend them. While considered a trilogy, it is not necessary to read the Mapmaker's War first. They are so different that one might read both and not realize they are connected in any way. The Mapmaker's War  takes place in a distant past from The Chronicle of Secret Riven and there are only slight allusions to the first book's story in Secret Riven.

What the Chronicle of Secret Riven IS, however, is a slow and gentle unfolding of a young girl's life story. . . truly a chronicle in form and verse. . . beautifully told and meandering through mysticism and fantasy. . . heartbreaking and reassuring all at once.

The paragraph above is one of the touchstones of the book for me. A girl who is born to enchantment and magic but tries to ignore it and move to the "grown up" world of expectation and "normalcy" is reminded, again and again, that her path is not the same as others. That she is fated to something few will understand and fewer will share.

What I often  take from books like this is a reassurance that the stories we tell about ourselves are, ultimately, what decide the degree of happiness we will experience in our lives.

What we carry forward, repeat and reshape. . . even re-create is OUR reality. I have reinvented my life many times. Changed locations, name, career and, ultimately this all led me back to the origins of my own mystic beginnings and experiences.

No matter the shadows or the light, it is a choice. . .. every day a new chapter and what carries forward with us is, ultimately, a result of our own authorship.

I read books like this to remember.  . and to return. . . to my own origins.

To do otherwise would be to turn my back on what simply is, and always has been, my reality. 

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