New Work - First Friday Post - August 3rd

Hello Everyone!

We had our first rain here in a few weeks and it feels like fall already! Foggy, gray and moody. A fine walk in the forest this morning revealed many yellow leaves and berries on the ground. It's been a lovely summer but I am ready for fall and winter again! :)

Alright, on to the new work from the last month. . . I want to get back on an every Friday pace AND get back to commenting more regularly on my favorite blogs so I am going to keep the first Friday posts minimal on words. I have lots to share with coming month, new inspirations and oddities, a few book recommendations and a few video links.

Plus, 4th Fridays will be back with a look into my process as I continue to push through the first draft of my fantasy novel.


For now, enjoy the newest and most recent from my shops:

Nicolas XO

Let's get right to it with this fantasy inspired piece. A monk's hermitage set atop a stone spire with a circular staircase cut into the stone and winding it's way up the sides. . . and a tiny N scale Monk figure! 

Rarely get a request for the Goddess Nephthys as a Kite. This may be my favorite that I have made. 

A more detailed and complex Mushroom House Scene

I love the regal simplicity of the Sekhmet face. She truly is the Lady of Light. 

Too Soon? Not for the shop! I've been slowly stocking up on making mini tombstones for the Halloween season! 

This new blue "faience" patina is a mess to work with but yields such amazing results!
My fingers are blue for two days afterwards! (Note to self - gloves!) 

Had some of these enamel pots around from a few years back and just found them again.
So the mini-village makes comeback! 

A request for a set of votive altar candle holders led to the creation of this unique, one of a kind set! 

Tiny terra-cotta pots, tiny houses BIG magic! 

And I know, I know. I have shown many Taweret statues in my blog. . . I cannot help it! There is no other figure I make where I am so giddy while I create it each and every time!  A chubby hippo can really make a "kid" smile. 

Taweret and the Lure of Egyptian Art in My World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taweret: Patron of Childbirth and Protector of Women and Children

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

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

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

Hope you enjoy seeing Her. :)

xo
nicolas

Full Circle

I was a small child when the first grand tour of the treasures of Tutankhamen came to America. The madness in the art world that surrounded it filtered down to my childhood world and, through books and magazines, found it's way into my soul. Not long after it was a tour of the permanent exhibit at the Carnegie museum's antiquities section that really stirred my imagination.

For all of the luster and glitz of KingTut, I was even more taken by the simple, everyday possessions of the ancient Egyptian that I saw in that museums cases. It was that first glimpse into the life of, what I imagined to be, a boy just like me, that inspired the life long love I have held for that era and the pantheon of Egyptian deities.

So, now with my adult self creating statues and amulets that are all directly inspired by ancient pieces and primarily those of everyday worship in that ancient Egyptian world, I have received a very meaningful nod to my work that ties hits whole cycle up in one small way.

Yesterday two of my pieces were purchased by a woman who is part of the La Habra Children's Museum in La Habra CA. They are having an installation come October that will be a walk through tour of a scribe's life in ancient Egypt.


The pieces are these below:

 Bes and Taweret

She also sent me this description of how the exhibit will be set up.

***The exhibit is called Egypt: Land of Ancients, and it basically follows the life of a scribe named Peneb. The gallery is rectangular in shape and is about 1000 sqft. Guests will enter through a gateway following the river Nile, which cuts through the room diagonally (blue carpet, with fiberglass rocks, papyrus reeds, a fiberglass crocodile etc). On the East side of the Nile is Peneb's house which will simply show daily life for a scribe's family; a market place with food and livestock, a textile stand and a spice stand; and a temple to Thoth, which is also the scibe school, where touring kids can learn hieroglyph-to-alphabet symbols and spell out their names with wooden blocks, and also a simple number system.

There will also be a small copy of the Rosetta stone and an explanation of it's importance, an alter to Thoth, and an area on papyrus. Across the river to the West will be a wabet, where kids can wrap a mummy, with explanations regarding egyptian beliefs on the afterlife. We then move upriver to the present to an archeological campsite and Paneb's tomb. Inside the tomb will be a wooden coffin and artifacts, plus a DVD on egyptology.***

 Needless to say the best part of this, for me, is that it is for young hearts and minds! I can only hope, looking back over the years and the way those early exposures to ancient cultures helped form the person and maker-of-things I am today, that there will be one or two who come away with the same intrigue and sense of awe. . . as well as the comfort and connection I felt then, the kind that permeates the soul and settles there to reappear at some point in adulthood when it is needed most.

For me, every piece I send into the world is a wonderful affirmation that those ancient spirits never die. . . and these two, going to be part of something that will open new eyes and minds, well, that makes me feel incredibly joyful.  . and I just wanted to share that with you today.

nicolas