Rue de La Minuscule

It's not like I don't already have enough on the creative fire to keep me busy. . . but, truth be told, the more "have to's" that are beckoning. . . custom orders, replacing favorites and requests. . .. the more I want to do something completely new or different and get lost in another direction!

The benefit of this is that it almost always leads me to new things that end up being staples in my shops. So, this past week, with all the "have to's" circling and bearing down, I went off on yet another creative tangent.

Tiny

When I began working with polymer clay 5 years ago I had in mind the notion that smaller would be easier. That if I made things tiny, they would be less likely to show the learning curve as I grew into working with the clay. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Larger was easier and, out of that, I grew into making houses, statues etc etc but every once in awhile, I come back to "tiny". . .

It's been awhile this time but I thought I would go ahead and try something in a very small scale again and see where it took me.

The results were very satisfying and I wanted to share them here before they make it to my shoppe.

I originally decided to try one little French/European style shop. But it turned out so well I kept going and, well, as you can see below, my tiny idea became so much more!

 A trio of buildings and street, in N scale (1:148) that I am so happy with! I am going to create more and have little touches on the way, bicyclists, villagers etc etc to fill out the scenes. This took awhile, as one might imagine, and I do not expect they will move quickly but I LOVE creating on this scale!

So enjoy a little stroll down the Rue de La Minuscule

My ideal city apartment. . . .between a cheese shoppe and a wine seller! :)

Note to self. . . fix crooked flower pot!

Rue de la minuscule is just 4.5 inches long!

Very picturesque street I'd say!

More like this are already in process. A Venetian set of Burano houses with gondola and canal and a few one offs of my favorite Medieval town settings. . . those little corner buildings with a winding cobblestone path that wrap around and frame the house in those interesting and odd triangular plot shapes!  Who knows what else!

I expect to only complete a few of these a year but I have to say, working tiny is such a fun and satisfying thing to do!

Thanks for looking!

nicolas

Idea in Process - Amulet Magic!

I adore amulets.  .  . In my Shadow of the Sphinx shop , half of my sales are of my little mini altar and wearable amulets.

In my paracosm of childhood, amulets had such power. Luckily, my mother was a lover of costume jewelry so I had oodles of fun things to create stories around and that she did not mind me "borrowing" for my imagination's sake.

So lately I have been realllllllly wanting to create amulets that will hail from the "Bewildering Pine" world to offer in Bewilder and Pine as well. Of course, the fun is in the making and creating of the "ancient" stories to go along with them.

Now, for the finished product, I envision setting up a very dark, apothecary shoppe look and feel for the photography where I would display the amulets in their magic boxes and with their scrolls of authenticity etc etc.

But the amulets are where I am beginning and below is the first iteration of one of them. A simple polymer piece with an iron rust patina. aged and mysterious. This one, I believe, would ward off
nightmares and keep the wearer safe from dark ogres and malevolent shapeshifters.

I love the aged patina look and the mysterious golden symbols inscribed. It feels magical to me even at this early stage.

Sort of a nightmare capture device. The box shape and the hole in the middle to lure the nightmares within. Woven with repellent spells to ward of all of those other nighttime creatures too.  Could have used this as a child! :)

Anyway, that is the beginning of it and I wanted to post it because, in my world, too many ideas get lost in the shuffle of maintaining the shops and all the custom work.

I have to remember, sometimes, that what inspires me most is making what I truly want and love, and that only those things really inspire me and refresh my soul. : )

Thanks, as always, for believing!

nicolas

PS, I've been inspired this week by a book about Stonehenge that I have been wanting to read for awhile. It goes into detail about the larger community of sacred circles around the Stonehenge site and how the key to unlocking so much of the mystery seems to have come thru the ancient belief that stone circles and monuments were for the dead while wooden/timber circles and monuments were for the living. 


For years it was believed that Stonehenge was an anomaly, an enormous monument sitting all alone on the Salisbury plain but, in the last 15 years,  research and new digs have shown that to be anything but true. This is very inspiring to me. . . time keeps revealing the secrets of the dead and the idea of certain materials being linked to the living or to ancestral dead is so remarkably simple to me. 


I was fortunate enough to visit Stonehenge in the late 80's and remember it as if it were yesterday. A cold, rainy Spring day with only two other people around the entire time I was there. Those stones in that setting, even with the modern highway that runs beside it. . . only the Badlands of South Dakota have ever given me the same feel. Ancient, magical. . . eternally alive with unending stories to tell.

Bloom - The Renewal of an Idea

Inspired by the creative challenge issued Sunday by the lovely creative spirits at Pixie Hill, I took the word "Bloom" and decided to see where it took me.

I am much more of an Autumn soul than a Spring one and I never am at a loss for creative ideas and a to-do list a mile long. . . so then, what would "Bloom" bring up in my own creative world?

Well, for me, it does mean renewal. . . so how about the renewal of an old idea?

Bookmaking. . .

I have dabbled, many times over the years, in the art of bookbinding. Never seriously but always with the knowledge that the ideas I would love to bring to life in that realm would definitely fit my work and my expression of possibility and magic.

I tend to get excited whenever I have down time (rarer all the time these days)  about the art of bookbinding and I'll jot down ideas, start on covers, buy book cloth, binding tape, waxed linen thread etc etc. . . so all of the necessary supplies are here. I just never seem to take those ideas to the completed stage and get sidetracked with orders and finishing the work for my shoppe.

Well, the last two days while recovering from eye surgery, I thought "OK, here it is, a bit of time with a chance to try to renew this idea.

The results are as follows:

A blank spell book, perhaps left behind intentionally for a human child to write their dreams and wishes, large or small, within? 

The completed small, blank Elven Spell Book with ribbon marker 1.75" x 2.5"

An incantation in "Elven font" on the facing page. . . this spell allows the person who writes their dreams within the book to have them protected and spell-bound by the magical wee folk.

A map of my imaginary world (still in progress) of The Bewildering Pine where the elven folk of my little paracosm reside.

The cover is an antique book cover printed on archival linen paper. I want to try staining the inner pages and adding little printed symbols etc here and there for the final versions.

 It's really a wonderful thing to get outside the usual mode of my creative production and try something new . . . or, at least, renewed! I can't tell you how many years I have been dreaming of making little books. . .  though most of my ideas are not for blank paged books but, instead, for almost-filled "sketchbooks" that a fairy might "lose" or leave behind in your garden with sketches like these I completed a while ago: 

The font is slightly askew which leaves for me to include "translations" in the packaging! :)

Faerie Garden Obelisks

Cataloging of Vegetables, Flowers and Insects of course are part of the design.

Yes, I think it's time. . . . Spring. . . . ideas do bloom too. . .. so, thanks, to Nichola, for the gentle nudge of inspiration to allow these to do so!

A very magical and happy Spring to all!

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

Hero

A wonderfully creative blogging friend of mine has issued an intriguing challenge thru her blog. Once a week she chooses a single word for a theme and asks her followers to create something. . .  just one little thing. . . no matter how small or incomplete, that sums up that word of the week.

It's the kind of challenge I love and have decided to approach it as a way to fill out the cast of characters for our own little paracosm of Bewilder and Pine. So, when I saw the word for this past week was "Hero", I knew exactly where the theme was going to go.

What came from that word and the inspiration was this little guy. . .  Moxley Wynn

Isn't he a total cutie?

Heroes come in all sizes, of course, but little Moxley has a very large presence around here.

It's going to be reallllly hard to part with this guy one day.

So, little Moxley Wynn is inspired by a lifelong love of mouse/heroic characters from a variety of times and places. Starting with a nostalgic soft-spot for Mathias and Abbot Mortimer from Brian Jacque's "Redwall" on up thru the recent comic book phenomenons "Mouse Guard" and "Mice Templar". The mouse, as the underdog. . .  as the hero. . . it always just seemed to make perfect sense to me.

Moxely is just the first of the Forest Guide Mice I will be making. He is crafted from polymer clay and armature wire and hand-painted. His staff which comes from the magical woods of our local forest haunt, Kilchis Point,  features a little hanging polymer lamp and a few tiny polymer acorns too. A little lichen and fishing line whiskers really brought him to life.

The best part of having just a week to make the piece is I can't over-scrutinize and worry about how  each detail looks without just diving in and making it.

So HUGE thanks to Nichola and her wonderful and inspired idea!! I look forward to the next. :)

Hoping that you all have a little hero like Moxley to help you find your way "home" creatively.

nicolas

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

The Fairy Windmill

Finally getting these little gems out for the holiday too! I have made larger HO scale windmills for the past few years but really wanted to perfect these little ones for terrariums and indoor fairy gardens. I think this is the one! I already have a claim laid on this first one but am making three more this week. :) Of course, one can imagine the little spirits that would inhabit such a place, yes? And there is alegend in the listing about "turning mills" and how the helped a rather desperate bunch of fairies plot their freedom from a very still and un-magical imprisonment. :)

This little one is 4.25" tall and 2.5 inches wide.

Enjoy!!

nicolas

Showing it off in my own windowsill fairy garden!

I love offering this "fairy view" of the pieces we make.

Who wouldn't want to live in this cozy little house?