Amulets

I believe I've mentioned recently that I'm working on making some amulets to go along with my stories. Amulets and talismans were, in my vivid childhood imagination, something I put a lot of thought into and spent many hours creating for my games/adventures.

Whether they were made of wire, legos, tin foil, paper mache, stones, coal and twigs etc etc, or any combination thereof, I made them in numbers I cannot possibly count and many of them, in my rush to have them ready for play, never made it past the first day. Hardly the stuff of lasting, one-day-to-be-discovered artifacts!

I have, of course, explored Ancient Egyptian amulets in Shadow of the Sphinx.  Only now getting to the skill level where I can get good detail in tiny sizes. . . but for my stories, for my imagination to really run wild, I wanted to start creating amulets just for the sake of themselves believing that the process will take me where they need me to go.

I have no set ideas as of yet for ones to put into my shop and the stories are not at the point where I am ready to commit to any one form or design but the ideas. . . oh they do haunt me in my sleep! :)

So here are a few that I completed this week, No real theme. . . just playing with ideas, ancient forms and current inspirations. . .

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The Troll Knot is an old Norse amulet for, of course, warding off trolls. 

 The Dancing Troll, inspired by the art of Wendy and Brian Froud, in my stories, ancient trolls have magic that is connected to / activated by, dance like, flowing movement. . .

The "Source" amulet. . . an original relic from the world of the Bewildering Pine made with polymer clay and the finish is rusted iron Swellegance!

The "Warrior Princess". . . We've taken to re-watching the entire Xena series from the start so this Chakram amulet was simply a must! Can't explain the pure joy of getting lost in Xena and Gabrielle's adventures again. . . what a show it was, so over the top and completely inspired. As Sofie puts it, "I wish I could have watched this when I was 8 or 9. . . it would have been so empowering." It's also fun to know that a handful of the creators of "Orphan Black" got their start here. 

Well, that's all for now. . . more to come as I have another handful in process right now.

And still working on the packaging design. I'd prefer to have all my amulets fall under one title/branding so that is a challenge I am embracing as many of you know, I love packaging!.

Hoping you all have a lovely weekend. I'll be back on June 1st with more new work!

Until then,

xoxoxoxo
nicolas

Signposts Along the Road - Anubis

The other day I sold my newest version of an Anubis/jackal statue in Shadow of the Sphinx. The woman who purchased it wrote to me and asked if I had any advice on how to connect or work with Anubis as He had been appearing to her quite a bit lately. 

I did.  

I was a boy of 7 or 8 when King Tut's treasures first toured the US. The country was, as I recall, caught up in the mania of the story of the boy king. My father, living in NY city at the time, sent me a program from the exhibit. A strange gesture because, as far as I know, he had little interest in such things and I, as a young boy, had never even heard of ancient Egypt. 

I was completely taken by the treasures and the story of the tomb's adventurous and painstaking discovery and unearthing. I was in love with the idea of discovering steps beneathe the sand that led to such a marvel. I am sure I must have dug a dozen or more holes in the woods or back yard hoping, the way any young boy with no idea of the scope of the world might, to unearth just such a discovery myself.

 Of all the wonderful things" the tomb yielded, I was taken most by the life-sized jackal headed guardians that stood on either side of the door to King Tutankhamen's burial chamber. Beautiful depictions of Anubis, the "God of the Underworld"  Osiris an, then, the guide through it.

Ancient Egypt became a doorway for me. I devoured every book on it I could find and it led to discovering and reading about other ancient cultures as well. The Greek and Roman empires, The Druids and Celts, Phoenicians, Mesopotamia, The Mongols, The Turks, the Japanese Shoguns,. History became a deep love for me that would, and will,  inspire ma and last through the rest of my life. 

Still, when it cam to Anubis, I was more reverent than smitten. Anubis seemed to hold such power even though I could barely understand the concept of a "psychopomp" or an "underworld". That feeling sort of sat within me for a few years until the day when Anubis was one of the deities that, at age 11 or 12, I drew both on the tops of my feet and on my closet walls for protection (and likely as part of some imaginary scenario I was lost in playing at that time). 

Then, as most childhood obsessions do, in my teen years He and ancient Egypt sort of faded.

But never completely. 

In high school I attended a scholars program that included art and we explored man ancient forms f art. There, in the class books, was an oversized book of Egyptian artifacts. And when we moved here to the coast after leaving the city to take this run at being full time "makers-of-things", I discovered that exact same book, which I had not seen in about 20 years, in an old used book storein the town I moved to!

In the years between I always seemed to have an Anubis statue around or have one given to me when I didn't. An Anubis pendant was mysteriously left for me backstage after a multi media performance I did about 15 years ago. 

I had a Siberian Husky mix for 10 years, who was named Isis (she had the name when I got her!) and who, as many people remarked, was so physically similar to Anubis (including the large ears) and lay in a pose so close to the classic Anubis that it was more than a little eerie. Also, it would be appropriate to say that she chose ME as her provider (a long story but the first night I "found" her, she gingerly stepped over to my side and then lay on my chest in the classic Anubis pose. I recognized that in her immediately. And while she died almost ten years ago, I can say that it was her being in my life that sort of kept me in place and helped lead to what would become the creative life I lead now. So many pieces fell into place that would not of had I felt the freedom to just move or reinvent my life over without any consideration to how it might affect her. She kept me in place until the crossroads had fully appeared. 

But it was not until I began making statues and amulets 6 years ago (and Anubis was one of the first since I indeed had a statue to use as a 3-d model) that I rediscovered my love for reading about the deities of ancient Egypt and exploring their role in that society again. And, in those years that had passed, so much had been discovered and revealed about them. Things I never knew in those early years. 

Anubis, it seems, had a bigger, more expansive role than just the guide to the underworld. It's now known that Anubis could also be seen as a deity that would appear for guidance at any form of "crossroads" in the living world too. The term psychopomp originates from the Greek words Pompos (conductor or guide) and Psyche (life, breath, soul, or mind) and Anubis is just one of long list in mythology that includes Hermes, Persephone and the Valkyries. So to think of Anubis, after all these years as something the living could connect to, well, it made much more sense why Anubis has been a part of my world for so long. 

Crossroads. . . as a child, it's hard to look back and say how big of an influence that glossy King Tut exhibit program was. How big an impact those standing, anthropomorphic Anubis guardians were going to be. But it is absolutely true that, in my adult world, Anubis seemed to be a guide that came along, in one form or another, each time I needed him . . . if only to watch over me, keep me where i needed to be, or to inspire.

Today, I am always happy to make an Anubis statue or amulet and to send it out into the world for others to, hopefully, work with and find their way thru the crossroads of life.

Below is another version of that Anubis I spoke of at the beginning and a few new pieces from the Shadow of the Sphinx shop too. All of them are important to me in their own way. All have had their place in my life. But none more so than the guardian and navigator of crossroads, Anubis. . . 

Thank you for visiting!

xoxo

nicolas

My latest Shadow of the Sphinx version of Anubis

The "classic" pose.

I'm introducing a new series of busts for smaller altar spaces. This is the lioness, Sekhmet, with solar disc and cobra. 

And one of Wenut, the Hare or "The Swift One" 

Stories Moving Forward II - A World in 30 Days?

Last week I finished the 30 day World Building exercise that I took on to help me get "started" on my short stories writing project. The goal was to use the exercise to build a deeper background world around the land of the "Bewildering Pine" and starting to collect ideas and outlines for the place, the people/folk who populate it and the myriad of details that, hopefully, will make it rich and inviting to readers.

The results were, to put it mildly, overwhelming.

When it comes to writing I have always enjoyed telling little tales. It's been a part of me since childhood too. And, as I get older, I want to create something that will be left behind in written form. More than just little tales for the items I make and sell but stand alone tales of a place that, at least half of my waking hours, I am immersed in.

And yet,  every time I have tried to get started, I seem to fall short and the momentum and enthusiasm stalls out.

I am going to write about this a few times in the coming month because it is truly too much to try and share in one post. So I will keep this short and we will call this entry, "the outline".

Now, if you had told me before I started the thirty day project, that I would spend about 15 hours in one month on my stories,  I would have told you that sounds great. . . but I am not sure where I'll find the time to do that.

Well, let me say that I did indeed spend between 15 and 20 hours last month writing. First thing each day, 30 days in a row, I sat down and tackled that days world building assignment while having coffee and morning pastry.

Each day is supposed to be just 15 minutes of writing but, some of the exercises were things I had already thought quite a bit about but had never written down. And each of those led, it seems, to deeper and more extensive thoughts about everything from geography and climate to the people, commerce, animals and societal rules etc etc. I spent up to an hour some days, just writing. Moe thinking n top of that.

So much so that I am going through another list of world building questions and expanding the world even more!

The best thing to come out of it all is this.

When I began, the project was going to be a series of short stories, "The Ledgerkeepers" many of which I hoped to illustrate and then make little "zines" from that I could self publish and sell thru my shop. Stories that would appeal to any age or delight anyone with an interest fairies/elves etc and their world. Then, when I had enough stories, to produce a collected, printed book of them to offer as well.

What has come from the last month's work though is a far deeper story that I think is the bones for a longer book. Dare I say. . . a full or mini novel? And the bones of that story. . . the darker, unexpected plot line, characters, the Pine history and lineage and all the details and plot twists, so much of it never existed at all before I did this 30 day exercise.

All of that. . . in roughly 15 hours. . . that I would have sworn I could not have found in my days.

I can look back now and honestly say that I just never had the discipline to do it but also, I simply did not know where to begin.

And that is the thing I want to convey here. I will never let that happen again. I know it's an age old line but it's the journey, not the destination that is the key. Getting from point A to point B is always overwhelming until we take those first small steps.   And I know very well that an organized or structured framework, preferably daily and in small increments, is how we always manage to get there.

I did it with my Etsy shops, making new things every single day to improve my skills (I still do this 6 years later!) and I did it with learning to write music. . . or even running coffeehouses and cafe's. Just do this one little thing, then the next, then the next. . . little small building blocks to get where we want to be. Like so many, I can give up n things because that end goal seems so far of.  It seems to be the same for people with exercise plans, diets, career goals etc etc. Point B can seem so far away. . .

I think most new things seem overwhelming until you get in and wade thru those dark waters of uncertainty and self doubt.

So, I hope to share some of the deeper details with what I have been working on with you soon but let me leave you with just this one little aspect of my world that I just came up with in the last day or two of the exercise.

I knew that I wanted a "sport" for my world since games and sports were such a huge part of my childhood. But I also made up so many of my own variations back then. . . so I wanted something more personal than just a simple twist on a current "Earth sport".   Nothing close to what we know as being sports in the here and now. Nothing violent, nothing requiring extreme physical skill or physique. In fact, the long lithe elf would be a better suited candidate than the big strong ogre. lol But still, something that could be played by any creature. Elf, Hob, Dryad, etc etc with an equal chance for success.

That "sport", still unnamed as of now, is a combination of Hopscotch and Hackey Sack. I envision it being played on a huge, elaborately tiled mosaic version of the French hopscotch layout which is a winding snail shape play area ( in researching hopscotch, I learned that in France they call the game Escargot for the shape of the playing field!!) with, in my game's case, 21 numbered spaces leading to a gold circle in the center. The game I've invented is played with two teams of two defenders, one pitcher (a position that requires only tossing accuracy so any age folk could be this player!) and one sacker (that's the person who tries to score) on the game field simultaneously. Each little village has it's own "Shtyri" (a Pine term, from the "old language" for the four player team) and it's a dream of a number of the folk in the Pine, young or old, male or female, to become part of their town's team.  Young elves all over play it on dirt fields, adults at picnics, traders on leave. . . etc etc

Anyway, that's too much fun! I'll probably make a scale model of the playing field in the future too. I've come a cross some wonderful "villager" elf 1:72 scale figurines that I could create it around.

So, more on the world building to come!

For now, here are a few little creations to share this week. . .

Have a lovely week dear ones! MAKE MAGIC!!!

xo
nicolas

New Work - May 2nd

Happy May everyone!

I didn't get my usual first of the month new work post up yesterday because it was unbearably hot here. . . low 80's. . . lol. Seriously though, for us, that IS hot! We still had the ocean breeze but when it is no hotter than 70 degrees about 358 days a year,  and often between 50 and 60, well, 84 seems like a heat wave. But back at it today!

So in the last month I got to do a few new and fun projects! This leading into the month of May where I successfully kept my entire custom work schedule blank so I could get back to making more of just what I want and focusing on the writing more ( I completed the 30 day world building exercise but more on that in a few days!)

So here is a little peek at some of hat ket me busy in April! Hope you enjoy!!

 It was a busy month in Shadow of the Sphinx and I got to make a few pieces that were really FUN!

 This is Ammut - commonly known as "the devourer" but who has such complex meaning in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon. Head of a Crocodile, body of a lioness and back end of a Hippo.  . . so that was a challenge! lol I'd never made an Ammut this size or style before but I loved how She turned out!

And a golden Sekhmet with a red marble solar disc. . .

And I just finished this guy, Thoth, or Djehuty if you prefer. . . the Ancient Egyptian Lord of Writing, Creativity and Time. Anthropomorphic pieces have always been such a challenge for me but I think finally, after 6 years, I feel comfortable with the complex and mixed dimensions, the Egyptian style of striding legs, the forms are classic and much harder to reproduce than I ever imagined they would be.

And a few newbies from Bewilder and Pine too. . . a gargoyle sentinel, Tonoran, who sports Mossy Green Swarovski pearl eyes! I am working on an idea for a series of Kegeling gargoyles. The thought of stone sentinels whiling away the "off hours" bowling on building ledges really tickles me! so each gargoyle would come with it's own 20mm kegeling/bowling ball in hand and a set of three "stone" pins (option to buy a full set of nine pins, of course but I'll start with three)  :)

This little guy. . . no name for these Pine fantasy creatures yet. . . but basically they are little "luck spirits" who find lost coins and return them to their owners. . . but who then become attached to the owners for life. So an Elf or Dryad or Hob who is not mindful and loses a lot of coins might suddenly find themselves with an entire brood of these little guys to care for!

And a new fairy House upon a Star as well. . .

And finally, back to Shadow of the Sphinx for a few amulets starting with Hathor, a goddess who personified the principles of joy, love and motherhood.

Tanit, actually one of the first amulets/statues I've made for the shop that comes from outside the Egyptian Pantheon but it was the remarkable resemblance to the Ankh that made me want to make it! Tanit was a Punic/Phoenician deity with lunar aspects.

And last, a small, wearable full-form Bastet. Another challenge for me early on in my sculpting was making small pieces that maintained a good bit of shape and classic form. She is under 2" tall.

Well, I am beyond excited to share more with you this month. New ideas, my writing short story book progress and a bit more about the path that led, and continues to lead me to be a maker-of-things!

Have a lovely start to your May wherever you are and make MAGIK every day!!

xo
nicolas

Signposts along the Road - The Keymaster

I have been thinking recently that it would be fun to write about the little things that, throughout my life, seemed to point to me finding my way back to the depths of my childhood imagination and ending up "here" becoming a maker of things.

Having the luxury of looking back always makes it easy to see these things from the distance. Most of them, of course, I could never have known or reasoned out at the time. . . but it is interesting to see the way they lined up, or returned again and again periodically, to point me in a certain direction or to act like signposts along the road. . . even talismans at times.

I don't usually think of things as foretelling or "signs" but actually believe they are indeed placed there to allow us to see, with this hindsight over time, that we made the right choices.

So today's look back is at one of the more ethereal ones (they are always fun to write about aren't they?) and one of my favorites.

The Keymaster

I - I have written before about one of my early childhood friends, Becky. She was the only girl who played with us boys at the apartment complex where I lived with my mother til the age of 12. Becky was a few years older than me and was a great sci-fi fan and she got to play all the juicy roles as elf and fairy queens, Sara Jane Smith, the Bionic Woman, the scientist trying to help Godzilla, Zira from Planet of the Apes (to MY Cornelius), aliens and astronauts etc etc.

When we would play games that were crafted more from our own imagination, she used to like to call me the Keymaster. She probably saw it in a movie or show that I never saw but it was also due to me having an old skeleton key that my grandfather had given me. I would always bring the key along as a prop for our little adventures.  Because, ummmmm, you ALWAYS need a key! The funny thing is, while Becky and I played together alone only once in awhile, whenever other kids joined in, they always wanted to be the Keymaster (everyone wanted that key!) . . . but Becky, taller than most all of us boys, would just shake her head and say, "No, Nicolas is the Keymaster and that's the way it is!" I was 10 years old and I felt like such an adult. lol

II - Truth be told,  I've always loved keys. When I was 16, I  also learned how to make illicit copies of keys. I saw it in an old bank heist movie, using card stock paper and crimping pliers to make an indented copy of the key in the thick paper and then, carefully cutting it out and gluing it to a key blank, You could buy blanks in any five and ten back then and I got my hands on one, glued my paper key to it and filed the blank down to the shape of the key. It took months of filing (it wasn't exactly fun "play") and, when it was complete, the key worked once in the lock I had and that was enough. I felt like I had really achieved something and, basking in my own small glory, I thought then too about those days of being the keymaster. . . I laughed about it and went on my way. . . back to the more relevant games of my teen years. . .

III - Fast forward to adulthood and the middle of my creative "lost years".  Early Thirties. Looking back now I can see I was teetering on the brink of packing the creative world, the one I loved and nurtured for all those years so dearly, away.

I never knew the girl's name but she was like something out of Through the Looking Glass. The first few times she came into the coffeehouse I managed, I remember thinking she was, in a city that prided itself on keeping it weird, the perfect ideal of that off the wall weirdness. She would order a pot of tea, usually Lavender Earl Grey, sit up in the huge front window of the shop and read a vintage book. She was hard to miss with extremely pale, white face powder makeup which allowed her pale blue eyes to really glow, vintage, colorful dresses and bows and shoulder length ringlet curls (a wig I believe) and ruby red lipstick to add the finishing touches.

One day she popped her head into the shop on a busy day and yelled out, "Hi Nicolas!!!" and waved at me with such enthusiasm. The girl I was working with that day asked me "Who is that?" and I had to say, "I actually don't know her. . . and you know, now that I think of it, I've never told her MY name."

A few weeks later I got a call from another employee asking me if I could come down to help with someone who they thought was a little "disturbed". When I got there, I was told the person was in the bathroom. A few minutes later, the Looking Glass Girl emerged. Dressed sort of the same as always but everything was just a bit . . . askew.

Hair
Makeup
Clothing
All a bit disheveled. . .  she got in line and I motioned to the girl working that I would take care of her.

When it was her turn, she ordered two cups of tea, asked how I had been and then spoke a few lines of quick dialogue, very low, that I couldn't make out at all. I got her teas, set them on the counter and before I could say anything she said, "Did you put enough honey in them honey?"

Caught off guard I replied, "Oh, umm, no. . .  I didn't know you wanted any honey in them."

She bristled (literally and visibly) shutting her eyes super tight. . . and launched into an unexpected, diatribe of undecipherable nonsense and broken sentences which lasted about 15 seconds. After which, she looked me right in the eyes again and repeated, "So I ask you again. . .  did you put enough honey in them honey?"

And my reply, this time, without hesitation was "Yes, I did, the perfect amount."

Her face lit up with the biggest smile I had ever seen on it and she said, "Thank you honey." and she took the teas, put her own honey in them anyway and left, beaming.

I think it's unnecessary to go into her decline beyond that because it was alarming but, a few weeks later I saw her for what would be the last time. Many of my employees had told me that she came in on occasion and would "act up", mostly the babbling and what some described as "mean looks" directed at them and other customers. . . but it seems that, if I was around, she was always calm and collected and held it together.

That last time though. . . when she came in, she went straight back to the bathroom and was in there for a good half an hour. When she came out, she stood at the far end of the counter and waited til she could catch my eye, then frantically waved to me to come over to her.

When I did, she handed me a half used packet of gardenia scented bath salts, a bottle of her perfume, a deck of cards in a little velvet pouch. At this point I noticed she had one more thing in her closed hand. She leaned over and whispered, "Nicolas, please take care of these things for me until I come back.". . . then she held out the last item in her hand, reached out, and put it into mine saying, "Nicolas, you must keep this safe. . . you know you are the Keymaster." and there it was. . . in my hand . . . a beautiful, tiny, skeleton key. The other kids working that day, who were concerned as I went to talk to her,  overheard every word and for months after I was referred to as "the keymaster" quite often in the shop, especially when a problem of any sort needed to be solved or handled.

In retrospect, I do not want to appear so casual about the Looking Glass girl's mental health. The coffeehouse was just a block from a church parish dining hall that served the homeless and displaced and two non profit facilities that dealt with many troubled people. It was, looking back, just an almost daily part of life in that neighborhood during those years.

And please know that I could never look at an event in the stream of someone's personal, mental decline as a "sign" for myself from the universe.  I do have to say though that the Looking Glass girl, always in her own paracosm, even when seeming to be even-keeled, was in that way definitely a kindred spirit of some sort. My own paracosm may be a conscious choice but it is as far removed from most people's view of our world's reality as can be in many ways.

The idea of her calling me the keymaster, some 25 years after I was first anointed with it by Becky, makes me think that there is grace to be found within every situation. And the threads, no matter how much we may have lost our way, are always there revealing themselves.

We never really can let them go. . .

And though I never saw her again, I held onto the things that the Looking Glass girl entrusted to me until I sold the coffeehouse. . . just in case she ever returned.

So to each of these parts of my path, I must bow graciously and remember them all as equal parts of my path. Important in their own way.

All a small part of what led me "here".

Here Be Dragons (OK. . . ONE Dragon!)

Hey everyone!

The first dragon. . . oh I feel like a proud maker-parent here, I have to say!

I have wanted to make my own dragons for some time now and you may recall I posted the little "Dragon tower" not too long ago but this is the first stand alone creature I have finished. Again, a culmination of ideas, experiments and developing techniques. I loved the form and expression on my tower dragon so I kept that as my look and just expanded in size and detail with this little one.

All the little things like how to add scales to an entire body when you have to hold the piece somewhere to get into all the little places and legs and such without smashing the scales you already imprinted! Finding the right wings, the right coloring techniques and on and on. . . and then there was the oft-forgotten but quite important consideration of planning them so they can be shipped. . . not something I tended to think about in the early days. . . but something I now do regularly. :)

To say it has been a few years of process and trial and error would not be wrong!

I am considering whether or not dragons have a role in my stories/book. If they do, I know that it won't be as fire-breathing destroyers or creatures that instill fear or dread. Nope, it is more likely to be that they are quite docile and, in fact, rather meek.

And mostly, that is because I really have trouble making "creatures" that aren't sweet. :)

So let me introduce you to Aramara

She is 5.75" ear tip to back claw/toe (the longest dimensions) and 2.75" deep. Her head is just about 3" high.

Her eyes are made with faceted Swarovski aurora Borealis elliptical beads and her wings are beautiful, large wing charms painted with gold pigment acrylics.

She is an awesome shelf companion and rather loves to look over my shoulder while I type. . . like right now. . . like, always. lol

I am looking forward to making friends for her to keep her company. Hoping to have a few of them to offer in the shop this summer as well. Once I have enough that is. . .

I hope you enjoyed seeing Aramara and, as always, thank you for dropping in!

XO
nicolas

Tis the Season. . .

I just wanted to drop in real quick and share this link with you.

http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/46/Great_Horned_Owls/

It's one of the many cams you can access thru Cornell University's school of Ornithology (just click on any of the links in their "Bird Cams" menu) to watch live feeds of bird nests as they bring their little ones into the world.

For me, it's more addictive than any human made show I could ever watch.
OK, maybe not Doctor Who. . . or the Man in the High Tower. . . or the Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt. . . but still. :)

So right now thru that site there are little Barred Owlets, (check out their link on the live Barred Owl cam page to the calls of the adult Barred Owls!) California Condors, Hawaiian Albatross and The Great Horned owls all with little ones being raised and fledged to watch right now!

But soon to come, the Barn Owls, Dottie and Dash, always the over achievers of the bird world, have SIX eggs (that's almost a sure recipe for a little heartbreak as it is likely that not all will survive) the Red Tailed Hawks have three eggs again this year (all survived to fledge last year) and the Osprey, Iris and Stanley,  are just going to be settling in in the next week or two to begin their season (last year they lost both eggs to a huge hail storm so I am rooting for them this year!).

Keep in mind. . . it's nature and it's uninterrupted and wild. . . so the larger the birds, the larger the prey they capture and return to the nest to tear apart and eat. Not always what you want to watch but, for the most part, fascinating. Like when the Barn owlets get big enough and start swallowing things whole. . . yikes!

I did feel sorry for the beautiful white Egrets who bathe in the reservoir beneathe the Great Horned owl nest. . . you'd think they'd learn! Anyway, fair warning!!

And the feeders. . . the FEEDERS! If you don't have access to watching a busy bird feeder around your home, I suggest the Cornell feeders which are a fine indoor surrogate and can just be left on to listen and watch birds come and go all day!

Hey, some people are crazy cat people and I, well, I am a crazy bird person.

And my own morning routine involves feeding our cat but then making my way downstairs as the dawn arrives to feed the birds. Here, I have around two dozen Sparrows, a few pairs of Mourning Doves, a few finches and a sprinkling of Starlings and right now, as it is nesting season, just a few of my fine fellow crows (Though in winter as many as 30 will show up daily and let it be known they are here for food!) and one resilient seagull who I have had many epic mental battles with to try and fool her so she does not eat all the food. We've come to terms it seems and so I now count her among the regulars.

Anyway, that's all for today my friends. . .

The writing project is still on task and I am 22 days in but more on that soon enough. . . but it just occurred to me how this same 30 day writing exercise could be applied to almost any creative endeavor. When I think back to what stopped me from writing so many times it was always the point A to point B syndrome. How do I get there? And the distance seemed so far. But in manageable 30 minute chunks? which will now add up to 15 hours in one month? Wow! I "found" the time and each little step is totally manageable and . . . ahhhh yes, yes, so much more for another post. . .

Have a lovely week ahead my friends and I will look forward to showing some new work in the coming days too. New statues, my first stand alone DRAGON and getting closer now to May, when I am determined to set aside all but what I truly want to make and to allow my heart to just play. . .

Until the next. . .

nicolas