I spent a pretty ideal day out at Fort Tilden on Sunday. I’ve lived in New York for 15 years but just discovered it has a beautiful, swim-able beach this year. Straight up Flatbush Ave. Twenty minutes from my place (by car); it’s like opening a door that you always thought was a closet and finding a fabulous atrium or something.
One of last natural dune systems in the city.
We built a little shelter – I would like to live in it.
And I sewed some little birds.
But mostly swam.
I’m in the midst of a major getting rid of. I’ve been wanting to make changes here for a while but couldn’t see new possibilities until I started to clear stuff out. It’s taking much longer than I thought it would -I’m still very much in the purge stage – have been for weeks – it’s kind of wonderful and kind of painful, no regrets though. I’ll post more as the situation evolves.
And a peek behind the curtain:
More coming soon, also, there will be new things in the shop next week – please join the mailing list if you would like to be notified when they are available.
*Update: I’m not going to update the shop until next week, the first week in August, but I’ve just added a couple campers.
I was sitting by a window working on an owl on Sunday- a new dark owl ( made from a variety of 19th century garments and the backing of an old quilt) and I heard an unmistakable sound outside, the clippity clop of a horse going by. I almost didn’t look because it’s never happened before and I thought I was imagining it.
I love horses and grew up with a big Shetland pony named Ginger.
That’s me and my stylish father and Ginger in 1970. We were building bird houses. I was 4 and I remember the day distinctly. Ginger was an interesting character – he had very definite ideas about things. He lives on a beautiful farm for old horses now.
I’ve been thinking about mobiles for a while, I love Hanna Sandin’s work and saw the Calder exhibit “The Paris Years” at the Whitney last year. I made this one over the weekend and hung it from the ceiling medallion in the center of my place.
Everything I make starts in a box and then lives there until it’s done. The boxes are for organization – keeping the many little bits for many little projects together and they are also a thinking tool and most importantly a way to start, it is very easy to put things in a box.
I love Twyla Tharp’s book, The Creative Habit. Here’s a little of what she has to say about boxes:
“The box makes me feel organized, that I have my act together even when I don’t know where I’m going yet. It also represents a commitment. The simple act of writing a project name on a box means that I’ve started work”
I have different sorts of boxes for different sorts of projects. You could also make your own box or use a basket – project bags are great too.
Ahoy, merry wobblers! May the wind always be at your bustle!
Paper mache sailboat #6 and lots of other things are in the shop now.
I made the photo above for illustration friday , the theme is “theater’.
I finished the owl in the post below – rodrigo is in the shop now as well as a few more birds and a paper mache sailboat.
Deb of bonbon oiseau has assembled a lovely collection of things in a great basket that is being raffled to benefit the food bank of NYC.
I’m very happy to contribute a pair of birds – pearl and minter
pearl has a fancy corsage.
You can get all the details about the basket and purchase a ticket (ten dollars online and five dollars in person) right here. You have until 5pm on December 21st to enter.
I finished my second cardboard castle and it’s in the window at Johnson at 179 Orchard street. There are also some doug rhodehamel style mushrooms and a couple little creatures roaming around. I had lots of fun making it and it was good thinking exercise for my sometimes too buttoned up brain. I took some pictures of it here before we brought it over.
The back of the castle has some little holes you can peek into. I couldn’t really properly photograph what you see inside, there are ghosts at a ball in one, an enchanted horse in another and miss havisham is held prisoner in a tower (her picture didn’t turn out at all).
The castle will be in the window at Johnson until October 31st . Unfortunately this is my last window for Johnson, Mrs. Johnson is closing at the end of the month. I’ll really miss doing her window. I started doing it for fun and it ended up changing my life in interesting and good ways, Thank you MJ.
This past Tuesday a shiitake mushroom log showed up unexpectedly – a surprise from dave ( thank you very much, I love it). It came out of the box a weird bumpy, lump and it was kind of fuzzy in places too. Stuff started happening almost right away and just 5 days later it’s producing mushrooms like nobody’s business. Fascinating. You can get your own at http://www.farwestfungi.com.
