somebody paid me to do this...sort of

We're having a goals/team building/ something or other day at work today.
It's kind of wierd.

And I built this arch...thing out of books.
I'm calling it Book Henge.

It was way huger and more spectacular, but naturally that led to it falling over and breaking a lot (and almost taking two people out). Clearly this is a learning process.
Lesson of the day - industrial hot glue is WAY better than Liquid Nails.

ALSO!
The etsy shop is back open.
Coupon Code "SCARYMONSTERS" is active and waiting for you to use it!

.stumpwork.

Several years ago, a friend got me interested in stumpwork (I saw her doing it, and my brain exploded) and then everything went horribly wrong. Meaning I started doing stumpwork, but not really.
Stumpwork is a old school style of raised embroidery - using cotton padding to make everything 3-D, including fabric applique, beautiful beadwork, and a long tradition of using beetle elytra as decoration. It is totally amazing and beautiful - truly the original 3-D artwork (if you discount sculpture, reliefs and trompe l'oei). But because I am incapable of following directions for anything (also why I cannot bake, knit, or crochet)I immediately tossed the idea of raising embroidery from a background, and gave everything legs so it could stand up on it's own - because the only thing I was "stumping" was beetles.

this is Cedric - the first stumpwork piece I made and sold - rather than gifted

I finished two more pieces last night - two tiny bees with transparent wings - complete with tiny pollen covered legs. Naturally they're on the etsy shop because I need to get these things out of my house.

So cute!

art, science, and nature

My favorite artist of all time has to be Andy Goldsworthy. A British artist who specializes in collaborations with nature, I first saw his work in an article in Discover magazine way back in the 90's when I was in high school. His work transcends reality - primarily because he exclusively uses natural materials in the area where he found them - that his art quickly reverts back to nature just makes it more beautiful to me. From his own webpage:

At its most successful, my ‘touch’ looks into the heart of nature; most days I don’t even get close. These things are all part of the transient process that I cannot understand unless my touch is also transient—only in this way can the cycle remain unbroken and the process complete. I cannot explain the importance to me of being part of the place, its seasons and changes. Fourteen years ago I made a line of stones in Morecambe Bay. It is still there, buried under the sand, unseen. All my work still exists in some form.

There is an excellent documentary about Mr. Goldsworth, title Rivers and Tides, during which you can watch him constructing an ice sculpture not entirely dissimilar to the one pictured above.

Yesterday afternoon, I was listening to a How Stuff Works: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast (which I highly recommend) titled This is Your Brain on Art. The podcast was primarily about the relationship between art and neuroscience, but one of the examples that was brought up during the podcast was the curious Courting rituals of the Bowerbirds. I'd heard of Bowerbirds before (who hasn't?) and heard about the Bowers that the males construct to attract females, but listening to the podcast, and being in front of Google, I was finally motivated to look up these constructions.
And they are gorgeous. The birds themselves are gorgeous, particularly the Satin Bowerbird, which has the most amazing blue eyes (a bird with blue eyes - who knew?), but the bowers they construct, without the use of hands or thumbs - I was floored.

from the Birds in Backyards website - of a female Satin Bowerbird

photo by Barry Hatton, via Elmtwig

i

image from ARKive

But these constructions - and you really should look them up and read more (the Satin Bowerbirds actually paint the inside of their bowers with chewed up berries and charcoal), remind me quite a bit of Andy Goldsworthy's work.

If I ever get back into sculpture - this is the kind of work I'd like to do. Now if only creating the kind of art you loved to look at was a guaranteed thing...