a new project

Well I have been known in the past for saying that " If I want something, I try first to make it myself ". This is how we became the "Sea People" in the first place, we were poor ,living and inshore fishing out of Feltzen South Lunenburg Co. way back in '78.Remember the store bought Kitchen Witch's from back then? Well I wanted one and could not really afford one ,or had other more important priorities . In the attic of the old house we were living I found some fabric scraps, I assume the old girl who lived there before us may have been a mat hooker :-) so I made some salt ,flour dough and sculpted a head and used the fabric and made my first Kitchen Witch, then made everyone I knew a Kitchen Witch to eventually after it got too cold for fishing we ended up opening our first shop in Lunenburg N.S. and the Sea People were born. We have been puppy sitting this past while, Miss Lou Lou Belle" she has given me a rude awakening of just what puppies are capable of getting into and especially her being a busy Border Collie. Over the years I have collected some very nice hooked mats from crafter's I have done shows with , young and old. I adorn or should say did adorn my floors with these lovely mats until Miss Belle came into our lives, she likes to pull them apart. I rolled most up but I miss their bright colors so I decided to paint myself a floor mat on cushion floor as well you can use thick canvas but this is more practical . Years ago I painted a mat right on the floor in Charleston, it was great and so are these. I am on my third one as you can see in the photos. The flowered one is mine and my first. Already one coat of varnish on this one at least two more coats of varnish to go and I believe then a rubbing of Min wax, I need to do a bit more research regarding that before finishing the others.

The two Crow Joy and the one I am working on now with the checker board border will be for sale.Once this High Humidity ends I will start to varnish and finish them. I am excited at the endless possibilities and the fact these are a usable art and can be table runners or mats and be used in any room . They are easy to clean and dog hair will not stick to them...yes I like that idea.
I added the third mat this morning, Friday....of course it as well as the others still need to be varnished but done with the painting of it after working yesterday and finishing up last evening,it was a long day..but I am like that when I start something new and exciting, actually...that is what I do all the time...work and I love what I do..housework is another matter these days....Thanks to Chuck for being my Kitchen Boy . We have puppy again this AM, but my plan is to prepare another mat this morning and this afternoon after Belle leaves I hope to go in search of more floor coverings...the Beast has been let loose again. My head is a spinning with all these ideas for fun mats, the sky is the limit.
I very much am enjoying the bright colors, but have thoughts of maybe this one being a beach scene with a shell border. Wish me luck and anyone who would like to see them closer, do drop in, if you are near, one of us or both are usually here. So off I go to get ready for Miss Cutie Pie...Bright eyes...ball girl....silly puppy...lookin for clues or something to get into....Puppies are always happy...have you ever noticed that? "Lookin For clues and trouble" and so ...so soft...

heavy sea gull fell from the sky

Sunday was a laid back day with a bit of company. As two of our friend's were leaving we discovered a large black back ocean gull and I mean big, it was in my flower garden behind a small garden fence which keeps the dogs from my flowers but obviously not gulls, for there he was,a big boy for sure. We tried to shoo him off,to force him to fly but he wouldn't , letting him out from behind the little fence did not work either. Right then we noticed ,he had apparently regurgitated two chicken legs,feeding these bird's bread is one thing ,meat and chicken especially is bad, chicken bones can splinter if dogs chew them ,and can cause much harm so are very bad.And as in this case and in the past I have found here in town bits of strange looking food which I believe bird's drop while flying over our property So I /we assumed he either ate too much, was too heavy to fly and landed or God forbid maybe it was poisoned which , lets not go there. So here the Gull is running all over our yard afraid of us, trying to fly but can't . Our friend suggests getting a blanket and he offered to catch it for us and put it next door where no one lives and let nature take it's course ,which we would have dealt with that,never would we just leave the bird, but needed to get it out of our yard ,we puppy sit and can you see this Gull and a puppy? I can... We were hoping he would just fly away.

OK,picture our friend running all over the yard chasing this Gull with us all laughing and being of no help at all, at one point he and the bird went missing around one of our buildings, him trying to net it with the blanket, he yells "don't let him get by" and we are all running toward the Gull as it comes around the corner and as I have done in the past many times when chasing cattle through the woods in our Charleston days, I was making more hand jesters and noise then doing any good. And as all this is going on we are all laughing so hard and I, trying to take pictures at the same time.

Finally we got the Gull out from the yard with the blanket as you can see by the photos ,he is very handsome. To our surprise and delight once he was released from the blanket and had more room and we could see he was not thankfully poisoned but simply did not have enough room to take off from behind the fence ,because he was so big. I see a painting in the not too distant future :-) of a gull.

Now to the really funny parts, as our friend is carrying this Gull out from the yard ,his hands full of bird ,his pants are falling down and I am peeing myself at the same time from laughing so hard. So this is what you get when over 50's chase wild animals ,never could it be simple, always funny,even if it is way after the fact... everyday seems to be an adventure in these latter years ,even when we don't leave home. So why this Gull ended up in our yard here in town is beyond us, it had to have come inland because of food and maybe someone did throw this chicken out for the bird's,I hope not... do me a favor out there, pass it along to folk's not to throw out chicken or any meat for these birds, they do drop it at times or as what happened here, and can harm someones pets. I check my yard morning and night because we have pets here, as do our neighbors. I am puppy sitting today and if it becomes too quiet..I always go see whats up, puppies like 2 year old children are amazing at getting into things they shouldn't :-) and hopefully today we won't have any critters besides us here behind our fence. Oh ,one last thing, in Charleston I was very good at catching squirrels in a live trap who were always in my bird feeders , I started to feed the bird's here in town and sure enough ,the word got out into Squirrel ville , I recently have caught two squirrel's, they now live somewhere else,far ,far away, I have the touch when it comes to squirrel's.

a little watercolor and felting this past while..

This week I redid a conk shell painting,made it pop a bit more as well I have been doing a few watercolors this past while and thinking little paintings for greeting cards . This little needle felted fisherman I finished up as well. I had the body made for sometime and just recently decided to make him a fisherman after finding the right props for him. That is always the way when it comes to my needle felted figures ,prop searching. A friend suggested making the Fisherman and maybe other felts into lamps, I like this idea, she is right gives the piece a purpose instead of just something to sit around, we all have so much stuff, maybe I should speak for myself, nah...everyone has too much stuff...but still I would be happy to sell anything to anyone who needs more stuff, how kind of me..gee I am funny today.

I have been trying to work on boat surfaces in prep for winter, unlike canvas these pieces must be prepared first outside and primed then stored for when I want them. Every fall I dig through my boat piece pile which is getting smaller every year, we not being the rock climbers beach combers we use to be in our younger more energetic climb and carry anything for miles years. Reminds me of our Little Tancook adventures with our Tankcook friends ,we would drive his old truck down to the far shore , so much fun driving over and through the woods and shore to then park and start walking for miles and miles ,dragging back some of the most wonderful treasured boat pieces to become some great paintings which are hanging all over the World,I am so proud to say and in most cases with the bigger paintings for sure I have met all those who bought from me and sometimes have been sent a picture of my painting on their wall, a very special feeling indeed. Thank you all for your support by liking what I do, you give me great inspiration.

This morning on my bike ride around 9AM I found the wind very raw but by the end of my ride I was stripping down ,just now I was outside and the wind again has a bitter feel to it, the Maritimes ...one needs to layer.

My plan in the next couple of days is to give some thought to needle felted Santa's, I am not doing any shows this Season but hopefully someone will find me here,otherwise I will be well stocked for next Summer, and fingers crossed we get another ferry out of Yarmouth and maybe see a few more Americans next year. This Summer I met a lot of folk's from here in the Maritimes and Ontario. The only Europeans really were friend's who have come back, years ago when we lived in Charleston we would arrive home days and have German and Swiss couples sitting waiting for us on our big rock out front, back then whenever out you would hear the German language , we made a lot of dear friend's over the years , some with their dream of Living in Canada came to be and others for different reasons had to return and sell their dream homes , many of them return for visits and we pray the few we have not seen in a few years will again bless our home with their company. And hopefully this ole World starts to come again to it's feet and people will be able to afford to travel. There were a few folk's this Summer drop by from the States ,again, some who we see every year but with this ferry issue or lack of the Cat Ferry we had way fewer then other recent years.

As an old Farmer friend always says"Better days ahead"

still trying to be a carpenter...

well here we have it, my latest carpentry cabinet making project, I am so happy with it and pleased that you can't see it all too up close.

For sometime now I have been measuring, looking , searching second hand shops anywhere to find anything to do just what this piece is going to do and that is be a place to store slippers and shoes and then be able to sit to put them on. Today is Chucks and my 28 th anniversary of marriage and I told him I made this for him, well yes I did :-) remember we have a puppy at times visiting, she will be here today ,little puppies like to chew shoes, she can't find ours now. This was made from a very old heavy door. I had to have Chuck do the skill saw work, I have a chop saw which I feel very independent with but this project needed a skill saw which I have no skill with. I was in great pain with my legs once this was finished, doing any work like this or housework ,painting walls is very hard on my Arthritic legs and feet, but things need to get done and one must find a way of doing it, pain or not. Easy for me to say it today after a pain pill and early night. Look out world, today is another day and well thanks to the rain this day I may be sitting in front of my easel reworking a Conk shell painting I am doing. I will share that with you as it progresses, right now I am in the ..just where to go with it stage.

As we all may ,I feel fall in the air and when that happens I get to nest building inside for Winter, so may take part of the day to putz around thinking... This home is wonderful but very small and one needs to be very creative when looking outside the box when putting furniture in, everything kind of needs double duty(purpose) for instance I use our African Drums as end tables, of course very protected from being damaged with cardboard and small braided mats for the drum tops. In this small home it would be interesting to have a professional take a look and see what they could come up with for space usage. Watching such shows like Oprah in the past and seeing what can be done with small spaces can be interesting and informative but when it comes right down to it and you live in it, common sense takes over. My problem is that I have gotten rid of a lot of big furniture ,tables ,treasures etc. when I moved here to a smaller home but sometimes one wants to keep things which our Mom's owned, the memories when I look at these things out weighs any inconvenience of too much stuff, so I must work with a few interesting pieces and fit them in ,some how :-)

has been too long ,its been busy

Buoy bowls to the right..

Well ,yes I have been tardy about writing this past while. I have been busy painting ,what I call "Buoy Bowls" I will keep you in suspense right now and will post a photo of them once Chuck finishes varnishing them. There have been a few folks dropping by but right now with school back in session ,everyone says how quiet it is. This will change for us here in the Maritimes when our Autumn leaves begin to turn their wonderful reds, yellows and oranges ,that's when we will see our visitor's back.
As well as my "Buoy Bowls" housework has been on my mind ,getting things done for the winter season which is right around the corner, I am so sorry to remind all of this but like the old saying goes "Make hay while the sun is shining" comes to mind.
Back to my art, I am feeling a bit crazy and different ,I feel like this winter I want to really throw my talents to the wind and do something that is truly out of the ordinary for me...(abstracts) yes, I have thoughts in my head, magic to unleash, feelings which are screaming to be put to canvas to see just what happens. I believe I will be guided in some way by maybe something that has been stirring in me for sometime now, keep checking back to see just what will transform from these ideas which right now are still in my head and heart waiting to materialize.

These two Crows joy are possibly my next painting.