How does an octopus respond to a human touch and can we stay calm enough to feel past our instinctive squirm response?
I would like to imagine that my hand feels as cool to the octopus as the octopus feels to me.
either way there is a connection and that is everything.
Waiting to hear how this conversation will pan out.
I keep making Octopuses, I just can’t help it.
I go to make an elephant and the trunk makes me think
I would like to be making an Octopus right now. Then the poor elephant has heard my thoughts … well, is my thoughts, and the trunk comes out a bit too long and octopus-like.
well … they are kind of similar ..
this one came out of the kiln with an arm pointing to it’s eye like a gangster would do.
“I’m watching You!”
Of course getting the “eye” might not be to me, it could be to
some shenanigans going on in the heat of the kiln.
“I’m watching You!”
like in the Mermaid and the Octopus moment. When I made them, their hands were a breath away from touching, then as they dried, Octopus kept raising her arm higher, and who knows where those arms went while in the kiln, but this is how they finished.
Coming down for another touch , moving away or somewhere in between?
I’ll never know
this is what I love about all this, its unpredictably.
What do you do when you find yourself living on a rare jewel of a giving yet struggling planet out in the Universe and you realize that we are all together … alone?
you build Life Boats.
You pack your essential supplies
Connection – Communication – Compassion 
and then you
Create
Celebrate and
Circle around Listening and Learning
~ as Playfully as you can ~
Sometimes you just have to Leap
to land in a new place
So, I am driving along looking for a 2 hour free parking spot down town. This requires a lot of quick focus if you are alone. But something caught my eye.
Do I continue on with my parking drama? or do I stop for a better look?
I stop
because I need a closer look at this.
Clearly it is a fairy house, you can see her resting over to the left near her fire truck and her silver car. See her pink wings? Such a tidy little home she has.
* * *
So, I am walking along my sometimes usual path to shop for supper when I notice this ~
I’ve seen this tree trunk many many times, but this time I saw it … upside down
and I could see exactly what was missing
* * *
So, I am walking along a city block looking at all the amazing magnolia blossoms that are getting really serious about the coming Spring
and I wonder
will this bird be back?
Every had a scattered week? Well that was me this week, lots going on. And it is wet here in Vancouver. We don’t have to shovel but the endless grey takes it’s own toll.
Maybe some one just HAD it with their kids playing inside for days on end … I hate to think
… this was by the trash bin in the alley
as I mentioned, it’s been raining ….. lots
spotted by Bettina Matzkuhn on her bike ride home
but work I must, I am going to make some more of these guys, They will focus me
I spent a long time painting each surface made up of 25 tiny cubes
taking great care with each cube, I even posponed my firing a whole day so I would not feel rushed to start firing so late in the day that I’d be up all night keeping one eye open on the kiln.
It’s a story made up of 25 cubes, 6 sides. You have to rotate 5 cubes in a row at a time to find the story. It’s a puzzle. It has particular beginning or end. I’ve posted just 2 of the 6 panels of the story here. I got so involved painting, I forgot to photograph what I had done. Photographs are the Answers to each side, so I’m cooked if I drop it, I’d have to sit down and solve each side like anyone else.
When I finally finished painting each side, as planned, I loaded the kiln the next day being careful, taking my time and double checking that everything to be fired was in. I placed my little kiln dog on top and started it up and it wasn’t until hours later when I went to turn it up on high that I realized that I had forgotten to put this little puzzle in!
Nothing to do but let my anticipation go …
Now I will have to wait till next month to see how this comes out …..
It’s a lesson on patience
Used gum is Icky … yes? … Yes!
Yes it is.
But I admit I had a bit of a fascination with it a while back. I even used it as the header image on my very first blog Some Things I find.
an old fav of mine, found at the BC Ferry Terminal
I was reminded of it again today, down at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but I was Totally out-Icked. This is what I saw. 
it’s an A B C Gum Fest (Already Been Chewed)
The idea is to add your own abc gum to this portrait of Douglas Copland, and add they did! And visitors still are, in between and getting photographed with it and taking selfies.
I found it curious that most of the gum was added onto the tip of the nose, pinocco-like.
a cigarette but and … why not, they actually go together, both are dropped onto the street and lift there
Total Ick! you can even see the teeth marks in some of this stuff
not to gross you out too much but this got me thinking about gum on the street again …
I haven’t noticed gum on the street lately. Is it that I just stopped looking? So I looked
See those dark spots? That’s old walked over gum
black gum spots
all the way home
Over 3 walking miles of old black gum marks
nothing fresh enough to stick to my shoe
It’s either all down at the Gallery or folks just aren’t spitting out gum their on the sidewalk as much anymore …
Might we be evolving?
Might we be coming more civilized in the gum department?
or maybe not, considering that the above gum head sculpture is considered to be Art,
a kind of performance Art
and … while we are on the subjust of gum …
Does anybody remember Black Jack Gum?
The saddest first.
This stopped me in my tracks as I was walking over to a weekend farmer’s market.
a thousand fallen cranes
a tree eye ~ lizard and elephant like ~ Looking right at me
morning dew
a great idea ~ lace graffiti
and who can’t fall in love with this sad spider
[chalk on concrete wall at the Trout Lake community centre]
~ and a bowl full of summer peas ~
I was showing a friend a new piece, a Life Boat. She asked me if those were people …..
I thought she asked because she didn’t have her glasses on. But she said that
one never knows with me …
They could be animals or creatures
fair enough
It got me thinking though. Yes their faces are undefined.
I do that for a reason.
I am talking in Body Language
Gone Fishing … at least for this week
and if you are an inclined knitter or one who just wants more ….
you can go here
Little Story One
Why do we keep pulling up these masterpieces?
Little Story Two
This is a Mimosa Tree. So sensitive that when you touch its leaves, they fold inward …
until they get to know your touch.
Is there anything more beautiful?
Little Story Three
This little painted bird is painted on an carefully chosen antique dictionary page
Look closely, you can see the text through it’s heart.
Little Story Four
My friend who took in a rescue dog from Mexico a few years ago and Loves all animals, bought 3 of my porcelain Elephants. The little one in the middle is a rescue elephant, it can hardly stand up by itself. I can not sell it or gift it because of this. It needs to lean on another elephant for support. It went to her home, a good home and is happy and well cared for there as you can clearly see. This family of 4 was meant to be ~
Little Story Five
There was a strange halo around the sun yesterday
I felt like I was in a science fiction novel
Little Story Six
This was at my door the other morning
I would like a calling card like that ~
Little Story Seven
I used to get in trouble over and over and over again for drawing on my wall paper.
I would have liked to live where she lives.
Little and Last Story Nine
Don’t we All need hope?
This piece is off to a new home!
It is called StoryBook or Story Teller
It had been part of a show I had at Placewares in Gualala, California, right on the west coast. [the ‘Gu’ in Gualala is pronounced like “Wa’ not ‘Gu’ like in guacamole] My dear friends and owners of the most Amazing Shop/Gallery Placewares are two of the most creative people I know. They Inspire me.
Long time designers (DR in Cambridge, Mass in ’70’s etc) and innovators, inventors, artists, taste makers and partners, Maynard and Lu have kindly carried and shown my work. Check out their about page and follow some of their links, I assure you, you will be Most interested in these 2! Maynard makes these wonderful visually clever, complex and warm hearted “Looking Boxes“.
StoryBook has been reluctant to leave their shop, and you can understand why, it is such a creative playful, interesting place to be!
StoryBook is part of an on going series I have been working on called Elegant Turns. This piece is made up of 5 movable sections, each part has 3 different images so when you turn them (and yes, you can) you get different combinations that make up one image*. I never had one set story in mind when I made this piece but stories kept coming up, flooding me with imagery and that guided this piece.
Now StoryBook is off to make new ever changing stories. But the stories it collected during it’s stay at Placewares will part of it be forever.
* Elegant Corpse:
It is simply one drawing, usually of a person or animal, drawn by 3 different people. Onto a piece of paper folded three times, each person draws a head on the first 1/3 of the paper and folds it back and under leaving marks where the torso should begin on the second fold. This done, each person then passes their hidden ‘heads’ to their neighbor. Then everyone draws the torso leaving marks for the legs in the last 1/3 of the paper. This is then it is passed around again and everyone draws the legs and feet. What results is a usually very amusing and somewhat curious character containing the talents of three different wits. I have transformed this 2 Dimensional matrix into a 3 Dimensional form which enable the combinations to increase geometrically.
I’ve had a great week at the studio. I got into a good rhythm and stride and the ideas flowed. I tried to keep balance by doing some yard work and it seemed the ants had it in for me this visit so I was busy, as the pest control guy says, de-populating them. I felt territorial and remorse at the same time. Hopefully they will move out to the great outdoors …. But ants are a whole other blog, I have an interesting theory about ants.
On the 5th day of my stay I was ready for my 1st firing. A bisque firing which prepares the pieces for the glaze firing. I loaded 3 shelves with all sorts of work.
The first shelf, the bottom shelf.
And here’s a close up.
To me it almost looks mathamatical, almost chaotic and organic. Can we do otherwise??
The second shelf. It’s a real jigsaw puzzle. There are so many different sized shaped to fit together.
And lastly, just barely enough room, is the 3rd shelf…. With a note to myself to pack my next firing better.
The firing goes well and the next day after glazing everybody, I did pack the kiln better this time. It was packed to the gills. I had to be extra careful to keep them all separate enough so they wouldn’t glaze together and stick. The firing went well, cause for thanks every time, and as I carefully unpacked all but the elephants, I am left with this. I had staggered them in between the bowls.
I was taken by their natural elephant way of wandering.
But the surprise came when I noticed this. Now Tell me … what really goes on in there during a firing?!!?
2 of the elephants trunks must have moved (dare I say danced?) around slightly in that white hot heat and fused together, touching in the most beautiful way! I picked them up carefully thinking that I must intentionally make some this way next time. As I was examining them, their fragile touch unlocked and they were separate again. Too bad I thought … Their connection was lost, they were two elephants again, not one.
~ Their bond might be lost lost …. But not the idea ~
~ Kiln Harvest ~
now these are weird …
not for the faint of heart or squeemish…
these are Creepy Cool so hang on to your hats
Here we go
a bowl full of teeth!
now don’t fret because I made them myself
from porcelain clay, I’m a potter, remember?
They are knitting stitch markers, you can use them to mark where you are in your knitting pattern, they make knitting easy and enjoyable because they tell you when you need to change your pattern, they are kind of like being on cruise control … in knitting
I was just looking to make something a little EDGY
and these are …
look closely, there is a gold cap on one of them
one could even use them as a Brooch, which someone I know does
I’m selling these in my Etsy shop (my shameless plug) and they come in this cool tin box
Wisdom Tooth is the one with the gold Tooth
Sweet Tooth are, well, 6 sweet teeth!
~ Sometimes you gotta just stir things up a bit ~
VaRooooom
eerrrr, not quite …..
bigger post coming tomorrow afternoon
not that this isn’t the cutest rocket I’ve ever stumbled upon!
This gallery contains 17 photos.
I was at The Vogue Knit Live conference in Seattle last weekend and came upon this living moving knitted art sculpture. I was so intrigued. It reminded me of Tai Chi Push Hands. I found myself coaching them with their binds and releases in my mind as they move so sensitively in tandem. They responded so subtly to each others slightest movement. Sometimes their give-and-take created a big knot between them slowly tangling themselves up, then they would slowly slowly untangled themselves like in a kind of living puzzle.
~ Slow down and watch this little slide show ~
the hands and mind behind this work is fiber and performance artist ~ Antonia Price from Seattle
Theres an outdoor sculpture right at the Canadian US border. It’s there to what? Relieve the tension of the possible unexpected? Sweeten a border guard that woke up on the wrong side if the bed that morning? Maybe it’s there to calm the border…. hmmmm… something to think about. It’s a sweet torcher for me because ALL I want to do is look and look and look at it.
I think it is wonderous. And it gets my imagination going full speed. There are so many perfect things about it. It plays with border, it flies, it seems to move. It seem hard to take it all in at once which gives it movement and life.
I reminds me of a starling murmuration only it stays frozen like a photograph so I can stare at it (in between handing over my passport). See what I mean? I just want to Bliss out on this work of art but I’m in Situation not conducive to blissing out. It’s a Right-Left brain buster!
Maybe that’s part of the piece. We only seem to catch a quick glimpse of it and then we are gone (hopefully). We are always left wanting more. At least I am. So I was happy that my friend somehow was able to photograph it so now I can look and look and look at it. Of course a photo has none of the life force of being in witness to it.
Witness to the power of defining a border without sealing it.
(photos – Daphne Harwood – sew daphne.blogspot.ca)
~ an early morning idea that begged to be ~
So many impressions ~ So many ideas ~ So many thoughtful creations
all get stored away 
and pondered
and moved by
re-thinking & re-seeing & re-imagining
They all enter my own work
Come On In, I say! 
There is room for us all
mystery ~ my story
When something is taken out of its context it can sometimes have a better chance of being seen. looked at, re-seen. It’s raw and unimpeded by what we have come to know when we know the big picture. Context gives the part of a whole piece meaning. Once we know and understand it, we cannot not see that smaller part as it stands alone. To look at just a piece of the whole can inspire a re-framing. It’s interesting to observe how we build narrative of our experience.
I can wonder a lot about what this is, I can muse on different perspectives ~ I have questions. Is this a close up or am I looking at something far away, who did this, how did this happen, what am I seeing? And on and on and delightfully on… It gets me wondering and isn’t that the great thing?
I’m going to post several images for you to see and mind-play with. At the bottom of the page I have posted a gallery of where I found each image. See what happens to your stories when you see them in context.
~ It’s just a game ~
Now here they are in context
the questions are more enlivening and engaging ~ don’t you think?
I have mentioned this before but I don’t like posing for and modeling the things I knit on Ravelry or modeling the shawl pins I’ve been making. Maybe I am camera shy …..I have recently made a new line of coloured pins and …. ya … here we go again. I have to show them in play.
Last time dear Matilda came to my rescue and I will hire her again, but I thought there should be a new look.
Years ago I was made a series of female clay vases. They could hold flowers that looked like colourful ideas and creativity coming out of their heads, I saw them as putting forth new ideas, not as containers for a flower arrangement, and that is a big difference.
Well, they I suddenly saw them again as I was dreading going before the camera. Yes! They could model for me! They would be delighted! So with a little playing around with photoshop/photoshopping… not only did they model for me, they could go anywhere, I could play with the backgrounds.
So without further adieu … my new working partners.
Standing by the sea on a Northern Gulf Island.
Mermaid Pin ~ Imagine
in my neighbourhood when we were in a thick fog for a week. It was quiet and mysterious, the fog horns called out for days on end.
Trusting Owl Pin
This is on the coast of Massachusetts
Sheep Pin
and it’s Snowing!
Owl ~ knit wise
I collected a few images from the web that inspired me. I don’t know how they will work their way into my ideas and creations but they spoke to me so I collected them. We see so much these days, we are inundated with imagery and it is our “Normal” now. I can hardly imagine what it might have been like not too long ago where folks didn’t see much in the way of new imagery past their little town. Maybe they saw things in a deeper way since our minds seem to want to be refreshed with something new to look at. Maybe they saw more nuance in nature and the ordinary, or not …
Last Fall we had this little visual conversation going on our front hall table. Each one of us would add, move or remove something on a whim, It lasted about a month, here is a little taste of our Hall Table Conversation
A few years ago 5 artists friends and I got together for Projects 40. This link below will talk you to my results. We all followed a set list if 40 ideas/assignments. 5 all-day-long days creating these 40 explorations pushed me out of my comfort zone and into a invigorating creative bliss ~ my own rules were to use unfamiliar materials and unfamiliar techniques. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes suspiciously easy but in the end … very worth while.
Nancy Walker Studio 