I saw this pyramid of lobster pots, while stopping for a sandwich in Sandwich, Massachusetts. Around the Cape, lobstermen frequently pile up their pots in the yard during the winter months. With the festive arrangement of floats on top and Christmas lights, this one takes the cake!
Purse, handbag, satchel, luggage or sack— they are basically containers to carry loose things around. As a sculptural object, there are just a few requirements, including storage space, durability and ease of use. I don’t understand the craze over designer bags. From what I’ve seen, most aren’t very interesting and are kind of ugly. Clearly, the fashion world is a mystery!
This first purse is being clutched by a wrench hand in my found object piece, Walking the Dog, which can be seen here.
detail from “Walking the Dog” 2005
This little piggie going to market is from Pocketful of Posies. The string bag is made with a needle crochet technique that I figured out on my own. I’m not patient enough to follow directions to learn the proper way to crochet with a hook, so I just fool around with a needle and thread.
Here’s an old man clothed all in leather, from the illustration for the folk song “One Misty Moisty Morning”. This and all of the next closeups are from Pocketful of Posies. The photos are blown up to about twice their actual size.
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
detail from ‘Pocketful of Posies” 2010
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
I’ve cherished this set of shell decorated place cards since I was a child and remember thinking that they were too special to write on. They are kept in the same cardboard jewelry box I stored them in 40 years ago.
I love the simple scenes using tiny colored shells, with watercolor accents.
This girl with a shell bonnet and bouquet decorates a bridge score card.
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner/Eating a Christmas pie/ He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum/ And said, “What a good boy am I.”
After the artwork was photographed for the book, I stitched a felt border and framed the picture, which is now touring in the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit.
I like using variegated embroidery floss whenever possible. It adds a range of hues and a vibrancy that solid colored threads lack.
The snow on the roof top and in the sky is made from circular sections cut out of lace. Inside the driftwood house, the area behind Jack and the tree is textured with tiny stitches of different colored threads.
Little Jack Horner from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
Note: See other posts from the Pocketful of Borders series here.
News Flash! My interview with Jules at the Seven Impossible Things blog was posted today. Just a warning though– there are tons, I mean tons of pictures in the article!
This series of couples begins with a detail from Vineyard Family, which I made in 1985. During the 80’s I experimented with flattened dolls on embellished backgrounds and came up with the term fabric relief to describe what I was making. See other details from this scene here and here.
These gingerbread cookies are appliqued and embroidered on a wool felt balsam pillow. This project is in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk.
And the dish ran away with the spoon in my board book version of Hey, Diddle, Diddle! The dish is formed out of polymer play and cut with a scalloped edged biscuit cutter. The silver spoon is beat up and old, but he strikes the dish’s fancy.
This detail is from my 2007 piece, Self Portrait: a personal history of fashion. My husband, Rob joins me for the year we were married (1981) in the spiral of 52 dolls, which age from birth to 52. I made our full size wedding outfits in 1981, too. See a post about the Self Portrait here.
This detail from Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes shows the last part of the Jack and Jill rhyme when a wounded Jack “went to bed to mend his head with vinegar and brown paper”.
Note: See other posts in the Close-ups series archive here.
There were some wonderful new vendors at the Waldorf School of Cape Cod’s Holiday Faire last weekend. I just had to take pictures of these Fairy Houses by Jaylee. Friends, Jane and Rosalie have joined forces to make these internally lit lamps and night lights. They’d be cute in a child’s room, but I think all ages would enjoy an indoor fairy house like this.
The fairy furniture is a fun way to use old wooden spools.
It looks like the creators frequent floral supply businesses for moss, dried mushrooms and artificial flowers.
Last week, Celeste’s 3rd grade class from Mullen Hall School came to see my artwork at Highfield Hall in Falmouth. She and her Mom, Deb, have shared photos of some felt dolls that they saw in Istanbul last summer in an earlier post here. I’ve just received word that Highfield will host the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit again near the tail end of its three-year tour in Sept./Oct. of 2013. Also, for those who live close by and haven’t yet seen the show, it’s up an extra day, Mon., Nov. 1st from 10 to 4pm. I’ll be going in on Tuesday to pack up the pictures and then driving them up to the Danforth Museum in Framingham later this week. The good news is that they’ve decided to hang the whole show, instead of half, which was the original plan!
The children traveled from one room to the next in small groups, searching for and identifying items on their cards. I answered questions as they looked closely at the artwork and found surprises.
It was great fun and we all had a good time! The children even brought in found objects from home to give to me as a thank you gift. Thanks to Deb for making the event so memorable!
thank you gift of found objects
Last summer, in the rush to finish making borders for the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit, I forgot to take pictures while I was working on the border for this illustration. It’s for the rhymes, Diddlety, diddlety, dumpty, the cat ran up the plum tree… and Bow, wow, wow! Whose dog art thou? Original artwork from my book Pocketful of Posies will be on display until Oct 31st at Highfield Hall in Falmouth, Mass. and then the show will open on Nov. 13th at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Mass. See future locations here.
Here are some early layouts of the page, showing the progression of the design. Originally, there were three children, with the Diddlety rhyme positioned in upper left corner. I incorporated an island to make the tree and characters grounded, instead of floating around in red space. The mound was also big enough to hold the Bow, wow, wow rhyme.
Time went by, maybe a year or more before I started working on this page. I looked at the design with new eyes and was unhappy with the type placement. So, I redid the layout, enlarged the tree and repositioned the Diddlety rhyme on top.
The tree was inspired by some wrought iron gates I saw, with graceful interwoven branches. I added bead leaves and glass pear-shaped beads. Here are some details of the finished border.
Note: See other posts from the Pocketful of Borders series here.
This rebus was a fun project I did for Threads Magazine about 10 years ago. I wrote the verses and made the figures and props which were photographed and shown in the magazine’s Closures section.
In the last post, I mentioned making a centerpiece for the Pocketful of Posies book release party at Highfield. Since I forgot to take pictures of the finished setup, here are some shots taken during the construction phase. Many of the dolls were models for projects in my how-to book Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects and were unearthed for this event.
I arranged driftwood and logs that the wee folk could sit on and climb up. Old, dried up bayberry bushes, with their compact spread of small branches make good wee folk scale trees.
I drilled holes in the wood for small screw eyes, which served as anchors for the dolls. I felt like a prison guard, shackling their tiny ankles and tying their waists to the screw eyes with wire. But, it was to protect them from easy escape into the hands of big folk.
One vertical log needed a rope ladder, so I gathered some possible materials; jute rope and twine, old fishing line, a woven wooden slat place mat .
I selected the fatter jute rope and pulled out a wooden slat from the place mat. To make the rungs, I fed broken off wood sections through the rope and lashed them in place with an improvised knot. I wished we had learned knot tying in girl scouts. You never can tell when you’ll need outdoor survival skills!
Here’s Jack climbing up the finished rope ladder. See Jack climbing the bean stalk here.
Here are some characters from Felt Wee Folk.
Princess from “Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects”
Jester from “Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects”
Hansel & Gretel and the Witch from “Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects”
And a grandpa with his grandchildren. It sure was fun playing with these dolls again and bringing them on a short outing to my exhibit at Highfield.
SALLEY MAVOR 