Found Objects | SALLEY MAVOR

There’s nothing like the sight of a sleeping baby. I’m constantly on the lookout for natural objects that can be used as beds for my dolls. A baby can curl up in a cradle made from half a walnut-shell.

This walnut is bigger than most that you can buy in a bag at the super market. I usually pick out the larger ones during Thanksgiving season, when the stores sell them in loose bins. I am a curious sight, digging through the box, determined to find the biggest ones. To make the nuts more easy to split open, bake them in a low oven at about 200 degrees for a few hours. They start to crack along the center seam and you can then break them open with a knife. You can also cut the shells open with a fine saw. In the above illustration from my up-coming book, Pocketful of Posies (Sept. 2010), I sawed half a walnut-shell in half again lengthwise, so that the side could be seen in relief.

This blue suited baby is lying on real reindeer moss in a walnut-shell. He is part of an illustration from my board book, Wee Willie Winkie, on the page that says, “Are the children in their beds?” This image is available as a note card in my Etsy Shop. I edged the felt leaf with wire to give it a curvy, raised lip that fits the shape of the walnut. You can glue the shell in place or drill holes and sew it like a button.

detail from “You and Me Poems of Friendship” 1997

This piece from 1992 was inspired by some metal apple crate tags which I found on our property on Cape Cod.

APPLE ORCHARD, fabric relief by Salley Mavor, 1992, 22" x 27"

detail from APPLE ORCHARD

An apple orchard was here about 100 years ago and all that remains are these tags that appear from time to time on the ground in the woods. The metal is stamped with the names Fall Pippin, Baldwin and McIntosh. I’ve used them to frame the border, along with a kid leather lattice pie crust in a silver bracelet pie dish. The woman’s pig fabric apron is made from a childhood dress of my mother’s from about 1930.

Metal apple crate tags, pie with leather lattice crust in a silver bracelet

Apple Crate tags

Over the years I’ve accumulated kid leather gloves from my grandmother and great aunts. It seems like ladies from their era could not have too many gloves. The leather is thin and easy to cut with scissors. It can also be painted with fabric or acrylic paint.