doll house play

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Yesterday, I witnessed the sight of real children playing with my doll house! Some friends came over to my studio with their grandchildren, who immediately engaged with the dolls and miniatures in and around the house. You may wonder why I find this so remarkable, especially since I constructed and decorated it almost 40 years ago. For most of those years, the house has been packed away or displayed behind glass. My sons weren’t interested in playing with it, so I offered to have it shown in the children’s room at the Falmouth Public Library. It stood there for several years in a case near the check out desk, out of reach of children’s hands. When the library was renovated and didn’t have a space for the house, I took it back and it has since been gathering dust in a corner of my studio.

I loved watching the children manipulate and position the dolls with their small hands.

The house has been out on my center table lately, because I’ve been fixing it up for a photo shoot of some projects that will be in the 2nd edition of Felt Wee Folk (2015 release date). I’m also sprucing it up for display at the Holidays at Highfield event later this year at Highfield Hall in Falmouth. The 10 day event will feature a tree decorated with Pocketful of Posies ornaments that I made for the Family Trees exhibit at the Concord Museum last year (see posts here).

Nov. 29 ~ Dec. 8, 2013, Original embroidered artwork, a tree full of ornaments and a doll house all handmade by Salley Mavor will be on display at The Holidays at Highfield. Highfield Hall, Falmouth, MA. Open daily 12 pm ~ 4 pm

fairy girls in the studio

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Last week, I had a delightful visit with Bronwyn Malicoat and a carload of girls, who drove to my studio in Falmouth, from Provincetown, which is at least a 1 1/2 hour ride from the other end of Cape Cod. It’s common knowledge that people from our different poles rarely visit each other (especially in the summer), because there is no direct route and the traffic can be a pain. But, I’m really glad that they came, bursting out of the car with their little fairies in hand. The girls are enrolled in Bronwyn’s summer craft program, which includes a good dose of fairy projects.

When they arrived, Rob and I were just finishing a photo shoot out on our patio.

Here, the girls are looking at the scene, which includes some of my doll projects. They’ll be in the 2nd edition of my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk. Sorry, but I can’t show any details until the book is published in 2015.

They were so proud of their fairies that they made earlier in the week.

They played with them the whole time they were outside.

They ate what was left of the blueberry crop and took photos of their fairies in the blueberry bushes.

Then, they looked around my studio and took more pictures.

It was a treat to spend time with Bronwyn and her students. Being the mother of sons, I have not been around young girls very much and being in their company brought back childhood memories of playing with my sister and friends. We would spend hours making things and setting up scenes to play with. Come to think of it, I still do that now!

Prudence Is. school visits my studio

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Salley Mavor

Last week, students from the Prudence Island School came to visit. The school’s teacher, Eliza grew up in Woods Hole and we’ve known each other since childhood. She asked if she could bring the children over to my studio as part of their day-long field trip to Woods Hole.

The island school currently has a total of 8 students from the early grades to teenagers. I was struck by how well the 6 girls and 2 boys of such varying ages interacted. They were inquisitive and appreciative as they looked around my studio and they easily identified all of the birds in my Birds of Beebe Woods piece.

The students are even learning to embroider! Thank you for a delightful visit!

studio: before and after

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Salley Mavor

For those of you who might think that my neat little stitches come from a tidy person, these photos tell otherwise. During a project, I never clean up. One thing leads to another, so it can be a year or more before I feel the need to start with a clean slate.

I recently finished Slow Work… Fine Work, which you can see and read about here. It seemed like a good time to pack away all of the floss, beads and little do-dads that are pulled out of hiding while I’m working. This year I’ll be making some things that I can’t talk about or show yet. So, I’ll have to come up with other ideas for this blog for a while.

My work area is pretty small and I usually lay out parts on an ironing board within reach. Whatever I’m sewing is in my hands and the table fills up with materials. There are still piles of stuff which I can’t figure out how to organize, so they are pushed aside.

This is where I paint faces on wooden beads and carve wooden shapes. It won’t be clear for long. One thing’s for sure– I’m horizontally challenged!

Slow Work… Fine Work

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Salley Mavor

In art school, I began as a print-maker, working in etching, engraving and lithography. Printmaking is all about lines, dots and dashes, which all combine to create an image. It’s very different from watercolor painting, for instance, where color can merge and fade gradually. Embroidery uses distinct lines, dots and dashes, too. They show up in my artwork as chained-stitched doodles, french knots and felt-covered and thread-wrapped wire.

My newest fabric relief is a kind of contemporary sampler, which celebrates the Chinese proverb Slow Work… Fine Work, which resonates with me.

I decided to incorporate an old wooden frame that has been sitting around for years, waiting to be useful. I wrote out the words in felt-covered wire. This is a new technique that I’ve been developing over the past few years, starting as part of the border in Rabbitat and later featured extensively in Birds of Beebe Woods. I’m pretty open about how to make a lot of things on this blog, but this new process is a personal artistic expression that I wish to keep private.

I pieced together small scraps of felt with a feather stitch and chain-stitched a free-form pattern on top.

I spent the hours on the train trip to New York last January stitching this back ground piece.

By the time we were at the hotel, I had finished half! The other half was completed on the way home.

I covered the embroidered felt background outside edges with a rounded outline of brown felt. Next came the thorny vine, made with wire and black embroidery floss.

I strung some beads to go around the double oval word sections and made some spider’s webs with wire and metallic thread.

Then, I drilled holes in the inside corners of the frame to sew the spider’s web’s in place.

I made a blue felt-covered wire border and sewed it to the frame’s top two inside corners. No glue, just stitches, through more drilled holes.

The two lower corners are finished off with a scalloped-edged triangular felt shape, decorated with a bead in each corner. I couldn’t resist adding more blue wavy lines with thread wrapped wire, too.

The center double oval section needed more definition, so I added another border of hot pink scalloped felt. I like to represent something alive in my artwork, so I made a spider of buttons and thread wrapped wire legs. The original piece is 15″ x 13″. My husband Rob took a photograph of it on the stairway, which gets nice natural light.

And this is the photo we used to make a print, without the watermark, of course.

Slow Work… Fine Work, 8.5″ x 11″ Print

Sunday’s Open Studio

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Salley Mavor

I had an inkling that yesterday’s Open Studio would be well attended, so I set out to expose as much floor space as possible. Clearing boxes off the floor was the biggest chore. The many piles of stuff that have been accumulating over the past few years were in the way. (It’s been awhile since I’ve invited in the public) Driftwood, mailing tubes and boxes of “interesting” fabric were hauled off and temporarily absorbed into the main house. In the above photo, you can see boxes stored under the table. On Sunday afternoon, there was a steady stream of people climbing up the stairs to my studio. There were lots of locals, along with several people who drove down to the Cape from the Boston area. I was glad to see Cathy, who was unable to attend my workshop last month, due to illness. When she read about the open studio in this blog, she convinced her husband Dave to bring her down from Wayland yesterday!

Many friends showed up, including Betty and Jay, which was a treat. The Pocketful of Posies tree is in the background. Terry, who has helped me with sooo many projects (cake decorating, costumes, and community quilts, to name a few), handled sales of posters, books and cards (same items are in my Etsy shop). Thanks, Terry! I wish I had more pictures to show, but I was so busy talking to people that the camera sat unused through most of the afternoon. It was lovely to see so many folks! It takes an event like this to make me clean up. Now, I’m trying to figure out how to reabsorb the stuff I cleared out of the studio, without ruining the much improved Feng shui.

Family Trees: thread spool garland

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Salley Mavor

I’ve just about finished decorating the Pocketful of Posies tree for Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature at the Concord Museum. Early Monday morning, I’m driving everything up to Concord, the day after my Open Studio, which you can find out about here. I have to remove my decorations and take the tree apart on Sunday night and reassemble it again in the museum. There will be over 30 trees set up around the museum, all representing different children’s books. All of the trees, except for mine and another illustrator’s, are being decorated by museum volunteers, who have been preparing for months. So the museum will be swarming with industrious volunteers. They’ve promised lunch for us all!

My tree is dotted with little vignettes that feature nursery rhyme doll characters. I added a garland strung with old wooden thread spools and beads. I used some J&P Coats and Star brand cotton thread that my grandmother had about 50 years ago. To supplement my supply, I bought some empty wooden spools and wound them with yarn.

Hung in loops on the tree, the spool garland breaks up the space, almost like doodles in a notebook.

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Open Studio Nov. 18th

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Salley Mavor

Everyone is invited to come to my studio in Falmouth, MA (Cape Cod) on Sunday, November 18th, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Every few years, I like to open my studio to the public when there’s something special to show, usually when a big project is complete. That way people in my area can get a preview before my work is delivered elsewhere. I’m almost finished making decorations for a tree based on my book Pocketful of Posies, which will be included in Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature at the Concord Museum, Concord, MA. Several friends have asked if they can see the tree before I bring it to Concord, so I spontaneously decided to invite the world over, too. The picture above was taken a week ago and I’ve made more decorations since then, so by the 18th, the tree will be full of dolls and strung with garlands made of thread spools!

Oh, my, what have I done? This means I have a week to finish the tree and clean up the studio! Not too much fixing up, though–it will still look like a busy work place. Birds of Beebe Woods will be in the studio, too, before it is delivered to the Plymouth Antiquarian Society’s Hedge House Museum for their Fairy Christmas celebration. By the way, the Pocketful of Posies traveling exhibit will be there next summer.

Mimi visits!

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Salley Mavor

My friend and maker of wonderful things, Mimi Kirchner drove down from Arlington on Monday and we spent the day together. For those of you who haven’t discovered Mimi, visit her blog, Doll, as soon as you read this post. She inspired me to write my own blog and just recently, to open an Etsy shop. We met 30 years ago, when we were members of the Christmas Store, a seasonal craft coop in Cambridge, MA. We always have a lot to talk about because we’re interested in the same kind of things and our lives have taken us in similar directions, both personally and professionally. Mimi brought a Tattoo magazine that features her tattooed dolls in their Christmas gift guide. She also showed me the new Land of Nod catalog that includes several of her doll designs. It was a glorious fall day and we talked about art and our lives as we walked from my house, through Beebe Woods and into Falmouth center to have lunch. It was great to see you, Mimi!

Beth from Acorn Pies in the studio

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Salley Mavor

Beth Curtin, the woman behind the wonderful blog Acorn Pies came over this morning for tea. We met through blogging and have been talking about meeting face to face for a couple of years. She’s in the area, at her Cape Cod house this summer, so we were able to have a nice visit in person.

I cleared away a space for us at the end of my oak table for us sit. The other end is filled with the makings of my current piece, Birds of Beebe Woods. In the last month, I’ve added many birds and will show more pictures when I’m finished. Right now, I’m stitching a chipping sparrow and will make a woodpecker next.