We have had a lot of wind and rain lately so it has not been possible to build outside this past week. I have pulled up an image from last year's work. A delicate little gazebo overlooking my friend's garden.
I created the framework for this piece out of slender willow branches, they are such fun to weave and work. The garden was so full of fragrant flowers that adding them to the structure was a most pleasant task!
When I built this one, I was imagining that it might be a romantic hideout for some fairies, or just a sweet retreat for a tea party. The photo does not do this piece justice... there is a problem with shooting flower structures: if you do it in bright sun, the shadows are too dark and the highlights are too bright. But if you shoot on a grey day, like this shot, everything is kind of flat and it is hard to appreciate the 3 dimensional structure of the sculpture.... so, I am needing to learn more about how to do the photography end of this better. Hopefully the winds will relax tomorrow and I can get back out in the forest... with all the rain, I'm hoping to find some better mossy places where I can work !
I probably should have waited till Summer Solstice to share this one. Now I'll have to make something different for that upcoming event !
I'm not going to reveal this entire sculpture in this post.... but this is one of the effects I was hoping for.
I had also hoped to go out this evening and work some more with this sculpture but in another location that would have been amazing.... but the wind is strong today and it may take away all the acres of puffy, white dandelion seed heads I was hoping to shoot.
Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this Ring of Fire.
And for the Faerie House fans... don't worry... I am working on those too... I have just been waiting for the mosses to green up... we have not had much rain here this spring and the moss is not yet fully lush and green... so I'm waiting for that so I can get better photos.
Up in the mountains near my village is a spring-fed pond surrounded by pine trees. The banks of the nearby stream were covered in white and purple violets. I had brought with me some Vinca blossoms that I had picked from my garden that morning. I had hoped for a windless day, but there were gusty breezes reaching down into the pond blowing the downy puffs of Coltsfoot seeds across the water.
It took me many tries to figure out how to get the blossoms to stay together. I'm not sure I want to reveal the trick just yet. It was incredibly hard to do at the beginning. The blossoms all pushed away from one another and I had to work very fast to keep them all floating but still together. I had to work completely from shore because one step into the water disturbed the clay bottom and clouds of clay would boil up and ruin the effect. The battle with the wind to keep things close enough to shore to finish the piece was very challenging.
When it was finally finished, I could relax a bit and take the photos. It was fun to see it drift up and down the pond with the wind pushing it around. But eventually the circle started to give way to a more organic form and in the end, the whole thing came apart and blossoms were scattered along the shoreline. I loved the reflections underneath the cloud of blossoms... this was for me, the most interesting aspect of the sculpture. In the second photo you can see that the dark purple flowers have formed into a triangle... I did not do that, the combination of wind and flowers did that. And in the shadow underneath there are spots of light that echo the triangle above... again, this is not a photoshop trick, this is just what happened... it was really hard to photograph because I could not wade into the water to get closer. I hope you can see it in the photo.
There is a very large wild apple tree next to the pond here and right now it is at the peak of spring blooming. A few days ago we had a strong wind all day and it blew thousands of petals into the pond and chased them all down to one end where they floated helplessly caught in the cattails and unable to move any further. It was a blanket of snowy petals looking like the ice from just a few ago. It also looked like an opportunity to have some fun !
I picked some Vinca flowers from my shade garden and some dandelion flowers from the edge of the pond and waded in. Fortunately I had planned ahead and brought the camera with me too. Once I was in there, any movement from me upset the pattern and I would not have been able to get this photo. It was very bright as the sun was intensely strong and the sky was deep blue. The source of the blossoms is in the reflections, but it is hard to make it out in this image. What a joy to take advantage of this moment and do a simple creation. The next day, the petals had all turned a brown colour and the pond lost it's magical carpet. But there are still plenty of fresh blossoms on the tree... there may be another round if we have more wind later this week, as is forecasted.
The fiddlehead ferns are up... the moss is greening. Deep in the forest along a tiny burbling stream, a shaft of sunlight reveals a Faerie gathering place.
It is good to be out in the forest creating things with green once more. The temptation here was to add a lot of colour with flowers, but I liked the green simplicity. The mosquitoes were happy I was there too.
Have a lovely week-end.
Last weekend was the full moon... could you feel it? It had been rather rainy here so I was not even sure if I could get out and make something for the moon... but by late in the afternoon on Friday it was starting to clear. I went down to the lake with some flowers that my neighbor had allowed me to cut from her ample gardens. I made a ring of willow and dogwood twigs and figured out a way to have the edge of the ring just touch the edge of the water. I wanted to create a visual infinity symbol, if possible. The wind kept blowing on the circle and I could not figure out how to stop it from getting blown over... I asked for some help in resolving the problem... and after about 20 minutes of trying different "fixes", Nature herself provided the solution... the wind died down. This piece was made as an offering to the tides and emotional turbulence we all sometimes feel. It is a reminder that we are being held in a circle of perfection, even if we don't feel it all the time. It is also a gift of gratitude. Each flower on the wheel has a symbolic meaning for me. And it was meant to honor and release various emotional challenges and obligations I was wanting to have transformed. The cloud came drifting gently over the bay and seemed to hang over the circle for a rather long time... then it just dissolved rather than moving on as all the other clouds had been doing. Very mysterious. It felt like a blessing. Making art that has a spiritual component, a gift offering of gratitude is a wonderful way to connect with Nature. I recommend it for anyone who is feeling a bit cut off from life or parts of their life and wanting to re-connect. Go make some art out in nature... stay focused during the process, let it have meaning for you... let it go. You might be surprised at how different you feel afterwards !
Everything is rushing upwards now. The rains finally came and gave us a bit of much needed moisture and the surging of the green is in full swing !
This is a little house I made a while ago. My neighbor , who has lovely spring plantings let me have an armload of blossoms from her garden. I wanted to make a Faerie Queen "room" out under a stone wall. It is always such a shock to my creative system to be working with such vibrant colour again after months and months of subtle browns, greys and blues. Hopefully I can post more soon. I've had a lot of other things that have needed tending to lately... a lot of spring cleaning, so to speak.
Be back soon !!
Welcome to the enchanted world of Environmental art and Faerie Houses sculptures created by Sally J Smith. Here you will find photos of the artist's unique art-forms and hear some of the stories from behind the scenes as she shares with you her creative process.
We have had a lot of wind and rain lately so it has not been possible to build outside this past week. I have pulled up an image from last year's work. A delicate little gazebo overlooking my friend's garden.
