Heavenly Bodies

At sunset the western sky was filled with clouds and I was standing under the apple tree having set up the same sculpture from the night before. It was windy too.

The sky was grey and dull and apparently the sun went down because it started to get darker... but no sign of the moon. But I remained hopeful. I kept feeling like a shift was happening and all I needed to do was remain open and be ready.

The sculpture was in place. The camera battery was fully charged. I was warmly dressed... and wanting very much to see the moon... and slowly, slowly the clouds thinned and within a few minutes this breathtaking moment was revealed.

I hope you had a chance to see this too.

Due to many requests, I will be making this image available shortly as a digital giclee print. I will announce here when I have it set up so you can order online. The publisher I use makes beautiful, velvety prints... the quality matches the image. Stay tuned. :-) And thank you to everyone for all your kind comments!

Planetary Portal

If it is a clear night where you live, go outside around sunset on Sunday or Monday evening and there will be a lovely treat for you. The planets Venus, Jupiter and the crescent moon are having a party and you are invited !

I had known about this event and was hoping we might be able to see it, but alas, we've had overcast conditions for nearly 2 weeks now. Suddenly, this afternoon, it cleared and I knew I had to try and make something to frame the event. I knew that the moon would not yet be close enough to the 2 planets, but I wanted to try anyway because we are forecast for more clouds for the next 2 days... so if I wanted to build something for this event, this was my chance !

I collected some wild grapevines for the outside edge. Then I found some wonderful Goldenrod stems that have these peculiar round burls on them... I think they are made by insects. My plan was to make something that echoed the idea of planets in motion but have it be a frame for the real event.
The Planetary portal was hung in a Pear tree and I began to take the photos. Sadly, I only managed a few images before my camera's battery died (and I did not have the spare charged up ! grrrr ) But this one is the best of what I did manage to shoot and it will do nicely. Venus is the lower bright light and Jupiter is the upper one. The other stars that were out did not show up on the image, but my eye could see them.

Tomorrow the moon will be closer to the pair, and by Monday night they will be all together in one tight grouping. If you have clear skies, do try to get out and see the beauty...it is really uplifting to see such a magical sight !

Farewell to Fall

This house is a personal favourite. It is one that I had made ahead of time because I knew it would take too long to construct this on site. Also I needed to experiment with building portable houses because of an upcoming show... more on this in future posts.

So, this house was made over the course of several days. It features a front entranceway with peep windows on the sides. A bay window, a second tower with another latticed window and a porch with a fungus roof. All done in the "Adirondack" style. The foundation is made from riverstones carefully collected from my beloved river. The roof is made from Red Pine bark "shingles" laid over a birch twig frame. Green fungus and small lichens decorate the roof. It was such fun to make !

But, it was a very heavy piece, due to the stone foundation. Still... I really wanted it to have a mountain top view, so I carefully packaged up the house into a totebag and headed up Little Crow mountain in the Keene valley. The pathway was quite steep and several times I wondered if it would be worth it.. the bag seemed to get heavier and heavier as I got higher.

Eventually the open faced ledges came into view and it was blissfully beautiful up there in the warm waning rays of the day. I found a great location with what appeared to be a set of stairs in the background leading up to the house...it looked as if it belonged there once I got the mossy landscaping in place.

The sun was dipping low along the ridges so I was able to only get a few good shots, but it WAS worth it. I also brought up a little canister of my Dad's ashes and built a little Spirit House for them over on the west side of the summit. An ancient Birch tree offered a beautiful little nook for a resting place. He would have loved the view. Just as I was completing the work, a sundog appeared in the clouds... and shortly afterwards, a Raven flew thru the rainbow. A very powerful message for me... I felt very blessed.

Icicle Palace with Spiral path

This structure was made last winter. It is the first image in the new calendar and is one of my all-time favourites. The conditions were perfect...a calm day with stable temps in the mid 20s. I had collected a ton of icicles from the lake, but this location was at my house. I have a stone circle under construction in the garden and I decided to build on one of the standing stones.

I worked for about 5 hours to make this piece and the sun had come around from behind some dense balsam trees to illuminate the structure in a most astonishing way. Later as the sun set, the structure glowed pink and turquoise... and those images are beautiful too... but this view is just the perfect one to begin the new year.
What continues to amaze me is the very simple realization... that this is just water and sunlight... and a bit of time, attention and intention from a human.

What beauty will you be attending to this week?

New Calendars for 2009 !!!

FINALLY !!!! The new calendars for 2009 are here at last ! There is a brand new one with luscious Faerie Houses from this year and last, plus the previously available calendars have all been updated for the 2009 year.
Just click on the lulu link at the upper right side of the blog page and it will take you directly to my storefront in lulu. Here you can order any and all of the calendars (plus the original book is still there too). You get a slight discount if you order 5 or more to be shipped to a single address (and I believe you can mix and match as long as they are all calendars to qualify for the discount). You can also place multiple orders and they can be shipped to anyone you like. Lulu has printers all over the world so it is possible to order these for overseas shipments.

A word about the cost. I'll be really honest with you... I don't make a lot per calendar. The printing costs have gone up this past year so lulu passes that on to me. I also lowered the price last year and people seemed to prefer the lower price, so I'm keeping it there... I'd rather sell more calendars and make less on each one....but keep in mind, these are being printed just for you, so it is not like the cheaper calendars out there that print a gazillion just to get a cheaper price and then have to throw out half the gazillion because people did not want them...at lulu, they print only what you want so there is zero waste. Better for all of us that way !
So, please go to the lulu website and check out the latest calendars. Once you have selected the one you want to look at, give it a while to load... lulu loads the whole set of all the preview images from the calendar when you browse to see the item. Once it has loaded, you'll be able to see each page by clicking on the advance arrow at the top of the preview window..... enjoy !!!!

I am currently working hard to get the next book finished... I've had to re-do some of the pages for technical reasons so the project was pushed back a couple of days... but you will all be the first to know when it is completed. Thanks for your support !

If you want to go directly to the new calendar, here is the URL:
http://www.lulu.com/content/4758706

More Hanging out

A trio of wee houses hanging from a tree along the river. A bridge of fall leaves connects the houses together... as the wind came down the river the houses swayed gently in the breeze... what a great place for a nap !!!

Just Hanging out

Here in the northern forests we have a lot of birch trees. There is a particular kind of fungus that lives only on birch trees. It has a lovely smooth texture and soft, velvety curves...and they make a perfect roof for leaf houses !

This simple hanging home was made from stitched together maple leaves. I had collected a mushroom from this same tree a year before and had dried it out. Turned upside down it made the floor for this little cottage by the pond. The entrance-way is decorated in a sunburst pattern with sumac leaves. A great little hangout. The odd slug-like lumpy bit to the right of the house is a fledgling fungus. The triangular glyph below is a natural marking on the tree... but I would not be surprised if it were a signpost of some sort put up by the Faeries.

I was told that Native peoples used this fungus to carry fire embers from one camp to another. I don't know the technical way it was done, but it is easy to imagine it... when dried the fungus is light, carvable, yet so full of tiny air pockets that it would act as a perfect insulator....just the spot to nestle an ember in a bed of cedarbark shavings.. if that is how it was done.

The space between

This spiral of maple leaves is an offering to the Spirits of Autumn and Water. On the Medicine Wheel journey the West is connected to Autumn, water and the concepts of letting-go, introspection, the Dreamtime, and the sacred journey within.

Somehow, this spiral seems to represent all of that and more.
Happy Samhain to those who celebrate the Celtic New Year.

In a few days we will return to more autumnal Faerie Houses.

A Gathering of Stones

This seemingly simple spiral was a journey deeper into the mysteries of the river. The challenge was to use the stones to 'push' the water slightly into forming a circular flow pattern... and then try to capture the image.

The little swirling spiral is actually made from the movement of the water, the stones merely reinforce and mirror the motion.

The stones were all collected from the same river as the one they are now reflected in... but from much further upstream in the mountains. I wonder how long it takes the water from up there to get here?

One more spiral and then some more Faerie Houses are up next ! Thanks for stopping by and Happy Halloween Everyone !

Feather spiral at sunset

Where the river joins the lake it slows enough to drop the tons of sand it has brought down from the high mountains. An estuary evolved with lovely golden sands where the migrating birds ( Gulls , Terns and Geese mostly ) love to gather and gossip. They had been doing a lot of preening and there were handfuls of snowy feathers dancing across the sands.







Finding a quiet cove I carved out a spiral and lined the edge with feathers. The shadows got longer as the earth turned (Terned? heheeee) and the feathers began to glow pink and gold. Just before the sun dropped behind the distant mountains, the source of this very river, I snapped a final shot. A good day.

Pothole spiral

The river level had finally dropped enough to expose this pothole. I had been watching it all summer waiting for my chance to work with it.

Along the bank up above a maple was turning gold and scarlet so I used a few of the leaves to make a contrary spiral. It is "contrary" because it goes against the waterflow.

The grey banding in the rock is a natural formation... I may work with that later, but for now, it's all about the pothole !

This is the first of two leaf pieces I did with this location.. I'll post the second one later this week.

A different angle reveals how deeply the river carved this one. Not surprising since it is underwater most of the year.

Autumn Magic in the Marsh

One of the incredibly blue days last week. I spent the day in a sub-alpine marsh. The marsh was shallow last year, but a beaver had moved in and built a dam and raised the water level by nearly 18 inches... I was unable to explore the fullness of the marsh without a boat, but thankfully I had my waders and the water was not too cold.

First, I played with the lily-pads and the sky itself. This was incredibly hard to achieve as the lily pads seem to actually be designed to push away from one another... perhaps in a different season they might be less slippery... I shall have to try this again next summer.



Then I installed this fabulous Marsh Faerie House... Marsh Faeries love the solitude of their surroundings and they need ample access to play with the fireflies that frequent these area in spring time and the dragonflies that rule the air thru the summer.













As the sun got lower on the horizon, the blues began to deepen in all the shadowy areas adding lovely depth and contrast.

















It is fitting that this house sits in a pond enhanced by beavers. Many of the twigs that went into making this house were salvaged from along the nearby river... beavers had clipped and stripped the bark from the twigs upstream... after having been cleaned of the nutritious bark, the twigs float downstream to get caught in various roots and rocks where I find them. They are beautifully trimmed, white and smoothed by the time I find them. Other branches from this collection are from the cedar trees that are along the river... winter ice had pulled them from the trees and peeled the bark during the violent spring run-off season. Each branch was collected and received with a prayer of gratitude.

Next up... more spirals !

The past week has been a blur of new creations... I can't wait to share them with you, but it may take a little longer as we have a few more days of good weather coming up and I plan to be out there every possible minute being creative. I have several new spirals, leaf orbs and Faerie Houses all with the rich and vibrant influences of the season.
For now, here is just one... a lovely little cottage with walls made from maple leaves individually stitched onto a willow framework. The roof is made from birch bark with willow twig trimming and an acorn topper. The doorway is framed by a root I found up in the mountains... the door itself is also birch bark, with a moon window... a perfect little retreat for a Faerie Tea party ! Stay tuned for more new work coming very soon !!

Mountain Sunshine

It is finally full-on Fall here ! And the magic of the turning leaves and crisp days makes us all a bit crazy as we try to soak up the last sweetness of Summer's splendor. She is dressed now in her brightest traveling cloak as she departs the high mountains on her journey south. Especially brilliant oranges and reds seem to be the choice hues of this years collection... good clear yellow leaves are a bit harder to find...but departing She is.. the nights are frosty and the woodstove has been pressed into service.

This wee house is a magical retreat for the mountain Faeries. It is possible that one is dancing across the bridge in this very image...there were unusual ripples radiating outwards from the bridge in both directions when I took this shot !
Thank you everyone who has been supporting my work ! I am so very grateful to all your kind comments and encouragement. More work will be posted very soon...

A little gold

Fall is making its arrival known. The milkweed down is puffing out of the pods and landing everywhere. Leaves are turning glorious shades of fire colours and wild berries, apples and grapes hang heavy for the birds, humans and critters to enjoy.

But it has been rainy and gloomy here all week, so this one is from the archives. A magical retreat so the Faeries can enjoy the October sun... a golden hide-a-way.

Hopefully the grey weather will lift soon and I can get back out to play with the leaves. The mountains seem to have turned overnight to hills of reds and golds....such a magical time of year !