Finale of the Cattails and Bullrush Adventure

 And so the week flew by. There were a couple of days with intense leaf preparation, first an afternoon using technology, Ipad and printer and a fun App for said Ipad which allowed Kelly to use a stylo to write her words directly on the Ipad screen - and a good thank you should go to Elly, for .... she is the queen of gadgets and without her I would have never ever known of this application.
So the house was quiet and Kelly wrote and then I printed and .....

The next day I spent with my sewing machine and many meters of fabric from the ample stash on the fabric shelf upstairs. Figuring out the shape of the leaves, making sure they were the right width to give room for Kelly's words and discovering that doing anything too narrow is not a good plan, especially if what you need is a casing wide enough to run a good sized bamboo stick through it.
Support sticks were needed, which became evident when the leaves sort of folded onto themselves - and so off to the barn I went and rounded up pieces of wood which would serve the purpose of giving each leaf some rigidity and help the printed words stay clear and un-crumbled.

And this day was the day ...... of setting up. Filling up the car with all the implements of the sculpture, all the extra just in cases - do we need to cut anything, bamboo, fabric, drill for the board that had been cut just in case the soil was too soft and the bamboo would tip over in the wind. Dressed/packed  for all eventualities is what we were.

And this leaf resting next to the three little cattails which were wrapped in ..... a pillow case, to keep them safe until we arrived.

A worried pooch. Freia had seen her 'dad' leave the house at 6:30am with the sail boat on a trailer and she was worried that ..... I would leave her behind too. Which I had contemplated doing, but her eyes, her eyes, I am often unable to resist and does it ever work for her!

Kelly hard at work, getting everything set up so we could get an idea of which way we were going.  What the final shape and taste of the creature should move towards.

 We had chosen a reasonably soft spot, the grasses there were already semi trampled, so we decided to trample on and get set up right there. By the way, we had been granted permission to place our piece by the Town of Kentville Parks Department. In case anyone was wondering.

Kelly spent a goodly amount of time down on her knees pushing the bamboo sticks further into the ground and then .....

It was time to place all the beach rocks we had gathered at our Wednesday excursion to Scott's Bay last week.

Kelly and Son, Dog and Pia all spent a beautiful afternoon on the beach. Admiring shapes and colours of rocks, feeling the light drizzle on the breeze - the dog joyously rushing across the little stream to walk further down the beach but having to come back with a disappointed face since we weren't wearing foot wear which would accommodate wading through the little stream to reach the other side.

The rocks are there to finish off the sculpture and to stabilize the bamboo so hopefully the sticks won't end up leaning too much in the wind.

And here it is, the final product, the cattail and bullrush sculpture in its place, words and seedheads at intimate play - if you drive by, take a moment to stop in and check out Kelly's words and enjoy the textures and colours of the weaving. The bamboo is pretty awesome too  =-) 

Gotta run, I feel another project idea coming on!

Landscape within Landscape

Quiet winter day, the air is finally starting to warm up  and the drips and drops are every where.

 We are walking - noses fairly firmly pointed towards the ground - hoping to not miss out on any news.

 This suddenly catches my eye, the drop off a branch right in front of my face on the followed path. 

And for a few minutes I stand there - camera at atttention - watch as the drop slowly elongates and finally drops to the ground. On returning home this little upside down world revealed ..... fragments of a sniffing dog moving along peacefully on her daily route of inspection.

The adventure of the Cattails and the Bullrushes!

As I was finishing up the baffler project for the farmers' market with the kids at the local middle school, a friend approached me about a different kind of project.
Alliance of Kings Artists had put a call out for entries for the Uncommon Common Arts project 2012. I hadn't thought of participating, but when my friend opened a door for me and suggested that we cooperate on a piece I tasted the thought and decided that .... it would be fun and interesting. Kelly Marie Redcliffe is a word smith, a word weaver, a painter of internal landscapes, pictorial and emotional.

I am as you probably know a fibre person, weaving, spinning, felting, all rocks my world and is included in my every day life.
Walking the dog down the street where I live shows me cattails in all their splendour and at all sorts of intriguing stages of development all year. Kelly has an affinity for these beautiful plants too and so .... our topic ....... cattails.
With this decision my deliberations of how to approach the production of said three dimensional sculptures started and slowly took off on their own evolutionary path.

Innitially I was thinking that felting the flower/seed heads would be the way to go - felting a thin layer to stuff and then attach on a stick or rod of some kind, or felting a woolen seedhead directly onto the ‘stem’, so it would be solid felt ..... arguments and counter arguments abounded as I walked in the woods and along the road watching the season of growth start up again.

The sculpture is destined to be exhibited outside, and it will go up sometime next week - at a walking path close to the Research Station in Kentville, NS - it will stay up and out until October 1, 2012 - what it will look like at that time remains to be seen - but surely it will have changed colour and shape a bit like its ‘wild cousins’ the real cattails.

In the end I settled on weaving all the surfaces, using different techniques - I am more of a weaver than a felter and it was a relief to make the decision to weave the shapes and start up the next part of the path. I was really attracted to the smoother surfaces of the brown ripening seed heads but in one of our conversations it turned out that Kelly is really into the fluff and texture of the seedheads when they break up and come apart, which is exactly what they are busy doing this time of the year.

I have a couple of Greek flokati rugs, which a friend kindly picked up for me at a yard sale many years ago. Their fluffy surface and tufty texture inspired me to use a similar weaving technique for two of the seed heads in the bouquet I was composing for our sculpture. I think it worked, and am wondering if the local bird population will have well insulated nests this spring, that is, the ones that haven’t already finished their building and interior decorating. Once they are no longer keeping a distance to these bull rushes, they might enjoy picking at them for their own delightful purposes.

Staying outside in all sorts of weather of course means that something consisting primarily of fibre will be damp and soak up lots of weather liquids (hopefully not snow, though one never knows) and so after more deliberations I realized that I had a treasure tucked away in the pantry.  Bubble wrap - what better material to roll around a stem and then cover in some suitable ‘skin’ and voila, a cat tail would be created. Water might run in between the bubbles but it will be able to excape, the textile ‘skin’ will be able to dry in the sun and the wind after each soaking and ... so all will be good.

Bullrushes though do not only consist of stems and seed heads - there are also tall grassy leaves - these will be the surface carrying Kelly’s words and contemplations and .... more on this in the next issue of ...... The adventure of the Cattails and the Bullrushes!

Farm worries and new additions

 Let me introduce to you - Gin and Tonic!
Two rather handsome not very pigletty personalities who have moved into the chicken house for a little while.
They are meant to go into the freezer shortly - well, one will be a beautiful pig roast, feeding a whole hoard of hungry humans shortly and the other will be divided into several people's freezers - seeing that we - brilliant ones that we are - did not buy the biggest freezer in the store when our old one died a few years back - surely we wouldn't need that much space anymore, after all the kids have gone and .......

 Gin and Tonic arrived here as rather large pigs from a big pig farm. One was too big to ship and one was too small to ship and so... they were to be put down and wasted - a funny word, but put down for no good reason other than that they did not fit the mold of what was desirable and needed at the butchers. I know, they will be put down in a few weeks, but .... I console myself that at least for now they have some sort of a good life, they eat apples, hog grower, compost, grass, and they snuffle around in their pen and enjoy the sun and the birds, the sounds of life outside everyday until we close up the door in the evening. There are so many things which could be said about this - I guess the thing is, I do like to eat pork, and .... this way, I get to make sure that the pork I do choose to eat comes from a porker whom I have had conversations with and have been able to thank (sounds a bit quirky) but never the less, this is how I make it work for me. And my son and daughter, well they have no qualms at all, they are just happy that their parents have this 'compulsion' to grow their own meat and that at times, they try to grow more than they can actually fit into their freezer.

And then there is the option of keeping creatures who will not necessarily be eaten  - and notice I used who not which in that previous sentence because  ..... I do look at these beautiful birds as companions and hm, friends. Last fall the little black hen who had walked about the house on her daily rounds  with the guinea for many years passed away. She was good and old (8 or more.

The guinea came from a flock of six guinea keets I was given several years ago from a friend in Pictou - they grew up, lived with the hens and the rooster around the place and then one day there was only was guinea cock left (I know he is a cock for he beat up the rooster who then moved elsewhere). The foxes that year were looking especially sleek and fine!  

 We kept an eye on the guinea to see if he should fall apart when his companion was gone - however, he didn't, instead he found a new friend in all things shiny and with a reflective surface, in particular the chimney outlet to our house. He has spent many hours there, talking to his mirror image and just sitting in quiet companion ship. That has saddened me, especially the day it was pouring down and I found him huddled and drenched tucked in close to his 'imaginary' friend.

So a couple of weeks ago we went to visit the friend who was kind enough to give us the guineas in the first place and she offered me a broody hen to take home and console him.

I had looked at the possibility of getting more guineas, but they are flightier than poultry and ..... I just really love hens too. And so the little grey hen moved in, and in a few days she was settled, walking around and talking guinea with the cock, or  whatever language it is that they are using. Then I realized that perhaps the hen was lonesome for another hen - she did after all come from a large flock of beautiful free range ladies - and so..... I had to make a phone call - Kate and Emma have a hen house (built by their very handy dad) and when I spoke to their mom to see if they should have an 'extra' hen that I could have as a companion,  she, hesitantly,  said yes, well, I will talk to the girls. Fortunately for the little grey hen E&K agreed that they would let one of their pet hens move to my farm to be the companion of my hen and the guinea cock. When we picked up the hen I got a better understanding of why their mom had been hesitant.





The girls took us to the hen house with joyous shining eyes and proceeded to pick up, pat, show off and talk about broody hens, layer hens, chickens in various sizes and rather large roosters - none of whom seemed to mind the gentle and confident handling the girls gave them. We now know why Hoppy the Rooster is called Hoppy,  I forget what the big Barred Rock Rooster could do, but I remember Emma putting him on her arm like a parrot and then she brought out Beaver who, well, whom she could pat, scratch, flip over and put down on his back, where he quietly waited and allowed her to scratch his belly! Imagine that, a rooster on his back having his belly scratched.
The hen moved home with us, and .... the photos with the three together were taken the next day - and it was a little bit of a nerve wrecking day - I hadn't planned to let the two hens out out of the chicken house for a couple of days, I wanted them to get acquainted and for the latest arrival to start to feel at home. However.... they found a hole and then were out ..... the new hen was a little intimidated and .... once again, we humans are funny .... I had thought about my hen, my guinea, both accustomed to bigger creatures like sheep and horses .... and this poor new lady ..... had never seen either one, so I found her in the shrubbery in the afternoon. It was with thankfulness that I put my hands around her, having approached slowly and with some grain to sprinkle in front of her. Had the girls not done such a magnificent job of getting their friends 'tamed' I think I would have had to find the insect net to get her back into the hen house.  This is where the two ladies are today, in the hen house, listening to Gin and Tonic snore and snort, the guinea is doing his thing and tomorrow when the two girls come out to play he will welcome them and they will walk about and help my eyes get all crinkly with smiles and pleasure. Ah, and a bonus to having a couple of hens around again is...... the freshest most yellow yoked eggs imaginable. Gotta go check on the girls!

Community Project at a local school for the Wolfville Farmers' Market #4

The last day of the exploratory was about to begin, We had the classroom set up again for swift commencement of the final movements - ha, the final pokes - so the felted pieces for the sound bafflers could be done and ready for assembly.
I had managed to asssemble two of the sets of three  from the kids who did the first exploratory and I brought the pieces along to give everyone an idea of the magnificence of their work over the last many weeks. 

 We live in a very artisticly vibrant community. Both when it comes to ear as well as eye candy there are always people willing to share their joy and passion for life with others.
Ariana and Andy are passionate about their music and the words they add to the music, or perhaps it is the other way around. What I do know is, that when I asked Ariana one day at the Wolfville Farmers' Market (she was busy setting up that day's musical entertainment for the Saturday market morning 'feast') if she and Andy would be able to come and surprise the hard working kids in the exploratory just for a few minutes on their last day - well, the answer was yes.








Andy and Ariana came in with their instruments, (we were all hard at work at this point) found a space wide enough for a guitar and a saxophone to spread joyous reverberation and then ... they played three songs, just like that =-) Ok, don't ask me which ones, for I didn't write it down, but I know that one of the songs was their famous Wolfville Farmers' Market song and another one was in French, Le Chef est Mort - a piece of poetry written by Sophie Berube who also lives in this area. The French part of this was perfect in that ....

...our two Katimavik volunteers, Alexandre and Alexandra are from Quebec, a good homage to their heritage. It has been lovely to have the two of them come down from Ross Creek Centre for the Arts (where they are still volunteering for a while) to be helping hands during this project at the middle school and fabulous that Lindsay Ann Cory who is in charge of programming and out reach for both professional artists, local schools and communities at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts also had the time to come and join us for these hours of creative exploration and focused endeavour.

Last Thursday I spent the whole day with the tools of the trade depicted on the photo stretching the felted pieces on their wooden frames.

And in the evening on that long day full of staples I took the pieces to our excellent carpenter  and 'woodsman' John Lynch and  this is what they look like when they are put together and ready to be hung at the Wolfville Farmers' Market, useful soundbafflers that they are in all their creative colour and beauty. 

Photo by John Lynch

I am a little out of sorts, it is Wednesday tomorrow and ... there will be no exploratory, ah, well, not with these particular delightful kids anyways - perhaps we will have the good fortune of spending some time with each other again some other time. I would enjoy that.

Thank you to all of you who have been involved, it has been fun and exciting to be on this exploratory journey with you - when communities and groups work together this seamlessly it surely rocks!

Community Project at a local school for the Wolfville Farmers' Market, chapter #3

And so with blood sweat and tears we reached the end of the six designated exploratory Wednesdays at the middle school. There were poked fingers, and we did use some of all the 100 bandages I had purchased in preparation of unfocused felting needles or unfocused kids. It was not bad though, actually, I think we have used less than 10% of the box and so the kids should be congratulated on good focus and great work. 

In a few hours I will head towards the school for the last time - well, I may go there again at some other point, for the last time in this session. I have spent the week finishing up the first group's pieces - that is stretching the felted rectangular bat for the face of the sound baffler and the triangular end pieces onto the pine frames built by John Lynch, a great carpenter and woodsman (well, I know it means something else too) - a woodsman in that he knows how to treat each piece of wood which he works with so it shows its best surface and smoothness to the world. 

 I was fortunate enough to be able to pick up the nylon ribbon I needed to secure the felt so it won't slip and rip at a local fabric and sewing machine shop in New Minas, Knit-N-Stitch, Diane and Wayne were all excited when I brought in a piece of the children's work to talk to them about the best kind of ribbon to use for this project. We decided on a spool, and ..... voila..... 42meters were rolled off and now I am through about half of it, having framed up 3 of 6 bafflers already. Tomorrow the last three will be done,

 - but first of course the kids will have to put the final touches to their work.

Oh, I also did get a box of 1250  1/2" staples and they are about half gone too. These baffle pieces won't be shook apart no matter how loud the music.

And one of my trusted helpers, Alexandre (he has had a lot of fun during this exploratory) from Quebec - he is part of the Katimavik group working in Wolfville at the Farmers' Market and at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts  - it is with sadness that I heard that this out reach and educational programme has been scrapped by the present government here in Canada - we can never get too much out reach - especially in a country which covers such a vast area - most of us are not able to freely travel and experience the full beauty of this country. More attention needs to be given to this kind of community building.

And finally a pile of four finished triangular sidepanels and two large rectangular front pieces. All is packed and in the car, ready to go for this afternoon's session. I know that I will have two other trusted  helpers coming this afternoon, one more Katimavik volunteer, Alexandra,  and the new programme coordinator for Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, Lindsay - and I have to say, I don't remember her last name, but Lindsay she is =-)
It is time to go and get myself ready for this final day - there is a surprise in store for everyone, I know what it is, but the kids don't and I am crossing my fingers that they will enjoy it - it is not icecream!

Community Project at a local school for the Wolfville Farmers' Market, chapter 2

 Colours, explorations and affected emotions are all part of this project. Warmth and coolness - excitement and something bordering on boredom - which might actually also be interpreted as a need for 'a time out' in an overstimulated world. The kids are learning and so am I, leaving me with a feeling of gratitude and amazement that I get to participate in all of this fun!
Yesterday we started day four of our exploratories with the grade 6-8's at a local middle school.
I was not sure what was going to happen on this day - there had been talk about having most of the same students for one more session, which would have suited me fine - since then they would know the 'drill' and thus be able to delve even deeper into the medium, the texture and the colour of the needlefelting project we are working on.
 As it was though there were only two kids from the original group - and then the rest of them were newcomers.

I have a confession to make, I have a worry wort, it is a wort, which most times is well-behaved and not in my face - but .... sometimes when I engage into something completely focused and aiming at a preset end result then.... my worry wort starts itching.
And it did this time too, three deep breaths, another overview of the class, the groups and the tables and then.... seeing how my two helpers immediately found the groups which needed them and seeing at the kids were eager and curious to see what kind of magic or weirdness I was to bring out of my 'bag' exploratory session #4 took off.
The propper use of tools and fibre and felted bats was explained, fingers were pointed to the drawings of musical notes on the wall - and .... suddenly they were off - into their own worlds, being allowed to explore what a musical note looks like in their perception. Using a crayon and a piece of paper was an exercise to help them see what shapes the notes are, how big to make them, which kind of note to choose.

It is not easy to sit down with a crayon and just like that conjure up a musical note - when one is not used to drawing or depicting precisely with a writing or a colouring tool what the eye is observing or the inner eye is imagining it can be quite a challenge - a challenge which needs a goodly amount of self esteem in order for the person (in this case a kid)  at the end of the crayon not to second guess themselves but trust that they will do it as beautifully and as perfect possible to the best of their ability. Exactly what is required for a community project like this.  For the kids to be able to take a break from the every day schedule at the school and get to come to a classroom where they can quiet down, look for and listen to their inner voice talking about colour and imagination, texture and ..... cooperation for ... they do have to work together in their groups to plan a design for their 3' x 4' felted woolen rectangle.

And now to get back to the worry wort, which at this time of the 75 mins we have to do our work in had all but imploded on itself, there was nothing left to scratch - in all three groups there were bent heads, moving hands, focused conversation and ideas floating around in the air and on the paper. Next thing there are rulers on the table!
We are working in the science lab so I suppose it makes sense that in some corner there would be large rulers eagerly anticipating measuring out lines and angles on the different surfaces.
The amazing thing is ... the visions of this group for their pieces are so different from what the first group did that all I can do is smile with delight.

 I never thought I knew it all about anything in particular, and sharing has always been a personal delight for me.
But it still amazes me that everytime I leave the school after a felting session there is something new to contemplate, as far as approach and  handling of the information needed to pass this on, what is important to make the kids comfortable and eager to keep going + all the little things which I hadn't really thought about but which resolved themselves as the session got warmed up and proceeded.  It is with great joy that I see how the kids manage to focus and realize that what they do matters, that what they do is fun, right now and a bit down the line - it is good to be present in body as well as in mind when one has to learn and explore.






Already I know that when the pieces are all put together  which will be sometime early in May there will be 6 playful, visually inviting sound-bafflers to put up at the market in Wolfville. It will be such delight to see the playful differences between the final works from the two groups alternating along the top part of the walls at the market. Two more weeks to go and then....... all will be revealed.