Sketch Book Pages

It was a very Old Thing and it had been sitting for it didn’t know how long beside a muddy brook in the rain. It might have been there for years or days or hours, it couldn’t say. Then it heard the creak of hinges and an odd gruff voice with a creak of its own calling. The Old Thing made a harrumphing sound and raised itself up, heading for the small oval portal in the earthen bank.

Inside it was dry and toasty warm and the Old Thing couldn’t imagine why it had been sitting alone in the rain and mud for such a time. Just then the kitchen door swung open and there were toast and tea and blackberry marmalade on a pewter tray in the midst of an ancient oak table. Encircling the table a carved bas relief seemed to twist and dance in the fire light, unfolding a tale that changed from beginning to end even as it was told. For a moment Old Thing was lost in the telling, "Come Old Thing!" the voice said "Sit here by the fire!" For once Old Thing did as it was told, ambling along in a toadish fashion that would have left wet foot marks if Old Thing could find any feet. It had a wide lipless mouth and mottled grey-green skin much like a toad ---but who or what it was, really, the Old Thing couldn’t say.

Nor can I.

Three out of four cats agree...

My well travelled cats were very curious while I was trying to photograph my newly finished caravan, but only Twiggy Miranda and Midori held still long enough to make more than a furry blur of tail in front of my lens.

And just so no one gets jealous here are the other two lovelies, Mr. Cookie, man about town and Manx

 

and the beauteous Isobelle---

Dream Cars and Equinoxes

A joyous autumn! I have been travelling across France for most of a very hot summer and the blog has gone by the wayside for much of that time. I hope to be back in form soon, photos sorted, etc., etc.--- but in the meantime wanted to say a quick hello and share with you two of my favorite rides. One is a photo I took of an image from a French museum collection of vintage festival/parade photos, the other a fae car I made several years ago as a birthday gift for my uncle who adores cars (although I think if the fae made any such thing it would only be to poke fun at the silly humans rushing to and fro on four wheels).

Dolmens and Faeries

On my way walking to the dolmen of Pierre Martine I passed a tiny caravan parked beneath the trees in this magical landscape of stones and moss.

And now it is on a long voyage to its new home in California.

The dolmen of Pierre Martine, just outside the village of Livernon, France, is thought to have been erected about 4000 years ago. At some point in the past the capstone was deemed unstable and so the appearance has been rather spoiled by the addition of two concrete pillars helping to hold up each end.

 It rests in a field of scrub oak and hawthorne where one sees frequent evidence of the passage of wild pigs and hares. Around the perimeter is a natural maze of limestone sheets where erosion has created round sided channels and tiny grottoes to a depth of about eighteen inches. These are full of tiny ferns, reindeer moss and elegant spider weavings but were too difficult to adequately photograph in the intense light of mid-morning.

The dolmen's surface has been altered by some vintage grafitti

and the rain of many centuries striking the flat surface of the stone table.

I Play With Dolls

A ghostly doll, assembled of bits and pieces, floats near a pine tree in the Ardeche forest.

And across the Atlantic my mother's much loved dolls assemble beneath the trees.

Le Palais Ideal

In 2007 I made a journey to the Palais Ideal, a place of dreams built by one man, a village postman in Hauterives, France, who collected intriguing stones on his rounds and using these finds, commenced in 1879 to build the hauntingly beautiful palace in his spare time. Ferdinand Cheval labored for thirty-three years to bring his palace to completion and it is truly one of the premier sites of visionary art in existence, a site beloved of the surrealists and Picasso, and a place of pilgrimage for many artists like myself. The Palais is so intricate and detailed that it is difficult to narrow down the selection of photos and since I would like to explore it in depth I may dedicate another post to the images --if you'd like to see more.

Urban Fae

I have begun to make a new series of miniature faery furniture for my Etsy shop, Pandora Jane. These pieces are part of the "Urban Fae" series and they combine my love of natural materials with the equally fascinating world of the found object (already an important part of my larger scale works).

"Lurking beneath the alley's spindly saplings or along the sidewalk where a dandelion breaks through concrete to mirror the sun, crouched at the edge of a pigeon's nest in the niche of a cathedral arch or among the window boxes on the 5th floor, they are the urban fae, those who have chosen to live in this most human of environments and offer subtle encouragement to the natural world. These fae can be a bit tricksy to deal with, although contrary to much popular belief they are not adversarial to humans. They do have a difficult role to fulfill and at times there have been incidents...
They are experts at blending human cast offs with materials from the urban natural world to create imaginative homes and furnishings. This chair represents a prime example. It combines the remnants of a blue enamel pan, broken crockery bits and a rusted bottle cap with twigs, mica, lichen and a duck feather from the city park. The throne measures 18 centimeters high to the tip of the feather x 5 cm. wide."

And another urban fae piece, a bottle cap, pottery shard and twig chair and tea table.