Secret Message Acorns!

I'm back in full swing of collecting things again so my head has been swarming with ideas of things to make with all these wonderful nature objects I've been finding.

I just looked out the window to what I thought was giant flakes of snow...  I'm on total high snow alert since what may prove to be the first big winter storm is possibly heading my way :)   But, what I was seeing was not snow at all... it was actually feathers falling slowly!  I looked up and saw a few birds acting casual.  None that I could actually pinpoint as the culprit but the grey feathers did look awfully pretty falling against the wintry yard.  Now that I'm looking out the window again I'm realizing that it is snowing!  yay!

Anyways, I've started making these little acorns out of clay and I decided it would be cool to make a hollowed out area on the inside to hide trinkets or secrets inside of.

I made that set of browner acorns for my Dad and Mary as a Christmas present and I hid a little note inside for each of them.  The other one with the white acorns I made for my sister and I hid some of her tiny frogs in them.  I thought for sure she was going to notice the frogs missing from her shelf of tinies and the jig would totally be up but I slid it past her!

The untrained eye has no idea what lies inside...

Pick up the top to reveal the secret.

The littlest note!

The littlest frogs!

They're about the size of a fingernail!

Joyeux Noel & Happy Holidays

Here's some highlights from my holiday week.  

It all started with a belated birthday celebration for my Dad.  I decided that getting Chinese food would be fun since my dad loves it so much.  Since I didn't get a cake we put the candles in the chicken wings and sang to him.  I think he really liked it.  The candles didn't even fall over when he blew them out!

Note to self:  Don't over eat when it comes to Chinese food.. yikes!

 On Christmas Eve we had a big party at my dad's house where most of the fam from his side came to visit.  My mini cousin Emilie made a really nice dvd of photos in tribute to Grandpa and my other cousin Jean Louis got a sweet tee that said I love being a prick.

On Christmas morning Dad, Mary, Becker, and I gathered round the tree and got ready to open our presents from one another.  Just as we were about to start Mary asked me a question so we all turned to look at her.  Just then... her chair started to crack and she started a slow descent towards the piano bench.  Luckily she wasn't hurt and we were all able to have ourselves a great laugh.  It was strange how good the timing was though...

Here's a good pic of Dad holding his troll child!

Solstice Traditions

I love traditions/celebrations and have been spending some time researching different types of Christmas and solstice traditions. 

Here is a tradition I found from Newfoundland which holds roots based in the old Roman celebrations of the solstice.
"Mummers, also called ‘Jannies’, have been a tradition in Newfoundland since colonists from England brought the custom at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  Mummer comes from the old French ‘momer’ which means to wear a mask; pantomime.

People would disguise themselves with old articles of clothing and visit the homes of their friends and neighbours.  They would even cover their faces with a hood, scarf, mask or pillowcase to keep their identity hidden.  Men would sometimes dress as women, and women as men.  They would go from house to house. They usually carried their own musical instruments to play, sing and dance in every house they visited.  The host and hostess of these 'mummers parties' would serve a small lunch of Christmas cake with a glass of syrup or blueberry or dogberry wine.  All mummers usually drink a Christmas "grog" before they leave each house. (A grog is a drink of an alcoholic beverage such as rum or whiskey.)
When mummers visit everyone in the house starts playing a guessing game. They try to guess the identity of each mummer. As each one is identified they uncover their faces, but if their true identity is not guessed they do not have to unmask.  For a time the old tradition of "Mummering", or "Jannying" as it is sometimes called, seemed to fade, especially in the larger centers of Newfoundland. " 

This sounds familiar to me as the ancient frocophone tradition called  Mi-Carême (mid lent) practiced in Acadia (the maritime provinces)  My grandparents on my dad's side were from this area and just about every time they dressed up for Halloween they made up costumes that looked alot like the photos I've found of the Mummers and Mi-Carême.  I wonder if they ever celebrated this.  I've talked to Crystal and she seems interested in hosting a party like this! woo hoo!

I've been collecting/observing/thinking about nests for a long time.  IThe collection is growing and I'm fascinated with the different ways that animals create their homes.  Since I am moving soon I've been pretty hardcore thinking about nests as I am about to leave one and create another.  In the past I've thought of building a big bird type nest around a loft bed to climb up into and sleep....maybe I'll do something like that at my new place.  Other times I've thought about just hanging a hammock in a room and having the rest of the space be workspace...

"A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper, may be used.
Generally each species has a distinctive style of nest. Nests can be found in many different habitats. They are built primarily by birds, but also by mammals (e.g. squirrels), fish, insects (e.g. wasps and termites) and reptiles (e.g. snakes and turtles).
The urge to prepare an area for the building of a nest is referred to as the nesting instinct and may occur in both mammals and birds."

Some of my favorite nests in my collection are the ones that  use human made materials.  I like to think that they are unique nests that represent this time in history.  This could be seen as negative...like nests are made from trash.  I like to think about how 200 years ago nests looked different then the one's you can find in cities today.   Maybe 200 years from now they'll be filled with different materials too.

Appalachian Trail

I ventured out towards Stockbridge today and I got to see my first signs of snow on the ground! woo hoo!  I'm getting excited for snowy nights!  We stopped at a bathroom that had it's hand dryer positioned directly above the trash can.  It made the lid of the trashcan spin like a pinwheel at rapid speed if you moved your hands out of the direction of the air.  I'll admit I wish I used it twice so I could watch the lid spin again... 

You can see the snow in the bottom right corner. 

My Aunt Marie Paule has always wanted to walk on the Appalachian Trail so today was her day.  It was a nice day for a 10 mile hike.  I was nervous at first about the cold but we warmed up as we got into it.

The most notable thing for me was the amounts of different types of scat.  I'll spare you from the pictures of how many different types I saw.  Here's a pic of the biggest tree along the trail. 

I measured it using photoshop as 8 1/2 of my heads across!

 Nice stretch of the trail that opened up into a field.

And the best part of the day for me was coming across this little creature.  I'm gonna spend some time later tonight trying to figure out what exactly that thing is on it's head!

Sun Boxes

I just stumbled across this somehow...it sounds awesome.  Sounds like the perfect sunset activity in Turners!

You can listen to video of it here

"For the first three weekends of November Turners Falls RiverCulture will present Craig Colorusso's Sun Boxes, allowing the participants to observe the piece evolve as it moves through downtown Turners Falls from 11 am - sunset."

"Sun Boxes is a solar powered sound installation. It's comprised of twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. Inside each Sun Box is a PC board that has a recorded guitar note loaded and programmed to play continuously in a loop. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time."

"Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers, and surround themselves with the piece. Certain speakers will be closer and, therefore, louder so the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array. Allowing the audience to move around the piece will create a unique experience for everyone. In addition, the participants are encouraged to wander through the speakers, which will alter the composition as they move. Given the option two people will take different paths through the array and hear the composition differently. Sun Boxes is not just one composition, but, many."

Nov. 5-7 Lawn of the Great Falls Discovery Center, 2 Ave. A, Turners Falls, MA
Nov. 12-14 Peskeomskut Park, Ave. A + 7th Sts, Turners Falls, MA
Nov. 19-21 Lawn at the beginning of the Bike Path along the river on 1st Street, Turners Falls, MA

Between the Folds...

Nini and I watched a documentary about origami called "Between the Folds".  It featured some pretty crazy stuff that I never could have imagined possible using paper!  There also were some features on some folks using paper to blend art/science/engineering.  Even a math teacher who uses these intricately folded shapes to teach geometry.  I wish I was able to learn math from him!

Anyways,  I thought I'd share these really beautiful origami sculptures that French artist Eric Joisel made.  Eric started creating origami in 1983 and he became a professional origami artist in 1992.  I'm sad to learn that he passed away from lung cancer on October 10, 2010.  Salut to Eric and merci for spending 27 years dedicated to creating work that definately made the world a much richer place!

All those tiny instruments and musicians are made from folded paper!  No cuts or tears either.  Just folds!

Paleoart!

I did some research on the paintings from the megafauna article in Australia that was in this month's issue of Nat Geographic.  The information in the article was good but the real excitement about the piece is the duo of paleoartists they chose to do the renditions of the beasts.  Alfons and Adri Kennis are identical twins from the Netherlands who work together to create amazing reconstruction paintings and sculptures.  

Here's their bio from their website, I love it:

"At school all we were good at was drawing. We never read; we only looked at the pictures in the books. Human evolution was what interested us. We made clay models of drawings or we copied drawings of fossils and skulls. We still do. We're identical twins and always sat opposite each other to draw, which means you've always got your main competitor breathing down your neck. But the advantage is that you keep each other on your toes. No one spots any stylistic difference in our work, because the mix of our two styles forms one complex whole. But we only create animals and humans that really existed and they have to be scientifically accurate. "

These are the images from the article.  They totally blow me away....

Another thing I just thought about relating to Paleoart is that I'm happy there are artists who are able to make their living off of scientific art.  I guess it's todays version of Victorian Science art... maybe...

Citizens of the Sea

Exciting news for us is that the findings from "The Census of Marine Life" has been released.  For a period of 10 years, 2,700 scientists from 80 different nations catalogued what lives and hides in our oceans. They uncovered over 200,000 new species.  I can't even handle how exciting this is!


They found this amazing yeti crab!



 I'm totally drooling to get my hands on this book.




Images from the census

stuming...

Working on cutting out feathers for my owl stume.  50 more to go!

Welcoming the cold...

I arrived home and found that my neighbor Summer had left me some wonderful oddities on my back stoop. 

Sometimes I'm shy about gifts so I figured I could channel that shyness into creating a nice thank you card for her so she could know how much I appreciate them...

The weather has a chill in it and I find myself getting pretty excited about this.  Most people think I'm crazy for liking the cold but I've noticed that I've started up some of my usual cold weather habits again.

playing piano - listening to Tori Amos - looking at colorful leaves - layers - sewing and more sewing - walking in the wind - cooking yummy soups - drinking tea

and of course pumpkins.  Feeling pretty lucky to have all these in my backyard!