Category: Inspiration

 

Well, after having so many rabbits showing up on my pots,

when I came across an old copy of Watership Down by Richard Adams

I felt I should reread it.

I loved it again and could hardly set it down. 

No sooner had I finished (and urged my daughter to read it) than she found and captured a domesticated rabbit in the park!

Her name is Alice and not only is she beautiful, she’s got a lovely personality.

Now I guess I have a better model than this one who moved into our yard this spring

by the way, the arrow is part of a weather vane in our yard- quite a ways from the rabbit but serendipitously pointing at the rabbit!

Also, he was hungrily looking at our little vegetable patch.

So what is it about rabbits?

Well, we love the Medicine Cards book by Jamie Sands and David Carson.

and what it says about Rabbit is this:

…“Rabbit medicine people are so afraid of tragedy, illness, disaster and being taken that they call those very fears to them to teach them lessons.  …. Here is the lesson. If you pulled Rabbit [card], stop talking about horrible things happening and get rid of “what if” in your vocabulary. This card may signal a time of worry about the future …

The paralyzed feeling which Rabbit experiences when being stalked is Rabbit in the contrary position. If you have tried to resolve a situation in your life and are unable to, you may be feeling frozen in motion. This could indicate a time to wait for the forces of the universe to start moving again.  It could also indicate the need to stop and take a rest. It will always indicate a time when you need to re-evaluate the process you are undergoing and to rid yourself of any negative  feelings, barriers, or duress. Simply put, you cannot have your influence felt until you rearrange your way of seeing the present set of circumstances. It is the way  in which you handle problems that allows you to succeed…”

 

Watership Down calls that frozen state “tharn” and you can get locked in it

I do feel we are/I am in this state recently and admit, I find it helpful to learn these things- that we’ve got some rabbit energy going right now.

However, I still wonder if that’s why I’m drawn to them right now to put on my pots; what they mean to me personally perhaps without all the reading.

Certainly I’m excited to see “wild” animals in the city and visually, I love drawing the texture of their fur and their ears and faces.

I wish I could capture more of their motion.

Alice, when we put her in a little fenced in area outside, does this lovely little leap where she seems to kick out once she’s in the air. It gives the illusion of flight, of a momentary suspension in the air.

It’s wonderful; I wish I could do it.

Ah, there it is, perhaps I’m hoping, after waiting quietly that once the universe does start moving again, I get to fly.

Just a little.

I always try to go to the Old Town Art Fair.

Actually, this year I tried to get into it. Apparently, it’s one of the hardest to get into. I’m not surprised, as the work I see in there is excellent. 

Of course I have a few favorites and I collected their cards and will post their links here:

First I came upon Chris Dahlquist who does these exquisite, spare landscapes with luxurious clouds. Her website photos really cannot convey the depth of her pictures because she paints gold tones on paper and digitally prints her photos over them. This gives the photos great depth and light that changes depending on the angle. 

Even though another artist at the fair said “I hate when they come in and say ‘If I only had enough money…’” that’s exactly how I felt about Chris’s work.  I absolutely would have bought a piece I saw with a reflected stream. It was lovely.

Another artist whose work I have actually purchased in the past is Gary Stretar, an Ohio painter who stands out from the crowd of landscape painters. He says he is a colorist if I remember rightly. His work has a wonderful stillness about it like those long hot days in the summer when you are too tired to do much of anything and all you can hear is a cicada droning on. Or in the spring right after it rains and living things haven’t yet resumed scurrying about. He doesn’t seem to have a web site but you can google him.

Winner of “Seriously, just give me 700$ so I can buy this” award goes to Jenny Pope whose work, besides having wild colors and incredible compositions, is also trying to say and do something about the environment. I really love her work and subject matter.

I’ve never quite seen space used the way she uses it and yet it is really balanced. 

I saw her pieces and met her last year and have been following her work since. It seems incredible that these are woodcuts! She has a great website   Even more incredible was the fact that she remembered me  from last year and is a delightful young woman!

On to 3-D.  I was totally blown away by Jennifer McCurdy’s porcelain.

Now I have often called porcelain harsh cruel mistress but of course it wouldn’t have any power over me if it weren’t so seductive. And forgiving in odd ways.

Ms. McCurdy was very gracious and explained some of her techniques.  Most amazing is that these pieces move quite a bit in the high fire- porcelain gets a bit “soft” when it goes vitreous. Take a look at her site.

Then a really nice display caught my eye and immediately after that, the pots!  OMG they are gorgeous. The artist wasn’t around to ask so it was only after I visited his site that i realized these gems are terra cotta! Each one has wonderful  flashing and is unique. I am guessing he saggar fires them first and uses the results to inspire his surface decoration but that is a wild stab in the dark and really just a projection of what I would do.

I do know that sometimes you can add Terra Sig. to a bisqued piece. 

Anyhow check out his gallery. Also, I love his “bowl from earth” statement. 

There were many other great artists there but the 3 additional ones I’m thinking of, don’t have web sites.