Artwork

Wool Rises to the Occasion

Artwork / January 8, 2021 / By

Wool, a natural fibre of sheep which can be harvested and processed into useful material with just a few simple tools if need be. A farmer’s fibre, produced wherever sheep are found, making wool a resource that can be found and utilized around the globe. And while wool is certainly special in its characteristics of warmth, durability, and usefulness, wool is not a specialty item that only a wealthy few can access.

The various uses of wool spans across industries and interests, from automotive, to garden, to high end fashion, to home decor, to the socks on your feet, to the sweater in your hand, to the bird nest in your backyard. As more and more people seek out natural and renewable means to clothe and decorate their lives with wool continues to rise to the occasion.

The more I work with wool the more privileged I feel to be utilizing a resource that is grown here, a resource I have a direct hand in, in more ways than one. Working with wool gives a greater sense of completion to raising sheep.

The learning curve of sculpting with wool is high and long but despite the frustrations it is the activity I retreat to in my downtime. An activity that holds my interest longer than television or internet or eating.

Progress on The Felted Flock is chugging along. I make two or three felted sheep, try my hand at a guardian dog or a kelpie, figure out how to photograph (which is a feat in itself), and repeat. The project does not yet feel repetitive though. I am eager to see the project reach 50 head – I think somewhere around 50 head will be a magic number of sorts, where it looks substantial enough to get excited about yet still has a long way to go to before completion. I have never raised livestock in an intensive fashion but I am feeling a bit intensive about this project; wanting it to grow in number faster than it can.

Updates about the felted flock on Instagram often net a few inquiries about what is for sale. While the sheep members of The Felted Flock are not being offered for sale until the conclusion of the project, a select few of the felted dogs are being offered for sale, which allows me to garner a little artistic income during the project. This project and the interest in it leads to deciphering the ins and outs of setting up an online shop online and finding physical, local market locations. Navigating these logistics is taking a bit of doing. Meanwhile, if you take a fancy to one of these guardians, please feel free to email for more information.

It’s A Winter Scene

Artwork / November 8, 2019 / By

It’s a winter scene here. The rams, cows and horses have been moved home, the ewe flock is still out grazing though. The portable water stations have not been in use for some time as cold weather put a stop to those.

The first cold always seems the most harsh, not because it’s particularly cold but because I am never quite ready to embrace the chores and challenges that snow and cold bring. It takes me a bit to settle into the cold and I wonder if it is the same for the flock and the dogs or if their finely tuned senses of all things natural allows them to glide into the seasons with relative ease and knowing.

Normally at this juncture of winters arrival I’m well set into a slower paced creative routine and embracing it wholeheartedly. But this has been a full Fall season with work on our house taking up a good deal of our mental energy and weekend/spare time. We are not living in the house just yet however the cold weather put a damper on doing concrete pouring for counter tops and staining of baseboards outside. Needing a warm space for this work drove the decision to move my studio space out to the house to make room for a work area in the shop we still live in. So it is that my art table is now set up in a small dormer space of the upstairs loft with a gorgeous east view of prairie land. When I sit in this space I feel rich beyond measure.

The change of place has unsettled my creative routine, but in a good way I suppose. It’s exciting to be in the home you built and that excitement has me fluttering about like a moth around an evening lamp. Having a small string of commission work that needs to get done is a hidden blessing as it forces me to stay on task and being active with the task of creative is what spurs the ideas for future artwork of the subjects of this land and livestock life my existence revolves around.

By The Call of The Cranes

Artwork, Musing / September 12, 2019 / By

I slip into my rain pants and reach for my hiking boots. The sleek and warm head of a Kelpie dog nudges me strongly. Gibson. Three other hopeful black and tan faces are right here, peering at me. Ears and eyebrows alert, eyes eager. I could just be stepping out but they know I’m heading out to the pasture instead. The anticipation speaks volumes about the uncanny intuitiveness of canines. How I long to tap into my own intuition with such depth and confidence. I’ll only be taking one dog with me. Gibson it is, just be way of making a fast choice. I open the drawer of dog collars and pull out a bright orange collar and fasten it on Gibson’s neck, aware of the disappointment in the others by way of making my choice.

It is cool and wet, the guardian dogs are anticipating a meal tonight. On warm days it’s hit or miss whether or not they eat but tonight five of the six guardians meet up with me near the edge of the flock.

I lean against the ranger while they eat. Gibson sits on the seat looking out at the sheep. Movement in the far distance, just above the marshy flats of this pasture space, catches my eye. Not sheep but low flying Sandhill Cranes. Birds are gathering now. Along the route out to pasture we stirred up Killdeer birds, 10-15 of them at once. Swarms of smaller black birds have been sweeping in aerobatic flights for a couple weeks. More recently, the cranes have been gathering.

I watch without much thought or concern. I can barely make them out in the dimming light of the evening but their calling is clear. Something falls into place.

The moment before I was thinking about social media – of all thoughts to bring to this sacred prairie place I am embarrassed to admit I brought concerns of social media along. Not very conscious or intentional of me at all. None of these animals, none of this land, this place, this nature, this way of being, exists on social media. I can look around as far as my eye can see and no other Being here is concerning itself with social media or who likes what. When did I get caught up in focusing so much on the rat race? I miss this blog. I miss the more frequent stints of writing for it and for my long-silent, Crooked Fences Newsletter which I used to send out monthly.

The guardian dogs are finished eating. Gibson and I head off in search of the sixth dog. The sheep have all gathered at one end of the pasture, there really isn’t much purpose to letting Gibson gather them up tonight, they have done so themselves. As we exit the pasture I let Gibson off the Ranger to run home. This boy lives to run and without missing a beat he stretches his long body out in full, effortless, ground eating stride.

When we return to the yard I collect the remaining Kelpies at the house and head out for a late evening walk. The light is fading fast and we are accompanied by the call of the cranes, the sound clear in the calm evening air. Their half birdsong, half purring trill is a soothing balm of sorts. The call of the cranes is a reminder to come back to nature’s pace and that all my answers are here, as they always have been. I know that I have to make a shift toward writing again. And to make a shift back into Nature’s psyche, both in the offline world and the online world. It’s no matter if the online world may not always support such tendencies, because those tendencies are what support me.

Friends Beyond Facebook. Series of five, each about 11 x 14 inches in size. Felted, made with wool. Awaiting framing.