A Wild and Wooden Winter!

The Winter continues coming--wet, wild, and unrelenting so as to leave folks like myself weary, and bleary eyed with the ferocity of it. I do believe this has probably been one of the most memorable winters in quite some time, and while I try not to complain about those sort of uncontrollable things that the Universe decides to throw out, I can only pray for bees on city roofs (such as mine!), animals, and people out in what I have decided to call "The Great Snowpocalypse."

If there is any consolation to be had, it is that I have extra time to stay tucked in my little urban hovel, amongst steaming cups of chai and tea, old quilts, and various art projects I needed to finish.

On days like this, I take comfort in simple things around me. The garden has long since puttered out, and the six beehives are wrapped snugly for a long winter. Now is the time for crafting and art and, as it so happens, I've tons of art that begs to be finished.

If you didn't know or, more likely, can no longer keep up, one of my MANY, crazy, interesting careers involves art.  Lately, I've taken up woodburning, also known as pyrography. This involves using various hot implements (usually made of metal) to burn a piece of wood via extremely hot temperatures. Based on the amount of time, the control of the person burning, and the regulator that is sometimes used on equipment, one can create various shades of burn (brownish/sepia tone colors), and this creates a picture.

 The only impracticality of the whole thing is that this sort of art can take a LONG time, since one sometimes must go over the same area over and over to achieve the correct level of dark color, or must hover a certain amount of hand/wrist control to achieve proper shading (and stay within the lines! There is NO "erasing" any mistakes once the wood is burned!)

What follows is a story of enchanted bits of trees, I hope, part of a crazy creative line called Vagabond Creations. 

What is Vagabond Creations? I've sometimes struggled to define it, as it's not quite FARMING or the PERFORMANCE artist life that I have...but I've realized for a LONG time, that I've always had this notion of some tiny hermit living in the hollowed base of a trunk of an ancient decaying tree, making these enchanted things from found items in nature. Or else an enchanted gypsy peddler, selling the same wares from a colorful, steed-drawn horse that travels in and out of forests. These sorts of "vagabonds" would sell unusual items...influenced by old European myths and legends.


Actually, this sort of mythos and lore has always influence my performance art life, art dolls and to some degree, everything else. Funny how these things work out...

In any case, here is the whimsical woodenware pyrography:

 I'm still in the process of finishing this one up!


Anyhow, these beauties are available for YOU to take home!
Hopefully, you might like one of these lovelies for yourself? 
If so, please do visit "Ye Olde Etsy Shoppe" of mine by CLICKING HERE!

In the meantime, there will be more steaming cups of chai, dreaming of spring gardens, and crafts involving cloth dolls and art quilting....more on that soon!

What do you do during wintertime? 

Stay warm in this wicked winter weather!

The Star-Shone Year

My, how the sands have flown in the hourglass!  I cannot believe that, a blink of an eye ago, it was warm, sunkissed and flower strewn summer, and now here we are, another year bygone, and not a word from me!

I have to say, I'm in awe of those who manage a frenetic life and STILL manage to journal it, in some way, on these online blogscapes, but for me, I somehow never seem to manage to balance the DOING of the thing with the time to sit down and revisit it in written form. Thus, the sorry state of this blog over the past few months, for which I apologize!

Ahh, all has not been abandoned! With the New Year comes New Year's resolutions and--while most people chuckle at these early annual promises-- I'm one of these over-organizational types that REALLY does take these things seriously. At the same time, knowing what I know about myself I can safely say this...

I will be updating this blog at least once a week. I write this, though in my mind it sounds more like "why not update every day? Wouldn't that be more fun and interesting?"  And it would, because EVERY DAY is an intense, fun, amazing, frustrating, learning ball of wax around here (sometimes literally)!  There is beekeeping and growing things, and sewing and learning new crafts and meeting new people and falling down and getting oneself up all over again. AND managing to do this when economics are bad and rent is due, and there seems to be far too few career options!  And alas, the latter is what keeps me from just sitting down and writing this every day.  Thus, a weekly post will fit nicely in with the ramblin'-rose schedule. AT THE SAME TIME, should I have a free moment, I'll send another post your way....sound fair?

The idea of the horse drawn transport is still very much alive, though slowly inching along, so we're still very much into natural living and farm/city adventures, and I hope you'll still join in. And I'll be updating the year gone by shortly, including honey harvests, a Chicken Summer, and a possible new farm jobs. There will be many new things to examine and learn, I hope. In the meantime, I'll leave you with these pictures of a far flung, star-shone year:

 

What about you? What was your year like?