New work....The Renhewitz Tower

   Here in my small town of Leavenworth, Washington, I am inspired by many things....from the rolling hills to the east, to the mountains that hold up the sky to my west. Even the architecture in this quaint tourist town can be inspiring to me....but that's a story for another time.

   Recently I went antique shopping at Apple Annie's, just to see what I might find. Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon boxes and boxes of old postcards, some dating back to the early 1900's. I sifted and sifted, trying to find some that piqued my interest aesthetically, and some that caught my eye because of what had been written. I ended up with a handful, but these two struck me with a combination of enchantment and awe.

   The first was a gorgeous monochromatic depiction of some unknown lake...probably across the ocean in Europe. The fine lines captured the feel that particular day, and I found myself falling in love with it...

On the back was a stamp from Switzerland, unused, and ready to be mailed to some unknown recipient.

And then there was this one...

It is addressed to Miss D. Geenen in Madison Wisconsin, and reads:


"Dear Doris,
    After leaving Holland- went thru Northern Germany - Denmark 8 1/3 of Sweden. Even the Germans have given up trying to clear away the rubble in some sectors of Bremen & Hamburg. What a terrible pasting they took.
   I must have been out of my mind to give up the warm spring of Paris for the mid-winter cold of Stockholm.
                     -Leif-"

I found my mind trying to understand what history this postcard records....a man, traveling through war-torn countries, seeing firsthand what Europe looked like in 1950, only a few years after WWII had ended. His word "rubble" paints for me a pictures of bricks, mortar, statues and more, still strewn about the ground, taken apart, just as they had been put together. My mind then travelled back to the brick tower in the first postcard....and that's where my next project was born...

I did a quick sketch, just to give my mind someplace to start.....I thought perhaps this would become a necklace that opens to hold a secret message inside...


So I set about making my "bricks" and "boulders". On the base, I carved the word "Dream", and added a small natural white topaz gemstone.

As carefully as possible, I began to add one brick at a time with my fine tweezers. I began to build....

....and build....

....and soon I needed more bricks....

The doorway on the postcard looked like an arch built with rounded stones, so I carefully and painstakingly created mine the same....

"Please don't fall over again!"

...more bricks....

By this point, I realized the tower was becoming a bee-hive shape, which was not what I anticipated. However, with art and with life, I think we can only control so much....so the design continued...

Looking inside, you can just catch a glimmer of the white topaz gemstone, hidden away from the world.

...and then, the final bricks of the top of the tower! It's difficult to see how the tower in the postcard was finished, but it looks like this could have been one possibility. I was finally done, with only a few bricks to spare.

The piece was then ready to fire....as it heated up to become a permanent piece of metal that would stand the test of time, I pondered who the actors were in this untold story....Doris, most likely was a college student, judging by the Kappa Alpha Theta address on her postcard. Leif could have been a suitor, trying his best at painting a romantic image of his life abroad in Europe. And finally, there is the author of the tower postcard, which I can only make out to be "T. Renhewitz". All searches on the internet lead me to a dead end, so perhaps I won't know who this artist was, or when he lived. But I will know how he lived, by the beautiful day he painted at some idyllic lakeside.

Let's check the kiln....

The Renhewitz tower is done! After some antiquing patina and a little shine, it stands tall and proud, just like the tower in the postcard.

My initials are carved into the bottom...

...and this little tower takes center stage with my other fairy-house/watchtower pieces.

I can't wait to get back to those boxes of postcards at Apple Annie's, and see what else awaits my imagination. I hope that Doris and Leif went on to live long and happy lives, and I hope that T. Renhewitz would be proud that his postcard still paints a picture of a sunny day, long, long ago.

"To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."

 ~Mary Oliver

Featured shop: Elukka from Finland

I just received a little package in the mail today from Finland. Inside, I found my new favorite necklace...a little house made from clay by Szilvia Vihriala at the shop: "elukka". The colors are amazing, so deep and rich...and the texture of the roof looks just like real shingles. Each house (the set I bought came with 4) is unique, with windows in different places. Here are a few pictures to show how gorgeous these items are!

Elukka doesn't just create houses...she seems to have a knack for creating canines as well...

From her description: "ELUKKA means "beast" or "critter" and that is exactly what I create: funny-looking animals, mostly dogs."

Here are my own pups modeling their new set of four elukka houses! (I told them to smile...but to no avail)

So check out this awesome shop from Finland...they are going to the TOP of my favorite shops list!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/78786385/redsaggar-fired-rustic-house-pendant

"I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive."
- Gilda Radner

Today's Craft: Sgraffito

"Sgraffito (sometimes spelled scraffito) is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colors to a moistened surface, or in ceramics, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting slip, and then in either case scratching so as to produce an outline drawing."

Another craft I got the privilage of learning this summer at Holden Village is the unique art of sgraffito. If it sounds a little like "graffiti", there is probably a good reason....in order to get the image you desire, you have to scratch the outside of your piece, whether it is a bowl, plate, or cup.

At Holden Village, this class was called "The Giving Bowls" because you don't get to keep the one you make! At the end of the snowy winter, the entire village starts making sgraffito bowls....they then take a pictures of themselves with their bowl, and write their email down on a slip of paper. A few months later, when I showed up, I received a bowl that had been made by the village pastor, and then the bowl I made will be given to another guest who arrives later in the summer. It is a pretty cool concept, and a great way to keep the thought of giving alive! Let's get started...

Materials:
Unfired pottery NOT dried to the point of greenware
Potters glaze
Sharp point for carving
Soft paintbrush for dusting away pieces of glaze

To begin, you will need to prepare a piece of pottery as if you were getting it ready to fire normally. However, to allow the piece to be scratched easily, you will need to keep the piece from drying out completely. Also, while the piece is still on the throwing wheel, apply a layer of glaze to the outside of the bowl, taking care not to get the glaze on the bottom where it will rest in the kiln. Keeping the bowl in a plastic bag will prevent it from drying out too much.

Handle your bowl very carefully, as the bowl is not as strong as greenware in this state. Next, begin carving with a pointed tool the areas you would like to remove. Instead of brushing the scraps away with your hand, use a soft paintbrush. This is keep your bowl from getting damaged by your fingers. For my piece, I wanted to recreate the central area of the village, with the mountains in the background. I made an outline of the peaks....

....and then removed areas bit by bit. I wanted to leave a little of the natural beauty of this mountainous village with the bowl, so I decorated the back side with local flora....

Daisies...

Ferns...

Trilliums...

Other artists hard at work....how can you not be inspired in a studio like this????

My mom's bowl...

Now that the bowls have been carved, they are allowed to sit and become "greenware", and are ready to be fired. Firing occurs in a gas-kiln, powered by the local stream, which is fed by the snow melting in the mountains around the village.

A few finished pieces, getting ready to find their new owners, the slips of paper inside are the email addresses of the bowls' makers....

And finally....after I finished my bowl (and gave it to Tara, the instructor) I received my own "giving bowl" to take home. The artist had carved a picture of one of the busses "Jubilee" picking up luggage at the dock...a fitting memory for a beautiful place.

"The value of a man resides in what he gives, and not in what he is capable of receiving" -Albert Einstein