A Navajo "Grand"mother

Arizona is home to 21 Native American Tribes.  One quarter of the land is reservation or tribal land.  The reservations have their own laws and judicial systems.  They have a culture that is very rich in tradition.
This beautiful lady is the great-grandmother of the baby in the cradleboard.  I received this picture after I posted the baby photo. 

She is dressed in a traditional Navajo fashion.  The Navajo Reservation is the largest in Arizona.  It is in the northeast corner of the state.  They are known for their beautiful weaving, I have already written about the sheep they raise to get the wool.  Arizona has several turquoise mines, and the Navajo people are also know for their turquoise and silver jewelry.   This women is wearing fine examples of both.

She lives in a traditional home called a hogan. It is made of wood, and has one room  The door facing east so she can wake
in the morning and greet the rising sun.

She lives in Monument Valley.I have been to the reservation,
houses are very few and far between.

I can't imagine what it must be live such a life, so quiet and peaceful,.  To wake up and see this view, not knowing about the troubles of the rest of the world. To me it seems like heaven. 

Cradled in Tradition

A friend of mine from work just became a grandmother.  The baby's mother is Native American from the Navajo Nation of Arizona.  When her mother came to Phoenix to see the baby she brought with her a cradleboard.  Kathy told me that when they wrapped the baby up and tucked him in for the night he slept soundly.  All mothers know how new babies loved to be swaddled.  The board is beautifully hand made of wood, the straps that hold the baby are hand woven.  The new baby is a boy, so new blue straps are being woven to replace the pink ones that were used for her last baby, a girl.  I don't know if this board has straps for carrying, but babies have been carried safely on their mothers backs for centuries wrapped in their cradleboards. I think it is a most beautiful tradition.

Some New Bear Making Inspiration

I treated myself this week to something special.  Rotraud Ilisch's CD, Teddies, Bears and All That...  I already own her book, A Bear of My Own.  It is the one book on bear making and designing I have held on to.  My goal has been to make a teddy bear with more realistic detail.  I think I have done that, I am now interested in movement, and where and how joints sit to give a natural "real" look, I am struggling.  Rotraud does go into some detail in her book, but her CD has given me much more insight into what I want.  She explains techniques I have been wondering about, like not jointing the neck, but using wire to move the bear's head in all directions.  I can hardly waited to get started.  Here is a link to her website, she really shares a lot of her information on bear making and designing there, as well as info about her CD.  http://www.rotraud-ilisch.de/

My other favorite book which will go hand in hand with the CD is Bear The Ultimate Artist's Reference.  I love this book, not only are the pictures incredible, there are 150 photos of polar, brown, and black bears, with lots of close up details.  Doug Lindstrand the artist has over 100 sketches. They are good for me because I can see detail so much better if it is drawn.  The lines of a drawing help me to see the lines of the bear better than a photograph.

One more bit of bear news, Alison McKee of eteddys has recently purchased a huge lot of mohair. Alison lives here in Phoenix and I got the opportunity to see her purchase, all I can say is WOW.  Excellent quality, much of it Schulte, some great fun colors you just can't get any longer.  And the best thing, the price, she is selling below Schulte's discount price.  Here is the link to her online store.   www.teddybearmohair.com

Arizona's Autumn Splendor

Anyone who has ever seen one of my bears auctioned knows I am in love with Arizona.  It is a place I choose to live, I was born and raised in Pennsylvania.  The desert is not for everyone, but the stark beauty of the landscape, against the huge expanse of sky really makes my heart sing like no other place.

Yesterday my husband, my daughter, and I took a train ride into the wilderness. We went to places that could never seen, except maybe on horseback.  The ride was about 4 hours long, the train only went about 12 miles per hour.  There was an open air viewing car, which was where most of out time was spent. 

I am an avid birdwatcher, and for the first time in my life I got to see a bald eagle soaring.

There were caves on the cliffs that were used by the ancient cliff dwellers, some you could still see the evidence of past existence there.

One special cave, the guide told us was a bear cave, it is the last picture.

The leaves were beginning to change, we don't get much color change, the trees here turn mostly yellow.  We were actually north yesterday, in Phoenix we will get the change around Christmas.

In the center of the cliff you can see the bear cave.  There is a ledge that leads to it.  Down the bottom is a creek, where he must fish.

Traveling Art

  

I discovered a new kind of art today, art cars.  I was walking with my dogs this morning,  I can upon the most fantastic van and trailer.  I came back later in the day and talked to the owner and artist of the van "Caulk-It" and the trailed named "Art Ark".  Nod D'Nal-Teews a formally trained sculptor, and former college art professor travels around the country with his Maine Coon cat in the art he has created from found objects. 

Nod standing outside of the van which has been textured using caulk which was applied with his fingers. 

If you look carefully, you can see a peacock.

a view from the back of the van.

top of the trailer

two stained glass windows made by a friend of Nods

two gargoyles stand guard on either side of the Art Ark

nothing is left untouched by art, even the license plate holder.

How wonderful and exciting to have such art show up in my neighborhood.  Thanks Nod for the personal tour.

Traveling With Animals

Some of you have seen these before, but they are so wonderful I wanted to show them again.  These are  license plates from the Northwest Territories of Canada.  My husband is a license plate dealer, and collector. His website is called Platedog.  He recently acquired these to sell, but I have already taken possession of the blue one for my work room.  I have been digging through his piles and have found other wonderful animal plates.

I would love to have this one on my car.

A beautiful lake loon, makes me want to go to visit Minnesota.

I can't imagine you would find one of these guys in Pennsylvania.

I can imagine sitting on the dock of the bay in Louisiana with a pelican.

And my favorite is of course Arizona.  Through the magic of Photoshop I have given it the animals.

I Love to Picnik

I have been playing in Picnik.  They have great new Halloween effects.  If you do not know Picnik, it is a photo editing site.  They have so many fun ways to doctor photos, and add text.  I have an upgraded account, but so much of it is free.  I have Photoshop Elements which I use for cutting and pasting, but all the doctoring is so easy on Picnik

Carefree is all dressed up for Halloween

I turned Tuysian into a drawing, and added it to his Certificate of Authenticity.

I do all the hang tags there, and then laminate, so easy.

A Taste of Autumn

Summer is finally over.  When I wake up in the morning the temperatures are now in the upper 60's.  There are many days during the summer when I wake up to temperatures around 90.  They say when you live here your blood thins,  I don't know if that is true, but in the morning now when I walk the dogs I am wearing a jacket.   I am so ready for cold weather I am making a polar bear cub.

My daughter is ready too.  She has been hungry for baked apples, and pumpkin pie.  She is an aspiring pastry chef,  good for my husband, bad for me, I am always watching what I eat. .  Last night she treated us to baked apples.   They were served over puff pasty, (you can purchase that ready made, it is a time consuming project) and topped with whipped cream.  yum, yum.

I took a picture of it using some of my favorite things.  I collect Fiesta Ware, which I just love, the colors are so pretty and the stuff is like iron, very hard to break.  I made the penny rug, from wool felt.  Growing up in Pennsylvania has taught me to love traditional folk crafts.

Baked Apples

6 large baking apples

3/4 cup raisins

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup water

1 TBS butter

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Core apples; peel off a strip around top of each.  Place apples in a 10" x 6" x 2" baking dish. Fill apples with raisins.  In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, water, butter cinnamon, and nutmeg; bring to boil.  Pour hot sugar mixture around apples.  Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven about 1 hour or till apples are tender, basting occasionally with sugar mixture.  Serve warm with light cream, whipped cream, or ice cream.

Serves 6

Smells better than any apple scented candle.

That Bear is Wired

I have started a new bear.  I wire the arms and legs.  I do this because I like to be able to bend the arms, and legs.  Also wiring the legs helps the bear to stand.  I use an 16 gauge aluminum wire.  I like aluminum because it is strong, but easy to bend and cut.  I purchased a roll on the Internet from a chainmaille supplier, it is lasting forever.   This bear is smallish, about 10".  If I were to make a larger bear the cuts in the wire would be touching, so there would be two wires together, all the way down the limb.

As you can see in the picture, the wire is measured to fit inside the bear's limbs.  I do not want it to go all the way to the tip of the paw area because I will be needle sculpting the paws and I need to be able to pull that area in with the thread.  It is bent at the looped at both ends.  The loop by the joint will slip into the hardware, the loop on the other end will keep the wire from coming through the fabric.

After it is the right size it is wrapped in layers of electrical tape, quite a bit is used till it feels kind of cushy.  Notice the top is left unwrapped.

Next the nut, then washer is inserted through the loop.  The washer will keep the wire from slipping back over the wire.  The whole thing is placed inside the bear, jointing is completed and the bear is stuffed. 

Felting Needles, They all Look Alike

For those of you that needle felt, you know those darn needles all look alike.  There are four sizes, maybe more, but I use four, coarse, medium, medium star, and fine.  With the exception of the coarse which is longer, I could never tell them apart.  I kept them in the rubberband the came in.  Maybe everyone else has already fiqured this out, and I am late, but I started color coding the handles with nailpolish.  Soon as I get a new batch I stick them in a piece of styrofoam and paint the handes to match the color code key I put on my facial cleansing cloth container, aka felting needle container. Now I can even keep them out on my pincushion without trying to remember which size I stuck where.