resurrection fern

my photography studio

The light is amazing especially in the morning and late in the day. It is completely solar powered. The backdrops are ever so beautiful. It doesn't cost me a penny, it is always open and I only need share it with the local wild things. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every so often I crochet up another covered tea saucer I have found at the thrift store. I almost have enough for a satisfactory wall display. It has been quite the week and I am glad it is drawing to a close. Hope those of you that are have the flu recover quickly and that the rest of you stay well. I leave you with the sun rise on my way to work this morning. There are some wonderful things you see if you must get up early to trod off to the office. I think that sole bird in the tallest tree was singing a good morning song just for me.

my world explodes in color

The heard frost of the last few nights resulted in a windfall of colorful leaves on the ground this weekend. Of course I saw this as a gift of materials for some ephemeral art. The only twist was the wind. It really didn't settle down at all until late Sunday afternoon so I tried my best to work on the more sheltered side of the porch. I refused to give up and move indoors because it just goes against the philosophy of environmental art. Of course Edgar also loves wet colorful leaves. He adores the way they smell. 

Layering autumn leaves on my favorite weathered garden bench is becoming a little bit of a tradition. Here is the latest version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few have you have asked about those shoes of mine. They are kaffe fassett needlepoint shoes that used to be available as a kit.  The skull on the colorful bench couldn't help but remind me of one of my mom's favorite artists, Georgia O'Keeffe. Hope I have helped give you a colorful start to your week. 

migration

"Then migrating warblers, lemon-colored, whirled down along the frail branches till I could hardly tell which were leaves and which were birds. I sat down on roughened ivory grass to follow the warblers with my field glasses. Scores of tiny birds, gay and quaint, making evanescent compositions among the laced twigs."
-- Florence Page Jaques, (1890 - 1972) author 

One of the things I love most about the autumn besides the kaleidoscope of leaves is the chorus of migrating birds overhead and less often in the large maple trees that line my property.  This latest bit of environmental art is a homage to those tireless little wings that make those long trips to warmer climates for the winter. I sometimes whisper to them little secret messages to tell my friends who live in the south. I wonder if any of you have heard them.

This ephemeral art was created with the berries of baneberry, blue beaded lily and false solomon's seal collected on my last walk in the forest.  Interesting that the berries of the baneberry can cause cardiac arrest in human if ingested but are harmless to birds who have the important job of seed dispersal.

 

 

 

 

 

I love how the remainder of the baneberry fruiting body looks after the berries are removed. It reminded me of the white pines as painted by A Y Jackson, a member of the group of seven.

 

For me one thing almost always leads to another and no sooner had I photographed this I was crushing and mixing with water some of these more colorful berries along with some sumac and bright orange berries of lily of the valley from my garden. I have a ton of vintage white velvet ribbon that I had been wanting to color with natural dyes for so very long. I pleated it up and tied it into neat little bundles and let then sit in the dye baths overnight and a day while I was at work. This evening I removed the colorful parcels and unfolded them. The colors were beautiful and some were totally unexpected when looking at the starting materials.  I now have them drying by the wood stove and can't wait to see how they will look in the morning. I have special plans for these ribbons and can't wait to gather some more materials to be surprised by.

 

From left to right : sumac, false solomon's seal, lily of the valley and the most exciting result of all blue beaded lily. I am totally smitten with that purple.  You see purple and I have a very strong relationship that goes way back. I will leave that story for another day perhaps.

It is amazing where a walk in the forest will lead one.

pumpkin crowns

Want to make a crown or seasonal wreath in minutes without the use of glue, sewing or wire? In fact all you need are some embroidery hoops and some colorful fresh leaves. If you are fresh out of colorful leaves you can create your own out of paper or stiff fabric.  I made my first one out of the colorful leaves of the 

staghorn sumac.

 This bush is one of the first to turn red in Ontario and it does so in gradients. I removed the leaves from a few stems and sorted them by color.

 Open up the embroidery hoop and lay the inner layer down on a flat surface.

 Now place the leaves around the hoop overlapping the ring by about one inch.

 When you completed the circle and with the outer layer of the hoop opened to its widest setting place it carefully down over the inner layer and the leaves. Tighten the hoop and admire your colorful display.

I bet you won't want to stop at making just one. 

My little wild thing liked the paper leaf crown the most. He said it really complemented his grey coat. 

Edgar is always close by when I am working on the porch. 

I think he agrees the colors, textures and aromas of autumn are very special. 

I might just have to add professional pumpkin photographer and stylist to my resume.

By the way happy apple picking bench monday to you all!!

CRIMSON

“It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.”

                                                   Horace ( ancient roman poet)

Today is the last day of the autumn week of color and is devoted to the color red of which my favorite shade is crimson. I love that word. It is has such antiquity associated with it. The first sources of crimson dyes trace back to the Egyptians who extracted it from the dried bodies of female kermes insects. This was later replaces with cochineal dye ( also a tiny insect) that the spaniards brought back to Europe after discovering its use by the Aztecs.

If you have ever experienced autumn in Canada you would know that there is a great deal of red. The maple trees are only just beginning to turn. The best is yet to come. The next picture is the last bit of my playing around with nature last weekend. I couldn't help but think of this little group of mushrooms as little children of the forest. I think this would make a darling little resurrection fern  postcard. 

I hope you all have a wonderful and of course colorful weekend. 

colorful circles in the stream of life

Stream of Life 

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. 

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. 

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow. 

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment. 

                                                                     RABINDRANATH TAGORE

The ephemeral art I showed your yesterday was really just a warm up for what I want to share with you today. This is something I have been envisioning in my mind for a while now and patiently waited until autumn had worked its magic on the leaves and the weather spirits were cooperative enough to allow the leaves to not be blown away while we ( my daughter and I) worked.  My only regret is that I didn't have a larger canvas to work on but then I would have had even more difficulty photographing it unless suspended from the ceiling. Just so you understand the scale of this, the finished product occupies my entire porch table. Good thing we are not really in need of it at the moment for meals as it is just a little too fresh outdoors in the evenings.  I hope your rods and cones pasted on the back of your retina enjoy this display. I know I thoroughly enjoyed working on last weekend.  It fits so well with the week of autumn color.                                                                                                                                          

So hard to pick a favorite circle. I think every time I look at it I change my mind but really I love each and everyone and they remind me so much of all of you out there who make my life so colorful and bright.  

Lastly here is my little contribution to the week of autumn color orange day.

Please come back tomorrow for some more orange to celebrate the first day of October.

autumn ephemeral art experiments

An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature's answer. 

 Max Planck

           

This experiment started with a handful of vintage yardsticks purchased from the young lad at the same garage sale where I found the vintage clothesline and a very colorful collection of leaves from my walks in the forest on friday and saturdays.  This is how my autumn is measuring up so far. Very colorful indeed. I am so glad I did this on the weekend because now it would be impossible with the heavy rains and winds we are experiencing. Ephemeral art is fleeting not just in the materials used but also in the opportunity to use such materials. When nature calls you have to listen or you might miss an excellent opportunity.

Today is green day (isn't every day green day) on poppytalk's week of color.                             

That was easy:)                                                                                            

                             

our love for colorful leaves and milkweed is hardwired

My love of september is nothing new. In fact I think most of my family has shared in this love over the years we have been together. Our love for colorful leaves and the subject of yesterday's post, milkweed is nothing new. I must apologize because for some reason I assumed that everyone knew what milkweed was and how important it is in the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Thanks so much Sonia for reminding me that what grows in my front yard may be not very familiar to some of your.

When my children were young it used to be thought of as a noxious weed and there were actually local laws against having it grow in your garden. My children loved them and even then knew of their magical importance to the ecosystem. 

That is a picture I found and scanned of my eldest daughter, Tamara, almost 20 years ago spreading the magic milkweed seeds. She called it fairy dust and was so fond of collecting and spreading it that I even made her a very special little pouch to keep it in. We recalled yesterday how she was scolded by a few unhappy neighbours that obviously had no understanding of the plight of the monarch. 

These mommy made special items of childhood become lasting treasures for them even into adulthood. Just in case any of you are ever wondering whether it is worth the effort. Just ask Tamara and she will tell you it definitely is.

The other affinity that is genetically hard wired in our household is our love of colorful leaves and especially those of our native maple trees.

Here is a little blast from the past to show what I mean.

That is Tamara, Rebekah and I up to our necks in leaves. 

Here is the result of some leaf play on the weekend after a walk in the forest.

That last one was taken just before the sun set. I just love how it illuminates the leaves and magnifies the colors.

I am reassured that no matter how much the world changes somethings will remain constant bringing vividly colorful reminders to seize the day.

my contribution to the milkweed project

First off if you haven't heard of this amazing project you should first read about it

  here. It was actually a few of my wonderful readers who first brought it to my attention many months ago. As soon as I read about Shan's vision I just had to join the hundreds of fiber artists from all over the world to create this magical installation.

I started this project months ago, spinning some soft natural merino wool to use and gathering together the other soft natural fibers and materials that I wanted to incorporate in this piece. They included alpaca, cashmere, silk, natural dyed wool felt and embroidery thread. Some times I have a complete picture before I start but this one just started with the idea of pods connected together and evolved step by step from that starting point. I wanted to share with you the steps and then show you some detailed pictures of the final piece. I hope you don't mind.

The first step after spinning the wool was to crochet it into pod like shapes connected by crocheted chains.

Then I threw this in a hot washing machine to felt it. My stones 

were the perfect drying platform for

maintaining the required pod shapes.

Next my attention was turned to what would later fill

 the pods, 

the milkweed seeds. I made tassels out of fibers 

and all of them

were so soft and luxurious. This is exactly what

 I imagine being inside 

a milkweed would feel like.

What I was working on this past weekend was hand sewing the natural dyed felt seeds onto the tassels. 

This took a long time but at least I got to enjoy

the amazing weather in the garden

and on the porch.

I literally fell in love with the milkweed seeds

 especially the silk cashmere ones. 

They became like my small children 

and I was mother nature putting them 

carefully to sleep safely in their pods.

 My eldest daughter helped me with this 

stage.

I love the flow and I really hope you can follow it.

 It is over 10 feet long 

and wasn't the easiest thing to photograph.

The milkweed pod is tightly packed with seeds

 and then slowly the pod ripens and opens

 revealing its magical, soft, silky contents.

 The seeds ripen and the silken fibers thicken 

and soften even more until

 they are eventually very soft, fluffy and ready

 to spread their little wings to fly away ,

 outside to explore the world

 and have their own adventures.

 It was only today driving home from work

 and thinking about this piece 

that I realized how very similar this is

 to my post earlier this week about parenting 

and back to school.

the forest in september and another blog giveaway

I was really tired after work today but I was compelled by the warmth and sunshine to take a short walk in the forest before dinner. The forest never disappoints me. 

I gathered up some color into my cloth bag and home I went to arrange it on my new porch dresser.

The contents overflowed from the oval quilting hoop.

I left to help prepare dinner and came back out on the porch just as the sun was sinking low in the sky and something magical happened to the display.

I am so smitten with that light.

It was even in my bedroom closet getting intimate with the deers.

To celebrate the forest at the beginning of september and my most favorite season and light the giveaway for today is an 8 by 10 print of fern and his friend getting ready for the new season sporting tiny little handmade sweaters and a crochet covered thimble necklace like the one in the latest mixtape zine. My tutorial on making one of these is featured in that issue.  

Leave a comment below by friday at midnight for a chance to win. Don't forget every post this week is attached to a giveaway so enter them all if you want. Tomorrow a very special musical giveaway. You won't want to miss it!!