This post will stay up top until Feb. 17th, with new posts below it. Thanks for dropping in to visit!
It's here!
For those who don't know me, I'm Jan Conwell and I make art dolls and folk art. With my husband, dog, and dog's foster cat, I live in South Texas (San Antonio) and where the weather lets me garden all year around. I grow herbs for food & medicine, lots of veggies, fruit & grapes for the table & wine. And flowers...for their beauty and their benefits to the local wildlife. An organic, balanced garden is a happy garden!
(Click to zoom in, back to zoom out...)
Les fleurs...
The Veggie Garden (fenced to keep out the Dog-Cat show).
I can shovel a lot of...fertilizer.
Native Mustang grapes, for a wine that doesn't take itself too seriously. :~)
The Dog.
The dog's foster-cat.
As JDConwell, I sell my art on Etsy, and as one of two Hermits, I sell with my leather-artist husband on Artfire and at local art shows. There are few greater blessings than to be happy, healthy, and doing what I love for a living. I am crazy-grateful for my life!
Okay, so to the point. The One World One Heart Giveaway, and my gift to the winner:
Isobel. She's hand sculpted of paper clay over cloth, wire and wood, and stands a solid 12" tall on a wooden base. Her dress is linen, cotton, and lace, and her hair is hand-dyed mohair. To win her, leave a greeting in the comments section, making sure I can contact you when the drawings are held. But please tell me a little about yourself too--the fun of this event is meeting new people and making new friends!
My husband, acting as Random Number Generator Man (while he wore my I Love Bacon apron and cooked his breakfast), picked the numbers 16, 5, and 1...
Said numbers (in order of posting) are
I told him this weekend he must buy a new chop saw. How awful is it for a guy's wife to pretty much demand he buy a new power tool? He has managed to keep his disappointment from showing, bless his heart, and has stoically agreed to buy one this weekend.
For the record, his old one was stolen from our shed last year, and he kept putting off getting a new one because...well, he's just practical. But I have some wood and clay dolls all planned out, and we need that saw! I hope he doesn't suffer too much.
Inspired by tales of Morrigan, a Celtic deity who can trace her roots back to the megalithic cult of Mothers, I wanted to tell the other side of a ghoulish Scottish folk song called Twa Corbies (Two Ravens). So here is Morrigan, having "thatched her nest when it grows bare-oh". Death gives way to regeneration...
Below the pics you'll find both versions of Twa Corbies as a poem, along with a You-Tube video of the folk song. The modern English one is more accessible, but the old one is the one sung.
The Twa Corbies
As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"
"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And nane do ken that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair."
"His hound is tae the huntin gane,
His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's tain anither mate,
So we may mak oor dinner swate."
"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare."
"Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane;
Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair."
(Now in clear English... :~)
The Two Ravens
As I was walking all alone,
I heard two ravens making moan;
The one unto the other did say,
"Where shall we go and dine today?"
"In behind that old turf wall,
I sense there lies a new slain knight;
And no-one knows that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound and his lady fair."
"His hound is to the hunting gone,
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl home,
His lady has taken another mate,
So we may make our dinner sweet."
"You will sit on his white neck-bone,
And I'll peck out his pretty blue eyes;
With one lock of his golden hair
We'll thatch our nest when it grows bare."
"Many a one for him is moaning,
But none will know where he is gone;
O'er his white bones, when they are bare,
The wind will blow for evermore."
Spoons. How silly is this? But they're both already made into very strange assemblage dolls, and I am having a blast! Have I mentioned I LOVE sculpting? Click to zoom, and more pictures once they're done. (The hubs said I should just hang them up the way they are. Silly boy.)
Years ago I found a couple packs of old wooden clothespins at a thrift shop. They were handy at the time because the hubs and I were selling at SCA events--I did medieval costuming--and it was better to have all our displays looking as "period" as possible. Yeah, these weren't period, but they were better than plastic clothes hangers.
So I have all these danged clothespins, and thought--dolls. Of course.
The gist is this...a giveaway! I need to learn how to manage a giveaway, and I want these little girls to have good homes. The one on the far right is a gift for a friend's baby. But list your favorites in order of preference for the other three...all three will find new homes. Be sure and put contact info in your comment.
I'll be doing others (I made quite a few of these teeny wenches) later, so hopefully the giveaway practice will help!
They each are about 4" tall. And I didn't give them names because it just seems like their adoptive homes should do that. :~)
(Later edited to add: Oh yeah! The drawing will be held January 30, and the dolls will be mailed the 31st.)
I posted a clean-out-the-studio thing the other day and a couple of people wondered about the ribbon holder thing. Sooooo, I figured it'd be a good topic for the ADO blog's "Tips and Tricks Friday" post. Honk if you love ribbons (but hate storing them.)
Sigorny, Guardian of Ribbons. (Another studio buddy.)
Could be that all the soul searching has helped more than I know, could be the full moon and magic beans, could be I'm just stark raving bonkers, but I feel like cleaning out, winnowing what feels like art from what feels like desperation. I have a better idea of what I want to do now. It'll take a while to get it right, but dang it feels good to have a direction.
To celebrate, here's a little clothespin doll I just listed on Etsy. I'm able to make these in less time than a lot of my dolls, so the price can be more accessible. Hope you like her.
I've been thinking about these things a lot lately, as I go through an unofficial Etsy workshop. Admittedly, I'm still working toward a style, a look that lets someone know "Oh, Jan Conwell made that." and it may be a while before that becomes apparent in my work. But in order to find it, I've studied hard to discover what is it I love to make more than anything?
One article I read this morning was so useful to me..."Can you describe you/your shop in six words?" The author came up with "Storyteller addicted to color and texture..."
I thought about it for a long time...what is it that draws me to a particular thing--whether it's to make or to bring into my home? I came up with "Procreative in love with old souls..." because all the dolls feel like children to me, and I cannot seem to resist anything young, helpless, forlorn, or tired and in need of TLC.
I looked for patterns in my work...and the things that stir me most, that make my hands itch to sculpt, sew, paint, assemble, are the things that reflect all the comfort and humor of long-ago.
Yes, an addiction to vintage is nothing new, but it was a revelation for me, because I'd though my tastes ran more to the wilder arts, the flashy sort of bohemian, eclectic, crazy folkart colors. I do love wild colors--you should see the furniture and fabric in my house!--but I seem driven to beat the hell out of it and antique it. There's got to be some psychological bad news in that, doesn't there?
So following the article's idea, to tell a story with my shop...I realized I needed to weed out the things that were more an attempt to chase a market. Yes, I can make holiday folkart, but I have to find a way to make it mine...to be true to something in me rather than aiming to mimic what sells.
I'm still searching for that quality that marks my work as mine--and still learning which medium is the best for me--but I think I'm getting closer.
If you were to describe you/your work in six words, what would they be?
Today I finally trimmed Schultz's doggy toenails. I start telling myself it's time to do it about a week before I actually do it. Which is really dumb.
He hates this. I hate this. The husband hates hearing about how much Schultz and I both hate this. Yet it's something I have to do or the poor little guy's toes go all wonky and sideways, and that's worse than anything. I know I could take him to a pro, but then he'd just get all traumatized by strangers.
It's never as bad as we both expect it will be. I use my Dremmel with a sanding barrel, and it's literally over in fifteen minutes, tops. The same thing goes with the bath and the haircut. He's a great little guy, and tries to be patient, but as soon as he hears the water running, and I come to pick him up, he growls a little just to let me know he'll cooperate, but not happily. Nevertheless, once we're finished, and he's got a special Grooming Day treat (he throws it around and dances for a while in his joy), we're both happy and can forget the d-d-d-dog grooming for a little while.
When he was seven or eight weeks old...I could bathe him in the sink.
Now he's big--23 lbs--and he still hates baths. He doesn't shed, but he gets awfully woolly...
Looking ever so tidy after a bath & haircut...hangin' with his foster cat Waylon.
I was dinkin' around with my sketchbook (note to self...sketchbook needs to be unlined paper from now on) and sketching faces. Using the Vogue magazine the hubs got me while I was in the hosp. last fall, (does he even KNOW me?) I had some good go-by's on "perfect" faces at least, although those are not my favorite to draw. Call it self-aggrandizement, but I prefer vast imperfections in a face...the sort of Willem Dafoe, John Malcovich imperfection mesmerizes me...
Anyway, I won't show all the little face-studies, but they were fun. A page full of little faces is interesting in its own way. But this lady was what stuck in my head. I think I will paint her in gauche watercolors, in peach and brown and aqua tones, but washy. (The cool thing about gauche is its opaque/transparent versatility.) I'll leave the portrait part off center, with barely-there texture, or reeeelly faded roses to fill up the remaining space. Not sure if she'll work in an oval frame, but that's what I envision. What do you think?
No, not really. It just feels like it this weekend. We close on our first rental house this next week, and then the work starts to get it rehabbed and rented. Spent all day today looking at other houses, ending with putting an offer on another one. Tomorrow we'll drive out to look at yet ANOTHER one.
All I really wanted to do this rainy weekend was stay home, do domestic stuff, and play in my nice clean room. (Pout, pout. Yeah, okay, poor me. A little cheese to go with that whine?)
Oh well. It's a three-day weekend for the hubs, so maybe Monday we can just fart around in footy pajamas. :~)
I bit the big one...and actually cleaned my room today. Well, almost cleaned it. I still have to sort through
a. beading & jewelry supplies
b. sewing notions, buttons, and trim
c. add-ons/potential doll stuff
But considering the room was so crapped out there wasn't even room to put my paint plate on the table, I think it's a good start. I had to fight like Superman against the Kryptonite of the dreaded distractions "....oh, but THIS could be used for..." and "Oh COOL! I didn't know I had THIS!"
Here are some pictures of the room. On the left are two wall cabinets (first pic shows one) that hold maybe eight large plastic tubs of fabric, and above it are potential doll supplies, etc. The right side is for sewing, the center table is where I sculpt/paint/build dolls. The Hubs made a couple of peg-boards for me over the last couple years, so I have the Hobby Supplies all strung up everywhere, and ribbon goes on dowels. It's an organized mess, but now I know where it all is, AND I can actually walk all the way around the central table. :~) HUGE difference from this morning. :~)
From the door of the room...
Sewing desk, and the Hobby Supplies mess. :~)
I got a CD rack for paint at the thrift shop last week.
Sometime last summer I snagged a bag of kids' blocks at the thrift shop. Not the cute little alphabet blocks, but the big, chunky stack-up-to-build-a-fort kind of blocks. As you surely understand, I had NO clue what to do with them, only that they were intrinsically valuable. For something. Sometime. Of course they were. And they were only three bucks for the whole bag!
So I put them in a wire hanging basket, and mostly forgot them, except for peering at them once in a while.
But last week, when I went in to my studio to meditate on what I could do to avoid cleaning it, the blocks spoke up, and one in particular had an idea for me.
This idea joined with some little bean-stalk seeds planted by a novel I'd been unable to forget (Jasper Fforde's "The Big Over Easy"--you'll never be able to forget it either...) to become my version of Humpty Dumpty. Only Humpty, regardless of any king's horses or men, DID manage to put himself together, because you see...he was motivated.
Sometimes, we just have to keep it together for the kids' sake.
...as always, click to zoom in, back button to zoom out...
Sorry. That is the punchline from a joke I can't even remember. I just can never forget the punch line. Welcome to my world. Huh-huh.
I was SUPPOSED to clean my room the last couple of days. Did I? NOOOOO. I made birds. Lots of 'em. And then I dug up this little box of unfinished wooden blocks I'd scored at a thrift shop...and well, long story short, the room is still a horrific mess.
