Representation of Work Expected For Spring and Summer Shows

Many of these items are available to purchase here.

I’ve been working to expand my offerings as I develop new skills and to fill interesting niches.

The weeks following Christmas are always very productive for me.  I’ve little money during this time.  We pay cash for Christmas gifts and meals so there is little left for  materials.  I have up to two weeks alone in the shop so I tend to explore projects using the materials at hand.

That’s how I became a carver.  I began carving spoons from fire wood and found wood.  Soon little birds began to emerge from these odds and ends.  Even when I must purchase wood to carve it is relatively inexpensive.

This Christmas (2009) I began to make Shaker style boxes and totes from wood I had in stock.  The wood used for these boxes is so thin than a relatively small piece of wood will produce a great deal of use-able material.

I’m gearing up for the spring and summer shows.  Birds will continue to be the centerpiece of my body of work.  After all I am “50 Little Birds”.  I have completed all of the carvings for the Folk School but several of the pieces are still available to purchase.  I will be offering 2-3 large “art pieces” as well as flatties.  Flatties are two-dimensional painted birds in the style of my carvings.  These less expensive birds can be used as holiday ornaments or simple hanging decoration.

I’ve also been exploring whale forms, specifically narwhals.

In addition to the birds I’ve developed some oval boxes and totes.  I began to build these in order to develop classes for the Folk School.  I’ve quitee a few on hand and enjoy painting them.  I expect to have 8-12 of these pieces with me at shows.

I’ve also been exploring Fraktur, Pennsylvania Dutch illuminated illustrations.  Many of these geometric illustrations feature bird themes and I consider this work to be an extension of 50 Little Birds.

Below I’ve collected a representation of the kinds of pieces that will be available at these shows.  I’ll let you know more about the shows as I am selected (or not) by their juries.

What Have I Been Sayin’ ?

I’ve worked in schools for over 25 years.  Before that I attended schools.  I know a little something about how folks learn and current education guidelines are clearly missing the mark.

Here’s a piece that backs me up.

New York Times

Playing to Learn

// //

By SUSAN ENGEL

Published: February 1, 2010

New Marlborough, Mass.

THE Obama administration is planning some big changes to how we measure the success or failure of schools and how we apportion federal money based on those assessments. It’s great that the administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.

Click here to read more…

Cape Forge – Bird Carving Knife

I’ve been teaching periodic bird carving classes through the Folk School.  We gather around a table or two, talk tools, materials and birds as we shape sawn white pine blanks.  Folk School president, Joe Rudy, took one of these classes and brought a long his chip carving knife made by Cape Forge in Dayton, Maine.

I’ve always carved with off-the-shelf chip carving knives and have been completely satisfied…no more.

My Mom purchased the Cape Forge bird carving knife for Christmas.  For a month carved with my old knives and pulled out the Cape Forge for detail.  This last week I started caving, in earnest, for spring shows and after a few days I noticed that I stopped picking up other knives and gouges.  Last night I rough carved a couple of birds and found wing positions emerging that I could never have carved without this knife.

The wicked sharp (shiny sharp) blade has a pronounced curve and a tiny point.  The curved blade allows the carver to roll through the cut and follow the contour of the bird.  The tiny point allows access to the tiny areas behind and below the wings.  The tip curves so far back that I often find myself pushing the blade, much like a chisel.

Not only do I get this new repitoire of cuts, but the knife is spectacularly sharp.  The folks at Cape Forge ship knives sharpened.  To maintain the edge I simply touch it to a charged leather buffing wheel on my drill press.  I have to do this a couple time each week.  The operation takes less than 30 seconds.

I’ve ordered their standard carving knife as well as a bent knife for spoon carving.  I have an eye on a small drawknife for carving ukulele necks.  Nice stuff.  Great people. These are the knives that I will be recommending from now on.

Please Support This Amazing Project

I work with Amanda and Neal Taflinger in their wildly popular INDIEana Handicraft Exchange.  This arts minded couple is truly dedicate to improving Indianapolis.  Please consider supporting their efforts outlined below.

Click Here to Support this Project

Hello folks!

Neal and I are up for a grant to help make our store, homespun, a reality. It’s a project we’ve been working on for a while, and we’re planning to open by July 2010, on the east side of Indy, in Irvington. The store will showcase the work of local, regional and national artists, provide a classroom for low-cost arts workshops for youth and adults, and offer a small gallery space for up-and-coming artists in the Midwest. This grant would get us a little closer to our goal and relieve some of our personal financial burden. However, the grants are awarded based solely on votes acquired, so we need YOUR help.

It won’t be difficult or painful, I promise….all we’d like you to do is click on the link below and vote for our project. Each voter is able to vote for our project once a day, every day from now through February 28. You can even set a simple notice on your iCal, or similar application, on your phone or computer to remind you to place your vote daily! We’re currently ranked #4 in our category, and as long as we remain in the top 10 through the rest of the month, we’ll get the money!

While you’re voting for ours, check out some of the other ideas. There are some fantastic proposals up right now, all ideas on how to “refresh” our world – how to change things or make things better across the U.S. 32 projects will win each month. Heck, if you’ve got a great idea, get your own proposal ready to submit next month. Pepsi has $1.3 million to give away each month for the next year. It’s a pretty amazing opportunity, and I know we have motivated friends and family whose brains are brimming with productive, creative ideas! Individuals, non-profits, for-profit businesses and organizations are all eligible to apply. The categories for projects range from Arts & Culture to Health & Nutrition, from The Planet to Neighborhoods and more.

Click on the link below to vote for homespun today. Save the link in your browser, and vote again tomorrow…and the next day….and the next!

Thanks for your help!
-Amanda Mauer Taflinger & Neal Taflinger
INDIEana Handicraft Exchange

P.S.) A helpful hint: you can vote once a day from a single email address…so you may actually be able to vote twice a day, or more, if you have multiple email addresses! Just sayin’!

P.P.S.) If you have a group of fans or friends you think might be interested in voting for us, please, by all means, repost, repost, repost! Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, your personal blog, whatever. We’ll take all the attention we can get! Thanks again!

P.P.P.S) Unfortunately, yes, you will have to “sign up” on Pepsi’s website, which will probably put you on a mailing list. But, after you’ve done this good deed for the month of February, you can certainly unsubscribe! (Or you could just create a new junk mail account for occasions just like this.) Please don’t let that stop you. In fact, I am giving you permission right now to forward any junk email they send you directly to me in retaliation!

February Album Writing Month

Blue Stone Folk School associated artist and performer, Cara Jean Wahlers sends the following item tht I thought might interest you…

I wanted to tell you about February Album Writing Month. Or FAWM, as they call it. You can check it out at fawm.org. In short, it’s an international songwriting challenge to write 14 songs in 28 days. I’m registered on the fawm.org website and also have a blog to document the process – 28 posts in 28 days. If you’d like to read it, you can go to wahlersfebruary.blogspot.com. Please, though, do understand that the songs I’m going to post are very quickly written. I’m going into it, considering them rough drafts. Feel free to leave comments, if you’d like. I’d love that. There are a few other people in Indianapolis taking the challenge… Jeb Banner and PJ Christie from Musical Family Tree. You can sort by location – you never know – you might see someone you know! I’ve been emailing people in Germany, France and the UK for the past couple of days, exchanging ideas and words. It’s been really fun. Thanks so much for reading. Happy February to you all.

BTW – You can see Cara and a bunch of friends (including Folk School friends Stacia demos and Pholly) here:

VDAYPOSTER

Some Cara Links:

Cara Jean Wahlers Website

Reverbnation

MySpace

FaceBook

A Few New Items for Sale

I’ve just added a handful of Shaker inspired boxes and tote to 50 Little Birds on Etsy.  There’s even a little wood bracelet!  Please click on ech photo and take a minute and to look.

Another family Tradition – Fraktur and Pennsylvania Dutch Decorative Arts

I (and a handful of others) have written about my family and their ukulele playing tradition.  My maternal grandmother learned to play ukulele in college in the 1920s.  My mother learned in the 1940s and 1950s.  I learned in the 1960s and 1970s (and continue to learn).  My teenage daughters are playing now.

Another family tradition has followed a similar path.  My mother is an artist.  Growing up I remember card tables covered with freshly painted ornaments.  A dower chest with my parents wedding date dominated our family room.  In the early 1970s many family members carried wooden purses covered with my mother’s decorative paintings based on Pennsylvania Dutch Fraktur.

I came across one of my mother’s purses about a month ago.  I’ve written about the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of bird carving and how it’s influenced my work.  I’ve been looking for ways to align my creative projects with my own ethnic trditions. I was thrilled to see my mother’s interpretation of Pennsylvania Dutch birds.

I teach 5th and 6th grade at an Indianapolis Public School.  Our new art teacher arrived following our winter break.  Her first lesson with my students centered on the use of hearts in artwork.  I was thrilled.  hearts are a strong Pennsylvania dutch motif and I jumped at a chance to lay out traditional OG hearts using a compass.  It gave me an opportunity to talk about geometric construction and symmetry.

I jumped on the internet and began exploring images of 18th and 19th century Fraktur.  I was hooked.  I’ve begun to fill a notebook with images.  I’ve constructed and deconstructed dozens of geometric hearts, flowers, birds, suns and stars.  I’m beginnig to see ways that I could carve the highly stylized birds from this artwork and that I could stylize the images that I love (crows, kingfishers, narwhals, etc.) and develop contemporary interpretations of Fraktur.

I’ve included some images from my notebooks including a color study.  There will be more little bird Fraktur.  Another tradition continues.

With a Wild and Heavy Heart

With a heavy heart I am sharing an email that I received from Jane Mills this morning.  It looks as if The Wild will be closing its doors.  Jane Mills has become a good friend and has done so much good to bring books, art, music and clarity to Noblesville.  I hope that someone can step forward and continue the good work that she has done with her husband, Ernie and son, Fritz.  I have had the oportunity to share my stories, music and art with her customers (Those 120 uke players are Folk School students).  She’s employed by daughter, Hannah.  The store has been the “cracker barrel” for forward thinking politics.  It is so sad to see such an important local business fade away.

Dear Friends,

The Perfect Storm of circumstances, some predictable and some personal, has
forced us to make a very difficult decision.  We have made the The Wild
available for sale.  If no buyer is found by February's end, we will close.

When we opened The Wild in 2005, we had a most romantic vision for what it
would be.   After more than four years, the reality is that it became more
than we had ever dreamed and one of our most personally gratifying
experiences yet.

Together, with you, we have:

--Read more than 1500 stories together 

--Hatched 7 healthy baby chicks

--Collected and delivered enough peanut butter and jelly to Horizon House
homeless shelter to make 1800 sandwiches for people in need

--Completed so many craft projects that we stopped counting around 10,000

--Eaten 1.35 Dum Dums for every completed craft project

--Through OLG and St. Paul's Church, donated thousands of books to children
in Appalachia, many of whom had never owned a book of their own

--Graduated more than 120 students from ukulele classes

--Given $30,000  in discounts to local teachers and schools

--Learned to knit, paint, sculpt, needle felt, cook, properly brush our
teeth, safely approach dogs, write stories and poetry

--Helped grow the collection of library books at New Britton Elementary in
memory of Wild Child Katie McGee who lost her battle with leukemia in July
of '08 at the age of 9.

--Displayed the art of at least 200 young artists

--Decorated more than 600 cookies and 360 eggs, made a home for fairies,
tutus for dancing, pirate chests for burying and one of the coolest trash
art robots ever

--Enjoyed the company of visiting snakes, trained dogs, potbellied pigs and
dancing chickens-all of whom were almost as fabulous as the humans who
shared them with us

--Raised more than $20,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to help find a
cure for CF, in hopes of giving 30,000 kids across the country a chance at a
future

--Met countless authors and illustrators 

--Kicked up our heels for the Breaking of Dawn, the Dog Days, the Deathly
Hallows, Five Ancestors, Rattlesnake Season, The  End, The Last Olympian and
the Son of Promise 

--And, perhaps most importantly, taught one another by sharing our
differences

Thank you for buying a book from us when you could have gotten it someplace
else.  Thank you for your stories and your friendship, for your loyalty and
support.  We have taken it all in and have been honored to be part of your
lives during the best and worst of times.

There are a number of you who deserve a personal thank you.  For fear of
leaving out a name, if you are an artist, author, teacher, musician, mom,
dad, firefighter, librarian, dentist, veterinarian, grandma, grandpa, scout
leader, historian, 4-Her, chef, dinosaur hunter, herpetologist, farmer or
friend who has taken the time to share your passion or your craft with our
young Wild kids, please accept our sincerest thanks.  To our employees, all
three of you, you have become and will always be considered family.

Our plan was to leave the world a better place when we finished than it was
when we started.  Together, we did just that.

With Sincere Gratitude,
Jane, Ernie and Fritz Mills

The Wild

884 Logan Street

Noblesville, IN 46060

Warren May Plays Dulcimer with Eli – Berea, Kentucky

Broom Making – Berea College