moving

the bat nest is THERE now...

still

A great movie and one of the most beautiful songs about Love...

the hostilities have begun...

  A war has been declared... Australia fired the first shot... Belgium's honor is at stake...  I'm already gathering weapons and amunitions...

Yep, that booty was sent by Sue from Divajools (a very very talented woman)... she said she'd send me some kangaroo bone and a "few" things...  some of those things are going to end up on my monster... so my neck is going to suffer... so I say VENGEANCE!  ;)

THANK YOU Sue... those things are just awesome :)))

gypsy soul

 THE BAT IS MIGRATING....

soon...

as it is...

You’re not doing the Earth any good, ya know…

No, you aren't...

 

Do you know that it requires a lot of energy to keep photos online? A lot of it since there are gazillions of gazillions of photos online… I do know this… and I don’t feel good about it when I think of it… I have two blogs, a flickr account and a FB account… and oh, yes a pinterest account … but I have no boards… I joined because I was curious and slightly annoyed to see my stuff there…

I am more than annoyed now… I see a lot of traffic on my blog… a lot more than before… and most of the traffic comes from pinterest… I see some people spending hours on my blog, downloading photos from my blog… do they leave any comment to say they paid you a visit??? No… they don’t … the door was open and they grabbed what they thought they might like or what they thought their followers might like…  I do not want to lock the door… my blog is there for sharing my art and in this case, my rants… it’s a place where I met a lot of interesting people… and some very dear to my heart…  so I don’t want to lock the door and if friends want to put my stuff on their boards… that’s fine.. they are friends… but you, people that I do not know…I don’t really feel comfortable about it…  would it be too much to ask you to leave a comment first like “hey I really like this stuff, are you okay if I pin it on my board and here is the link to it” … now that would be nice… you know…  but it takes time… people have no time … for that… it’s a race… who will be the first to have like a million photos pinned on their boards… what a milestone! And it also makes me think of those Japanese tourists… the ones who book a 5 days tour of Europe… and all the time they take photos… they see nothing… but they got photos to prove they were there… 

So, yes, you were on my blog… there are pictures on your boards to prove it…  you sometimes even pin the same one two or three times… hard to remember you’ve already pinned it when you have thousands of photos pinned all over your boards…

edit : I have no problem sharing what I do, it's a blog, it's public... my problem is sharing without my knowing...that bothers me...

 

One of the boards I saw my stuff on was called « things to do if I have time » …

Well if you were not on pinterest or FB or twitter, here are a few things you could do :

1.       Create something (no, not a board… a real thing)

2.       Write an e-mail to a friend

3.       Call a friend

4.       Go for a drink with a friend

5.       Work out

6.       Watch a documentary

7.       Walk the dog (if you have one)

8.       Feed the cat (if you have one)

9.       Write a post (if you have a blog)

10.   Write a comment on someone’s blog

11.   Read a book

12.   Bake something

13.   Take a walk

14.   Take a nap

15.   Draw something

16.   Wash the dishes

17.    Clean the house

18.   De-clutter your closet

19.   De-clutter the computer

20.   Go see an exhibition

21.   Stop reading this silly list and do something that doesn’t involve a computer! ;)

pax

Layton Cemetery, Blackpool, Lancashire

los muertos are coming...

teeth

 leather, buffalo teeth, antique chinese coin, Victorian clay pipe pieces, found bone (cow rib?), bone beads, steel, needle felted raw wool.

resin, copper

african wolf

made it for my cousin a few months ago... bone, ostrich egg shell, African glass beads, wolf tooth...

Black Fossils

sterling silver hooks, my high fired ceramic fossils, cowrie, bone, ostrich egg shell...

Hearts and crosses

For the pendants on  the last two pictures, I used a stamp I made from an old tombstone (from the 16th century) situated in my village.

I think I have a thing for the color RED... maybe even a slight addiction...

///more about this COLOR...

in situ...in Blackpool

in situ

random

 Layton Cemetery, Blackpool, Lancashire

Today's find... it's life size plaster with a bronze patina...

mug shot

unfired...

scroll holder

inspired by the beautiful leather amulets from Ethiopia... more to come... lots of ways to use them... could put some fibers inside it instead of a piece of papyrus...  it's fresh from the kiln... ;)


note: the new header owes a lot to Gayle... she gave me the beautiful bat slide... :)

no title...

down to the sea

amulets..

for you... for me...

for that teenager in 1989...

adorned

I've forgotten how fun it was to wear bracelets!
The silver one with the chunky links belonged to my great grandmother, Julia... my mum gave it to me last Christmas... the links are hollow...

fierce hoops

sterling hoops with copper, coral ostrich egg shell, jade and wolf teeth

re-balanced

I was not fully satisfied with the monster's counterweight... so I re-made it...  I like it better that way... even though there is still room for improvement...

bracelet

with beads from Gayle, Janna and Lucie plus some of my stash...

on my bench

some stuff...

White King Black Death - statement necklace

It's Belgium's national day today...


I don't usually document the pieces I make... thought that for once I would...

A couple of days ago, I was browsing youtube, looking for something to watch (well I listen more than I watch) while making stuff (the said stuff is jewelry for a coming show)... I wanted something about the great plague... so I did a search with the key words "black death"... one of the first things to show up was a documentary called "White King, Red Rubber, Black Death" ... I checked it and when I saw it was about Leopold II and what happened in Congo, I decided to watch it...
I heard things about that time but did not know much... not really the kind of things they'd teach you in school... well not here anyway... (a bit like the mutinies that happened in the trenches during WWI or for those who live in the US like the Ludlow massacre)...
5 to 15 millions people died in Congo between 1885 (when Leopold acquired the land for his personal use) and 1908 (when Congo was given to the Belgian state) ... more died after...and more are still dying because of the aftermath of colonialism ...
So I was appalled, disgusted... I don't even know if I'll ever set foot again in the African museum in Tervuren...
And yesterday, while I was taking my bath (told you, ideas strike anywhere) I saw a neckpiece I could make to tell that story...

So before going to bed, I gathered the materials I would need... an old piece of ivory, a chess king, ceramic hands I made, copper wire (not an innocent choice... ) and of course a piece of rubber...
And today, I made what I saw in my head...

 I riveted the plaque with sterling rivets...

Under the king, a piece of rock that I drilled and painted a rusty red... Stanley was nicknamed Bula Matari by the Congolese people... it means "breaker of rocks"...

The following video can be quite shocking for some...



Here's an update... I think it's done now...

very still life

skulls, bones and teeth

wip

rain and more rain so I stayed in and made things...

balanced

I made this bag last month..needed a smaller bag for when I go walking...

The monster... I added more things to it... a few months ago Janna sent me a lots of cool stuff and I decided to add some to the monster... plus some other stuff... so it's getting heavy... very heavy... and my neck is not too happy about it.. In the past if I added something new, I removed something old (like stuff I bought ... I prefer using stuff that were given or found)... but now it's getting quite difficult... it's like removing whole chapters from a book...so I had to come with a solution...

The Hill Tribes people wear very heavy necklaces, mine would be like a feather comparing to theirs... and they even wear those necklaces while tending their fields... The Turkmen women wear very heavy necklaces too... and what is their secret? Counterweights... So I made one for the monster... I needed something heavy but not bulky... so I thought lead... yeah ... but... lead is toxic... so I decided to wrap the sheet of lead in red flannel (that I dyed) then sealed it in a leather pouch... I embellished the leather pouch a bit with some cotton fabric (that I dyed too), stitched it (number 9 is involved again) and add a cool kuchi charm (the one with the fish, the square one is from my stash) that Janna sent me... and now the monster is very comfortable to wear...

room with a view...

not my room... though... I would not mind the view... but you have to stay at the local hospital to enjoy it...

from a sunny island to a rainy country

Some pieces of Barbados : seeds, shell (very old), coral, beach glass, a holey stone, baby monkey teeth (one is already on my "monster"... need to take an update photo of it btw), silver earrings (already wearing them) and a gorgeous watercolor painting...  THANK YOU LISA! ... please check her blog if you haven't already had... it's a wonderful place to visit...

Oh and THANK YOU for the comments on my students works... I'll tell them when I'm back to school!

the future...

This is the last assignement I gave to my students before the end of the academic year : recycle objects into wearable art...  Don't you think they are talented young people (from 15 to 20 years old)?
It's just a selection...

this and that...

This is what my "cousin" brought me back from RDC... said I needed a shell to protect me...  cool thing... I wish I could have browsed that traditional market he went to...

And this is my cousin's band in action... he's the singer...



Found this ring (or should I say it found me) in an antique tribal shop... I think it's from Afghanistan... I'll visit that shop again soon... with my camera... I want to write something about it... it's so unique...

Not far from that shop is the weekly flea market... found this beaded knife...

And this ivory necklace (for next to nothing... clasp broken... so  I won't feel guilty for taking it apart).