More shell designs

January has been a time to go thru the box of sea shell and work on some new designs…

Shell and Carnelian Pendant

This piece from a interesting, but larger shell fragment…I’ve been working on how to use some of the larger pieces without them being too heavy, or look too awkward. This one seems to work and I have “test” worn it on a couple of occasions.

Pearl Nest Pendant

“Pearl Nest” is made from a well worn oyster shell… tumbled in the sea! (Tybee Island, GA) It looked like just the place for a nest of pearls! The nest is made from a mix of silver and gold polymer, and the bale is sterling silver.

Shell with polymer dangle pendant

This beautiful shell fragment has purple, silver, and gold tones…the sea worn holes were perfect for the silver bale and the three dangles. I used polymer clay to make beads to compliment the colors in the shell.

Pink and Grey Flower Pendant

Another “flower” made from shell with polymer beads. These shell pieces conjure up flowers…

Currently some new polymer jewelry is underway…different techniques and some experimental pieces…some have come and gone while my camera was out of commission (got wet in October while trying to collect more shells before a storm hit….), but others I will photograph soon! Some of these, and similar pieces are available for sale at the South Carolina Artisans Center, Walterboro, SC. Please contact me if you have any questions on the jewelry or any of my work…

Branching out…

This fall I was finally able to visit some ginkgo trees for fresh inspiration! Memories of beautiful yellow fans covering the tree in a neighbors yard…. Below are a few new Ginkgo Leaf pendants.

Double Ginkgo Leaf Pendant

Ginkgo Leaf Pendent with Copper Bail

Ginkgo Leaf Pendant

 

These, plus other leaf and “flotsam” (sea shell) pendants and earrings are available for sale! Most are the in the $35.00 range. Please contact me if you are interesting in purchase!

Mice in the leaves and vines

Since I am under the impression that Hershey and her friends are ALWAYS just out of sight…and I spend looking in the weeds, leaves, and undergrowth to try and catch sight of them…I see those close up bits of nature that influence my art. Especially the three-dimensional work. To add to the selection of leaf and grape inspired jewelry and boxes I decided to try covering some cheap glass bottles I found at the craft store. Below are my first two attempts.

Grape Vine Vase

 

The oak leaf and acorn vase goes nicely with the oak leaf box I showed in a previous post.

Oak Leaf Vase

Unfortunately my camera got damaged in a downpour at Tybee Island back in October, so getting good photos of anything new is going to be a problem for a while.

Note: all of my work is for sale…send me a message if you are interested in anything and I can provide prices…BTW I can invoice via PayPal.

Watch out for mice…

the “flotsam” collection

A selection of the new “flotsam” pendants that can be purchased at the South Carolina Artisans Center, Walterboro, SC.

sea shell, handmade polymer beads, and wire pendant

Sterling wire, oyster shell, polymer clay, and freshwater pearl pendant

oyster shell and handmade polymer "peas"

All these pieces are made from shells and shell fragments from various beaches on the Atlantic coast. The beads and other polymer additions are hand done for each individual pendant. The pearls are freshwater pearls. Some are tinted.

New Artisans Center Member

I am pleased to announce that my jewelry has been accepted in the South Carolina Artisans Center, Walterboro, SC. The guild runs a shop with the finest arts and crafts from artists though out the state. Folks traveling Interstate 95 along the east coast — be sure and make a side trip to the center. There are interstate signs and it is an easy side trip if you are making the long drive from north to south or vice versa!

 

Here is a selection of the jewelry I have at the center’s gallery. The first two are from my new “flotsam” collection…incorporating Atlantic coast shells I found while beachcombing. (had to do SOMETHING will all these shells!)

Pod Necklace. Oyster shell and polymer beads.

Flowershell Pendant. Sea shell fragment and polymer clay

Japanese Maple Pendant

Maple leaf stud earrings - polymer clay

 

These pieces (and more…) can be seen in the shop in Walterboro. Ask for M.C. Churchill-Nash’s jewelry! For more information on the Artisan Center their website is http://www.scartisanscenter.com/

Where did spring go?

Hershey here…. been so busy around here I haven’t been able to get near the computer.

In the great outdoors we have had lots of spring and summer storms. Trees down. Pine trees. No one mourns the pine trees… And lots of bird families this year! Three nests of Mockingbirds, three SC Wrens, one Cardinal, and one Tufted Titmouse. Baby birds are FUSSY! Most of my mice relatives have moved out for the summer. Some to the barn. Some to the surrounding woods.

Here in the studio there has been lots of activity too! Commission portraits, illustration projects, more music CD art…plus new jewelry and paintings. While a bit off schedule on completion the series of bulls and cows is coming along nicely…The painting from last summer is still out with the SC Watermedia traveling show. Below are some new watercolors.

"Black Cow" watercolor

"Attitude" watercolor

"Red Cow" watercolor

"Purple Cow" watercolor

More watercolors are in progress and then we’ll see if we can get an exhibit in the works.

Next post I’ll see if I can get some photos of the new jewelry…

Later, Hershey

Mouse eye view…thru the weeds and beyond

Beautiful morning here! Although a bit windy…glad I am close to the ground or I might blow away. This is my first trip outside this year. I know it isn’t spring yet, but it sure feels like it!

 

The flowers seem to think so too…I ran across some daffodils coming up in one of the flower beds.

Coming up through the back pasture you can see the studio in the background…

Hmmm…lets see what we can find up here in the studio. Good thing she doesn’t clean up much. Lots of places for mice to hide. Looks like she has been working on some jewelry. A pendant with a little dog on it, some more copper and silver things…and what are all these leaves doing???? Oops…it is another maple leaf pendant. Thought is was real there for a minute.

jewelry in the studio

And over here we have a bin of drawings and watercolors.

drawings and paintings

eekkk….I hear somebody downstairs…

Stop and enjoy your Monday!

Hershey

Mice in the attic…

Oh Wow! Me an’ Laurel have been snooping around in the attic. MAN there are a lot of reeeeaaallly old art works up here… We have struck gold!

I just hope we don’t get in too much trouble for this. I’m not sure some of these drawings were meant to be seen. After all they date WAY back to grade school…but hey, if M.C. is leaving them around she can’t blame US.

Starting with an old sketchbook of mostly pencil drawings. Animals seem to be the main subject matter (she just can’t get over the horse thing…even today) There is only ONE drawing of mice! So that will be our “Post of the Day” — “The Mouse House”

 

Rambling through the studio…the mice take over the blog

Hi! My name is Hershey and I am going to do most of the blog posts for a while. MC has been swamped with things she is behind with…and needs to get back to the drawing board. That stupid horse didn’t help… dumping her in the dirt and spraining her ankle. I may just sneak down to the barn and steal some of her grain! Serve the old nag right.

I have been snooping around the studio and found interesting projects and paintings that I think she has forgotten about… like a portrait of ME!

Hershey

She must have seen me sneaking around in the houseplants… And what have we got over here? Looks like the underpainting for a portrait of her son with one of my relatives on his shoulder. Gee she really should get back to that one…her son has graduated college…he’ll be old and gray  before she finishes.

Brett and Laurel

Hmmm….I’ll be looking around for more interesting things sitting around up here.

Off for now, Hershey

Rambling, and seeing what’s before you…

Just got around to reading a Saturday column by Lawrence Toppman in the Charlotte Observer — “In an Age of Miracles, We Settle for Mush.” As a visual artist, with a musician husband and son, this article struck a nerve. I am not going to try and paraphrase…but suggest you read the piece for yourself…but the gist is how our “have it now” society has hurried us through the museums, film, music and other art forms to the point that few people see or reflect on the actual painting, movie, or music. So sad. So true. Reminded me of a trip to see Mayan ruins where one of the other tourists had so many cameras and bags hanging off his body he could hardly walk, much less see the beauty around us….he, like the museum goer in Mr. Toppman’s article, didn’t get to see anything until he got home and had his film developed (was back in the film days…).  http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/01/29/2015320/in-an-age-of-miracleswe-settle.html

Reflecting on that Yucatan trip….I took a FEW photos (more of the snapshot variety, only had a cheap rangefinder at the time)…I need to hunt up the prints and see if they inspire any paintings or jewelry. Somehow I doubt that my photos captured the quality of the light…but I remember the jungle beauty quite well. I also remember being stuck in the mud in a very old LandRover.

Meanwhile, here are a few watercolors.

Smokey Mountains - watercolor

This is the way I will always think of the Smokeys…hazy, green, and damp.

Snowstorm - watercolor

The paint pony in the snow…very different atmospherics from the mountain scene!

A second cousin lived on a Florida cattle ranch. I was lucky enough to get up close with this VERY friendly bull. He loved to have his head scratched.

Back to the Toppman article….it is hard to comprehend why anyone would go to a ART museum and photograph paintings (on a phone no less!) to look at later! Even a high quality art book cannot convey the reality of a painting…the scale, the brushwork, the color, the detail…????????????????????????????????? Even my own, more modest, paintings lose many of the qualities of the original works on paper. You cannot tell how the paint sometimes sinks in and stains the paper – sometimes sits on top, almost an impasto (at least as much as you can get with transparent watercolor paints)… color nuances get lost in digital translation…

OK….now GO to an art museum or gallery. LOOK at the PAINTINGS. Look at them up close. Look at them far away. Spend some time with each one. But LOOK.

 

The inspiration of autumn color

 

Some years ago I spent my lunch break at my day job sitting in my car — eating crackers and yogurt — and sketching in a small bound book. It was this time of year and the oaks were blazing red. All I had was a black pen. The notation next to the sketch reads “Oh, glorious pagan oak, nodding his flame red crown to God.” 

 

This year I recorded the oaks (and maples, and elms, and crepe myrtles, and…) with my camera. And then followed up with some jewelry designs.

One of the chestnut oaks in my front yard.

 

Oak inspired pendant and earring set.

 

Early morning trees at the edge of the front pasture.

 

Polymer jewelry in progress in the studio.

Autumn Color – Yellow Maple Leaves

All the leaves are on the ground now…but the big Maple in my front yard was brilliant this year! Here are some photos of them and of the new necklaces they inspired.

 

Yellow maple branch

 

Maple Leaf Pendant

Yellow Maple and Blue Sky

 

Double Leaf Pendant

Autumn Inspiration Post three

 

These are the last of the fall tree color pictures of this season. 

 

Crepe Myrtle late afternoon.

The next one depends on the gold of my dappled buckskin mare for color.

 

Gold horse, green tree, dark shadows.

 

 

Nandina

 

Crepe Myrtle

 

 

New Year ramblings…

The year has started off bright and sunny, but cold cold cold. 

My 2009 started off early holding my horse for the farrier at 8:30 am. Best part of the cold was that the mud was frozen. The worst part was that my toes froze!  Mid-afternoon it was warm enough to venture out to ride. Dakota was a good girl in spite of the fact we haven’t worked much since the days got short (may the economy pick up so I can add a light near the arena).

My husband has been at the recording studio, working on final tracks and mixing for a new Cagle & Nash CD. My son, the drummer, went to Athens (GA) for New Years Eve. So I spent the rest of my New Years Day working on some neglected art projects…and I hope to add new pages with some paintings and photography soon.

May everyone have a….

 

from Stanley the Cat

Year End Stumblings…..

Nothing like going straight from the first post of the year directly to the last. It has been quite a year and I THINK I’m glad it is almost over.

Merry Christmas from Kitty Klaus

Aside from the miserable economy and the election hoopla I had a catastrophic hardware failure in February. All data was retrieved — at a cost! But lets just say, I am still trying to catch up with updating websites, getting art work completed, stalls cleaned, pastures mowed….

Snow Ponies!

We had one really nice snow (March, I think). Dakota and Danny did not know what to make of it.

The big news of the year was getting the long-worked-on CD “Soul Complete”…well…. COMPLETED! (Cagle & Nash, Soul Complete, available at iTunes, CDBaby, Amazon, etc.) Husband, Rick, and his songwriting partner, Greg, had been working on this the last half of 2008. Several tracks are currently being playing on broadcast and internet radio throughout the world. Smooth Jazz and R&B….I’ll upload audio clips when I figure out how. Their second project – a single – is a holiday song “Celebrate the Holidays” which is available at iTunes etc. for download. (Anyone that wants a CD will have to contact us directly to buy it) And, to toot MY horn…I created all the artwork and did all the graphic design for both CDs. (bit of a pun as Rick is a trumpet player)

Greg and Rick setting up for the CD Release Party

Soul Complete CD Cover

Cover Art for “Celebrate the Holidays”

This year was a good one for watercolor commissions…I’ll post some AFTER Christmas and they have all been received — would hate to spoil a surprise. Did a couple of local artist markets and sold some jewelry and miniature sculptures. The Tree Twists were the biggest sellers! Currently I am working on polymer covered boxes…will add a page of those soon.

Maple Leaf Box

Here is one of the boxes. It is about 5-6 inches wide, a wood box covered with polymer clay. The leaves are all individually sculpted from polymer. There are endless possibilities with this technique. At one of the shows people kept thinking these, and some of the jewelry (mainly the leaf jewelry), were made of leather.

Below is the largest of the Tree Twists. It is about 3 inches high. These are perfect for miniature holiday scenes for those of us who like something a bit abstract.

May everyone have a wonderful holiday season and (if I don’t get back to this soon!) a very Happy New Year!

Tree Twist

New Year….New Designs

2010 has started out as cold as 2009, and while the economy has improved a tiny bit, there is still no money for arena lights. Or much of anything else. Danny the mini horse has put up with a lot of silly photo shoots….he actually is wearing the hat, it is not photoshoped on.

Danny the Jester

Fall and winter leaves are always inspirational, and the leaf design jewelry and boxes received very favorable comments and sales at some art and craft shows I attended this fall. I am particularly enthusiastic about the boxes.

Oak Leaf and Acorn Box — Polymer clay on wood box

Japanese Maple Box — Polymer clay on wood hinged top box

Star Box — Polymer Clay and Mirror tile on wood box

Holly Berry Box — Polymer Clay on wood box

These are the most recent of the polymer boxes. More to come thruout the year!

tripping…

It has been a busy year so far….traveling to Atlanta for the big gift show…weekend in Asheville to take a wonderful Kathleen Dustin polymer clay technique workshop… (more on these next post.)

Without a doubt I have lots of ideas for more art and design projects than I will ever manage to complete. But I will give it a try! Jewelry, paintings, photography….

Meanwhile I will share some travel photos from August 2009 I never managed to upload. First was a short trip to Charleston.

Charleston Market thru a cafe window

Market Street, Charleston

Market Street Reflection

Next was a slightly longer trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, where I grew up. Had a ball taking photos in the old downtown areas. I have photos of many of these same buildings that I took YEARS ago. But I’ll have to scan them into the computer. Will be fun to view them side by side!

Gay Street

Jackson area storefront

Near Summit Hill

Warehouse area

Sure miss the old JFG sign that filled the cup… And thankfully they took down the horrible mushroom sidewalk cover on Market Square!

Market Square

Atlanta!

The first trek of the year was to the Gift Show in Atlanta, GA. WOW! I’d heard about this show, aimed at retail buyers, for years. Ever since I did some ceramics painting for Alexandra Odell when I first moved to Charlotte. It totally exceeded my expectations!

Due to other obligations I could only spend two days at the show (as an assistant to a friend buying for her gift shop), which was not near enough time to take it all in. While helping Liz to scope out items for her shop I was doing research of my own…. Seeing what the showrooms for stationery and cards, jewelry (handmade), etc. were offering –the color trends….

Couple of designs for note cards.

 

My favorite sections were the handmade booths in the temporary area and the holiday/seasonal booths in both the temporary area and permanent showrooms. The temporaries are much like a large tradeshow. Floor, after floor, after floor…. It was easy to get turned around and lost! At one point I found I was going around in circles and seeing the same booths over and over and over… The handmade booths had a good deal of interesting jewelry and some lovely fiber (belts, stuffed animals, dolls, pillows) items. Many are US artists and others are Fair Trade importers from various places around the world.

In other buildings (yes buildingS… talk about getting LOST) where the permanent showrooms are located you could find just about anything from small gifts, to fine art, to furniture and accessories. And I didn’t even get to see any of the rug areas. These showrooms are a shoppers paradise! Except that it is wholesale only…. Sorry shopaholics. You walk down the hallways and see showroom after showroom after showroom.

The holiday booths in the temp section had some lovely Christmas tree ornaments and other season decorative items large and small. But the two places that took my breath away were in the permanent showrooms. I cannot adequately describe what I saw! Very high end ornaments. Interesting trees. Garlands. LARGE Santas, Angels, fairies, witches, goblins, Easter bunnies…and…. I could have spent days just exploring all the gorgeous things in these two showrooms.

I came home with tons for ideas and have started working on new stationery, greeting card, and jewelry ideas….. Any art directors for stationery and paper items out there…drop me a note!

Notecard, list pad, gift tag designs

 

Tableware - napkin and plate

 

Next trek: Asheville!

NC travels – Asheville and Beaufort

Since March my year got away from me… The polymer workshop in Asheville was fantastic. Learned new techniques that I have been working on since, but have not mastered yet. Polymer clay is a very versatile medium and I have only scratched the surface of what can be accomplished! When I get some pieces I am happy with I will post photos.

Asheville nightlife was great…went to the Orange Peel and had a great time.

If you have never been to Beaufort, NORTH Carolina…you should go! If you like historic buildings, wild ponies, dolphins you can reach out and almost touch, and GOOD food….GO. (I may be a bit prejudiced….my in-laws run a fantastic restaurant there.) We went down for the annual Pirate Invasion. Fun! Front Stree Grill at Stillwater is the restaurant…right on the water. You can come by boat…

Front Street Grill at Stillwater from the water!

Front Street Grill – View from the deck.

Be sure to take an excursion boat around the banks…you get a great view of the waterfront, wild ponies, dolphins, and more!

Wild ponies crossing a sandbar. Note the sail on the ocean side...

Two 'bachelor' ponies

The next two photos are ‘arsty’ ones of an abandoned fish plant.

Abandoned fish plant, Beaufort, North Carolina

Fish plant, Beaufort, NC

New Fall Leaf Jewelry

Some of my new collection of Fall Leaf Jewelry. All pieces are crafted of polymer clay. The inspiration comes from the majestic trees in my yard.

Maple leaf post earrings

Maple Pendant

Oak Leaf with Acorn Pendant

Japanese Maple Pendant

Sweet Gum Leaf Pendant

And a small box to put them in!

Polymer leaves and semi-precious stones...

 

To view more jewelry and boxes go to www.fieldmousestudio.com

New Year Ups…and Downs

January of 2010 I was very optimistic about the art projects I had in the works. Most of the year was spent working on inventory — both 2D and jewelry projects. While there were a couple of bright spots…wining an award at the SC Watermedia competition and having my painting in the traveling show…

“The Bulls” Seven Oaks Art League Award Winner at SC Watermedia Society’s 33rd Annual Exhibition

Another “up” was having one of my Maple Pendants in a PolymerCAFE challenge in the October issue of that magazine.

PolymerCAFE 5th place Challenge Winner “Leaves, Leaves Everywhere!” (polymer pendant)

The holiday shopping season was less that stellar. Commission paintings were down. I did four art fairs and a number of 2D art shows and sales were dismal. Apparently the increased retail holiday sales the country was gloating over did not rub off on the art buying crowd. Even the bread and butter commercial design biz came to a grinding halt in December.

As I type this there is a “starving artist” art sale commercial on TV….$19 DOLLAR SOFA SIZED PAINTINGS! Maybe I should start doing Elvis on black velvet.

To add injury to insult, I got thrown by my horse the first week of 2011 and was just beginning to get around when the snow and ice hit. Nothing like sliding around on ice with an already sprained ankle.

All griping aside, I have a ton of new projects to work on (even if no one wants to buy them) and hope this will be the year I can find the right market for the jewelry and the paintings. Suggestions would be appreciated!