Mydwynter:

Well folks, it’s been a long ~3 months. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

In December, the last time I checked in, I had just finished making my various-winter-holiday cards. I also teased that I had photos of a commissioned project, but I couldn’t post them in case they made it back to the person for whom it was being created.

Well, the present was sneakily transferred to the wife of the recipient, and given as a Christmas gift, and (so I was told) much enjoyed. Here it is:

This was a blast to work on. I particularly enjoyed playing with the way the spirals didn’t just have to echo the form in two dimensions, but could flow in and out of the pockets and holes within the skull. Great fun.

After that, I headed out on a long, long trip hither and yon.

I flew out to Seattle, where I spent a month making many lists and weaving lots of trim on a mini inkle loom. As usual, I spent my time hanging out with all my friends out there and being inspired by Seattle’s particular mix of health, hipness, and love of originality. I finally made it to a yoga class taught by one of the guys out there, ate at one of my favorite vegan soul food restaurants, and attempted to play a game of frisbee golf. (Which is, as was clear to those who were playing with me, not my favorite past time. As sports go, I would much rather be playing baseball, or football, or a wicked game of badminton.) In spite of the latter, I had quite a nice time there.

Then I moved on to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where I proceeded to be knocked upside the head by a major respiratory flu. Being ill for a week seriously threw off our plans for the month, which were to make what I am calling “Yurt: The New Class”; where I camp at Pennsic, we Celts often use yurts as our temporary round houses. One of my friends who lives up there is basically our “yurt guru”, so it only made sense that if I wanted a yurt which a)would break down small enough to be conveyed in a car, and b)was more efficient than our current versions, I would go to her. The three of us up there worked our tails off (especially our yurt guru, to whom I owe a big pile o’ thanks and many, many presents). One thing I learned? When working with hickory, you get some serious tear-out which might not only be irreparable with a belt sander, but also irreparable with a nicely-sharpened hand planer. Yikes.

In any event, the delay due to illness cost us the deadline, so I’ll be heading back up in July. In the meantime, one of the things we did finish completely was the cherry wood door frame, which I’ll be carving (intricately, it seems, according to my sketches) and fitting with a door. Photos on that will be posted once it has been completed.

This month I went down to the last weekend of the Florida Renaissance Festival and over to Mississippi for the SCA’s Gulf Wars. I was much inspired by these two events, and more on the results of that inspiration are to come.

Here’s hoping the nascent Spring finds you well, and the new-green buds bring you some growth of your own.

Cheers,
Bran

The past week was a but nutty, but full of a whole lot of accomplishment. I can post some pictures after Christmas, so as not to ruin a few surprises. However, I did also manage to create and produce my own Winter/Yule/Christmas/Hanukkah, etc., cards.

I hope you all are having a safe, warm, and lovely holiday season.

At long last, when someone points their browser to www.mydwynterstudios.com, they will achieve my own very special brand of enlightenment: this blog.

I’m assuming that the automatic redirects apply to feeds as well, (I’m testing that at the mo,) but if you have any problems, please just send me an email at help at mydwynterstudios dot com.

Ahoy-hoy…

I’m in MD this weekend for the Holiday Sale/Open House at Art of Fire. Va and Darrell and Mary and I have converged upon Va’s parental homestead for the evening, and at the moment are still striving to regain the feeling in our extremities from such a very, very cold day in the Celtic Annex (read: un-insulated garage). We are looking forward to seeing some great people this weekend. Will any of them be you? We’ve got all the usual suspects, and some new ones, including “Crow” cookies jars and “Ceilidh” cassarole dishes. More info is up at the Dancing Pig website.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on on the pottery front. This show was last weekend and this, and it will be followed by two weeks of stock building before Va and I take off for Hamilton, ON, where we are planning to spend the holidays. (Darrell is staying home to make stock and host the indians. No, really.)

But wait, there’s more:

-In addition to making stock these next two weeks, we are working pretty steadily on renovating my apartment above the pottery studio. The decorating scheme so far is a melange of Celtic, Roman, and Halloween chic. Kinda. Hell, it’ll be eclectic but tasteful. Not unlike myself.

-Over the past few weeks, I’ve started work on the leather jacket back piece. It’s a Hanuman design, with Buddhist art influences and some crows thrown in. (Would you honestly expect me not to involve a crow or two in this project? Really, with me you can almost count on it.)

-Also, I’ve been researching representations of both Hermes and dogs on Archaic Greek pottery for two new tattoo designs, but I’ve post more on the subject when I have some more research under my belt.

-In DC just before Thanksgiving, I was inspired to start tap dancing again. “To what end?” you (probably didn’t) ask quizzically. My answer? To try to revive the tradition of tap dancing as an integral part of burlesque performance, in the DC area. I find it almost impossible to believe that no one has done it yet; it seems like such an obvious thing. Am I wrong?

-Does anyone out there have any books to spare related to Buddhist art and iconography? I find that there’s a disturbing hole in my collection.

Hope all is well with you, and in these crazy December weeks, please try to find some time to enjoy the way winter can bring a little clarity along with the cold. I continually find it…useful, even what I see wasn’t what I was expecting.

Cheers, all.

Happy Halloween, all.

I’m spending this turn of the season in Seattle, WA, where I have the pleasure of visiting a small group of friends who, through one reason or another, all ended up out here after we graduated from UCONN.

It’s a great opportunity, being out here; I can take some time for myself, thinking and planning, without the additional need to get into the pottery studio. And that in itself is a boon, because I find that I need variation in my life to keep things fresh.

So I’m spending time sketching. I had planned on going to the Seattle Library for research more than I have this time around, but instead I’ve sketched new ideas from the ether and refined existing ones.

Best of all, I’ve had time to spend with my fantastic friends out here, who have indulged my need for the amenities a funky city like this offers: vintage clothes shopping, tasty microbrew beer, and a dance club for tomorrow night. I’m going to see a show on Sunday, and we might celebrate Guy Fawkes Night on Monday.

What does this mean for Mydwynter Studios? It means a renewed sense of perspective going in to the pottery studio, some new tattoo designs (flash) can be added to the portfolio, and a gorgeous old leather motorcycle jacket, freshly acquired, will get its back panel painted.

Fantastic.

…we continue to make stock for faire.

Because it will most likely be too hard to keep up, we won’t be making Halloween mugs, alas. We might try to work on them for next year, though, with some more planning.

However, we have started making our skull and pumpkin jack-o-lanterns, which are A Blast to make. Well, they are to me. Va has made so many over the years that she claims she’s “over it”, which is yet another reason why being the new one on the block is a good thing.

My favorite so far: a pair of skulls I carved last night, the boy one with a Jack Skellington grin and a bowtie, the girl one with eyelashes and lips and a hair bow. I find them adorable. If you can come out to faire this weekend, to see them and others, please do!

In the intervening time in which I have been very busy not updating, Va and I have been prepping and trying to keep up with the stock for the Maryland Renaissance Festival. The new Ceilidh pots are a hit, as are the Crow pots. Be sure to check out www.dancingpig.com if you are interested in seeing some pics and what Va has to say…

On the “personal artwork” front, I had an idea recently for some craft-style crows which will hang from the ceiling and have poseable wings. The materials are mostly assembled, bar the one main ingredient (of course) which I mistakenly thought I had plenty of.

I am designing a new tattoo for my forearm as well, which will be the New Thing at the next appointment. See, < begin artfully-blurred-lens flashback here > I noticed when I was a little kid that the patter of freckles on my forearm looked like Orion, bar one or two “stars”. So I always promised myself that even if I never got any other tattoos, I would get the last few finishing freckles tattooed in so I could have the complete constellation. < /end flashback >

Well, now that I’m a tattoo addict it seems like I could do a whole lot better than a few tattooed freckles, so the plan is to design an Ancient Greek/Celtic fusion figure to represent Orion, and incorporate the existing “stars” as well as the new ones. It has to blend well with the spiral work which will be surrounding it on my forearm, so that should be…er…fun. I got out a bunch of books from the library to help with the research, so that step is done. Now I just have to sit down with the data and sketch, a step with is always fun but sometimes made difficult by the necessity to arrange the studio time so that I don’t have something else that desperately needs doing.

Anyway that’s all from me…
my job’s a weird job…
speak to you soon…
love from Kenny
(PS My thumb hurts)

(* Tonight’s post has been brought to you by Eddie Izzard, a Giant Squid, and the number 3. As in, 3 o’clock in the morning, which it is, and which might excuse a tad the writing style and contents of this post.)

There is a Crash Test Dummies song, the title of which is the title of this post. Within it are two lines with sum up this past Pennsic for me:

I’ve watched the summer evenings pass by,
I heard the rattle in my bronchi

So, yeah. I had a great first week, lounging and partying and reading the last two books of Harry Potter, and then was forced to watch the rest of Pennsic happen around me. It was not my best Pennsic evar.

In any event, creatively, a few things were accomplished. The most public of which was the co-writing with my friends (in order from left to right as we, wine-besotted, mischief-minded, and giggly, sat) Etaine, Lanea, and Ruadhan (did I spell that correctly?) a lovely little ditty to the tune of The Major General’s Song. It involved several unsavory subjects (and one Main Unsavory Idea), with the result that Lanea determined that my career in politics would be over if the lyrics were leaked to the internet and if I then were linked to them. “Alas,” I responded, “I gave up the run for office many years ago.”

Sang publicly only twice before the previously-mentioned illness set in and ousted my voice; once was around a small Dalhraidian fire and involved a lot of Great Big Sea songs, which are easy and please my blue-dredlocked campmate. The other time was at Preachain’s block party, at which I sang Lads O’ The Fair sans the fourth verse, which would have felt a tad inappropriately “meta” in surroundings which were intended to emulate those from about two thousand years ago. I also sang the newly-penned Unsavory Song with my three cohorts, to the delight of both us and our audience.

(I was provided one more chance to perform the Unsavory Song before war was over, but unfortunately my voice had already packed its bags for destinations south. So instead, I conducted the other three singers with a sparkly purple riding crop. You know, like you do.)

I sewed a quick-and-dirty, loose-weave cotton, back-less, halter tank one evening, which I proceeded to wear as often as possible, proving once again my perversity in garb planning, wherein anything that I spend time and/or money on preparing ahead of time will inevitably be supplanted at the event by a cheap and shoddy alternative which functions better. But I think that’s all I made this war; I spent a whole lot of time fuzzy-brained with ibuprofen and cold meds, and really didn’t feel like making anything. (I did read a whole lot, though. If that counts for anything.)

Didn’t buy any supplies while there, either, which is actually the biggest shame of the lot. However, I was lent some silverpointe supplies by a friend of mine, so I plan on trying those soon.

As soon as Va digs out her camera we’ll have some pics of the new pots, I promise.

Until then I remain,
Yours, etc.,
B. Mydwynter

P.S.: Oh, yes. I painted a shield. It turned out nicely, and I’ll post pics when the camera is disinterred from the piles of not-yet-unpacked stuff.

Accomplished yesterday? A tally for the (un)interested:

-About a million tiny, tiny pleats sewed into a frock, which I mostly completed
-Finished His Dark Materials Trilogy
-Decided my mohawk needed trimming. Again.
-Watched, while sewing:

1) six episodes of Good Eats (including the “Ask Alton” sections)
2) a great film entitled Bedrooms and Hallways
3) the special features on the sixth disc of Rome‘s first season
(nb: the casting overlaps within the previous two are, frankly, hilarious)
4) a wack of youtube videos containing Eddie Izzard, David Tennant, Alan Davies, John Barrowman, and others
5) and the first five minutes of the newest Pride and Prejudice, before getting fed up with it and postponing

I also spent some time on myspace trolling for lost people, and found others who, frankly, took themselves way the hell too seriously. Great googly moogly, people. What follows is short note to them:
Dear myspace gits,
I’m not going to suddenly decide that you are cool and I need to be your friend if you are either drinking a big crappy beer at me or flipping me off. More likely, I’m going to think you are a gigantic tosser. To quote Mr. Stephen Fry, who was quoting another, “Any more of that behaviour…and you’ll have a short, sharp visit from the Smack Fairy.” And not in that way you’re thinking, so kindly wipe that smirk off your face. Thank you.
End transmission.

Okay. Right. And now that I have gotten that off my chest, off I go to watch both of the Pride and Prejudices (miniseries and aforementioned movie) and kick out more of this sewing.

By the way, has anyone out there done any casting from flexible molds recently? I find myself in need of casting a 3D eagle, (you know, like ya do,) and I fear that my old college experience might be out of date. There have got to be new materials that are being used now.

Well, wedding in Canada now over, I can now commence the pre-Pennsic preparatory planning. There’s a lot of shite to do this year, and actually I’m going to keep this short so I can get to bed soon and get up early to glaze a kilnload of pots.

Besides the aforementioned pots, on my plate at the moment include:

Finishing Va and Darrell’s yurt door
Helping Va clean her yurt floor and trim the roof canvas
Sewing, like, six plaid flannel sleepytime tunics
Making three roman-style dresses, including all the inkle weaving that that implies
And probably weaving some more
Mending my existing garb
Designing and building a comfy Celtic halter top for Va and I
And however much Roman paraphernalia as I can research and make well; not doing it half-assed

Ah, yes, and I’m learning a new song for Pennsic; it’s in Gaelic and English, sean-nos style, entitled “Bruach na Carraige Baine”. It’s the Cape Clare version, which is different than the usual treatment, I think, and not the easiest thing I’ve ever taught myself. Which is typical, really. “Here, let me get started three weeks beforehand learning a frustrating song, and still have sanity left after singing it fifty billion times to design a weaving pattern. Heh.” Anyway, if it doesn’t work out I’ll ditch it for this year and pick it up later, but I was really hoping to have it down.

So, yeah, I’m sure that there are other things I’m forgetting, but I think that’s all I have room for in my head.

Oh, and I really wanted to winge about how shitty an interface myspace has, but it’s really kinda apparent to anyone who has spent any time on there, so I won’t spend my time on it. However, if you are interested, I did set up a page there to point here, and if you’d like to friend me (or would like me to friend you), it’s here. I can’t promise you it will roll over and do tricks or anything, but it can’t hurt.

K. Shhh. Sleeping.