some things i found on a walk with the dog and a friend

i love finding things, and so much here is discarded, sadly there are small rubbish dumbs everywhere, well sadly for the environment but not for me, when i talk rubbish i is not meaning food, out on a walk with gabi and the new pooch the other day we came across some stuff. This lovely heavily distressed brass plaque advertising cotton and cloth, its embossed and i think the patina on it is made by whitewash

then this toy, which is just lovely, especially this one shot that gives it an anthropomorphic feel, sadly neglected and cute faced.

things really don't get made like this any longer, the props are always plastic nowadays, i'm an expert, having a son who always broke the propellers of the planes he had.

and i've been working on the pouch a bit more, yea pouch not pooch, its kind of inspired by Cappadocia, the idea of it, the history and descriptions i've heard

inside i'm going to put a rolled up scroll on vellum, did some gold leaf on this, something i got from Gabi - that was her grandfathers and i've been playing with on various things with greater and lesser success, this one worked and there is more round the other side, still thinking what to hang from the bottom ring

work in progress, night table and joe cool

last night when i was about to crash and had turned off most of the lights, i was struck by the chaos on my table, but also how pretty that chaos looked in the darkness, so i got the trusty digi crapola out and took a shot or 2 at 1600 iso, which actually gives a kind of nice effect. also cos one of my lights is cold blue and the other is warm yellow so the 2 colours cross over.

i do occasionally sort it out - usually when i spend more time looking for things right under my nose than working, but as soon as i do the order usually paralyses me for a couple of days, steph can ya see ya hand charm up there?

ok then the is a rare moment of stillness by the dude, try catching a nervous young dog with a camera on a tripod.

though of course this is nothing as stunningly hilarious as the second image over on john's blog

and finally some work in progress that is proving very enjoyable, i used and old game piece from a game called 'dama', its not chess, probably something like checkers where all the pieces resemble pawns, well i used that upside down, put a ring in it with a bone bead steph gave me and enveloped it in the last bit of suitcase leather, i'll have to find myself another one. the round wood piece is going to be a cap, though iv got to work it out first, it will be attached to the thongs , so it just slides up, and there'll be things hanging off the ring. 

ok now i'm off for a scavenging walk with the dude and a friend, cos the rain seems to have stopped for 5 minutes. 

evil eye protection - byzantine

the focus of this necklace is a beautiful clay pendant that i got from vladthebatsattic

http://www.etsy.com/shop/vLaDtHeBaT

if you havn't been there you've got to go,

the piece is so delicate in its details, that i wanted something simple to set it off, hanging from it is an ottoman coin and above is a vintage cloth rectangle sewn around a paper from an old school book i found, it gives the cloth some form and also has the magic of time inside, on to that i have sewn an evil aye charm that i made from rusty metal, rubbed and sealed - i got a thing about rust. there are also 2 african recycled glass beads in blue that works in conjunction with the eye to ward off evil, it fastens with a beach stone

a new member of the family

a deeply suspicious dude - actually he's just insecure, but getting better every day, with a few drawbacks like chasing the chickens and thieving food in the kitchen, scared of cars and a number of otherthings. he was one of 250 dogs abandoned on the island from other parts of greece, a lot of expensive breeds also, as people are realising they cannot feed their animals and themselves. anyway there was something about his vibe that reminded me of a street dog i brought here from england many moons ago.

perry picasso - is the name - chicken chasing is the game

i had so much fun

making these i thought i'd post them here also, and a preview of one pair of earrings to come, and just the other day i was bitching about making earrings

it is so good when it just rolls out - the fun i mean - though usually the consequence is production also, i especially enjoy the mismatched ones because they have a dialogue between them.

travel pouch part 2

the foots, ready, i'm still making up my mind about whether it should be a chain or leather lace like the pouch, they hang together with the foot just a little shorter than the pouch. as to your thought steph i had tried it with felt, the pouch is extremely light and i actually like it with the kanga lace, that i've aged, i think the balance is right for this one.

there is the little roman bell bead, and detail of the strap beginning and a bit of the inside of the pouch, now i need to decide in the roll of vellum, what i actually want to put on it. recognise that thread steph? :)

thoughts in progress part 1

i've been working, despite the inactive finger on a travelers pouch, with some more of the leather i salvaged from the old suitcase. and other leather too that i wanted to have dangling off it so that its tie-able protectable,  attachable - like you can attach other significant things if ya wish

that kind of sketch thing on the side is vellum, that i was given and its a kind of practice run, because i've never used it before but it was so nice to draw on i got carried away with a travel totem figure, kinda inspired by ethiopian kitabs. it will be, well which ever one i decide on or make, rolled up and bound in lambskin and put in the bag, maybe with something else i'm thinking about.

now the foot tama - another antique one, and obviously when you go traveling you use your foots, whether you travel in dreams or reality, so its there to protect them, is going to hang on a separate leather thong or maybe chain, though i need to do some work at the top of it for that to happen. 

theres a horse hair tassel i made meself, cos horses = travel, anyone whose read tschiffely's ride will know what i mean, amber, a roman bronze piece thats not visible in these shots but will be in part 2, i also stuck on another roman bronze ring where the tassel hangs so it can be interacted with in a very antiquated way.

...

well thats end of part 1

meanwhile

"Meanwhile, life creates an infinite number of pictures without even straining itself."
Yefim Tovbis
i came across this collection of photo's on magcloud last year, by far the best thing i saw there, and then today stumbled across his etsy shop. it really is an amazing collection of unusual photographs, less of the studio and more of the incidental impressions of life. Its what i love about photography, its raw power with time.
another photo and photographer i really admire is Arslan Ahmedov

although i'm hard pushed to pick out any one photo, i love what he achieved with this film, ilford 3200, the model and the light. So it was a kind of photographic day today

protection and charms

well i thinks i be in need of some charm protection after what happened to me, and i think steph's taken care of that one too, but i was thinking in that work in progress way of another little charm bag for the evil eye:

the material is super vintage - couple of hundred year old, traditional costume, woven, from what feels like horse hair but is most likely sheep or goat. The evil eye charm i made myself from my favorite piece of rusty metal which is shortly coming to an end and the piece above it. the 2 blue beads i've placed there are cos there has got to be something blue, they put it on babies at birth here to ward off the evil eye, and i was kinda prompted into this line of exploration by a great link that beatrice (merci beaucoup madame for everything) sent me on charms. the second gallery especially about blue beads. 

now often i have heard people say, o i have a headache, someone has put the evil eye on me, i need to go to so and so to get the oil and water treatment, this involves a glass, some water, some olive oil and a cloth. the people who do this treatment are always women and are usually shy of being identified as doing it, well it was only in 1860 that the last witch was burnt in holland. now i guess i'm going to do a little more specific research on the subject, cos a usual i'm sorely lacking in material to tell you this story though i've got more than enough for my inspiration. i was thinking of putting inside this - to be - neck hanging pouch a little vial of water and a little vial of oil, wrapped in a cloth so that one can always be ready for the inevitable

to be continued...

[possibly i have a very low boredom threshold for the sound of my own voice albeit in print]

mind blowing

apart from the extraordinary pain, the three hour wait in the hospital to be manhandled for a rough bandage change that i could have done better myself, i am beginning to get totally freaked out by the inactivity of my hands. its not that 4 fingers on the left hand can't function its the pain after about 2 minutes of doing something that make me go cross eyed.

heres something i'd like to put together, leather brass and tooth, horse tooth. its always struck me as interesting that horses have 64 chromosomes and we have 46 (i could be wrong about the number, but i know they are mirrored) not for nothing we have a long and lustrous history together.

and this is a picture by Balthus that john showed me recently that i really like:

not a very good day for me

yesterday cutting firewood i managed to chainsaw my finger, it mangled flesh and nail to the bone and totally freaked me out

and it hurts

so this is to cheer me up and stop feeling sorry for myself and moan moan well all that kinda stuff. actually this is the only dali i like