a tragedy and some work in progress

we've been really careful with perry - keeping him away from the chickens - trying to show him [stella's job] that they are not for chasing but for protecting. 

well the other day after i came back from one of me long walks john said that one of the chickens had been killed, evidence of feathers on the neighbour's land below, we thought it might have been a passing dog, but after further prowling around we discovered it was the neighbour's dog. they left a couple of months ago and abandoned the dogs to someone who comes once a day to feed them. this little neurotic rat had caught plucked and mauled the little grey white chicken on the right - dumping her carcass outside his barrel that serves as a kennel. as you can see in the pic even perry is showing restraint, john took this the day before because it looked like stella was shepherding chickens.

it was really sad - fortunately the dog that also had a tendency to bark all night has been removed.

well here some work in progress. some further exploration of the pouch theme, think i'm hooked on making them

the image is an old tobacco stamp, probably some form of tax stamp, tobacco was grown and cigarettes were produced here for the ottoman market, its been glued onto the leather with a matt medium and sealed with it also. its waterproof now. the bottom part is a game piece, the top a part of another, with a bone or possibly ivory cap, the tassel is horse hair.

and something else i've been fooling around with - i wanted to find a way to work with some of the bigger pieces i got from steph, and i wanted something simpler, more sculptural

still needs a bit of work on the leather and am thinking of some gold leaf on the tooth. this also collaged with some beautiful transparent paper that has greek calligraphy on it. the design is a copy of a brilliant artist duo called amalthee creations its an exercise and something for myself.