About Me:I am a singer & arranger for The Spirites Consort (which are Enchanted Folk members & listed in my friends). I am also a visual artist & I tend to make fantasy images, so I thought it was fitting for me to have my own site here. I work all of the time & I am a bit overwhelmed with trying to keep up with two occupations. I try to do my art in the morning and music in the afternoons. It doesn’t always work out especially when I have to be in the recording studio for long stretches or preparing for a gig or getting pieces ready & framed for an art show. I somehow keep my sanity by making art in the same "genres" as my music.
Music:I tend to be drawn mostly to acoustic music (music that doesn’t always need electricity to be heard). I perform in a variety of styles: Renaissance, Medieval, Celtic, cross-over, classical, folk, new age and originals. I play guitar in our band. I also play a little recorder, Celtic harp & cello too.
Movies:Some favorites are: Amadeus, Impromptu, Romeo and Juliet (Zefferelli version), The Seventh Seal, The Marquise of O, Jane Eyre (2006 BBC version), The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin), Dersu Uzala, Kundun, The Weeping Camel, 400 Blows
Books:Reading includes: biographies and histories, research, current events, art & music books and the classics (Shakespeare, Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Dostoyevsky, Henry James, Tolstoy, Proust, Zola, etc)
Saturday, February 27, 2010, 03:24 PM EST
[General]
A squirrel that lives just feet away in his squirrel condo (tree) with his relatives (some baby squirrels were born up in that tree last spring and have made nests of their own: 3 nests in all), has taken to my porch for stashing food. I live in a Victorian house with lots of porch Victorian embellishment: plenty of places for food storage and hiding when the rest of the environs are frozen and snowy.
This year he has taken to climbing on my door wreath. I thought that he was always hanging from my wreath to grab things in there for his nest (for instance, he likes bits of summer porch furniture, roots of flowers from the flower boxes, chewed off broom sweeps, ripped up cardboard boxes and those styrofoam peanuts for his nest). When I hear him out there scratching on my door, I knock loudly on the door window & that usually scares him away. But last Friday, that didn't work. He wasn't going to budge. So I stood there staring at him and he reached inside the wreath and pulled out this huge slice of bread. He was pretty good at stashing it in there because I never saw it from outside or inside the door. Then he sat on my porch and ate it, not caring at all that I was staring at him.
I have noticed with mice too that if they are hungry enough, they won't pay you any mind.
This morning as I came back from our local farmer's market, I reached in the wreath and parted it all over the place to see if he was stashing any more food in there. This time I found popcorn. He had it so well placed that it didn't fall out. Amazing.
It gets harder to care what he does to my porch decorations & furnature when I have so much reverence for his skills.
Reverence for his skills... I'm sure I've already told you about my visitors too? And while they may start to bite my palm (loaded with almonds), they'll always be gentle and let go to find the almond instead.
AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay this is one of the most entertaining stories I have heard in a long time!!!!!!!!
It reminds me of the squirrels in the neighborhood I grew up in. As the streets were lined with huge oak anf maple trees we had gangs of squirrels! They were certainly pesky little devils and they were not afraid of the saburbanites that moved into their territory. That also might be because the neighborhood boys would would try to hit them with rocks and such.
Well one little bushy tailed fellow would come to sit on the porch every winter morning looking for the bread crumbs my mother would throw out for the birds. My mother liked birds, not squirrels. One partically cold morning the squirrel would not "shoo" he stood their chattering at my mother as if he were laughing at her feebale atempts to get rid of him. Well it was getting late and my brother and I wee sure we were NOT going to have to go to school that day until my brave little mother opened the screen door and WACKED that squirrel right off the porch!
Well that certainly taught that squirrel not to come between a determied mother who wants to get her children off to school!
Saturday, February 6, 2010, 09:09 PM EST
[General]
I actually created this a whole year ago, but I wasn't sure I liked it so I never posted it anywhere until now. I am not so critical of it after all of this time has passed, though I'm doing some pieces in a somewhat similar vein that I like much, much more & I think are more indicative of what I am capable of.
This one is an altered ink & watercolor painting made to look like an 1800s book illustration in the tradition of "Alice and Wonderland."
I have her for sale in my Etsy shop as a greeting card only.
We are in rehearsals now for The Dance Flurry Festival, one of my favorite venues. It is also where our band formed. In other performances at this festival, we performed a lot of English Country Dance Music (music of Jane Austen's time as heard in the BBC/PBS movies). But this time it will be heavily centered around a blend of Celtic and French Canadian. There are some fairy tunes up our sleeves for a future concert.
Saturday, November 28, 2009, 12:21 AM EST
[General]
Note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in actual piece.
This is my last "finished" artwork of the year (a watercolor). I always try to paint an angel for the holidays. Angels are very faerie-like (& let's face it: probably one & the same when it all comes down to it!). I always wanted to paint an angel that had doves for wings.
I am in rehearsals now for 4 performances in December including one before the press. I am really enjoying the music side of my life right now and I am not doing any artwork at all. I do have some pieces that I started in November which I am really excited about, but they can all wait for the new year.
Please note: the copyright watermarks do not appear in the actual art.
This is my newest design and was finished & scanned today. The design measures 12" x 16 1/2 ".
The title to this piece is actually "Pawn in Autumn". The reference to pawn has to do with chess. In chess, any being that is not a king, queen, bishop, knight or rook is a pawn. This one is obviously a pet because of its collar.
I figured this was an appropriate design for the season. Happy Halloween everybody!
These are 2 more graphic images I finished on October 19 from my sculpture (actually it is a relief sculpture on a hand-thrown platter that has hanging wire on the back: ready to hang on a wall). You can view the original piece here. I went a little further than last time I posted. I still wanted to keep it relatively monocromatic, but add just a hint of color here and there (or everywhere!). I'm not sure which image I like the most, which is why I posted both. Any ideas?
I'm really enjoying this approach. I love doing ceramic sculpture, but once it is sold, it is gone forever (and I never thought I could make prints like 2-d artists... but, it turns out I can, in a way). Of course, I couldn't give a goblet another life, but I haven't tried either! Maybe there is a way...
On another note (musical), I have been practicing every evening on some new material. More range for my voice. Really enjoying it.
Too many ideas and not enough time. Maybe there should have been 2 of me? One to make the art & another to make the music?
It's funny (and you should laugh at me) but when I first saw this I was wondering what angels had to do with it. I just didn't see them, instead seeing a couple of robed Jabba-like figures reaching out to each other. Ok ok, so I finally did catch on though!
I think I like the one with the darker stars and circle about it, kind of "popping" it. :^)
Thanks for the comment on my picture, Lise. I posted that one here not too long ago when EF's Sleepy wrote a poem inspired by that picture, so, I thought it would be nice to have it posted here....that's why it wasn't there before :)
I'm not too good at updating pictures and blogs here and, well, everywhere on the internet! I wish I was better organized at that sort of stuff...(sigh...)
but but but but...
I didn't change it!
They did, and my new avatar was all fuzzy! I tried to replace it with a new animated one, but it doesn't work. (Guess they banned animated ones, like they've changed other things in the past.)
Thanks! (I just know there are little goblins at work here causing a bit of mayhem from time to time....deleting messages, messing up notifications and more **hehe**)
I'm not on Myspace because I've already had "My Spot" (my home page) up for over a dozen years, but I've come to like Facebook as kind of a phone book online and way to see what everyone's up to (if you've the time!).
So, you used to sing at Alldays and Onions? I was asked to donate some of my work for this fundraiser by one of their current regular performers, Kelly Maguire. I met her through the open mic she hosts at Flavour Cafe in Troy, NY. I've attended a couple open mics so far, reading examples of my speculative verse.
Alas, I won't actually be able to attend the fundraiser in Bennington. However, Kelly did promise to let me know what happens with my art/poem combo. I hope somebody feels it's worth buying a raffle ticket for my work!
Send Message
Add Friend
Block User
Invite to Group
Report User 
Reverence for his skills... I'm sure I've already told you about my visitors too? And while they may start to bite my palm (loaded with almonds), they'll always be gentle and let go to find the almond instead.
TommyI looove living in the country!
05:59 PM EST