Beachcombing, a few years back, my friend found a piece of driftwood that looked exactly like three horses’ heads rising from the waves. Very cool. But that’s nothing compared to the driftwood horses of artists Matt Torrens, Heather Jansch, and Deborah Butterfield.

The differences between the artists’ interpretations of “driftwood horse” are striking, but all have achieved a remarkable combination of driftwood’s naturally weathered graceful lines with the powerful majesty of the equine form.

Matt Torrens

Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta (“Cow Town”) and now living in southern California, the horse rendered in driftwood is a natural subject for sculptor Matt Torrens.

“Spirit,” the driftwood horse head sculpture by Matt Torrens shown here, was exhibited at the California State Fair in Sacramento, August/September 2008. Photograph by laura.bell.

“Each piece of Manzanita driftwood, with its contours and veins, helps bring my otherwise dead-wood sculptures back to life. I strategically select each piece of driftwood based upon its size and character. Naturally occurring notches on the wood help the animals take shape; flaws provide definition and contour; while other pieces are used for their muscle and bone-like appearance. Each sculpture is a unique, one-of-a-kind, work of art.”

Heather Jansch

Driftwood horse by Heather Jansch at Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, January 2007. Photograph by Ennor.

Many more photographs of Heather Jansch’s horses in driftwood, bronze and mixed media can be enjoyed courtesy of the Flickr community, and on HeatherJansch.com.

Deborah Butterfield

Born on the day of the 75th running of the Kentucky Derby, in San Diego, California, it’s perhaps not surprising that Deborah Butterfield felt an early affinity for the equine world and chose to establish her art studio in Montana. Her one-of-a-kind original driftwood sculptures, cast in bronze, bring something of the horse’s own strength and endurance to the graceful and fragile driftwood pieces, making them suitable for outdoor installations.

“Cabin Creek,” 1999, Bronze: Deborah Butterfield. Photograph by Cliff.

In the following brief excerpts from a 19-minute video documentary produced for the Denver Art Museum, Deborah Butterfield: A Dialogue with the Artist, we see the artist actually creating some of her driftwood horse sculptures while she talks about “the creative process, her relationship with horses, and her philosophy of living. Filmed on location at her studio in Montana, an art foundry in the state of Washington, and the installation in Denver, this is a vivid and insightful portrait of a remarkable artist.”

“It’s more like I’m discovering the personality of the horse that I’m working on. I can’t really preconcieve what it is that will work, and so it’s just trying to see as many things as you can and to incorporate them.”

Perhaps one of Butterfield’s best-known works, the bronze driftwood horse “Monekana” resides at the Smithsonian Institution‘s American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery complex in Washington, DC. Photographs of the piece are by Thomas Guest, top photo, and catface3, below:

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It just doesn’t get any more Steampunk than this! Benches, armchairs, tables, beds, wood-burning stoves like something pulled from a Jules Verne story — even a baby carriage!

The mine furniture of Mati Karmin, one of Estonia’s leading sculptors, is more than a felicitious marriage of invention and industry that makes you go “Wow!” (and call your significant other to Drop Everything Right Now and come take a look.

The frame of the modular furniture-art pieces is a reclaimed deep-sea mine of AGSB-type, made in Russia in 1942 and used to fight submarines. It was still being manufactured in the 1950s, and a stockpile — nay, a whole field — of abandoned mines can be seen by visitors to historic Naissaar Island in the Gulf of Finland.

About the Artist

Mati Karmin was born in 1959, at the tail-end of the baby boom. For an Estonian, whose tiny country was pounded into abject poverty by occupying forces, that would mean growing up with a strong tradition of self-sufficiency and making over and making do — traits we can all applaud.

No doubt, too, there’d have been a pronounced shadow of the World War 2 experience hanging over his generation; the repurposing of Russian marine mines into intriguing art furniture seems a natural fit.

(I’m just “supposing” all this bit, mind you, based on the story fragments I gleaned from an elderly Estonian man (a post-war immigrant to Canada, now gone) while he was teaching me to weave the traditional baskets that had been used by rural families in his own country, in his youth… That’s another tale for another day.)

However, as the artist’s bio explains:

Northern coast of Estonia and especially the islands, wich during the years of occupation were an almost inaccessible border zone for the common including heaps of corroded mine shells, wich are basically spheres with holes, spireks and shackles. Karmin got inspired by these mines and started to collect them. The ambiguity of large scale corroded mine shells intrigued the artist. The shape of the mine is perfest and uniform, while still clearly bearing the stamp of its intial destructive function. Being marked by its belonging to the past, it is closely connected to the complicated recent history that Karmin has always been facinated with. [sic]

Did you get this bit?

“The shape of the mine is perfect and uniform, while still clearly bearing the stamp of its initial destructive function.”

To my mind, that’s exactly what makes these pieces so powerful, I think, and especially that baby carriage: rounded forms and domestic objects, intimate, familiar, in the case of the armchairs softly upholstered, comfortable in every sense of the word — but never too comfortable. Because there’s no getting away from the origin of these pieces as instruments of violent death.

Turning those old naval mines into art: A gesture of optimism in a post-WW2 / post-Cold-War world that, er, turns out not to be quite the peaceful Utopia of which the flower children dreamed? — or is it a disturbing reminder that our troubled human history has a habit of repeating itself, while we’re off busily preoccupied with the unfolding of our own lives? Your call!

If Mati Karmin’s art pieces / mine furniture (and the history that inspired their creation) are as fascinating to you as they are to me, visit Marinemine.com to see and learn more.

You think you’ve seen some truly disturbing crochet work over the years? If you haven’t checked out Patricia Waller’s works in crochet and other media, you ain’t seen what yarn + imagination is capable of.

In this video walk-through of an art exhibit (armchair travel, anyone?), Bugs Bunny and friends become an “artistic metaphor for malice, violence, and the inevitability of disasters”… and you can make of that what you will…

How’s about that for Yarn Art?!

Personally, I find the piece of Miss Piggy in the old-fashioned meat grinder a bit too strong (luv luv luv Miss Piggy), but the floor arrangement of sharks breaking through around a flailing hand, the iconic “Who Killed Bambi?” and the beautiful big Bugs with giant fork in him? Clever, clever, clever. Okay, also a tad creepy… but very clever.

Chilean-born Patricia Waller now lives and works in Berlin. Her most recent solo exhibition, called Follow the thread, is open now at the Museum junge Kunst in Frankfurt Oder, Germany.

Jackie is a medical technologist in Upstate New York. Her full-time day job is working in a hospital lab, but that’s not where her heart is — she’s hiking in the Adirondacks.

And she’s turning the inspirations of nature into jewellery, twisting wire around beautiful stones and pearls and beads to create striking bracelets, necklaces, earrings.

You can find them for sale on Etsy and get a peek at projects in progress at Jackie’s blog, A Keeper’s Jackpot.

Like most beaders — like most craftspeople, in fact — once Jackie started creating her own jewellery and found that others love the pieces too, she starting exploring new ideas and new materials. From basic beads, she went to wire and stone, then branched out into working with polymer clay, and now she exploring decoupage techniques on some of her pendants…

But you know what? It’s the stone necklaces that really get me.

And I’m not even going to try to explain the emotion effect, the thought process, the “how come” of why I was so immediately taken with Jackie’s work, when her mother-in-law told me about her — I’ll just let the jewellery speak for itself:

The crafter known as Waterrose and I met online fairly recently (over at BenBarden‘s place, I think). The embroidery felt cuffs she sells in her online craft shop grabbed me right away! So of course I roped her in here to tell a bit about how she got started with her unique craft — and to share a few tips with others who may be thinking of starting a craft business.   Enjoy! ~Jen

Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions

A dilemma.
That’s where it began.

I have loved embroidery since I was a little girl. I was taught by my mother, who was a master embroiderer, and I’ve found those moments that I spent with her to be some of my fondest memories. However, while I love embroidery, how many people are going to be interested in embroidered pillowcases or tablecloths covered with swimming swans and flowing, flowery southern belles?

While traveling last fall along the Pacific Coast Highway I stopped in a quilt shop and found the most beautiful wool felt. I had no clue what I was going to do with it, but it spoke to me. (So did a few other things, but we won’t go into that!) A couple of months later it all clicked. Cuffs. I began doodling out some designs, gathered my embroidery floss, and began experimenting.

My inspiration is all around me. It seems I no more than start embroidering my current cuff and an idea pops into my head for the next one. I have a list. I can think them up faster than I can create them!

I began filling my Etsy shop with cuffs and received a lot of nice comments. Those comments led me to blogging. I had resisted blogging for a while since all I could think of was, “Why do I want to share my life with a lot of strangers?”

But I began my Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions blog and I am having so much fun with it. Initially I thought it would be filled mostly with my creations, but it has turned into a mixture of my life, my thoughts, and my craft.

I just created my website and had great fun working on it. When you visit my website you will see a button named, “Quilt”: I’m also a quilter and have plans to release a quilting book early next year. The “quilt” link will lead to a very special project that I can hardly wait to share…

And I have been fortunate to be one of a few artists to have their creations featured in Quilting Arts “gift” special edition. I was so excited to be asked to share my cuffs with everyone.

The indie arts movement has been a boon to everyone who creates.

To those of you who are on the verge, but are hesitant or ask yourself, “Who would buy my stuff?” — just take the plunge! It isn’t easy and you spend a lot of time not only creating, but also marketing and promoting. Unless you have a product that just grabs people it will take a lot of hard work to get your creations in front of people and become recognized.

Tips on Starting a Craft Business

• Spread your marketing and promoting efforts around. You can’t just open an Etsy shop, or create a website and expect people to find you.
• Spend some time after you figure out what your product is and think about what your goals are. Create a business plan. Write down what you want to implement and by what dates and just start working your plan.
• Get feedback from people about your product. How you can improve it, make it more marketable, what consumers are looking for.
• Have fun!

The world of hand crafts and art is so exciting and people are beginning to appreciate the fact that they can purchase such beautiful, original creations. I believe the world is growing weary of mass produced, cheaply made products. Many of us are going green. We are turning to our past to create items that are something different, something handmade, something cherished.

Waterrose can be found at her lively and colourful blog (waterrosez.blogspot.com) — where she does great crafty interviews, by the way — or you can visit her website (www.waterrosedesign.com) and online shop (waterrose.etsy.com) to share the delightful obsession with handcrafted quilt and embroidery crafts.

dVider.com has snagged hot young NYC artist David Ort for the second round of its Guest Artist series of limited edition vinyl wall decals.

Peel, stick, decorate.

Stunning.

And so much easier than waltzing into the Plaza and rippping the orginal Ort murals off its walls, no?

When I first discovered Natalya Sots’ lush ceramics work — and specifically Mad Hatter Tea Pot (sadly long ago sold to someone else) — I literally yelled out loud with delight. So I promptly dashed off a mash note to Natalya, asking for permission to share her exciting work with you.

She was good enough to say yes, and to give me permission to show you her photos of a few choice pieces — a sampling of some of the most wonderfully whimsical ceramics creations you’d ever hope to see…

But first, here’s what you need to know about the artist: Natalya Sots, a native of Kazakhstan, moved to the United States in 2002 and has been dazzling OOAK fans with her wildly distinctive colourful ceramics at Chicago-area art festivals (and at her online Etsy shop) ever since.

A day-brightener?
Trust me, this could brighten your whole week!

Don’t miss Natalya Sots on Flickr, for more of that wonderful mad imagination and her photos of works-in-progress.

Etsy.com is my number-one source for hand-crafted inspiration… and I thought you might like to see a few of my current craft crushes.

This display will change almost every day as I discover and add new favourites by Etsy artists from all over the world — so you might want to bookmark this page, to check back in from time to time… Also, if for any reason you can’t see the pretty pictures here, you can jump right over to my etsy page to see it all.

For today’s guest post, how about a bit of bling to usher in the Holiday Season? Please welcome Pelf Nyok — and she’ll introduce us to Malaysian jewellery designer April Yim whose opulent designs are inspired by the culture and folklore of the East… ~ Jen

April and her Hand-made Jewellery

Malaysian lass, April Yim, started making some really adorable polymer clay earrings about 2 years ago, and a year and many pairs of polymer clay earrings later, she ventured into jewellery-making where she experimented with real beads and pieces.

And what started as drawings on paper turned into jewellery-designing and making a natural process for April, who now owns a website — Vanity Vault — where she showcases and sells her products.

“Vanity Vault is not a real profit-making business. It started off as a way to fuel a girl’s obsessive hobby and I really intend it to stay that way. It also keeps me from staying in a healthy activity and de-stresses me…”

The expensive hobby

To date, April must have spent thousands of ringgits* on the raw materials for her jewellery. She was still a student when she picked up the hobby two years ago, and it was undeniably difficult on her pockets. In fact, a huge portion of her first pay cheque went to purchasing the raw materials (beads and stones) for her jewellery, which were imported from a variety of places.

“Each region of the world specializes in different parts and pieces. Cultured pearls are imported from Japan, China and the islands in the South Pacific, Swarovski crystals direct from Swarovski, Austria, and of course semi-precious stones are from all continents of the world.”

Each piece of jewellery can take as short as 5 minutes and as long as 5 days to complete. In fact, according to April, jewellery-making is definitely NOT a solitary craft because it requires a collective set of skills (such as beading, wire-work, moulding, painting, needle-work, metal-works, glass-works and of course, design). Moreover, the time needed to complete a piece really depends on the set of disciplines involved and how complicated the design is.

April’s favourites

Despite holding a day job, April manages to make an average of 8-10 pieces of jewellery per month. And 3 of her favourites are:

• Favourite necklace –
  Ultima

  There are more than 36 ways in which you can wear this convertible necklace. It is completely changeable into a necklace of different lengths, 3 different bracelets, a belt and a bag charm.







• Favourite earrings –
  Aethelwyne

  It features a very intricate design on a gold leaf shaped filligree, nylon coated gold wire, mirror beads with gold rim coating in green, black pearls and Aurora Borealis Czech glass beads. Note how the colours blend so well with the feature of the design.




• Favourite bracelet –
  Cleopatra
  The colours are in sync with one of April’s favourite ancient dynasties.

If you haven’t noticed it, besides designing and making jewellery, April is also a huge fan of names (did you see how she named the bracelet Cleopatra?!). She feels that each name should give each individual piece its own character and individuality. In fact, a lot of the names for her jewellery have been derived from stories she’s heard of or read about. Besides, she was sometimes inspired by the local and foreign languages, characters from ancient folklore and catchy quotes or phrases.

The other side of April Yim

In the past, April had donated some of her jewellery to raise funds for another Malaysian blogger, Yvonne Foong, who has Neurofibromatosis Type II (an incurable genetic disease). April also sponsored some of her items to raise funds for other charities and to help the less fortunate.

She would definitely love to work with more people in the future, so if you are organizing a charity event or fund-raising activity, do remember to contact April!

Note: The current foreign exchange rate is 3.3 Malaysian Ringgit to 1 US Dollar.

Pelf Nyok, the author of The Giving Hands, is a grad-student who is trying to save the turtles, the environment and humankind. Charity, conservation and volunteerism are things that are very close to her heart.
pelf-ism is contagious!

Sculpting with natural materials is, well, almost second nature to California artist Margaret Dorfman.

Her unique Veggie Parchment Bowls are made by hand with fresh fruits and vegetables, chosen according to season. She’s developed a chemical-free technique in which paper-thin slices of veggies are cured, pressed, dried, aged, and molded into free-form translucent bowls, perfect for holding potpourri, glass votives, or for display.

Veggie Parchment Bowls made of papaya and beet root (top of photo) and zucchini slices (bottom) among the unique gifts offered by VivaTerra ($42 – $79), and there’s a lot more astonishing artware by Margaret Dorfman at the Gallery of Functional Art — a feast for the eyes!

Truly, it puts a song in my heart to know that artists are still out there, in the business of breaking down our cultural boundaries, challenging the eye, and shaking up even our relationships with domestic rodents.

Photo by Kevin Rolly

You thought the Hamster Shredder was a clever design?

Check out the Hamster Dress!

The designers have knocked my socks off with their bright bravura, combining a pet’s exercise system with wearable art — this, even though I came to it semi-prepared, by way of Kasey’s McMahon’s CompuBeaver, where taxidermy meets high tech…

Artists Vanessa Bonet and Kasey McMahon made their collaborative debut as Psycho Girlfriend in May 2005. They have combined their creative ideas into a unique medium that focuses on “wearable art” pieces made from unusual materials.

If you’re in Los Angeles on the weekend, April 21 and 22, 2007, you can catch Psycho Girlfriend’s wild and crazy awesomeness at the Brewery Artwalk.

A Snake in the Grass isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not when it’s a luscious rich-coloured cushion cover, nature-inspired with a South African influence.

This brick red and gold cushion cover features a mixed media of surface design techniques:
• shibori stitched resist
• block printed
• screen printed
• hand painted
• vat dyed
• discharge dyed
• applique
16″ square envelope style cover in 100% cotton.

The artist, inkyspider, is a textile artist working in a mixed media of surface design techniques — located in the Kootenay mountains area of British Columbia, Canada (which explains the influence of natural forms and colours!) but trained in South Africa with a focus on painting and print making techniques.

Not in the market for a cushion cover? Check out the inkyspider designs T-shirt collection.