Thursday, December 30, 2010

To 2011





A whole new year ... 365 blank days... just waiting for us All to fill them up....
and we always do,  no matter what... fill them up to brimming without even trying.. 
 ...like magic ..Time is...  
a world going round and round...
 sunrise, sunset... 
repeat... repeat... repeat..............


... tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock...


We raise our glasses to the New Year  and to You, 
with wishes of Happiness, Hope, Strength and Inspiration 
...and many Good Things to come your way.
Give it your all... 



HAPPY NEW YEAR !





..."the toad, the rat and the mouse" ... pen, ink, watercolor.. approx. 7" x 8",  in sketchbook


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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Journey with the Stone Wall

                                                                                                                                                          an update...


Looking down the finished staircase at the very back of the small north sideyard 
..but before this happened......  much manual labor...

*warning*...  it is rather long.... with lots of pictures because I  love stone... and the process of creating... ...they click to enlarge..




 They previously resided in the backyard of a large, to-be demolished very old structure in the center of the village about a km. away.  Well... we simply hate to see durable, natural materials go to waste and the owner agreed to us carting them off... so the journey for these stones began a new life.




The weight of the stones dictated that John could move only a small number of them in each trailer load, so as not to break it, as we had done one other time in our excitement to bring something home that was being thrown away... 
Trip after trip, he made... up and down the street, till he had lugged enough back to do the job.




...then figuring out the staircase ...digging and manipulating...
an exercise in which rock goes where first... 




...shovels full of gravel behind them for extra drainage...



..initial shaping and placing .............   and with the rock borders




I like it... no...   really... I love it!!! ... it's fun.
the stone steps are about 2' wide,
but it's the staircase to nowhere just yet... 



...finished and looking out towards the road...




 and back again... we plan on shaping the soil above the wall next spring...




this side is about done...


Then....  across the back and around the bend...





curving up to the left side corner of the deck...




... a  just right size deck...  




and curving down again...



Time to put these tools away.

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Sunday, December 05, 2010

Line Drawings






Practicing seeing the simplicity of random objects common in my life...

...outline.. shape.. volume... boundaries... contours... hard... soft...



The day outside is overcast... it is that time of year...  the light alters... changes...  brighter, dimmer but still, all shades of gray, subdued, resting, shadow...   all that nature feels is right for now...


Inside, where I am, I look at lines, edges, borders of  shapes...  that stay the same ...



I have missed drawing like one misses a good friend... I hope she visits more often.




...page size 9" x 12"...  I used a Pigma Micron... nice pen, nice ink... waterproof... fade proof...


Contact Me

Friday, November 26, 2010

Red Sky in the Morning

...taken from our second floor window



........ Sailors take warning!!!




 ...  a recent gorgeous sky before a recent dreadful storm.      

.....rather like Nature asking forgiveness for what she is about to do.




... Long billows of cloud hang over the southern coastline of New Brunswick and approximately 25 - 30 miles across the Bay of Fundy, over the northern edge of Nova Scotia.



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Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Dry Stone Wall




...building began about a month ago...  it continues when weather allows...




... much labor and time needed...




...and the magic to make them fit together...


It is going to be so worth it...



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Thursday, November 04, 2010

A Gift





















arrived today...

Like Pearls in the Sunshine...  

only linked, plied, twisted, textural, soft...

...from as far on the opposite side of the world as one could be... from me,

..far away... but connected... caring, sharing, giving...

and Surprised was I when the post master said I had a package today,
Oh, I wasn't expecting anything......... 
Wonder...

Oh,  I am so touched that she did this... so touched by her kindness... her thoughtfulness... her writing my name on the package and sending it off,  with hope and happiness in her thoughts...
spun from the sheep of her own flock of English Leicester...   I just want to wrap myself up in these many skeins and smile... and smile...  and smile


 Dear Soul Arija,   Thank-you so much... you have touched my heart with your generosity!!!!  I cannot begin to tell you how this makes me feel.............


This gift is so lovely... I feel the beauty of it...  I am so humbled...


ps... dear Arija, please thank your sheep too...

...for all those who don't know... Arija's daughter is the amazing textile transformer, author, imagination inspirer, workshop giver, India Flint.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

By the Shore in St. Martins


























There is Noise in this Solitude

Cool, clear, bright... very brisk...
Off to the left, past the harbours bouldered breakwater,
"The Caves", carved from ancient sandstone bluffs...
Far around the curving horseshoe beach to the right,
Quaco Head, protrudes into the Bay of Fundy...
The tide advances...  almost 6 hours, one way...
Seagulls  huddle in groups along the water line...
Watching...  waiting  ... shifting position...
Brilliant white foam on waves, loud and steel gray,
Whose powerful motion turn the beach from rocks to sand....
Seaweed pushed to the wrack lines...
The beach is empty otherwise...
Tourists have gone home...

It is left for us now...

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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Round and Round and Round We Go



 Handmade ...  Pure Copper... Simplicity...

Round...  like a child's face... like the moon... like a halo

...Wheels forever turning...




...Detail of texture and shape.. Created by forging... 
...Wrapped on a circular mandrel...  Hammered into shape... 
...Antiqued and polished...  Airy and light...
 



4 sizes... 
tiny... (not pictured) 1/2" 
small...  1"  (23mm) across... 
medium...  1½ "  (38mm) across...  
large...  2¼"  (58mm) across...  






...photographed in early morning light on the writing arm of an old Dalhousie University chair... well covered in graffiti...


What do circles conjure up in your mind???




DESIDERATUM Art Jewelery, St. Martins, New Brunswick, Canada 

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Drilling Marble




The sink top that this little yellow chrysanthemum is sitting on waited a long time for its second life....  it feels so smooth and the veining so beautiful... we were determined to figure out how we would make it work...


..click pictures  to ENLARGE...




The most frustrating thing about it all was that everyone we asked didn't know anything about drilling marble and couldn't help us at all.. .. it is a shame that the knowledge of the past is disappearing .. we checked in books and online and decided we might as well try it ourselves and give it a shot since we had the old marble top anyway and if we could get it to work for us it was worth a try...

Our biggest fear was that it would crack... but now after finding how easy it was to drill  we would not be nervous again.. as long as not much pressure is applied and we just go slowly and let the drill do the work.. We used a hole cutter for ceramic with diamond grit on the end... these pictures start when we were beginning to drill the third hole... the drill bit has to be constantly cooled  so my job was directing the flow of the water, just a trickle, the easiest part... although the drilling  was not difficult at all,  just needed a slow gentle hand..

... the marble was heavy and so thick...  1 1/2" (you can see the marble plugs we cut out sitting on top of the sink in a couple of the pictures) ...that the drill would not go all the way through... we turned it sideways, shone a light through the cut side and the spot showed through its translucency.. we traced the circle, flipped the slab, laid it down and began drilling from the back... we did this for each hole... the last one popped out... the white slurry that was created by the drilling was very dense and fine and felt so smooth on the fingertips.  makes me wonder what it could be used for.. I'm sure someone has already thought of something to make from it...

 ...we also had to drill 4 small holes on the back to hold the clamp attachments to secure the undermount porcelain sink in place...  I never got pictures of that...  they were held in place with a heavy-duty epoxy, which we had to try a couple kinds to get one that worked... no one knew what to recommend for that either..  but we know now...
 


  

For quite a while, we had saved some old hardwood staircase spindles in the garage for a reason, we knew not what.. til now... and decided they could possibly work for the front leg supports for the sink... but they were too short, since we wanted the marble top to be about 36" high... we took a couple more spindles and cut them at spots where the turnings were appropriate... John drilled into each end and glued and fitted them together with dowels...... 2 legs just the right length...  and kind of special too, I think...  as we looked carefully at each of the spindles, there were subtle nuances observable so it is a fact that each one of them had been hand-turned in their beginning.





... we used some true 1" thick, 100 year old, salvaged, maple, nice and dry, stair-tread for the apron..  because we had it and it was good stuff...   intricate patterns can be cut from it and it is still strong...   John used a drill and a jigsaw to create the pattern in the wood ... then attached the legs and put in corner braces just behind them...



                                                                                                      ...at the studio...


here it is attached to the wall, where he had previously put a 2" x 6"  at the given height...  and began putting all the pieces together...


... little chrome circles were attached over the old square holes on either side ...
.... at a monument shop in nearby Sussex we were able to find a small leftover piece of limestone (since they didn't have any marble) from when they used to make kitchen counter tops, that seemed to be complimentary to our old marble, to use as a back-splash.. not exactly the same but that's ok... the whole assemblage is made of parts from hither and yon anyway and that's fine with us.. We like living a Bohemian Life...




Moral of story..........  Drilling marble is not as hard as Marble......

or......  If you decide you want to do something... just keep on doing it till you're done.

Friday, October 01, 2010

Moments of A Month Gone By


































... each moment holds a memory.



 All photographs by Gwen Buchanan, Desideratum, St. Martins, September 2010,

1. old glass knob on weathered bathroom door 
2. cut design from a 100 yr old stair tread used as a skirt on the old marble sink
3. textured 700 lb. stone,
4. first time tea was served  .. primitive cabinet, we brought home from a farm auction
5. Pirate seems a little worried
6. mauve fall Mums... sky reflections
7. beach-stone hearts, sunlight streams, paint splatters
8. oil painting by John Ackerson
9. John's oil paintings displayed above the old carpenters chest of drawers 

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