It’s coming! Less than 10 days away to the start of the 19th season for Philomath Open Studio Tour! I’ve been fortunate to be part of now 5 tours to date. This year has 11 studios open with a total of 26+ artists participating. Please come visit me at Studio #8 with the beautiful jeweler Linda Herd. For additional information and maps, please visit the website: http://www.philomathopenstudios.com. We also have presence on Facebook and Instagram. Search for @ philomathopenstudios!
So, make plans to visit as many artists as possible. It’s such a fun tour with great diversity of work. Mark your calendars for October 21, 22 & 28, 29, Noon to 5 pm all 4 days! I hope to see you all soon!
We are finally shifting into warm weather. In fact, it should be a weekend for the low 90’s (over 32 C). The only plus side is that wet wool dries faster in heat.
I’m dipping my toes into uncharted territory of wet felting feathers for chicken sculptures. The first one is Miss Lavender who is already on hold for a friend.
Needle and wet felted chicken
Lavender started with a solid body of wool, plus sturdy wire legs and feet. Next step was creating two sheets of felt (colored and natural) via wet felting. After drying and a good ironing, the felt was cut and formed into a fluffy bum and body feathers. It was a fun experience and I look forward to creating more birds.
Thursday’s felting experiment. Not showing is a solid sheet of natural white to become 2D art. Haystack rock at Pacific City, Oregon. Needle felted wool.
Along with the sculpture comes a round of trying 2D felting. I’m enjoying it, but it’s more challenging than I originally thought. Of course it really helps to actually plan everything out before one starts.
Above is a second rendition in larger scale (12”x 12”) of Haystack Rock by Pacific City, OR. It’s attached to a base of felt I created for the work (via wet felting). I’m still waiting to see if it needs more. The ocean is still not sitting right with me. Time will tell.
The Monarch butterfly is also waiting for more attention and actual design inspiration. We currently have loads of apple trees blooming and the flowers are stunning but not something that Monarchs would be experiencing in our area. Thank goodness for artistic inspiration and bending of rules! I might just pull out the flowers and let it exist on the sea of blue and green.
WIP: monarch butterfly. Needle felted.
I’m also working on duck forms, specifically Runner Ducks for their upright posture.
One duck with feet, one without. More work is needed to refine their heads before they are covered in colored wool.The crazy loopy fluffy chicken. I won’t be attempting this method again!
Before the ducks there was the first chicken experiment using alpaca wool. It certainly made for a very fluffy chicken, but it took about 7+ hours just to apply the loops, stabbing each one in place.
NC Cheviot and Alpaca blend
There’s also been a bit of spinning going on. I started blending alpaca wool with my base sheep wool. I only have one bobbin almost full but it takes at least two for a nice yarn. More spinning to come. Morning spinning with coffee on the deck are wonderful!
So that’s about it right now. I will probably escape from the heat into the studio and finish up a certain book bugging my brain. All the art is pushing towards the first show in July.
Measuring in at about 1 – 1.25 inches (25-32mm), the woodland skipper is certainly a small butterfly. During the summer months, theses cuties love to feed on multiple food sources in the yard. Below are two images as it progresses from ink drawing into watercolor. This will eventually become part of a book for my friend Karen.
I’ve not had the clearest brain this week so I started it off with a bit of play on Monday. Felting in 2D. The finished image is about 5.5 inches square (14cm).
And that moved on to another tutorial of lavender fields in Provence France.
Today, Friday, I’ve started laying out my own design using Haystack Rock on the Oregon Coast. More parts of Karen’s book page are waiting for watercolor attention and figuring out a different plan with the butterflies (yes, there’s two now!). My enthusiasm for the original catnip plants has gone out the door and I’m going to attempt a poppy flower instead with collage. A new bottle of pH neutral glue finally arrived with a 6 pack of 8″x 8″ wood panels. More experimenting to come with those!
I spent so much of my week sick and I’ve finally had enough. I’ve opted to reset everything with the auto immune diet. Last weekend I threw so many curve balls at my body with consumption of eggs, dairy, and chocolate that everything in my body was angry and not functioning well. Oh, the joys of living with multiple auto-immune diseases and many food allergies. Anyway, I’m hoping life will begin to feel better….eventually.
Moby had a great PT session on Thursday. He’s regaining strength and reopening neural links to his back legs. He doesn’t bend his right knee very well so I operated the laser therapy machine on the knee as Alyssa (pt assistant) helped feed him loads of treats. It’s so nice to be at a facility where he doesn’t have to be muzzled and the people actually fully understand how to work with reactive dogs. I’m really enjoying taking him in and learning more about what’s happening with his body. Absolutely fascinating how the body compensates for problems which causes further problems.
We hope to step outside and work on building garden boxes before the rain returns Sunday. Saturday is the opening for the Farmer’s Market! Looking forward to seeing some early veg. Positive things on the horizon!
I’ve finally completed one out of 5 pages! This probably makes absolutely no sense to anyone except for the 4 other participating artists. Lets step back a bit. In 2015, I joined an existing small group of artists to create special , one of a kind artist books. In 2018 we added another member for book #2. We met via WordPress blogs and have continued to support each other over the years. Last spring/summer 2022, we decided to create yet another round of books. This time we opted to just send completed pages to each recipient rather than sending around the full books. The page completed is winging it’s way to Stockholm Sweden. The theme of Rebecca’s book was First Bicycles. I drew my first favorite bike, a Schwinn World Sport. We lived in hills so multiple gears was a must!
book page in process
Next book page is for Karen in Castlemaine Australia. Her theme is insects and the additional fun of creating a pop-up page! I’m working through some bug images collected back in 2019. I’ll post progress next week here, but I have some up on Instagram:@gale.everett.studio
I took a little trip to visit my friend Heather (4 miles away) and her critters. Here are a few photos from the visit. Her sheep and llama are lovely, even if they don’t really want to spend time with me. Peppermint is the exception…
Mo the llama love those teeth!
Mo and his flock of Jacob sheep
Peppermint coming for a scritch.
That’s about it for the week. I’ve been trying to get back into swimming, having taken the past 2 weeks off from spring break and extra. Maybe my body will agree with it this time. 18 miles down, 82 to go.
I just have to start with this cutie. We were returning home from a walk and across the main road, near a couple Suffolk sheep, was the piebald leucistic doe. She’s a yearling and still hanging out with mom. Not a common thing to run across, but recessive color mutations happen. She is not albino, but partially leucistic. We hope she continues to thrive and maybe next year we will see a little one with her.
Haystack Rock, Pacific City Oregon
Cape Meares Lighthouse, Oregon Coast
Hazel and Moby on the beach, Oregon Coast
We took a short vacation to Pacific City, home of Haystack Rock and the Dory fleet. It was the week prior to our spring break and relatively quiet (with exception to those on other spring breaks like Idaho and Montana).
Art About Ag update: I didn’t make the cut. Not surprising since it was a giant outpouring! Now I can move on and frame the sheep under glass and enjoy.
Saturday I made a trip to Ewethful Fiber Farm & Mill in Halsey Oregon. The shop was open! I petted the beautiful wool and brought home a bit for a weaving project. The purchase was Vintage Pendleton Yarn spun in 2005 but hand-dyed by the owner this year. Somehow I refrained from another spinning project but did get a good idea for using Alpaca and the North Country Cheviot (20/80 blend is really good!).
Part of the reason I didn’t purchase any wool for spinning is due to future fleece to come. I’ve put in a request for the 6 fleece at my friends farm. I’ll actually turn the whole lot over to the fiber mill in Lebanon. In the garage I have stashed 5 x 5 gallon buckets of cleaned wool. They are marked 2020 on the side (one has a 2019 fleece). They will be my backup supply once the shop cleaned wool is done. There’s only 3 lbs remaining.
A rabbit commission has started , but it will be slow to get off the ground. No worries. She doesn’t seem rushed and I have quite a few items on my plate before starting. We’re still in negotiations over coat style and I need a few more photos, but it’s one cute Netherland Dwarf I’ll be recreating! More photos to come.
I’ve now received 2 pages from the art book exchange and I have two pages in process for those artists. Below are images of the work in progress:
Bike Page in progress
Pattern Page in progress
Looks like I’ll be participating in the 2023 Philomath Open Studio Tour! I’ll be at Compton Winery with Linda Herd and hopefully another artist. October dates to come.
Dave is in Washington State this week and another trip next week to a conference at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California. I’ll be home with the critter crew trying to appease the cat gods, keep up with Moby’s home PT, Hazel’s ongoing digestive track issues and time for Barnaby. The garden is calling, but I don’t think I’ll be getting at it quite yet. It’s always something around here.
View from hillside over the Willamette Valley towards to the Cascade foothills. Lots of grey-green lichens in the oak trees. Finley Wildlife Refuge
After inventory, and more inventory, and a bit more inventory, I think everything has been dropped off/ emailed to the tax accountant. One giant thing is off my shoulders until next year and I really hope to keep better track of everything from here forward. Of course, I recall saying that last year too. It’s now Friday afternoon, the Tarta Santiago almond cake is cooling on the kitchen counter, and the cup of black tea seems to have perked up my energy for the rest of the day. With the final tax push I’ve not accomplished anything else except swimming on Wednesday & Friday. Dave’s work should be closing their doors next week. He will officially be working from home or at the Belleview WA site (one week per month). No more Philomath. It’s been an emotional ride to get here (at least on my side) as a thriving science/environmental business consolidates and moves away from a small town. The business felt like family where people cared about each other. The Belleview site has none of that feeling. Cold and corporate. I’m just really happy we don’t have to move north. There’s a handful of employees allowed to remain in Oregon. Numerous people were laid off, some were able to shift to the WA site. It’s been a messy situation and I suspect it will take a few more months to smooth things out (if that’s even possible). Whew! Next week will be better!
As a follow up from last week: I did submit the Ewe 183 image to be juried at the end of March. I didn’t take the best image so I’m not expecting to receive anything positive. It was a good exercise to make myself enter a show.
I hope to get a few items uploaded to the Etsy site possibly this weekend. Things are looking rather sparse with only two items available.
Hellebores waiting for planting.
Spring is really coming! The Turkey Vultures started returning this week! They are a bit off schedule, but made it. I wonder if the California snow slowed their return?
Tree Lichens
Immature Bald Eagle in a Cottonwood Tree, Finley Wildlife Refuge
Looking up at Oak Tree canopy March 2023, Finley Wildlife Refuge
Looking up at Douglas Fir tree canopy, March 2023, Finley Wildlife Refuge
Moss and Ferns, Finley Wildlife Refuge
We took a muddy hike at the local wildlife refuge last weekend. Beautiful but we slid all over the trail. The oak trees have not even started thinking about leafing out but the LICHENS and moss were stunning. So many different types (or at least seemed to be multiples) in different colors and textures. We really enjoyed our time there.
Natural dark brown Rambouillet, 4 oz, 2 ply spun on an Ashford wheel.
One more skein of yarn came off the bobbin Thursday. This was the Rambley (Rambouillet?) wool from Promised Land Sheep Co. Next up is the Merino that might be blended with alpaca or something else.
Next week will be focused on book pages. I’ve even been contemplating the pop-up page of bugs!
That’s about it from here. I hope everyone has a good weekend wherever you live. Get out and enjoy the shift in seasons.
Happy March to you all! Plus a Happy Anniversary to the blog. They say I’ve been going for 14 years?! How can that be? Sooooo…..
I’ve been letting the blog languish for far too long. Life keeps moving along and I never seem to make time in my schedule to sit an write. Yes, I should just put it on my weekly calendar…. but the brain/body has been challenged enough of late. The hip pain has finally forced me back into the pool for strengthening and it seems to be working. Swimming now takes up 4 days a week for my exercise. Daily dog walks help to round things out a bit if the hip can take it. On the plus side, nightly doses of pain relievers are on the decline! The pool is sponsoring a swim challenge (100 miles in 2023), which I joined. Goals / deadlines are excellent motivation. It would be nice to finally feel like a strong swimmer and for my body to revive quicker. I’ve read that after 6 months of swimming I’ll see a difference. At only 1.5 months in and 12.5 miles under my cap, I have a while before it’s easy going.
Cathe’s book page started in watercolor but will soon shift to colored pencil.
Goals and deadlines seem to be a theme for the year. I’ve put off and misplaced pages for a collaborative book project started last year. This past weekend I finally found the pages tucked safely away and started on my first spread with the theme of patterns. The page did receive marks and an idea last summer, but I wanted to just focus on cyclamen leaves. The other page themes include : first bicycle, pop-up bugs (yes, actually getting an insert to pop up like a children’s book), and a garden theme. My book theme: birds that you enjoy. More to come as the pages are completed.
Internal/mental boundaries were pushed as I applied to an outdoor venue for July. “Art and Wine in the Garden” will be happening on Saturday & Sunday July 29th & 30th, 2023 (10-4 each day). Location is the beautiful Garland Nursery and I was accepted! This means I have to get a wiggle on and produce felted wool items. I actually own a 10ft x 10ft tent thanks to another crafter who donated it to me when she shifted to food production. I do need a banner and gridwall, but that will get figured out in the coming months. The grids I used during POST last fall were way too heavy for me to manipulate. Regarding POST: I’ll probably be notified if that will be part of my income generating source in May. Maybe. I’m not holding my breath.
Dave the sheep made some beautiful yarn. Columbia/Rambouillet cross.
Spinning has popped back up on the interest level. I worked through a beautiful Columbia/Rambouillet cross that was a dream! I purchased it (4oz) along with a Merino (4oz) and a Rambely (not a breed or mix I’m familiar with) (4oz) from Promised Land Sheep Company in Washington. In small doses, hand spinning is doable without damage to hands and feet.
The clock is ticking for submitting to the Art About Agriculture show. I’ve not completed my sheep drawing nor taken a decent photo of it to submit. I have until the 5th of March….. I just need to cinch myself down and finish the darn thing. My brain is saying “why submit when it’s only going to be rejected?” . “Why torture yourself and screw up the drawing even further?”. That darn brain really gets in the way!
Two felted creatures left the studio in February. One is living in Corvallis, the other in Arlington, TX! Always fun to see things leave!
I can’t even believe that two other shows have come and gone: Philomath Open Studio Tour had artwork for 2+ months at the Benton County Museum in Philomath. I was also part of the Big Ink print show at Western Oregon University in January/February. It was great to see prints from our weekend in 2022, plus previous year Big Ink participants.
I think that’s enough for now. Time to pull out the sheep drawing a focus. Next week I’ll fill you in on if I submitted to the Ag show or not, fill you in on the critters, and Dave’s final days at the Philomath Wetlabs site before it closes for good.
Wow, it’s been an incredible ride to the finish for the Philomath Open Studio Tour. The giant push to create and package new things to unearthing all sorts of hidden older gems to find homes as product leaves the tables. Plus coming down with the flu in between weekends. Talk about screwing up the production flow! Oh well, I just had to work with it and let go of the internal expectations I had set for myself.
I mainly sold felted creations and cards for the event. Only one single reproduction sold which really surprised me. I feel bad for investing in so many reproductions. My hopes were big and it was a gamble that didn’t pay off at this time. But I’ll have them for other sales! Plus I might take a couple and play with additional colors over the top. Kitchen towels were also popular.
I decided to treat each zebra print and card as an opportunity to create donation revenue for the Makindu Children’s Program. I sold 15 cards and one framed image, meaning I have donated (check is written and posted) a grand total of $51.50. Not the greatest donation, but a good start.
The zebra print is on display at the Benton County Historical Museum in Philomath until late January 2023. I have yet to visit it, but numerous people did and came by to see me during the second weekend. It was great to hear their impressions and delight at sitting in the auditorium chairs , looking at her on the wall behind the stage. Very readable from a long distance!
Would I participate in Open Studio again? Yes, if I’m asked. It was a truncated experience for me this time around and I don’t feel like I really helped the group out enough, but I certainly sold numerous items and met so many fabulous people. The group of artists running the event are incredible people who are a joy to work with. It’s a group effort to push forward the marketing, publicity, signage, presentations, gallery show/window display, and everything else. So much goes into pulling everything off smoothly. They make it look so easy from the outside.
Well, that’s all for now. I have a pile of wool that needs shaping into numerous ornaments and small kitties for The Vintage Roost show. That event runs from November 18th & 19th, 25th &26th, December 2nd &3rd. Address: North Albany area- 935 NW Scenic Dr., 1/2 mile off Hwy 20.
I’ll leave you with images from the event prior to sales
Grid wall borrowed for the event. So glad I could use it!
Whew! Only one week (actually less) to go until the start of Philomath Open Studio Tour. Next Thursday, Linda and I will be setting up our booths inside Compton Family Winery and hosting a group tour for the participating artists. This will be our test run for everything, including sales. We will be located inside their giant barrel room with massive space and air movement around us. At first, I thought this was a bad thing but now I’m feeling better because we should experience numerous visitors and a greater risk of Omicron exposure. More space equates to more air and helps me feel a little safer.
My studio and sick buddy Hazel
Last weekend was blown out of the water due to the booster jab. I reacted heavily and slowly came back to life on Sunday. I put in a strong week but still feel behind moving into the weekend. Tomorrow I had promised to visit a very pregnant niece in Washington State, but I might have to bag out yet again (I missed the baby shower last weekend due to the jab reaction). Dave just returned last night from a week in WA. It was a nice break from having him around and enabled me to spread out and run my own schedule. Life is always running at a crazy pace!
I found a space for cutting materials without the supporting critter staff members.
I’ve spent a lot of time packaging cards and prints. I still need to get an order finalized for frames and pre-cut matting. I have numerous felting projects that require finishing , plus a couple of drawings that have yet to come off the drawing boards. Last Wednesday I picked up grid wall that is ENORMOUS (8 ft tall!)! Somehow I actually stuffed the 4 panels into the CRV, but not sure how everything show related will fit around it. There won’t be another passenger in the vehicle. At some point I’ll actually need to “set up” the complete idea so it won’t be completely foreign when assembling at the winery.
My to-do list remains enormous but a few items are getting checked off while more are being added. A reminder that the studio tour is October 22, 23, 29 &30th, noon to 5pm each day. Next blog post will have photos of the set-up space! Please check out their website for downloadable maps to all 10 locations.www.PhilomathOpenStudios.com
Setting up the window at the Footwise store in Corvallis. I’m in the red hoodie and my art cohort Debby Sundbaum-Sommers. Photo credit: taken by Anthony Gordon.
I skipped last Friday’s blog posting. Life has been pretty overwhelming and new items were not coming together. However, this week has been full of activity: Sunday set-up of the window at Footwise. Orders are almost here! More orders have been placed and (fingers crossed) will arrive before the event! Hurrah! A new drawing started of a big chicken! And I received my third booster for Covid variants! Yippee! And I harvested the seeds from the chard plants and will be making seed packets.
Earthquake! Yes, we had a small 4.4 tremor at 5:52am today. It’s epicenter was located about 30 miles from us and 8 miles deep. The only thing we noticed was the bedroom door shaking in a strange way. Often the cats come and bang the door for food, but this wasn’t happening. No cats, no meowing, just a strange door shaking. It went for a bit then stopped.
A box of love has arrived! Expensive love, but I hope it will make some people happy when they visit during Open Studio Tour and would like to take home a bit of my art. The only problem with this box is all the preparations in-store for each item. Backing boards, plastic sleeves, information to be written up and distributed into each bag. Plus uploading all the information into the sales page for the square account. Maybe I’ll get Dave involved and make it a little party.
Intense chicken filling a 48” x 36” page.
Put a bird on it! In this case it is a chicken! I had hoped for the drawing muse to push the African crane onto the big paper, but it didn’t happen. However, I was flipping through images and found a favorite of the poultry variety. This plucky lady and her cohorts spent several months visiting us last year. They jumped the fence to escape from a mystery serial chicken killer that was whacking off their girlfriend on a regular basis. We certainly couldn’t fault those gals for leaving home, but it became too intense with dog handling. If one was trying to leave the house with dogs on leash, the ladies would come a running! If it was just us, it wasn’t a problem and we enjoyed seeing them, but the dogs clenched our resolve to urge the neighbors to take control of their wandering birds. So, the girls went back home and were eaten. The drawing is on Rives BFK paper (48″ x 36″), charcoal and Unison soft pastels. Hopefully she will be completed by Open Studio Tour!
Handspun North County Chevoit mix. Natural.
More spinning has crept in with hopes for sales? I’m a bit torn between selling or holding for natural dye baths and future weaving. Is it better to hold on to my creations or let them go? I’ll keep mulling this over. Maybe the red-orange skein (not pictured) will go for decoration and possible sale.
So that’s it for me. Hope everyone is doing well. Have a wonderful weekend!
Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog 