Nadine's private island

You may not know that I'm a huge fan of David Zinn. If you are on Facebook or Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, I'm quite sure you have come across his work before.

A little warning or apology now. I love David's art so much, but I don't know if I will be able to find the right words to explain that. Sometimes I'm full of words, but not the right ones come out. Please also keep in mind I'm not a native speaker. Both of that together may be leading to something that totally makes sense in my head, but not so much written down.

This is from David's website:
"Now, thanks to the temptations of a box of sidewalk chalk on an unusually sunny day, Mr. Zinn is known all over the world for the art he creates under his feet. David's temporary street drawings are composed entirely of chalk, charcoal and found objects, and are always improvised on location through a process known (to almost no one) as "ephemeral pareidolic anamorphosis."
According to his TEDx talk, this isn't what he calls capital A Art, but small a art.
It's art that doesn't last for long, art that requires you to look at it from a certain angle to get the picture right, art that is inspired by detecting a meaning or picture in something that originally has nothing to do with it, like seeing something in a cloud that makes sense to your mind, a cow or a car.

We all know the last one. I regularly see faces, dragon heads, and more in my bathroom tiles and it doesn't worry me as long as they don't start talking to me out loud.
What I have never done, however, is work with that pareidolia and use cracks, lines, chewing gum spots, leaves, bushes or metal covers in the street to create something funny, whimsical, heartwarming. I have made a few jewelry pieces that started as a kind of doodle, for example a piece of bent wire, and turned into something recognizable, but not that often. I play, but the results are mostly abstract.

David, however, is sharing a world of creatures with us - like Sluggo, the green monster with the stalk eyes, or Philomena, the flying pig, gnomes and trolls, bunnies and dinosaurs, dragons and hamsters. All of them are adorable, even the grumpy ones, often their fears and joys and quirks are very relatable, and sometimes I feel like wanting to hug or talk to a piece of street art. I know I'm not alone in this because although I try to follow my own advice to never read the comments on social media, there are posts where I know the comments won't be a dumpster on fire and they show how much these little creatures speak to people.

One of my regrets is that I will never see one in person. David shares not only his art in pictures, but also does videos of how his creatures come to life, and there are books, prints, calendars as well which is wonderful, but no matter how good a picture is, I don't think you get the exact same feeling from them.
Of course one point is the idea of stumbling upon it unexpectedly. In one of his books, David says that usually only a few dozen people get to see his original art, festivals or events obviously being an exception to that. That's no surprise if you see people running along without looking around them, myself included, no doubt (except for the running part, my walking slowly should give me a slightly better chance).
There was a time when I consciously looked up on my way home and noticed stained glass windows, initials on houses, even mosaics that I hadn't seen before. I don't think, however, that I look at the ground too consciously while walking but only if I'm sitting somewhere, and of course these days I don't get around much, anyway.
So how big would my chances be to even notice art that doesn't jump right out at me like a big wall full of graffiti, for example?
The other point is that in the pictures you mostly get the right angle from the start and you don't have to discover it yourself. Would I even recognize what I'm looking at?
Would I see Nadine?

Yes, we're finally getting to Nadine.
She is my all time favorite, a small mouse in a blue dress (here you can find just a few pictures of her). David calls her "a mouse of adventure".
Nadine makes friends without reservations, like cats, big frogs, sheep, Sluggo, and even dragons and the Chalk Ness Monster.
She likes adventure, but she also enjoys quiet and solitary times with a book or a nice cuppa.
She tends to plants, she uses a crystal ball, she dances, and she seems to be living very much in the moment, enjoying what she's doing.
I'm a grumpy old cat lady ... and I think I envy her a little for getting to be Nadine 😉

I couldn't get this picture of her out of my head from the first time I saw it.

"Nadine's Private Island"
With permission of David Zinn

This isn't the only time I have seen Nadine with a book, but this is a really private spot compared to the hammock or the tree.
Don't we all want our own private island sometimes? Especially nowadays? A spot where the world can't touch us at least for a little while? No phone (although my cell phone is hardly ever on, my landline is still going strong), no technology, no neighbors, no noisy cars, just us and a book. I hope there were no annoying boats coming by, but knowing Nadine she probably would have been ready for that, too.

Anyhow, I started getting this nagging feeling of a need and a challenge.
The need was wanting to turn this into fan art. The challenge was the decision what exactly to do and how and it wasn't that easy. In the end only embroidery seemed right.
So I grabbed a 9 cm embroidery hoop - as Nadine is a small mouse - and spent a few fun days embroidering.

My palm tree isn't quite as high and I couldn't fit the whole island on, but Nadine doesn't seem to mind.
The leaves were a bit of a problem at first because I had never tried stumpwork before and struggled with the small size. After four or five attempts I finally called defeat and went back to familiar terrain meaning I beaded the leaves instead (taking the artistic license of making them lighter in color because I didn't have enough dark green beads left).

Unfortunately my brass frames are a bit too small to work with the beaded leaves and my wooden frames are too dark for this scene.
I'll find something eventually.

When I was done in the middle of the night, I took a quick and not very good picture, and before I could start overthinking it as usual and chicken out, I sent an email to David asking him for permission to share this piece publicly.
Can you imagine how I felt when I got a reply the next day already? Of course I had hoped for one, but I wasn't sure at all and definitely didn't expect such a quick one. And as you can obviously tell from this post, it was a yes which really meant a lot to me.
To use David's words from the TEDx talk when he told the story of the earless Mickey, I was "childishly happy".

This is just for myself, a little reminder to try and perhaps be more like Nadine sometimes. I'll let you know how it goes 😉
Also I'm sure I will never not smile looking at her.

Random Saturday - The new gang member

I can't believe it has been almost exactly nine years ago that I introduced you to a new face on my fan wall of bead loomed portraits - Margarete Steiff.

I had also talked a bit about how my ex and I became collector of Steiff toys, thanks to a fleamarket that took place twice a year on the grounds of the university we both worked at. It was a huge fleamarket and we didn't have any particular interests, we just looked around.
Then we came to a table with a small plush mouse, a bunny, and a guinea pig, all of them Steiff which we were familiar with, but had never owned ourselves in our childhood. We were informed that people collected Steiff, something we had never thought about before.
"Pieps", the mouse, "Manni", the bunny, and "Swinny", the guinea pig, came home with us. We didn't even haggle. We had fallen in love and it was not curable.

Little did we know what those three little animals would start, not only visits of fleamarkets, fairs, auctions, but also meeting new people, and doing a lot of research pre-Internet.
We looked through price guides and catalogs, we learned about different buttons in ears or sometimes feet or tails if there weren't ears, different tags, different kinds of fabrics, glass or plastic eyes, and more.
We visited the Steiff museum in Giengen - still the old small one - and had I been a child, I would probably would have wanted to press my nose against the glass or drool on the floor. We watched the short movie about Steiff shown in a small room within the museum every single time we went there. Afterwards we went to our favorite restaurant and dreamed about owning some of these animals.
I have always been fascinated by collectors and their stories, but I'm afraid I may have bored more than one person with my stories.

One animal we couldn't resist was Pieps (who is named after the sound mice make - best translated as Squeak). Whenever we saw one we liked, we added it to our little gang of mice until they overran the place as mice sometimes tend to do.
They sit on dogs, climb up giraffe necks, play with cats, talk to foxes, sit in teddies' laps, peek out from under deer, and keep goats company.
Once I brought them all together for a reunion.
All the white ones with the red eyes ...

... and all the grey ones with the black eyes ...

... and sometimes if one jumps out at me, I'm fine with it joining the gang.
"Pieps, meet Pieps, this is Pieps and Pieps, oh, and that is Pieps, Pieps, and Pieps. Have you met Pieps yet?" Okay, I think you got the idea.

This week a new squeaker has arrived and after a big hello and introduction, she chose to go ride a boar. She's a tough one 😉
Can you believe she is at least 55 years old?

If you now think I'm crazy, you are probably right, but that's how collecting works - it doesn't matter if it's stamps, bottles, toys, books, clothes, shoes or movies!

The Fairy Mouse

I'm still here although I took a longer break due to personal reasons. I haven't been lazy, but you will see more about that in December for a new advent calendar of mine.

The wire had become a pretty rare guest in my creative world lately, but the other day I was determined to step away from the beads and bring the wire back. As usual I didn't have a plan, all I had were four short strands of thicker wire and my working wire.
Let me tell you about the journey I took with them which led me to a peculiar creature.

It's strange how four strands of wire can be "bound" together with more wire, and then you look at them and you start seeing something - if you are lucky, that is, and your muse is playing along. As the length really wasn't enough for big experiments, it was only natural to bend the component or whatever you would have called it at that moment in the center.
One thing I saw was a little octopus like one I had made before. It was good to know I would have a plan B, even if I didn't have a plan A. I'm saying plan B because I didn't really want to make an octopus. I wanted to make .... an eye ... an eye with feathers ... did I have a cab I could use ... the faux amber, perfect size ... and the feathers on the end (please note that none of the steps went as quickly as described in this post, I held stuff up a lot and looked at it and put one thing on the other, unwove (is that even a word?) wire and so on, and never took one picture of the process because I couldn't disturb the muse, right?) ... and now I had an eye and the "amber" kept moving a little, so I had to get the wires in the back tighter ... shining through the cab now, not sure I like that, but I'll leave it for now ... next the feathers?

No worries, I won't go on like that, but I wanted to show that this is pretty much how the process of creating often works for me.
Before the feathers my eye fell on an agate slice. THE agate slice. I got it in an early Easter sale, shortly before the pandemic made me stay home. Don't ask what agates have to do with Easter, the hardware store kept them in a basket at the table with decorative items on sale. This particular slice had been out of the stash drawer several times, but had always refused talking to me. This time, however, it said "look at me, I'm a mouse". An eye with feathers and a green mouse. Weird. Leaves instead of feathers. Leaves, woods, a green mouse ... a fairy mouse!

That's when it all came together. My mouse needed a big ear, swirls and scrolls on her body, a long tail with swirls and even swirly whiskers.
When I finally held it against the light, I noticed that especially the lower wire behind the cab seemed to add more dimension and life to the eye.

It really is an odd little creature, but aren't we all? ;-)
Now it just needs a bail and/or chain if I decide to make it a pendant. It's not a lightweight. Maybe it would look nice in a shadow box with some kind of woodsy background?

What a mouse and a bead loomed portrait have to do with each other

It all started with a mouse, a "Pieps" mouse to be exact. It was a Saturday at the big fleamarket on the university's parking lots many years ago where we saw "Pieps" first.

Of course we were familiar with Steiff animals although we both (my ex and I) hadn't had any when we had been children. If you live only 35 miles from where they come, however, you are bound to know about them. Well, not to mention that they are world famous of course. We had never really thought about vintage Steiff, though, and what they looked like.
We fell in love with "Pieps". "Pieps" mice had been made for twenty years, in the colors grey and white. I don't remember if we paid too much - we probably did - but we couldn't resist. The seller told us a little about vintage Steiffs and that people collected them. I guess it must have hit us like a lightning, but at the same fleamarket we also got a rabbit and a guinea pig and learned about mohair and dralon.
When we came home, we didn't know that a door had been opened, a door to more fleamarkets, auctions, new friends, visits to the Steiff museum (still the old one back then), and of course Steiff animals.
We never forgot that "Pieps" started it all. Whenever we saw one we liked, it came home with us which is why I doubt the one in the picture is the ONE.
To this day they are sitting on giraffe necks, in teddy laps, they are riding on foxes and are guarded by cats and dogs.

We didn't have internet then. We had printed price guides and we did everything to get our hands on old Steiff catalogs for more information, too. We were excited to learn about all the things that Steiff made beside the animals, kites, toy aeroplanes, wooden toys, building blocks, and of course there was the stuff with Steiff animals printed on them, from egg cups to card games, from waxed cloth to plastic dishes.
Just today I put away the little Christmas tree that is part of my hallway decorations every year.

The other day I watched a documentary about Steiff. That's when I decided that Margarete Steiff who started the company in the late 19th century had to go on my fan wall of bead loomed portraits.
At the moment she looks a little out of place among all the actresses and actors there, with her earnest look which is not unusual for photos in those times. As you can imagine, there were not many pictures of her to choose from. Don't let it fool you, she was an amazing woman.
You will find a short biography of Margarete Steiff on my fan wall page.