The World On The Moon

I love finding other people who blatantly combine arts and science (Let's hear it for having a BFA in Theatre Costume Design, with cognates in Art History, Anthropology AND Biology!).  Those of you who read my blog saw my post on using NASA photos as an inspiration for my dyed silk.  I really think that by combining art and science (and history and sociology and...well you get the idea) we are broadening the audience for both; by creating a larger audience we create a more fertile ground for all of the work we do.

While listening to NPR Science Friday today I heard about the Gotham Chamber Opera producing Haydn's Il Mondo Della Luna/The World On The Moon (written in 1777) in the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

One word...AWESOME!  They cobbled together space footage and years worth of planetarium shows into a video backdrop for this Opera.  Since they could not use traditional lighting without washing the projections into oblivion they used some truly creative solutions, light up costumes, low-wattage lights at short range, book lights sew onto the costumes (nope, not kidding) and actors performing on ladders.

From what I can see it is just amazing.  The bad news is that it is in NYC, more than a thousand miles from me, and totally sold out.  The good news is that they are talking about it becoming a touring show! 

Here is the Science Friday Article:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201001292

The YouTube Video from the American Museum of Natural History:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbm89W0VKyY

The NY1 News piece on the production:

http://www.ny1.com/7-brooklyn-news-content/ny1_living/112480/hayden-planetarium-hosts-haydn-opera

Happy New Year!

Now that I have officially survived the holiday season and the start of the new year I am going to be focusing on my projects with a renewed vigor.  My resolutions have been two fold, first is to work on my health, eating, exercising, taking time to generally make my body and mind a priority.  The second part of the resolution is to build my business.  I have started by getting in touch with several agencies that will help me start all of the legalese required to have a business. (Here I was hoping that seven years of college would be enough, shows that you can always learn something new.)

The holiday season was good to me, I was able to see my Aunt and Cousin from Denmark, all of my friends in Michigan, some from Chicago and a slew of my Michigan-based family.  Greetings to all of you from down here in Sunny (but unseasonably "cold," O.K. so we have had frost 3 times this week, when you have palm trees that counts as cold) Florida.

In addition to the joys of seeing everyone and visiting home there were other benefits to Michigan including snow and having my work put into Trillium Art Gallery in East Lansing, MI.  Stop by and talk to Kali, the owner, if you are in the area.  She specializes in local artists and Fair Trade, since I have worked with her for going on ten years she counts me as a local still.

This past week marked my first Florida retail venue, a big mile stone to check off on my business plan, I now have a small selection of scarves at Catai Trading at Wilburn's Inc. in Dania Beach, Florida.  In Caryn, on of the owners, I found a kindred taste, her shop is a lovely combination of international fabrics, vintage costume jewelry, sculpture and assorted antiques.  My heart was won over by the comfy couch, piled with Indian silk pillows draped in fabric situated in a window over-looking the street.

Yet more good news for the budding business; I was able to make enough sales over the holiday season to order more supplies, they just came in today!  I am thrilled with the quality, gorgeous stuff, heavy silk charmeuse that feels like butter, luxurious mat-finished crepe de chein, gauzy silk chiffon and more acid etched beauties in both satin and velvet. My mind brims with ideas for turning these into finished pieces.  So keep your eyes open for some very exciting new material in my Etsy shop in short order here.

Here is an example one of the previous batch of crepe de chein scarves to tide you over until I have new pictures to post:

Analytics and Nebulae

I am working hard to get more stock for Etsy ready, if the weather cooperates today I will take pictures of more scarves to post.

I am still so excited about making the Etsy front page.  I have a neat tool called Google Analytics that allows me to view various statistics about my site; how many hits each page gets, how long people stayed, where their IP address is located, what browser they used. I had over 200 visits on Sunday! Previously I had only had 33 at the very most, so that is quite a jump.

My next goal for my site is to see 500 visits, I am currently at 442, so the goal is in sight!  Another fun thing I found is that my pages have been viewed in ten countries, on four continents.  Talk about world wide exposure. 

I am trying to build up a business, I sure did not expect this while I was in school or I would have taken some classes on business building and management (insert a wry smile that seven years of college was still not enough...) 

I have been working on posting a line of scarves to Etsy that I am really fond of.  As soon as the first of these babies came out of the dye process in my early experiments they captivated me.  I looked at them and saw the night sky, images from the Hubble Space telescope of distant nebulae and galaxies.  Ever since first seeing these pictures shown on a huge screen in my Astronomy class I loved them, the swirling colors, the endless possibility of creation.

When Marcus saw the scarves and said they reminded him of space, without me telling him my thoughts, I knew it was meant to be.  Thus many of my recent listings on Etsy have been inspired by the sky and science. Here are some of the scarves and the images that inspired them.  (Yes I am a HUGE geek, I know, but I find inspiration in darn near everything, it's just what I do.)

This scarf was inspired by a collection of images from the Orion Nebula, located in the belt of the constellation of Orion. (Click here to see listing)

NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team

NASA, ESA, T. Megeath (University of Toledo) and M. Robberto (STScI)

This next one was inspired by the top portion of the Eagle Nebula. (Click here to see listing)

   

NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

This next scarf was inspired by an awesome X-ray and Visable light combination image of the Crab Nebula. (Click here to see listing)

Credits for X-ray Image: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al.

Credits for Optical Image: NASA/HST/ASU/J. Hester et al.

To see more of the glorious images from the Hubble Space Telescope please visit their site: http://hubblesite.org

In other news:  Christmas mayhem is in full swing, I am working on projects left and right for family, friends and family of friends.  Marcus is laughing at me because I have wipeboard full of to-dos and have a lot (don't ask how many, I honestly don't know) of projects in various phases of completion.  And this is all before I am back in Michigan...

My first Holiday build up down here in Florida is bizarre!  It is 80 out side and I am looking at lights, Christmas trees and menorahs.  Don't even get me started on the Santa's in shorts and Hawaiian shirts.  I am still don't really believe that it is already December, my poor northern body calendar is all confused; why is it dark at 6pm if it is 80? 

Squirrel and Bluejays

I was hunting for a title to this post and looking out the window when the title happened.  There was a blue jay sitting in the bush next to my patio when suddenly from the left a squirrel charges in chattering away and takes a running dive at the jay.  The jay takes off squawking and shrieking while the squirrel sits down and chomps a nut from the overhanging palm.  Odd, a little surreal, amusing and unexpected.

Kind of like this morning.  First a sale on Etsy, someone in New Jersey will be getting a lovely batch of costume jewelry shortly.  Sales are still rare enough to be exciting.  As an added bonus now I can pay my December bills in full!  That is a huge relief.

Next I see a note from Etsy, I made the front page!!!!  The Bronze Leaf velvet scarf was there, sadly I did not see the event, but another shop keeper (thank you CheapBoutique!) did and took a screen cap for me, and indeed there it is at the center of the bottom row.

O.K. so the screen capture is not exactly a stunning picture, but it proves I was there. I did it, finally.  I am slowly making progress in my Etsy goals, this might work after all.  One small step for Hanna, one giant leap for The Golden Raven!  It is really the little things that make me smile.

Doing the Happy Dance

I am SO excited right now!!!  I made my first Etsy Treasury today. Treasuries are member created shopping galleries organized along a common theme.  My Tropical Waters scarf is featured, appropriately, in "Colors of the Tropics." Visit the listing!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=96149

Just had to share.

Etsy

As I have been working to set up my Etsy store I have been confronted with questions that have not always been easy to answer; searching for answers has lead me to discover some interesting things.

First I looked at why I am so attracted to the idea of small business.  On first brush it was easy, I like working with people and big box stores employees tend to be there only for the pay check, not because they like working with people.  I wanted to be closer to the top of the chain, not at the very tail end of an epic distribution line.

Working with small business all my life and working for them since I was 16 has really warped how I think of retail.  I mean, my parents still go to a small butcher who sells local meat, rather a rarity in this Sam's Club world.

While looking into small business practices The 3/50 Project came to my attention.  It is based on the idea that if you spend $50 dollars a month at 3 local business you can seriously impact their wellbeing.  Please just take a few moments to look at their information, it could keep some of your favorite stores open. Spread the word.

O.K. off my soap box now to the fun stuff!

Pretty things that I am working on, some of which are in my Etsy store.

This was one of the scarves that started the current series, it showed me what types of things I could get away with.  I named it Tropical Waters because it reminds me of water reflecting the shoreline vegetation, and it was made at the August height of the Florida heat, when water (and cooling off) was high on my priority list.

Photographing these scarves (and editing the photos) is proving to be almost as much work as making them.  I have tried to get the colors as acurately as possible, but I have yet to capture the visual texture to my liking.  They are just so much more alive in person.

This scarf was an unexpected success.  I kept over dyeing it and I was never quite satisfied, it just was too boring.  At 90 inches long it is by far longer than the other pieces I work with.  Then I had a brain storm, I did a variant of pole wrapped shibori (Japanese Tie-dye in a very general sense) and instead of adding dye I used a dye remover.

Boy did that idea stink, literally, but it was SO worth it for this rich texture.  Just next time I need to remember to iron it on the patio...

I really adore this scarf.  It is a silk gauze with a rayon velvet pile and it is just so very soft.  I saw scarves similar to this in Liberties of London last summer and fell in love.  When I dyed this one it was the perfect combination of deep green and this rich bronze.  The leaves look brown until the light hits it just right, then they blaze a warm gold.

Originally I was going to steam out the fringe, to lay it nice and flat again, but then after seeing it for a few days the slightly tangled, crimped texture grew on me.  Fringe always tangles, and this just looked so much more natural with the scarf that I chose to crimp and curl it some more.

I am going back to editing photos now.  Enjoy.

You Spin Me Baby

In June a family friend, Julia, was going through her attic and over flow fiber arts supplies.  She asked if I might be interested in a spinning wheel, since she had one her mother had purchased in 1987 (I know because that is the postmark date) and had never unpacked.  I had always wanted to try a spinning wheel and jumped at this chance, since normally spinning wheels are prohibitively expensive, at least $300,  to a college student who only wants to try it, even though I liked playing with a drop spindle.

A lovely hand turned, numbered and signed wheel named Belle Fleur #80 by M&M Wilson made in 1976.

Since getting the wheel I have been spending quite a bit of time happily spinning away.  I would like to share some of the yarns I have produced since moving down here to Florida.  If you want to get odd looks and lots of attention unpack your spinning wheel in public down here in south Florida, the vast majority of people have never even seen a wheel, let alone in person.  It has been a fun way for me to meet people,and start conversations, especially when I found the Florida Fiber In convention where I met other people who share my joy down here.

Here are some of my recent spinning adventures.

(Here is a link to basic spinning terms, so that my friends who aren't spinners can have an idea of what I am talking about.)

This was one of the first few rounds I did, I hand dyed the roving first as a rainbow, then spun the wool into singles, then did a nifty technique called Navajo Plying (click here for a YouTube video of the technique, which reminds me of making a crochet chain) which lets you spin one single against itself so that you can preserve the color changes along the length of the yarn.  I chose this technique so that the yarn would actually have chunks of single colors.  I LOVE how the colors came out.  The roving I used was pretty rough so the finished yarn is scratchy, but I am thinking of making a rug out of it so I can enjoy the colors anyway.

The balls here are pictured with a nifty tool called a nostepinne (or nosty for short) which is a old fashioned way to wind these center pull balls of yarn.  This one is from A Spinner's Lair on Etsy, made from reclaimed cherry wood.

(For a really nice how-to lesson see the Fiber Fools post on the subject.)

These skeins of yarn were spun from pencil roving that I got with the wheel, fast and easy to spin up, but still pretty scratchy. It is made of two-plys, one grey, one white.

This was one of the first really soft yarns I have done.  Two-ply yarn from Louet's Silk/Merino blend, sadly I can not remember the color name, but it is still really pretty.  It is a soft sage green with hints of rose, gold and blue.  Truly touchable and cuddly yarn.

I am in love.  I have discovered the wonders of spinning with Blue Faced Leicester wool.  It is a long stapled, super soft wool, that has an amazing shine.  I have seen other spinners call it squishy and it is true, you just want to cuddle this stuff.  I am really happy with this because I dyed the roving and the dye struck far faster than I expected, turning the wool almost black when I applied the dark blues, greens and purples.  But I took the chance and spun it anyway, what a relief.  I am thrilled with the colour results.

This is the current project.  I am working again with some of the wool that came from Julia.  I had this eye popping turquoise, but it just looked flat, I wanted to add some visual texture and variation.  So I added some yellow-olive green color that I am not fond of on its own and carded them together.  

The Rovings

The rovings have been carded together with my hand cards and made into rags.  Here they are waiting in their basket for me to spin.

Here is some of the wool spun into singles, I will then spin it with another bobbin of singles to make a two-ply yarn.

The result reminded me of the turquoise my Mom has from Colorado, rich blue with veins of a yellow-green color that just are facinating.  I am totally excited by the results and I have about 3/4 of the bunch to ply yet.

Thanks for bearing with me, there should be more coming soon.