paint cut paste

wool roving is quickly becoming one of our favorite art materials around here. N learned how to felt stones at school recently, to make them into colorful, fuzzy eggs for spring. she came home all excited to teach me and my husband how to make some, too. so we let her lead in teaching us this activity.

first we gathered supplies: egg-shaped smooth stones (we have collected tons of beach rocks perfect for this,) colorful wool roving, a bowl of warm, soapy water, and a towel.

each of us selected a stone with which to work, and we each chose a first color of wool. i wasn’t able to take step-by-step photos of this because my hands were soon wet and soapy, but it’s pretty easily explained and if you want a photo tutorial, there’s a good one here on lil fish studios blog.

we spread out the wool and wrapped the first layer around the rock until it covers the stone entirely. you can use a felting needle to close the seam here, if you’d like, but it’s unnecessary. then we dipped the stone into the bowl of warm soapy water. once it was wet, we tossed the wet stone back and forth between our hands. it’s a gentle, repetetive motion of back and forth, which can be very soothing.

kid hands, husband hands

you can even squirt some liquid soap into your palms for this part, if you’d like. after the wool seems to adhere together a bit, wrap your second color around the stone in the same way and repeat. you might not want to cover the first color entirely – it’s fun to see it show through.

back and forth

we chose to wrap our rocks with three colors each. after they were wrapped, we put them on a plate to dry. N informed us it would take “a whole day plus a night” to dry.

she was right – in about 24 hours our egg/rocks were dry… and oh so cute!

since we made ours as egg shapes and in spring colors, they are so wonderful with our spring/easter decorations! i’d love to make some solid color ones (like she did on lil fish studios) as pretty stone gifts, too.

large one on left is N's egg, small ones in nest are my husband's and mine

for N’s fifth birthday, we gave her a small aquarium, and she was able to pick out two goldfish and a snail as new pets. well, sadly her sweet snail, marigold, didn’t last more than a month. (something about nitrates in the water, for which we have since gotten new water purification drops.) with this gift, we realized that the difficult lessons of mortality would soon be upon us, and here they are, sooner than we expected.

r.i.p. marigold

in its inherent transcendent nature, art is able to make the invisible visible, to make the unseen seen. according to carl jung, the processes involved in art making are most similar to spiritual processes than any activity – both provide comfort, order, and beauty. when the art image is the embodiment of a feeling, such as the grief of a loss (yes, even that of a pet snail,) the art object can becomes empowered as a talisman of sorts, providing containment and solidity for an otherwise nebulous emotion. the art we all made as offerings in the snail’s funeral helped to elevate the ceremony to that of a ritual, modeling for N healthy ways of saying goodbye and processing feelings that can be difficult.

artful altar for marigold

once we broke the news to N that marigold had passed on, we decided we would hold a ceremony the following day in our backyard to celebrate his life and return his body to the earth. i explained to N that we might each want to have an offering for marigold on an altar space at the ceremony. she said she wanted to make a backdrop for the altar, a small sign, and a golden candle.

N creating the altar "backdrop." details on this technique coming soon on the blog. stay tuned!

N rolled a golden candle from beeswax for the altar, and made a little image of herself and marigold.

my husband offered flowers, and he cut heart shapes out of petals for the altar. i chose to offer a yellow snail candle holder that i quickly crafted with sculpey when N was asleep the evening prior to the funeral. (i don’t like to bake sculpey near her because of the fumes, so i did it at night with the windows and backdoor open while she was asleep in her room with her door closed.)

dried berries & branches for antennae

we gathered together around the altar in the backyard last weekend. my husband and i both said kind words and memories about marigold. N said she was “too shy” to say anything, but stood quietly and chin-quivery in front of the altar.

we buried marigold’s body in our flowerbed, where so many snails swarm in the spring. marigold’s spirit will be in good company in the coming months. N added a rock for his gravestone, and she decorated the grave site with her daddy’s heart petal offerings.

here lies marigold. as far as snails go, he was fast and sweet.

after a mindful, heartful goodbye to her snail, N was ready to move on to the reception food (popsicles) and making fairy houses in the backyard.

when i was a little girl, i loved setting up a special little place in my bedroom where i carefully arranged all of my treasures (usually magical stones!) and twigs and leaves i would gather from the yard. at the time, i didn’t call this a “nature table” or an “altar” but essentially, that’s what i was making.

creating sacred space has always been a particular passion of mine, so creating a meaningful altar feels soul-fulfilling for me. an altar is a surface (usually elevated in some way) containing objects of significance and a place to engage in whatever sort of spiritual practice fits for you.

personal altar. autumn 2008

a nature table is a place where the seasons can be observed and honored. for those of us for whom season and earth intersect with our spiritual practice, these can often look similar.

as an art therapist educated at a buddhist-oriented school, who appreciates art as ritual, and has a “buddhish” husband, we keep altars for meditation in our home.

summer 2005, in our meditation room

as ellen dissanyake speaks about, art is about “making special.” she says “this aesthetic ability.. enabled us to ‘bracket off’ the things and activities that were important to our survival, separate them from the mundane, and make them special. we took the objects and practices involved in marriage, birth, death, food production, war and peacemaking and enhanced them to make them more attractive and pleasurable, more intriguing and more memorable. we invented dance, poetry, charms, spells, masks, dress and a multitude of other artifacts to make these associated activities, whether hauling nets or pounding grain, more sensual and enjoyable, to promote cooperation, harmony and unity among group members, and to also enable us to cope with life’s less expected or explicable events.” i feel like altars and nature tables are one very concrete expression of this idea of art as meaning-making or ritual.

altar i created out of scrap wood & fan blades as an art therapy & spirituality project in grad school at naropa, 2004.

in my art therapy practice, i often have something of a nature table going, usually incorporating art materials to invite my clients into the experience of the creative process.

setting in my office circa 2004

when i facilitate an art process or art therapy group, i usually create a sort of altar-like space in the center of the circle. it includes natural objects and the art materials being offered that day.

self-care art therapy group for new moms - fall 2011

my family often creates small birth altars in our home when a close friend is in labor, bringing a baby into the world… keeping a candle lit throughout the birth to send love and light their way. (by the way, i often use my own art on my nature tables, as well as lovely inspiring prints and often these amazing soul cards.)

birth altar for a dear friend. july 2007.

i’ve blogged about how some of my art therapy mentors created these fabulous portable altars in matchboxes.

matchbox altar made for me by my art therapy mentors. spring 2005.

now, as a waldorf momma, ideas about the nature table have been brought from the classroom and into our home through my little N.

nature table set up completely by N - january 2012

i am inspired by so many beautiful nature tables i see around the blogosphere. i am so fond of the seasonal beauty mary beth of salt & chocolate brings into her home. she has an amazing nature table photo set on flickr. there’s also a nice waldorf-inspired group on flickr called “the nature table” with many beautiful images.

spring nature table, 2010

do you keep a nature table or altar? as you can see, they come in various shapes and sizes. they can live at home or at work, be made with your children or alone, small-scale or large, seasonal or not. i would love to see how you express yourselves in this way, so i’ve set up a pinterest board for this purpose. if you’d like to share your altar or nature table, post the link to your blog entry, image, or pin of your table in the comment section of this post. (and i’ll repin it on my board!) let’s inspire each other!

bowl of natural materials for art

día de los muertos, or the day of the dead, occurs on november 2nd, shortly after halloween. some rituals connected with this mexican holiday include creating altars honoring the dead using sugar skulls, marigold flowers, and the favorite foods of the departed. sometimes people visit cemeteries with these gifts honoring their ancestors. while the day of the dead is different than halloween, it is often lumped together with it since some of the iconography is similar. we decided to create our own little skull honoring the holiday and our ancestors for our altar at home.

N found a pre-made paper mache skull on a recent trip to michael’s that she really wanted to paint, which was the impetus for this project. she decided it should be white (like skulls are) so we got out some white acrylic and mixed it with a little silver for some shine. N began to paint.

after it was all painted white, she wanted to decorate it by gluing on different sequins, shimmery stones, and feathers.

embellishments

she had a great time putting on drops of glue and placing objects. my favorite moment was when she found a red plastic “crystal” and glued it to the forehead of the skull and said, “this can be one of his chakras!” what a proud reiki master momma i was in that moment.

N loved the finished skull with its different yellows, reds, golds — inspired by marigold flowers (though we had none.) after it was complete, she asked if it could “glow in the dark.” we didn’t use glow-in-the-dark paint, so i told her we could try to put an electric votive candle inside of it to make the inside glow. i had to use an x-acto knife to cut a little trap door in the bottom to get the “candle” inside, as it wouldn’t fit through the jaw.

she loved the effect — “magic!” though not made of sugar, the skull will be placed on an altar i made in grad school to honor our ancestors as an offering to those who’ve come and gone before us on november 2nd.

(a peek at my ancestry altar from 2003)

i recently chanced upon this inspirational photo of these lovely sticks by an artist named ginette lapalme.

ginette's sticks

we had some sticks and driftwood hanging around our backyard, just waiting to become art materials… and i’d been thinking on it for a few days. i’m also reading a book on the shamanic tradition of holding council, which involves a talking piece – usually a stick. i’ve been dreaming about finding and embellishing a talking stick for my family and also for my work with clients. then blamo! – this picture finds me. the internet is so cool like that – providing serendipitous encounters and answers. anyway, the fire was lit under me, so i showed N the photo to share the fire, and we gathered up our things: sticks, acrylics, brushes, palette, water jar, rag.

perhaps sticks we had won’t necessarily become future talking sticks, but i set out without that intention – just wanting to enjoy art for art’s sake and the fun of painting whimsical stripes and such on a natural canvas. while i worked on a big stick, N had so much fun with the smaller ones.

she talked all the while about how she’d never done this before, and how she loves all of the new art ideas i come up with for us to do — how sweet to hear! (incidentally, she told me i am the best artist in alaska… which was flattering and all, but we’ve never even been there. ) it was a playful art-making session.

N's "ocean sparkle" stick

when working with natural materials, i like to (and this may get too woo-woo for some of you, but bear with me) have a dialog with the stick, rock, shell, etc. about what it would like to become. i feel like nature’s form really can dictate the lines, shapes, and colors, if we mindfully engage with it, observe, listen, and trust our instincts about the artistic choice we are making. i did this as i worked on painting my sticks, and i introduced this concept to N as we painted. children are such absolute naturals when it comes to creating such a dialog, storyline, conversation – they are not self-conscious and are so genuinely connected to nature, so it comes easily. as adults, we have often lost that ability, and work to reclaim it.

the collection (sticks and stones)

besides having tons of fun together, the visual results were magical.

my "heart chakra" driftwood

the most magical aftermath of all…

our artist hands

last year when i saw this post on one of my favorite blogs – 5 orange potatoes – i was smitten. isn’t lavender just the most heavenly scent ever? and these lavender wands are so easy, earthy, and elegant.

when i first saw the idea toward the end of last summer, all i had in my yard was very dry lavender, and i tried it out with that. it wasn’t all that attractive or easy then, so i vowed to wait until it bloomed again this spring.

let’s be real – this isn’t a young kid task. toddlers can help you pick the lavender, but it takes a kid of a few more years to do the weaving. (even momma thought it was a tricky small motor skills task!) as per the instructions, i gathered an odd number of stems of fresh lavender (anywhere between 9 and 15 – i did lucky #13 for mine!) that were at least 12″ long (or as long as you can get them.)

then i plucked off all of the leaves, rubber-banded the lavender just under its blooms.

next i followed 5 orange potatoes’ well-written/illustrated instructions and held the bundle upside down (blooms at the bottom.) i then folded each stem downward, one by one, to encase the lavender flowers. after i did that, my wand looked like this.

then i chose a 1/4″-1/2″ satin ribbon, and cut it to about 2 yards in length. i tucked the end of it in at the top of the wand (where the stems start to fold down) and began to weave it around and around through the stems – over and under. it makes a checker-boarded pattern as you go around because you have an odd number of stems.

don’t forget to pull it tight as you go. once the flowering part is covered and you feel like you’ve had enough weaving, wrap the ribbon tightly around the stems, then tie a knot at the bottom. i left a long tail of pretty ribbon dangling from it, too. then i trimmed the stems to an equal length.

these are the ones i made last year with the dried lavender stems, along with the new magenta one i just made. can’t wait to keep making more!

these make for a pretty and natural wand or sword for your little one to play with (and subsequently fall asleep due to the calming properties of the lavender,) or they make nice gifts for drawer sachets or pretty additions to a seasonal altar. i sent the fresh one to a friend for her birthday.

when out for a little walk around the ‘hood yesterday, N began to collect natural treasures, as these little people often do. since she’s pretty into sticks and wands and her seasonal altar, making a medicine wand from her gatherings seemed like a fun idea.

medicine wands are traditionally used by native american cultures in spiritual ceremonies. generally, they include a feather, as well as sticks, leaves, flowers, crystals, or any other natural object that holds energy or meaning for a person. kids might enjoy making and playing with these wands, or placing them on their altars and using them to create sacred space. during our walk, we gathered red leaves, a green magnolia leaf, some twigs, a tiny pinecone, clover, and flowers.

when we got back home, we grabbed some yarn (any string works,) scissors, and a feather from my craft stash, since we didn’t find a feather outside, and honestly i’m a bit weirded out by avian flu and whatnot on feathers, regardless. (should i be?) traditionally, i think the feather should be the largest object with all other things placed on top of it, but our feathers were small, and took the front spot in the “medicine bouquet” as N called it.

it was tricky to gather them all together and hold them while tying yarn on it, and since my little shaman was galloping through the yard, embodying a horse spirit by this point (see photo above,) i was left to my own devices to tie it up, so i relyed on a clothes pin to hold things in place while winding the yarn tightly around the base.

it should cover about two inches or so at the bottom of the “bouquet.” you can tie the string in the front or the back, depending on your preference. i stuck an extra feather on top as i tied the last knot, which is why you can’t see my two inches of yarn in the picture below.

after you’ve created it, just hang your medicine wand upside down to dry for a few days.

enjoy the healing properties of the earth! happy earth-day month!