Toronto Bound....

So I cleaned out my bank account (literally) and purchased a plane ticket. I will be landing In Toronto Tuesday afternoon, ready and raring to go... I am going to be attending the Toronto One of a Kind Show. No, don't get all excited now, I am not exhibitting there yet. This is a recon mission, I am going to scope out the show, take down some notes.. and lay down the groundwork to get my booth designed and pots made for the November Show. Its pretty darned exciting. Hopefully I will have a good day at market tomorrow, so there will be a bit of spending money while I am in TO. On a happy note though, I got funding to go, so 65% of my costs will be reimbursed. This is a VERY good thing. I have more I could say, but I am sleepy, its 3:15 in the morning, and there is a ton of stuff to do to get ready for market. ttfn

High Five Friday......Giv'r...

Sending out a Big ole Cape Breton HIGH FIVE! there are lots of folk out there deserving a high five this week. My personal biggest high five goes out to all those who are risking their lives to avert meltdown at Japan nuclear facilities this week. To all the Aid workers taking care of the wounded, the displaced and the hungry.... You are all my heroes.
To all those out there in blogland who are finishing up the week, HIGH FIVE!

India is our official high five model this week....

Jack The Ripper

Whern I was in Halifax last November for the NSDCC Christmas Market, I took a little trip downtown to my favourite yarn store. Now, I truly have no need for more yarn, or fibre of anykind. I have multiple rubber maid containers to illustrate this point. But I always need to take a little stroll through the shop to fondle the yarns and feast on the colours.

So there I was fondling the braids of hand dyed spinning fibre, when this little gem popped out at me. Its really a lovely blood red and black/grey combo It looks a little orangy here, but you get the idea. I thought it was just beautiful, and soft and lovely, but I was putting it back because this was supposed to be a LOOKING trip. Then I read the tag. Its called "Jack The Ripper" . I squeeled out loud and giggled. How GORY!!!!! I love it. Suddenly, I found myself whipping out the debit card... and adding to my already unmanageable stash of fibre.
I'll be taking Jack to Market with me on Saturday, along with my Drop spindle. I figure spinning is a good pastime for those few slow moments I have at market. If my hands are busy, I can't use them to stuff myself full of delicious baked goods from the stand next to mine. Good plan no?

What is Old, Is New Again.

All of these photos, and stories about my family filtering through my brain are starting to take on a life of their own. In the past two weeks I have learned so many interesting things, heard tall tales recounted by my Aunt Ann, originally told by my great Grandad Joseph Beck. Old stories, from the early 1900's, recorded by iphone in Fredericton, and sent by audiofile to Cape Breton. Technology is a wonderful thing.
 Hearing my Aunt retell the tale of my Great grandad's dog chasing a Rabbit through a stone wall in England, brought back memories of my Nan telling me the same story when I was a small girl. I was quickly able to recall the story in its entirety, though my aunt had forgotton bits of it.

The rather serious looking young man  on the left in this picture, is my Great Grandfather Beck. It was he, who was apparently quite the character, telling tall tales to anyone who would listen. I think I would have liked this guy alot. It seemed he had a wild imagintaion, and a bit of a twisted sense of humour. I like to think he was a tad adventurous as well, moving his entire family to a brand new country and leaving everything he knew behind, starting a brand new life at 42, with a young wife and seven kids in tow. This man and his stories have inspired  some new ideas for me, I am not yet sure how they will manifest, be it in art pieces, or production work, but I just know its going to be exciting work either way. I can hardly wait to get started.

To make something new, and to honour those who came before me

Family....

In our house there is always something interesting happening. Someone has always got something fabulous and intriguing underway. More often than not, it is miss India who has some crazy scheme happening, or a wild art project to undertake.
 A few weeks ago, it was Science fair and pinhole photography.Once this project was over we had a few weeks breather and suddenly, its Historica fair time. This time she decided that she would do her family tree. Egads, could she have picked a tougher topic???? I mean what's wrong with doing a history project that you can research at the library???
 At first I was a little disgruntled, and thinking that this was an impossible task, after all, we have little contact with her father's family and  I did not have a great deal of contact with my extended family until recently. But she was determined, and so... we googled a few names, and searched some obituaries online to get some idea of what kind of task we were looking at. I sent a broad request out on Facebook to my family for information  WOW!! is all I can say. My family has sent scads of information, and a ton of photos. Its mind boggling!
I am totally jazzed by all of these photos, and now I want to know the stories behind them all. I am dying to find out everything I can about all of these interesting looking people. I can't wait to see what Miss India does with this project. Its bound to be a little one sided, as most of the info we have is of my Mother's side of the family. But its okay if her family tree looks more like a windswept Bonsai, than a mighty symetrical Oak. Its going to be interesting nonetheless.
Among the Many photos we recieved there are some that I am just blown away by. In Particular is this studio Portrait of my maternal grandmother.

I received so many beautiful photos, I simply have to do something with them all. Its so amazing to me to look at these photos many generations gone by, and see my siblings, and my children staring back at me. We sure have some strong genetic action goin on in the Beck family.
Genetics are pretty strong on the Brewer side as well, but blogger is not letting me upload the proof. Suffice it to say, give my hair a bob, and slap a  1920's style dreess on me, and I am my great aunt Irma!

Whoa!

There is nothing about these two bowls that I am not in love with.

happy bowl!

A few posts ago I talked about all things celtic, and showed you a few photos of some works in progress. This is one of the large stamped bowls all finished! It turned out so pretty!