Connections to nature...

More fun with papercutting.

Pacific Ocean cutout

Benten is the patron goddess of Japan. She is known for guarding the ocean, bringing good fortune and wealth, and for her music. I know the edges look wobbly but it is actually just the photo of the piece taken at an angle. I need to get a much bigger scanner!

Alaska

To celebrate my recent trip to Alaska I am posting another goddess cutout. Sedna protects the Arctic ocean and makes sure that people do not over hunt it or mistreat it. If she feels that people are abusing her ocean she gathers all of the animals and fish to her.

Ocean goddess project 1

Chalchiuhtlicue is a Mexican and Aztec goddess. I used her for the patron goddess of the Atlantic ocean. It is said that she became angry with the way people were treating the ocean and so she flooded the earth and turned the animals and humans she liked into fish until she allowed the earth to dry out.

With all of the earthquakes that have been happening one wonders if some of these ancient goddesses have become angry with the way we, the people of the world, have been treating their domains (although if that were true one wonders why they are not focusing on the the countries that are causing most of the problems). Hmm...just something to think about.

Here is my rendition of Chalchiuhtlicue in all of her glory....

schernschnitte...the beginning

I have discovered a new art love: Scherenschnitte! or in English: papercutting! It is so much fun and I am really going to town with it!

Here is one of my pieces so far....

Three sisters method

As part of a project I illustrated squash, beans, and corn. These are the main components of the Three Sisters planting method. The corn acts as a pole for the beans. The beans give nitrogen to the soil and the squash shades the roots of the plants and discourages predators. More illustrations may come a little later...we will see :)

Dec. 13th

Final Victory Garden piece.

Dec. 11th

Canning...something I would love to do more of!

Dec. 10th

A little sketch for the Urban Coop section of the Victory Garden project....

Victory Gardens

Sorry, for not updating for almost six months! Here is one of the pieces I did for a Victory Garden project.