Stampede on the making

Ann Woods carboardhorse stampede

Surfing through Blogland I met Katie and her lovely horses. Katie told me that she makes one horse a day using a pattern from artist Ann Wood. She also told me that I could download the pattern from Ann Woods website. Did I hurry over? Yep!

This is what Ann wrote:

“In 2006 I started making cardboard horses. They were a self imposed assignment, a daily creative task intended to motivate and loosen me up, little experiments, paralysis prevention. My plan was to make a cardboard horse everyday, Monday through Friday until I had 100. I did and exhibited the group at Tinlark in Los Angeles in 2007. I’ve made 3 patterns, two adults and a colt, to share and I hope you make a cardboard horse or two or three or maybe a little family or maybe your own stampede! “

Did I download the pattern? You bet ya!

This is my first. I called him Spot.

I think I am going to make one from a tin can and maybe a felted one and....I can feel an addiction coming on....

Take care

Jeanette

Building an Ark

A dear friend of mine wrote on Facebook the other day that she was painting the inside of her cupboards to make them look bigger and thus contain more. We had a lot of laughs about that and I asked her whether that technique also applied to houses since I felt that mine was way too small for my needs. But to be honest the size of my house isn’t really the problem it’s the size of my workroom. My workroom is very tiny and I am a collector of huge proportions partial to junk, tin cans, old fabric, vintage books and all kinds of paper. Not to mention all my wool…. It’s a bit like fitting an elephant into a Mini Cooper. I have tried many solutions for this – shelves everywhere, piles with neatly labeled boxes and all kind of binders and plastic containers but my workroom still looks as if something has exploded in there. Needless to say throwing things away isn’t an option. Unfortunately I have to see the stuff to be inspired by it so the more I put into boxes and containers the less inspired I feel.

When doing my felting I use the sink in my kitchen for the smaller objects and for the really large ones I have to use the kitchen table. You can’t even begin to imagine the amounts of water that ends up on the floor but if I say that my husband asked if he had to start building an Ark I think you get the picture….

The tininess didn’t feel like such a problem before but now I feel an urge to sort of explore my art further and I have about 1 x 1 meter empty space left on which to do it…. All you creative people out there how do you organize your workrooms or creative space? I am in great need of some advice here!

Anyway this is my latest piece called perfect life and made for Jessica. On the kitchen table of course….


Take care
Jeanette

Panic attack

I have just sent an application to the city council of Malmö to show my art one week during this summer. It’s held at the Hunting Pavillion in Folkets Park which is a very old amusement park in Malmö. The exhibition room is octagonal – wow! I read about it in this morning’s paper and at the spur of the moment sent in my application. Now I have a major panic attack - what if I am accepted???? Help!

But still…..I would really like to do it! So please keep your fingers crossed!


Take care
Jeanette

Love U

On this very day 80 years ago my father was born in Ostpreussen, Germany. Luckily for me he came to Sweden after the war, met my mother and had my sister and me otherwise I wouldn’t have had the best Dad in the world. He survived a war, prison camp in Siberia as a young teenager, coming to a new country with no friends or knowledge of the language and still made himself a good future. He is a very loving father and he has taught me that everything is possible just you set your mind to it.

I think I got some of my creative genes from him too…..

Happy birthday!

Love you Dad!

Jeanette

Up on the attic

We are slowly emptying my late uncle’s house. It’s sad to see all the things he collected during many years lying dusty and unused their purpose fulfilled somehow. Up on the attic I found two tin boxes that probably belonged to the former owner, an old lady. I lifted them up and my heart started beating - so heavy! I carefully carried them down the staircase and opened them…..oh joy.

The first one was filled with cookbooks and handwritten recipes and at the bottom I found a bag of seeds. Green beans! I can’t wait to plant them and see if they grow after all these years. What if they are magic? Maybe I will have a gigantic plant like in Jack and the beanstalk?



The second one filled with buttons! I LOVE buttons and simply can’t have enough of them! I love looking at them and imagine the dresses and coats that they where once on and the people wearing the clothes.



Back up on the attic I found a few more boxes. I was in tin box heaven. I don’t know why I love them so much - the rustier the better. Maybe it’s because everything is in plastic Nowadays or maybe the way they always make me want to start create something.





But what filled me with most joy but I haven´t got a photo of was when I loaded my uncle’s old kitchen sofa in the truck. The one he used to sleep in when he was just a child. It’s now standing in my kitchen at the country house and whenever I sit in my kitchen in the future a part of my uncle will always be there.

Take care
Jeanette

Altered tin box

I love making trash into treasure. This is a birthday gift for a friend. Hush, don`t tell...

Front

Inside

back

Take care

Jeanette

Sisterhood

To all of you fantastic women out there - this is for you! You rock!




One of my favourite songs with two of my favorite female singers. Oh, Aretha I wanted your voice and Annie I wanted your looks ( and voice...and Dave Stewart....) I wanted it so much that I cut my hair from very long



to ultra short!!!!



Stupid I know but cut me some slack here, we are talking 1983. So much older and wiser now but I still want their voices and I wouldn`t mind Dave Stewart either.....or maybe not!

Take care
Jeanette

Signs of spring

At the country house

For the first time in 2,5 months we could drive down to the house

Icicles melting

Tiny bulbs in the border close to the house

At the town house

“Snow drops” ( Galantus nivalis) in the garden



Winter aconite ( Eranthis hyemalis) in my garden and on my dinner table

Tulips in every vase

.....and I have a cold. Came right out of the blue, like one second you are well and the next not. I tell myself it`s a spring cold. Makes me feel so much better. Yep, I am easily fooled!

Have a fab sunday

Jeanette

Books x 3

Release party

One of the fun things about my job is that it’s full of variety. Last year for instance I wrote a book together with a colleague. It’s a book with short stories and facts about food and interviews with old people about their memories relating to food. Food is a very central thing in life and almost everyone has a memory related to it. The book is written for personnel working in nursery homes and it’s meant to be an inspiration for them when talking to the elderly. You might be old or suffering from Alzheimer’s disease but listening to the stories or looking at the pictures in the book can awake memories of a time when you felt well and confident. The book took almost a year to write and I learnt a lot during the process….maybe I am ready for writing that Pulitzer prize novel now…. 4 weeks go ago we had the release party. Great fun!

13 books and not a single remedy against weeds!

February the 25:th the annual book sale always starts in Sweden. I bought 13 (!) gardening books and now I can’t wait to start cultivating plants and dig my very own vegetable garden. The books had no good remedy against weeds though….looks like all gardens comes with weeds. Sigh!

Shall I continue reading?

This is the book I am currently reading. I haven’t read anything by Douglas Kennedy before and I can’t quite make up my mind weather I like it or not. This made me want to go on reading though:

"We try so hard to put our mark on things, we like to tell ourselves that what we do has import or will last. But the truth is, we’re all just passing through. So little survives us. And when we’re gone, it’s simply the memory of others that keeps our time here alive" .

Very true don`t you think ? So live, love & laugh my friends and spend your time wisely so that there will tons of memories to keep your time on earth alive!

Take care
Jeanette