Winter Nights Arts: kelp

About Winter Nights

Why the name "Winter Nights"? It is during the long, dark winter nights in Alaska that we turned to creative activities. The summers are full of subsistence activities, fishing, berry picking, gathering seaweed and gardening. During the winter nights is when we made the baskets from the materials gathered in the light of summer, mold the clay and fire it and also write books. Winter Nights Publishing is my publication company for producing various projects, the most recent being Raven House Mouse.

Now, in Mexico, the winter nights are also productive as this is when it is cooler, the skies are jam-packed with stars and warm breezes rustle through your hair as you walk along cobblestone streets with lavendar jacaranda blossoms showering down on you. I return to my studio and create clay images reflecting the life here, an Aztec water goddess for the top of the fountain, Spirit of the Egrets hinged panels and masks. I am also working on a book early mornings on my Alaskan path. Life is good.

Email me for any information or purchases.

Greetings from the temperate rain forest of Sitka Sound. We live at the edge of the Pacific Ocean and on the edge of an island named Baranof. Our view to the west is a stunning volcano which is snow-capped in the winter named Mt. Edgecumbe. One cannot help but be influenced by the landscape here, the rugged mountains, the forests and the surging sea. My artwork is immersed in this imagery from the kelp baskets, pendants and pins I make from locally-gathered macrosystis and bull kelp to raku sculpture and paintings of marine mammals.

Welcome to Lake Chapala, Mexico.

This where I now live. We are a community on the north side of Mexico's largest lake at 5000 ft. above sea level. The weather runs about 70 degrees year round except for the months of May and June which are hot. Our rainy season starts then which I, as a Sitkan, relish. (never thought I'd say that after living theTongass National Rain Forest for 12 years.) Everything grows here--just take a cutting, stick it into the ground and in a month, you have a new plant! The local people are friendly, the arts community is thriving; I never run out of image ideas for my own art.

Showing posts with label kelp. Show all posts

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Latest Pieces

Here are some of my pieces from Alaska pieces which sold at a local Artisans Market. The Devil's Club rattle is to honor the plant that helped me through chemotherapy. It has a Devil's Club wood handle and a gourd head painted with the Devil's Club plant. The other rattle is all bull kelp and has a great sound. The basket is macrosystis kelp with a scallop shell.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The first piece is entitled "Save Some Herring For me" and is raku. It's my protest against the commercial sac roe herring fishery here each spring which I feel is depleting the resource. The piece on the right is a macrosystis kelp basket.

These photos are of a ceramic sculpture of a basketmaker holding a small lidded basket.

Winter Nights Arts

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Welcome to Lake Chapala, Mexico.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Latest Pieces

Tuesday, November 25, 2008