Jaime Lyerly Art : nature

Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

It's time to Register for the 13th Annual San Diego Women's Caucus for Art Retreat! Mark your calendars for September 10-12, 2010 in Julian, CA

IT’S TIME TO REGISTER for the 13th ANNUAL 2010 WCA/SD RETREAT

The retreat offers a special time to make art, make new friends and reconnect with old friends.

Note: This event is for women, only. Sorry guys! Most of our events are co-ed, but this is for women only because of the sleeping arrangements.

WORKSHOPS INCLUDE

PLEIN AIR PAINTING with Jen Bottoms

JOURNALING, BLIND DRAWING & MAKING YOUR OWN JOY

with Suzana Norberg

YOGA FOR BEGINNERS with Midge Hyde

ENCAUSTIC COLLAGE with Jaime Lyerly

(more details about the workshops below)

_______________________________________

WHEN

September 10th, 11th and 12th, 2010

WHERE

Camp Stevens, Julian, 1108 Highway 78,

Julian, California 92036 (760) 765-0028

We will be staying in the Wolterstorff Lodge

FEE

$150 Retreat only WCA SD members

$175 Retreat & 1 year basic 2011 membership for WCA

members

$190 Retreat & 1 year basic 2011 WCA Membership for

non-members.

All include 3 days, 2 nights and 5 meals (organically grown

and prepared by Camp Stevens ), and all workshop fees

DIRECTIONS

From San Diego : Take Highway 67 to Ramona, then

Highway 78 east to Julian. Camp Stevens is located 2

miles east of Julian on State Highway 78. There is a

“ Camp Stevens ” entrance sign on the left side of the

highway exactly 2 miles from Julian.

Your $50 Non-refundable deposit due by August 1, 2010

(check or PayPal) secures your reservation. Balance

due by September 1st, by check or PayPal. Upon final

payment you will receive a detailed map, packing list,

materials list, materials to bring and schedule, via

e-mail.

NOTE: There is limited cell phone service.

Women’s Caucus for Art, San Diego

13th Annual Retreat

at Camp Stevens

Julian, California

September 10th, 11th and 12th, 2010

QUESTIONS AND INFO:

Jen Bottoms, (619) 892-3429

9500 Harritt Road, #75

Lakeside, CA 92040

jenniebottoms@gmail.com

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS

JOURNALING, BLIND DRAWING and MAKING YOUR OWN JOY with Suzana Norberg

As an advertising copywriter, Sue discovered the joy of art late in life. Inspired by “Harriett The Spy,” her favorite book as a child, Sue always kept a notebook of observations and snippets of overheard conversations.

But it wasn’t until the accidental discovery of three fabulous and freeing books that Sue began incorporating drawing into her work. See the three books that changed Sue’s creative life, page through her journals, and be prepared to draw with your eyes closed. Then apply it all to recording your weekend in a sketchbook that will be provided.

PLEIN AIR PAINTING with Jen Bottoms

Plein Air Painting is painting outdoors. Using oils, acrylics or watercolors whatever is your medium of choice, you will learn simple pallet color and placement while exploring the great outdoors and your personal emotions with the intent of taking out the intimidation factor. Realistic and non-realistic painters alike will love this enabling workshop that will set your spirit free and help you create
flowing, eye appealing works of art. Just let yourself go!

YOGA FOR BEGINNERS with Midge Hyde

Midge has done yoga for over 10 years. She plans to do light yoga exercises, first a warm up, practicing shallow and deep breathing. She reccomends everyone who has a yoga mat to bring it along. We will do mostly standing poses in case there are not enough mats for seated poses. The poses she likes are good stretches and parts of sun salutations, nothing too strenuous, just good stretching and deep breathing....a good way to end or start a day.

ENCAUSTIC COLLAGE with Jaime Lyerly

Encaustic is beeswax, damar resin and pigment applied to a surface hot and fused using heat. We will not be using pigment but instead, be learning the basic techniques of of encaustic collage in this workshop. We will explore layering, collage, incising, embedding and transfers. There will be plenty of time for hands on experimentation. Bring your own collage elements and get ready to try this “hot” way of painting.

ABOUT CAMP STEVENS and WCA/SD RETREAT

We will stay in the Wolterstorff Lodge, which was built from the ashes of the Bishop’s Lodge, destroyed in the “Angel Fire” of September 2007. The lodge has 24 beds; 4 six person rooms with 2 shared baths, and a meeting room with a fireplace. The OUTDOOR FACILITIES include tree house, outdoor chapel and other outdoor meeting and gathering spaces. Visitors can also enjoy a swim in the pool (seasonal), a stroll in the botanical garden, games on the lawns, basketball and volleyball, or an evening campfire.

I hope you can join us! You can check out pictures from last year's retreat on my Facebook page ~ Jaime Lyerly

Monday, April 26, 2010

Thread Sketches - Process and Elaboration

In my post, Thread Sketches - Exploration of Universal Symbols through Machine Embroidery, I gave you a peek at some of my newest non-encaustic / fiber related work.

Now, I want to show you a little of the process and the elaboration that has occurred with these pieces. First, the process.

I was inspired by drawing/carvings on leaves done by Ana Mendieta whom I wrote a research paper on recently.

To give you a taste of this work, here are some of the leaves scanned from the book Ana Mendieta: Earth Body by Olga M. Viso.

Leaves by Ana Mendieta, from Ana Mendieta: Earth Body by Olga Viso

I started my exploration with machine embroidery on fresh magnolia leaves.

Fresh Magnolia Leaves

Here is me working on the leaves (with my freshly dyed purple hair and purple finger tips).

Here are the finished projects two days after they were completed. They have already began to lose their coloring around the stitches.

Machine Embroidery

I then started hand embroidering and pricking designs on the leaves at home. These took much longer than the machine embroidery, but were easier to control.

I could embroider through thicker and bigger leaves with this technique.

Hand Embroidery

This leaf was scanned in about a week after it was done. The white slowly covered the entire area that had been pricked or manipulated.

The back side of the leaves look different than the front.

I continued this exploration of hand embroidery about a week later, shaping them into forms with the thread.

I used a variety of techniques on these leaves.

We began needle felting in my fiber class, which is using wool roving and a barbed needle to puncture the roving through felt.

Here is a short video on needle felting by artist and author Rice Freeman-Zachery called Needle Felting 101

To learn more about needle felting, you can check out Outback Fibers which is where we get the roving.

After a few tests on felt, I knew that this technique would work on my magnolia leaves.

Needle Felted

Here is how this Thread Sketch changed over a week.

I liked how the felt looked like it was growing out of the leaves, so I enhanced that by punching the felt on the "wrong" side.

So what did we learn?

You can embroider or needle felt through anything that you can get the needle in
Natural materials change over time in interesting ways
Anyone can do embroidery or needle felting!
Experimentation is GOOOOD!

That last one is the reason I write this blog - to support other artists by showing them my experiments in hopes that they will be inspired to create.

Your Turn:
Experimented with any new media or techniques recently? Ever tried embroidery or needle felting on something other than cloth? I would love to hear about it! Leave your comments here and share it with us.

Happy experimenting! ~ Jaime Lyerly

Monday, March 1, 2010

"Our World through Andy Goldsworthy's Lens" - an (gushing) essay by Jaime Lyerly

All works in the post are from artist Andy Goldsworthy
Images from Morning Earth.org

In my attempt to put some "quality" content on my blog, I am going to share with you an essay that I just completed for my "Contemporary Issues for Studio Artists" class.

My essay is about the land art work of Andy Goldsworthy. I think he is an amazing artist and have to admit that I gushed a little (or a lot) in this essay. His work is jaw-droppingly beautiful and he is one of those artists that when I discovered him a few years ago, I couldn't imagine how I got along without knowing him before. So a little gushing may be in order.

To break up the monotony of the essay format, I am interspersing YouTube clips of Rivers and Tides, which is documentary about Andy Goldsworthy that I base my essay on, and photographs of his work that I captured from Morning Earth.org. The DVD is available on Netflix's Instant view, if you have that or seek it out through your local library.

I hope you are as moved by his work as I am. Enjoy! ~ Jaime Lyerly

Our world through Andy Goldsworthy’s lens
© 2010 Jaime Lyerly

Andy Goldsworthy’s (b. 1956) contemplative sculptures made of natural materials connect to the viewer on a visual and visceral level. Goldsworthy’s artwork is usually simplified into the term of “Land Art.” To use the term “Land Art” puts Goldsworthy in the same category as Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, which is rightly deserved yet completely wrong at the same time. Smithson and Heizer did work in the land, but they used large machines to make monuments that engulf and almost intimidate the viewer. Their work is about the largeness and spaciousness of the structures. Goldsworthy’s work is more personal in scale and use of ephemeral materials and thus his appeal is unmistakable. In the documentary film Rivers and Tides, viewers get to share in Andy Goldsworthy’s work with nature and see how this quiet man makes sculptures in the land that draw our attention to the beauty that was always there but we have never seen it. That is the power of Goldsworthy’s art and Rivers and Tides gives us a rare glimpse into his magical world.

Andy Goldsworthy’s states that he began doing art in the land while being in art college, where everyone was forced to create in little cubicles. One day he went down to work on the beach and found that the beach had an “energy, breathlessness and uncertainty” which was missing when he was working inside. He states in an interview in Wall Street Journal that “when I went outside and realized art is also a way of feeling, of being nourished, of understanding, of looking and being aware of things” . It is this energy is what has brought him out into nature ever since. In the spirit of Goldsworthy statement “words can do their job, but what I am doing says a lot more,” his actions are what defines him as an artist. In the film Rivers and Tides, Goldsworthy is speaking of his work while he is piling flat stones into a round shape. He is building a cairn right where the where the tide is going to come in. According to Encarta Dictionary, a cairn is “a pile of stones set on a hill or mountain to mark a spot for walkers and climbers, or as a memorial to somebody who died there.” There is no explanation about why the cairn is built there.

Rivers and Tides - Cairn

Goldsworthy and his assistant gather flat shale-like stones and he is carefully placing them into a stone circle, stacked on each other. Goldsworthy puts on a large stone, and the sculpture wobbles. He tries to steady it with his hand, but it crumbled from beneath him. The frustration is apparent on his face. He starts building again. Later the piece falls again, and again. He says that each time it falls, there is an “immense disappointment,” but that each time he “understands the stone better” and it gets closer to completion . It takes him four attempts for the cairn to be built, all while the tide is rising higher and higher, threatening to flood the area before the work is complete. Goldsworthy takes photographs of the cairn as it is engulfed by the high tide and remains standing when the tide rushes out. When the cairn is taken by the sea, Goldsworthy states that it is not like destruction; “the sea makes more of the work than I can.”

The seed like shape of the cairn is an image that Goldsworthy likes, and states that its connection with the seed is “full and ripe, ” which seems in contrast to the stone from which it is made. However, the stones are from the land surrounding the area, and there is still life in the stone, which makes it have energy of its own. Goldsworthy has made cairns all over the world, as place-markers for where he has been. They are present in museums, sculpture parks and most importantly, in the village he has made his home for the last fifteen years – Penpoint, Scotland.

Icicle Star, joined with saliva, Andy Goldsworthy

Goldsworthy was born in England, but he has made his home and family in Penpont, Scotland, which is a picture of rural life. Growing up in England, he belonged to a farming family, and was raised tending to the land. According to an article in The Observer, Goldsworthy was working at 13 and that he “rather he liked the repetitive quality of farm tasks, which he likens to the grind of making sculpture 'A lot of my work is like picking potatoes,' he says. 'You have to get into the rhythm of it.' This sense of rhythm and a seemingly inherit design talent is obvious in every sculpture made by Goldsworthy. To know a place, according to Goldsworthy, you have to live in it long time - long enough to see births and deaths. By living in his village at Penpont for the last fifteen years, with all of his children born there, and him working in the woods surrounding it, there is a sense of connectedness between Goldsworthy and his home. In Rivers and Tides, there is a scene with Goldsworthy sitting at the breakfast table with his wife cooking, his children in a frenzy of activity and him slowly eating a bowl of cereal – thoughts obviously not in the room. However, when he steps outside with a bowl in his hand, gathering bright yellow daisies from all over the town, his connection to the natural world and this town is apparent.

Andy Goldsworthy with Arch

He is sought out to do commissions all over the world, and when he comes home from that, he has to connect to his land again. He has built cairns in his village, which he documents via photographs to show the changing of the seasons. This kind of documentation would be difficult to do with a sculpture that is not connected with his home. For Goldsworthy, time is the most important aspect of his work. He states in Rivers and Tides that he is “fascinated by those processes that are apparent in nature over time – the sun, the light, the time; growth... The real work is in the change” . It is his thoughtful work in nature and his careful documenting through photographs, video, sketches and journaling, which are expressed through his books, brings the viewer into his miraculous world where natural processes are explored.

Rivers and Tides - Nova Scotia

Andy Goldsworthy’s work with ephemeral materials found on site and in nature is what makes him unique. He is a landscape artist, a land artist and an ecological artist, but he is so much more than that. According to the Smithsonian, “by using the landscape as his material, he can illustrate aspects of the natural world – its color, mutability, energy – without resorting to mimicry” . It is not just taking branches and leaves from the natural world and sticking them into a museum. It is not decorating natural objects with art supplies, since he only uses what can be found in nature. It is not painting a two dimensional surface to replicate the natural world. It is a personal exploration of time’s natural processes documented for viewers to see and form their own connections. Goldsworthy’s does not believe that he is making the landscape better by adding his signature touch. He is making work in a place he calls home and sharing the processes with us through a multitude of books and the documentary, Rivers and Tides. Goldsworthy states, “I don’t think the landscape needs me at all. But I do need it. ” This humbleness is as appealing to our jaded times as the natural materials Goldsworthy uses to express himself.

Oak Leaves and Holes by Andy Goldsworthy

Wall Street Journal writer Jason Edward Kaufman sums up Andy Goldsworthy’s appeal:
Mr. Goldsworthy’s low-tech, down-to-earth individualism is a retrograde reaction to the tenor of the times. His gentale [sic] interventions into nature – many of them destined to fade away soon after the artist photographs them – provide an appealing antidote to the glitz pervading so much of the modern society, including the art world.

As many of us have never even been to a place like Penpont, Scotland, let alone are able to make artwork in the land there, Goldsworthy provides a glimpse into a world that natural time touches, but man does not. His work with the ephemeral connects the viewer to a world that is more than beauty, but is always in a sense of decay. Goldsworthy “knows that nothing can or should last forever. Once a piece has been illuminated by the perfect light or been borne away by the serendipitous wave, he gratefully bids it a fond farewell” . Luckily, for us, the pieces will live on in photographs to be marveled at for generations.

Andy Goldsworthy is a compelling artist for many reasons and deserves to be given a better category than just Land Art. His connection with nature is sound and it appeals to me on a visual and visceral level. My stomach clenches when I see his work in his books, especially Passage in all its vibrant color. Below most of the pictures in Passage there is writing taken from Goldsworthy’s journals or a poem about the moment. Goldsworthy has found a way to connect deeply with nature and relay that connection to the viewer in a powerful way. Rivers and Tides is a wonderful way to experience the world of Andy Goldsworthy, and see it as he builds each piece. As he reminded us that words do not matter as much as actions, the ability to see this artist at work is a more compelling way to experience Goldsworthy’s work than a simple interview. Rivers and Tides is a quiet film, with breathtaking imagery that I had to restrain myself from stopping the film several times in my desire to get outside and experience nature. Working with nature’s time has become Andy Goldsworthy’s life work, and has inspired myself and many other artists to seek out a way to explore our world in a new light. The object is dematerialized into a measure of nature’s time, and “the real work is in the change. ” To experience our world through the lens of Andy Goldsworthy is to moving experience that one should not miss.

Biography
Adams, Tim. “Natural Talent." The Observer, March 11 2007, Art and Design section.
Goldsworthy, Andy. Passage. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, 2004.
Kaufman, Jason Edward. “Following Inspiration Across Hill and Dale,” Wall Street
Journal, July 18, 2000, Leisure & Arts section, Eastern edition.
Lubow, Arthur. “Andy Goldsworthy.” Smithsonian, Vol. 36, Issue 8. Nov 2005
Riedelsheime, Thomas, Director, DVD. Rivers and Tides, 2003.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Drop

~ Jaime Lyerly

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Koi Fish

~ Jaime Lyerly

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Shinto Torii Gate and "Shrine Virgins"

~Jaime Lyerly

Friday, June 26, 2009

Musings and My Obsession with Japan

I have been brooding over where to start with the blog posts of my study tour to China and Japan. My partner, Chris Miner, has been doing a great job writing about the trip from his point of view.

He has been diligently resizing photos, photographing and scanning mementos and taking text from his journals. He has been blogging about each day and you can see in his blog, the Raw Materials of Music Making, that he has been trying to capture the long and complicated days with pictures and words.

What have I been doing? Not a whole lot!

I definitely feel like I'm having a harder time adjusting back to my normal life. It just seems so boring compared to two weeks of exploring new places. My mind has been processing all that I experienced and how it is going to change my life. I am feeling restless in my normal routine and am ready to shake it up again. But how?

Our sensei planted a seed in my head while we were in Hangzhou, China. She said something along the line of "You should do the exchange program for a semester or year. Take the whole family." She then pointed out the China Academy of Art which nestled into green trees, just down the street from the beautiful West Lake. She said something about how both the schools that SDSU had an exchange program with for art majors in China and Japan were excellent and that I would learn a lot. It would definitely be an experience.

I fell in love Hangzhou, China and could see myself studying there: riding my bike around the West Lake, and learning how to sculpt in traditional ways that my university has forgotten how to teach. The language would be a barrier, but it is so inexpensive there, I could afford to live. The idea of study abroad in China buzzed in my head as we left Shanghai. And then I went to Japan.

Japan is much more Americanized and super modern compared to China. Since we didn't have Miranda (our tour guide), sensei was to be our guide. This led to a whole different experience of Japan than in China. Sensei did not gather the group by yelling out "S.D.S.U!" like Miranda did. She would just take off and we had to follow her. Most of the trip was spent making sure that sensei was close by, and counting people. She had a tendency to want to leave people instead of waiting for them. It would be comical if most of the group spoke Japanese. But since most of us knew no or little Japanese, we would be very lost without sensei.

Sensei at Meiji Shrine (Shinto)

Long story short, this lack of a tour guide telling us information and a comfy tour bus to ride in led to us having to integrate with the culture more. I had to pay attention while I rode the bus or train to make sure I got off in time. I listened and recognized names, especially in Tokyo - Shinjuku, Harajuku, Ueno, Yoyogi, Ginza and Shibuya. I not only knew where they were on a map, but also how to get to them by train and what was there when you got there. I yearned to be able to read the signs that were around me, and to say more than just "Arigato" to others.

Add to this my absolute fascination with the native religion of Japan - Shinto. The first night in Kyoto we came across a Shinto shrine at night and it was luminous and mysterious. I won't go to far into Shinto now because I am going to devote an entire post to it soon. It is more than love with Japan now. It is almost an obsession to find out more about this magical place.

Sensei's talks with me about studying in Japan became more real as I imagined myself studying the traditional arts and their relationship to the native religion of Shinto. There are many more details that I would need to work out and to consider before a decision is made.

So the next blog posts about my trip will be focused specifically on the parts of Japan and China that moved me. Just the images that are blazed into my brain and the art ideas that have sprung from that. I may add some pictures of experiences that were just fun and unique, such as "Geisha Hunting." Hopefully you will understand why I am now obsessed with Japan.

Until then, Happy Art-Making! ~ Jaime Lyerly

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Let your Creativity Shine! Ten Ways to Let Your Muse Out to Play

Here is a wonderful article by creativity coach Cynthia Morris who writes a blog on traveling as an artist called Journey Juju. It inspired me to think about how to spend my summer. Enjoy!

Summer's Creative Exuberance:
Ten Ways to Let Your Muse Out to Play

If summer isn't the best season to foster creativity, I don't know what is. Okay, you could make a case for the cocooning qualities of winter. You could say that the freshness of spring inspires even the most jaded artist. And then there's the release of fall, which could provoke me to give up art entirely.

But summer, with its uncontainable exuberance, is the best season for the creative. Who wouldn't be inspired by the bounty of a farmer's market? How could the light pulsing off the highway in the middle of the day in the middle of the country not extract a deep sense of mystery in any artist? And then there's the sense of freedom that you get when all you're wearing is a tiny bathing suit and there's nothing to do but dip yourself in the pool one more time.

I vote for summer as the season most likely to inspire creative thinking, being and doing. Summer invites us to return to our purest child-like impulses. We all know that to be deeply creative means connecting to that child in us. It's that part of us that loves messes, that doesn't need to know where we're going, that has no concept of the bottom line, let alone a concern for making money.

Reach out with both arms like an eager child, and immerse yourself and your Muse in summer. Make this your most creative summer yet with these ten tips.

1. Get messy. Mess is necessary for creativity. Eat watermelon and let the juice and seeds splatter all over your shirtfront.

2. Linger outside. Sit in the grass with no agenda. Stay there for a few hours with a book, a notebook, or whatever melts you into a creative puddle. And speaking of puddle...

3. Get into water. Being around water stimulates our Muses, who love to give us ideas in the shower. Find a pool or a lake or a puddle and get in just because you love it and it feels good. Splash around. Choreograph a water ballet. Play.

4. Relish the night. Don't you love how summer days just go on and on and then when the night comes, it's even better? The air is so warm and the sky so full of possibility. Get out in the night. Ride your bike or take a walk. Go pool hopping or star gazing or moon bathing.

5. Try a new art form. Maybe it's origami, or pastry baking or watercolors. Stretch out of your normal creative rhythm and try something new.

6. Use the summer as a frame to explore something. Perhaps you'll read a few classics this summer. Or give yourself a creative challenge like making art every day. How can you use summer as a frame for your creative abundance?

7. Immerse yourself in color. I love love love color and summer gives me ample opportunity to really soak in bright, saturated colors. Tune your vision to the brilliant greens, lush reds and vibrant blues of summer.

8. Plan outdoor excursions with friends. Picnics, markets and art fairs, sketch crawls, all offer an opportunity to fill your creative well. Doing it with friends is even more fun.

9. Allow for a sense-fest. The reason I love summer so much is the way it opens me to my senses. A breeze wafting in the window, the smells of freshly cut grass and barbeque, the sound of a baseball bat hitting a ball, the amazing freshness of the fruits and vegetables of summer....mmmmm. Your Muse loves when you pause and pay attention to your senses.

10. Be prepared for inspiration. You already know this, but I'll remind you: carry a notebook with you always. Use it to capture your ideas and impressions. Give yourself permission to slow down and relish life.

Unleash your creativity and let your inner child out to play this summer. Your art making will be enhanced and if not, at least you've enjoyed yourself.

Copyright 2009 Cynthia Morris. Cynthia coaches creative people to confidence and completion and inspires life as a creative adventure. Visit http://www.originalimpulse.com to get an infusion of inspiration for your art, writing and life.

Your Turn: What kind of activities do you have planned this Summer to inspire the muse to play? I have my big Japan and China trip but after that I have only three precious weeks until I have summer school classes. Why would I do this to myself? Oh, because I am trying to get a minor in Psychology. So I plan to use that three weeks for cleaning of the house and the spirit! What will you be doing?

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Process pictures of "Offering" - Suburban Land Art

Since the journey is as important as the destination, I am posting the "making of" my suburban Land Art piece called "Offering."

There is a little piece of nature trapped in the suburban landscape near my house in San Diego, CA. It is a wild artichoke field which is normally almost covered with wild artichoke flowers. It is refreshing to walk in nature without having to drive to some remote place. Seeking out nature in the suburbs draws my attention to the wildness in the land that we take for granted.

One day on a walk, a few months ago, I found that the about half of the field had been cut down.

It looks like someone just drove a tractor right through the main part of the field.

They ran over plants and small trees and left trash in their wake.

It seemed cruel and unnecessary.

So I decided to make an "Offering" to Mother Earth...

In hopes that the destruction that was inflicted would not be the end of the wild artichoke field, my son Xen and I built a nest.

As a mother, "nesting" is very important to me, which is why it shows up so frequently in my work. When you build a nest (literally or figuratively), whether for a bird or for your family at home, you protect the things you love the most. You show them that they are treasured and worth protecting. This nest is an "Offering" to Mother Earth to let her know that she is important.

We gathered fallen branches from all over the field, and started construction. The sound of the wind and us gathering and assembling branches was all I could hear for hours.

After a few hours of construction, the nest was built. Then we gathered cuttings from all over the field to ensure that the plants would survive.

The nest was over 6 feet tall (I am 6'1, so you can judge the height accordingly). The nest's imposing height is meant to dissuade someone from casually destroying it.

My "Offering" to Mother Earth...

Only two weeks later, after a light rain, the field began to sprout again.

I take this a a sign that the "Offering" was accepted.

I hope you have enjoyed my process pictures. I plan to post more pictures of my sculptures in progress.

Artists! I love to see and hear about YOUR process! Please email me, comment on this blog, or friend me on Facebook.

Share not just what you make, but how and why you do it!

- Jaime Lyerly