Give me a Treehouse, or give me Death.

I want to live in a tree house. I once read a feature in a magazine that profiled several different real treehouse houses and rooms. That only fueled the 20-year old fire that grew out of the spark that was Swiss Family Robinson (and to add two more layers of destiny: my long-time crush Tommy Kirk and my ever-increasing desire to become a woodland creature or fairie, or both).






So for starters I want this book, The Treehouse Book, so I can learn how to build my own and live there. This book sounds good, too: New Treehouses of the World.

And I don't want some lame looking Hobby Lobby house on stilts. It has to be a new shape and creation all its own. It needs to either be elvish or be made entirely from salvaged materials, with circular doorways and lots of nooks and crannies for reading, storing, and looking out at the other trees and woodland creatures. Lots of details and opportunities for working by hand. But it can't be pretentious. It must be authentic, and it will be, if it's a true treehouse and not a faker low-level, crafty, perfectionist one.

Check out this lucky fella, the tree house guy.

Folk Art

You know how I love folk art. Mom wants me to design her some stationery, something unique, and so today i was thinking about that and started researching folk art and embroidery. Now sure if this direction would be applicable to her stationery, but it's all so beautiful and enchanting that I had to post here for my reference. Found some wonderful things...here are a few.

a wonderful swiss folk art textile via Anonymous Works

some Swedish art via Animation Archive

Swiss folk ornaments on myfonts.com. Would love to use these in some application.

Illustration from “Gustaf Tenggren’s Tell It Again Book” courtesy of ASIFA- Hollywood Animation Archive, via How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator

so many beautiful paintings via Cupboards & Roses Swedish Antiques

and lots of wonderful things from Swedish Country!

Grandma Moses

I can't believe that until now I have not posted about Grandma Moses, one of my favorite folk artists, introduced to me by my mom years and years ago when I was little. 

Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses, 1860-1961) began her painting career late in life after leaving a career in embroidery because of arthritis. Before she became famous, she would charge $3 for large paintings and $2 for small ones. 

Most of her work features distorted or lack of perspective and flat color. 

Read more about her life here.

I just ordered some stamps with one of her paintings on them, and I am so excited. (I collect stamps!)

Kentuck, cont'd

Kentuck Festival

last weekend I went to the Kentuck Festival of the Arts in Tuscaloosa, a folk art festival that occurs every year. My camera battery was dead, but I pulled a sampling of some of the work from their website. I really liked a lot of it. Some of it, we were discussing, felt like the artists were just trying to copy Howard Finster (see more here) instead of doing what came naturally...lots of angels in his style, etc. But overall there was really good work, and great exposure for lots of local artists.

I really like the work by the third artist shown here, Paul Andrews. He used photos on transparent film with pieces of fabric and other mixed media...very specific compositions created with very minimal materials...showing the upper body of a bird as a photo on a transparency, and creating the tail with a fabric swatch positioned in a specific way.