New toys, new joys

Garden mobile

I'm branching out in two more dimensions —depth and time. I've been thinking about going into mobiles for about a year. I was wanting to make big ones for the garden, out of the filbert wood I harvested 3 or 4 years ago. But as a first step, to get used to thinking about shape and motion, I decided to go small and make little ones, with some bits of glass in them. This is my third one. The first one is going to get redone, and the second one was pretty good and went to a friend. It's fun to play with making different shapes, and I have many more ideas to play with.

Unfortunately it's a bit hard on my hands and wrists, but I'm constantly trying to find ways to make it easier to bend the large wire. I bought a few new pairs of pliers specifically for bending, and they help a  lot to give me the leverage I need. But I still can't do it every day, which is fine. Plenty of other stuff to do.

Next weekend I'll be showing and selling my artwork, including this mobile, at the open garden of my friend Meredith, both Saturday and Sunday. And I'll be doing the Art In the Garden fair at Laurel Hedge in Estacada the last Saturday in August. It's looking like nice weather for next weekend.