EMPRESS CASSANDRA PLANTER

EMPRESS CASSANDRA

GODDESS PLANTER

Empress Cassandra Goddess Planter

It’s springtime at my studio at Woodloft. (my home) I have to think one season ahead since it takes so long for my Goddess Planters to dry and then be fired in my kiln. I’m well on my way with many for my customers to choose from when they have their first showing in April.

Close-up

As I sculpted each of Empress Cassandra’s features, she became more and more alive. I felt like she was watching my every move after her eyes were finished. She followed me around the studio, nodding yes or no as I chose the embellishments I would add. The name, Cassandra means “queen of the Olypian gods.” We will be making planters in my upcoming Faces class. Students will work at achieving this kind of realism in their planters, although we will be creating them on a much smaller scale.

Side View

Notice the gorgeous greenery that Cassandra displays? It’s plastic! Anyone who knows me, knows I don’t use plastic anything. Not cups, dishes, silverware and especially not plastic plants. One of my customer’s told me that she puts the expensive silk plants in the planters she has bought from me and she says they are stunning in her home. I thought I’d give it a go since the herbs that I normally place in the pots are hard for me to haul back and forth to the market, where I show. I’m now sold on this idea. Of course, I do intermingle the real ones among my planters in my home.

View From Front

Let me know if you are interested in one of my classes. The second class, Sculpting the Figure in Clay has only 1 space left but the Faces class has 3 openings. It will be a wonderful way to spend an all inclusive vacation with nothing to worry about but sculpting, swimming and dining since absolutely everything is included.

Can You Tell Which Planters Hold Real Greenery?

View From Back

MORNING SONG GODDESS SCULPTURE

MORNING SONG
GODDESS SCULPTURE

Morning Song Sculpture

Any time I finish a sculpture that has a rich, ancient and ethnic feel to it, I seem to name it Morning Song, which is one of the stories in my She Who Whispers book. I used an old rug from my stash of fabrics. The rug that I used as her cloak, looks rather tribal and it may be a Turkish Kilim. I googled it but couldn’t find the source. If anyone knows the origin of this rug, I'd really appreciate it if you would let me know.

Close-up

I used to feel guilty about cutting up something so ancient but now I just tell myself that it is being repurposed to create one of my Goddess sculptures that will bring just as much pleasure to the owner as it sits on the sculpture stand as it would have as the rug on the floor.

I used a variety of beads and other fabric and an old vessel, which I am almost sure came from India.

Side view

During my sculpture class next summer, we will be creating a similar Goddess. You can find all the details for the class on the top right hand side of my blog. I have one space left in the Figure class and three spaces left in the Faces class. Hope you will join us here at Woodloft for a memorable week.

Another side view

Here is the Morning Song story.

“ Morning Song”

She woke up this morning feeling different.
She heard the sounds of this morning and
yet the sounds of many other lifetime mornings
were returning. She heard the infinite sound
of distant runic bells, a call to alms, merchants
voices echoing over the river Nile, sheep
bleating on a pastoral hillside, roosters, guns,
flutes, chimes, laughter, weeping..for she had
heard all these mornings and she had heard
all these sounds before. It was as if they were
all becoming one great sound...one great
morning..this morning....and she knew that all
the returns of mornings purpose was to teach
her the uniqueness and significance of this
morning...of now.

~Cheryl Dolby~

FIRST RESIDENTIAL SCULPTURE CLASS

FIRST RESIDENTIAL SCULPTURE CLASS

Students begin difficult "Goddess" sculpture

Artist and blogger, Judy Wise, made the statement in one of her posts, “Falling in love with students, encouraging them and encouraging myself to take whatever path beckons…” I agree with her completely. If it is possible to fall in love with a class of students, it happened here at Woodloft. I said from the beginning that I just knew very special women would gather here for my first Residential sculpture class. Sure enough, I was blessed to have four fun loving, metaphysically minded and talented students.

Excitement was in the air as I was getting ready for these special women. I do mean excitement. What they didn’t know was that just 3 weeks before the class, my swimming pool decided to give up the ghost. It collapsed with age. That meant I had to find contractors to rebuild my pool and the decking surrounding it. I knew it could be done and I knew it would be done but there were some tense moments. There was just no way I was going to bring my guests here without my swimming pool up and running!

Joe Light delivers sunflowers

Joe Light, whom I jokingly call, Mr. Flower Power, delivered gorgeous sunflowers for the guests to enjoy. Joe can be seen selling his flowers on the Roanoke City Market every Saturday.

Truffles from Chocolate Paper

I purchased chocolate truffle candy from Chocolate Paper, also found on the City Market

Granola breakfast in mason jars and fancy labels

Blogger, Sheree, from Raven Moon Magic sent me lovely stickers that she created and I decided to add them to the granola jars I stored in my refrigerator for breakfasts. Somewhere I read about how fun it would be to place granola with fruit and yogurt, into these jars.

I also quilted face totes to hold each students supplies.

Quilted "face" totes

Finally, the time had arrived. The first student to arrive was Trish who is shown below enjoying appetizers and a margarita.

Trish is greeted by a margarita upon arrival

Each student was given a welcoming caftan to wear for our evening activities, which included drumming with Rudy Saunders. We were amazed at his ability to drum for hours.

Beth adorned in caftan

Laura,of Art From Trails End wears caftan and Goddess Ceremonial Necklace

Rudy shares drumming and stories

On another night, we watched Practical Magic and signed PritiLisa's “Book of Shadows” before beginning our drumming ceremony.

Lisa's "Book of Shadows" placed on top of African drum

Close-up reads "Harm None"

We chanted as we drummed to "Ancient Mother" by Robert Gass, which was recommended by Julie from When the Spirit Moves Me.

Glorious food was served throughout the week by our chef, Stratton St. Clair, including homemade pizzas and I created the desserts to accompany the meals.

Stratton and Diane, a member of our Little Supper Club, prepared homemade pizzas

Diane works on getting pizzas ready for party

Shrimp for alfredo

My Le Gateau Sans Rival dessert

Chicken with forty cloves of garlic being prepared

No one said sculpting is easy and the first two days of the class had the students hopping. I guess I should have mentioned in my brochure that I’m a bit hyper and I definitely crack the whip.

Laura works on bas-relief

Beth works on her "selke" doll

Leslie works on her Goddess sculpture

Trish beginning Goddess sculpture

Beth with sculpture

Laura prepares clay for sculpture

It was not all work though. Ella, my water aerobic’s instructor made an appearance and taught a water class one afternoon.

Ella gives class a real work out.

Quiche luncheon served

Also, Patrick Beale arrived to give massages two nights. Beth was fortunate enough to have a 2 hour massage-it was the luck of the draw.

Patrick and Beth

Food lectures and techniques were given by the chef each lunchtime, including teaching how to make the components of his wonderful lasagna.

Stratton prepares his homemade lasagne noodles

Stratton demonstrates how to make homemade vanilla

Here we are at Roanoke's famous "Star" overlooking the valley

We traveled along the Blue Ridge Parkway with a stop at our Roanoke Star for a view of the valley. Our destination was to have lunch at a quaint vineyard and restaurant called Chateau Morrisette.

It was a beautiful day and we opted to have lunch on the large stone patio with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a bit windy but we didn’t expect the gust that came out of nowhere to lift our red table umbrella completely out of the center of the table. Somehow, when I saw the umbrella swoop up, up and up, I found myself reaching out for the umbrella with my left hand (it pays to be ambidextrous) I was pulled upward with the umbrella (my arm that is) to the point where I looked as though I might swoop over the table and out into the vast mountain range below! Somehow I stopped the umbrella. When the management heard of what happened, they offered all of us a bottle of wine, compliments of the restaurant. We laughed for a long time afterward about the possibility of me flying among the clouds, red umbrella overhead and songs of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” were heard being sung from my car all the way home from the vineyard.

Famous red umbrella

We toured the controversial Taubman Museum and had lunch at the Hotel Roanoke. The Taubman is a fantastic piece of architecture that many in our area felt was too modern to be placed amid the old historic buildings downtown. I personally love it.

Museum picture with H and C coffee and mountain as a backdrop

We were all pretty tired by the time Lisa Plummer arrived at the studio to give a class in SoulCollage. She was rather glad we were relaxed because she said in choosing the pictures we were to gather for our collages, we would be more inclined to be working in our subconscious minds rather then methodically building a collage. As it turned out, we pieced together some incredible artwork, that when read, brought much insight to each of the group.

Lisa Plummer, SoulCollage teacher

The class worked diligently all week and produced an amazing array of finished sculptures including tall standing Goddesses, bas-reliefs and soul dolls.

Laura's finished Goddess

Beth's Celtic Bas-relief journal

Beth's Selke Goddess

Laura's perky bas-relief journal

Laura with all three finished sculptures

Trish and yours truly displaying her finished sculptures

Here Beth and I show off finished work

As you might have guessed, I will be giving the class again next summer with a few twists. I am thinking of having someone model for us as we sculpt. I may also be having a class in glass face mosaics. If you are interested in having me send you brochures on the upcoming classes for next summer, please e-mail me and I’ll send you information as soon as I put it all together with dates and activities. I will also be posting information on my Residential Classes found on the top right hand side of my blog.

I’m posting lots more pictures of the class below for those of you who are interested in seeing all the details.

Thanks for your patience in this very long post. Sorry I haven’t been around to visiting my favorite posts but as you can tell, I’ve been very, very busy. I am hoping to get around to see everyone this week and catch up!