I was photographing in the Chadwick Arboretum this afternoon and there was this tall orange canna that commanded attention. After downloading the photo and checking my photos I found a similar image as a tin chicken I encountered early spring.

Puzzling

It's hard to believe how long it has been since I blogged.
So long that I've forgotten how to do this. Maybe it will come back to me.

These are busy times. Truth is some weeks ago I fell off the wagon....
blame Buckeye Bargains on OSU campus.

I spotted an old puzzle with a compelling image. I tried to resist, but I opened the box and the pieces looked fairly new - a lot of right angles.

I believe only three pieces were missing in the yellow sky.

I'm a recovering puzzleholic...
I have a wardrobe full of boxes of them, mostly older puzzles, but some acquired for the imagery that attracts me. I used to spend hours and hours working them - so much so that I would ache from straining over them. I would spend 3-4 hours at a time and it would haunt me until I finished. A few times I made little cardboard pieces for the missing ones. I think I went for several years maybe 3-4 years without working one, except with a family gathering or at St. Stephen's Bookworm, where Tom Minnick would be working one to see if it was all there. I would sit to put in a few pieces. At least the store closed at 2pm so that was a time limit.

Well I finally finished it and for a while it was my screen saver. I have put the puzzle away and now the screen saver is two violets.



However, back in June of 2006 I was on an OSU studies abroad garden tour of England. One visit we made was to Southport where I wanted to find the Lawnmower Museum - I think it was under the category of Eccentric Britain. I thought what a hoot! Besides I like old lawnmowers. What a wonderful place.An old hardware store with an upstairs packed full with about four rooms of all sorts of lawn tending equipment. Even the lawnmower given to Prince Charles and Princess Di! I think admission was a dollar or two. But it was certainly entertaining and worth it.


Another treat in Southport was the most delicious lunch I had while in the UK at a public market. I have a photo of the meal and the place somewhere if I can find it to post.

I found the public library and it was fairly quiet - serious book folks. I saw a sign on a door about a puzzle club that meets there regularly and I was amazed at the thought of there being a puzzle club. Britains are farily serious puzzlers. There's a history there you can read about from the US puzzle club website:
http://www.puzzleclub.us/


Oh, and several years at the King Avenue Church Rummage Sale there was a great old lawnmower like I used to push as a child. I could not resist $5 bucks and an antique!

A Tree Remembered

Last June 2009, I participated in a Digital Storytelling Workshop with the OSU Digital Union. I was urged to do this by a faculty member in Horticulture/Crop Science. I had a story idea and photographs to illustrate it, but I had never created a movie and was clueless as to how to do it. This was a unique opportunity. I partnered with my Mac mentor and we put it together. There were seventeen participants and we all worked together intensively for four days in their studio to craft the results. The program was created on the Mac iMovie - we inserted photos, worked on a narrative which was recorded in several takes, added sound effects and secured my friend, a piano teacher, to play a selection from Handel's music to further illustrate the story. It is posted here and eventually will reside on OSU's Knowledge Bank at https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/

But for now, you can find it here:

streaming.osu.edu/flash/libraries/DigitalStorytelling/10991-4

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Dorothy Barnes

Dorothy Gill Barnes
Artist

I'm not quite sure when I got to know Dorothy Gill Barnes. I knew her art work before I knew her. I believe it was in the mid to late 1970s that I saw a piece she had in the Columbus Art League exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art. I believe it was a large basket - an amazing piece.

While Dorothy became known for her baskets, she explored other techniques manipulating wood. Some did not want her to stop making baskets but she had to listen to her artistic muse and keep exploring her creative spirit. It has been amazing to watch her art evolve over the years, and it still does. She is an inspiring artist.Here are Dorothy and Sherrill at the Chadwick Arboretum Open House in 2008. She has been working with the Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens as it offers her connections and opportunities to plants of all kinds. She is primarily interested in woody plants and when a tree is ready for the mulch pile or pruning, sometimes she is alerted to come and see if it is something she can work with. She has worked with our willows when they are ready to be coppiced for rejuvenation in the spring. This is also the time when the sap is wetter and makes the bark easy to peel.

Dorothy identifies specific cuts for Sharon Treaster to make on the willow branches. We do not often see what she sees in the branches to make art. In the late winter/early spring of 2009 strong winds blew over several Lacebark pines (Pinus bungeana) in the Olentangy Corridor section of the OSU Chadwick Arboretum. They have beautiful exfoliating bark. She calls the tree Lacybark pine. Chadwick horticuturist, Mike Pfeiffer was able to stow the fallen tree and protect its roots until at after several months, the sap would flow making the bark easier to peel. He assisted her in making appropriate cuts for her to work with. She also was working with several OSU sculpture students.



She has worked as an artist-in-residence at OSU's Glass Department for several years now. She instructs glass students on what shapes she would like for them to craft to compliment her wood formed pieces. They get to see an artist at the height of her career make art and observe the creative process.


Dorothy with her exhibited work at Franklin Park Conservatory, Fall 2008. She was selected as one of the artists to be featured in an exhibition entitled, Bending Nature.
http://www.fpconservatory.org/bendingnature.htm




Dorothy with Sharon Treaster and Charles Massey, Jr. at the Chadwick Pancake Breakfast event in February 2009.
This past December Dorothy gave a presentation at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington where her work was exhibited. http://www.mcconnellarts.org/

She collects tree portions that have marks on them from lightening strikes or other inflictions. She likes the marks animals make on wood and has a collection of their markings. The piece below is from a tree near her house that was marked by a hammering sapsucker that would keep her awake. After the tree came down she saved the "necklace" of holes the sapsucker made. When she hears a chain saw going somewhere, she is on alert to see what treasures may be up for grabs.

At her talks she usually brings her little well worn box full of beautiful treasures from nature that she collects and uses to create her art.

Someone gave her a Tauga nut from the rainforest region. It is referred to as vegetable ivory. Below are some samplings of the way it can be carved.
http://www.oneworldprojects.com/products/tag_mulsafr.shtml

Commonly buttons are made from the tauga nut.
http://1creativeone.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/tagua1.jpg

more of Dorothy's crafted treasures: