As you know Fred has his own Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/the.redfred/ and as it turns out Fred is part of an Irish Terrier Community out there on Instagram. Now… a few blog posts ago I mentioned a walk to find an abandoned car. Someone with a relative of Fred’s must have read this blog followed my map and found the car I was talking about….took a photo of Missy Aileen and posted it on Instagram showing their dog with the car behind. Amazing they engaged so totally. I like the sense of belonging to some kind of group, its strange that has happened with a dog owners’ group. I have artist friends, as well as blogging friends on this online community, but its not art we share.
I would like to meet them one day, I don’t think they live that far away.
Anyway, I meant to talk about a small plastic toy figure I picked up in the woods. This small brightly coloured toy contrasted highly with the mud and I picked it up straight away, quite excited to see what I had discovered? Washed it in a nearby puddle and was rather disappointed. What I had hoped to find was that this was going to symbolize Celtic Woodland Spirits in a way described by Jon Bowen on the comments to an earlier post. What I wanted it to be was something which looked like it could harness the powers of nature and make trees change colour, make animals appear and talk and make accidents happen to unwanted visitors to the forest. It was female and it was going well at first. But: She turned out to be made by Fisher Price and was holding something like a golden 99 ice cream cone. She was part of a brand of toys called ‘little people’ which probably have houses or palaces which look like they are made of icing sugar. She was small and round with a tiara, but I felt she might have been closer to home baking or cup-cakes, very cosy and homely and rather heavy for her height. I do feel someone with muddy shoes would have repulsed her and wild animals would be hideous creatures which cause trouble and upset people. Strong winds, heavy rain or cold temperatures would be things she would avoid at all costs.
Not the wild forest spirit I had wished to find.
I have brought the toy home and it is in my workshop. I had thought by ‘using art’ it would be a relatively easy task to create what I wanted by drawing it based on this toy character. It did not happen easily and after a few drawings I realized this was perhaps not the right source material, even though I really wanted it to be and the idea has been shelved, waiting for further inspiration. Perhaps celtic coins would be a better starting point for forest spirits?
