Good season

Busy. And more so. I have had a very hectic holiday show season and I am happy to be working on orders. The Rabbitville Road studio has been very lively this year! We have worked hard but had fun. It makes me happy.

And these foxes make me happy, too. I have been working on this glaze for years. Ahhh, life is good on Rabbitville Road!

End of the Day

I have been having so much fun getting my new collection ready for the holiday show season. I loved all of the new pieces...but today I was happy to learn that a lot of my clients lived them too!!

It's always fun to go to Shelbyville, IN and see my old friends!

New colors, new glazes, new lines.

 
 I love new ideas.  I love when they come crashing at you like big snow balls and explode into your mind.  Bringing them out into the world is kind of like giving birth, just a lot more fun.  Thanks to my delightful and very patient sister Patti, I have new glazes.  And I have new ideas to go along with them.  Here are some of the first pieces I have made with them.  Having new colors has inspired several new lines for me and I am working hard to get them ready to roll out at my upcoming shows.

November will be a very busy month for me and I will be ready!   New Santas, bunnies, snowmen, pins, animals, ornaments.  New new.  I had better get back to work!  See you soon...please check www.ritabunny.com for my holiday show schedule.

 

A Perfectly Wonderful Day

waiting...

 They were waiting outside the door.  They wanted fall things, they wanted Christmas.  And I was happy to be back in Shelbyville, Indiana to see them...

I always knew I wanted to be an artist.  My wise and worried parents tried to steer me towards a sensible career like nursing or bookkeeping.  But I knew.  Every time we visited Nashville, Indiana the desire to be an artist and be a part of that grew stronger.  At age 18, I bravely walked into a small consignment shop called "The Stuffed Olive" and offered my wind chimes.  Thus began a life long passion and career.

talkin' old times!

 Happily years later, I ended up in Shelbyville, Indiana, sculpting and building my business, raising two kids and and a career.  I have fond memories and wonderful friendships from those 22 years, and I love coming back to visit.  Yesterday I held my Fall Show at The Horizon Center and with Team Rabbit, I presented my richly colored collection!  It was a wonderful homecoming, with a great turnout of eager customers and loving hugs from old friends!  This picture sums it up...my son Ben is chatting up two of his former teachers from Shelbyville Junior High and High School, Sandy Learned and Darlene McCaughey.  They loved him then and they enjoyed catching up!

 

fall wren on oak branch

We had a great show, we ate delicious refreshments provided by Team Rabbit and we visited!  Show was over, time to pack up and have lunch, The Chicken Inn of course, and then onto the next leg of our journey...

Susan Kehl's Cupcake Tree

Fall Ornaments

Here are some pictures of our fall collection!

Ben's Haunted Tree

Our collection at Ferrer Gallery

Ben and I arrived in Nashville, Indiana for the next exciting part of our busy day.  Ben, my sisters Rosey Bolte and Patti Beck are being  featured at the Ferrer Gallery this month!  Last night was the Second Saturday Art Walk, so Rosey, Ben and I attended the fun and festive event!!!  It was so exciting for me to be there, it has been 40 years since I walked into that little shop and stepped into my lifelong career.   I enjoyed the visits of my friends and customers, and the closeness of my family.  How wonderful to share our talent and our careers in such a perfect place!

yummy food of course!

Rosey Bolte and Barb Brooke Davis

Our own "Awesome" Autumn Baughman

  To say that I am blessed is an understatement.  I have had a very interesting and rewarding career.  Yesterday just seemed to be a crystal moment, a time capsule of all the experiences and steps that have brought me to this day, this hour.  So, on this beautiful fall morning, I feel at peace, whole and full.  Thanks to all the people who hugged me yesterday and wished me well.  Life is good on Rabbitville Road, and I for one, am thankful.  
         

The Ferrer Gallery is located at 61 West Main St, Nashville, IN.
Here is their website for more info:  http://www.ferrergallery.com

Busy, Busy October Day

Tomorrow will be a big day! I am presenting my Fall Collection at the Horizon Center in Shelbyville, Indiana. I met with Team Rabbit this evening, we unloaded and went for dinner at our favorite Mexican Restaurant. Later we set up the show and I must admit I loved every minute, every ooh and ahhh as my dear friends unpacked and placed each piece. My career really started while I lived in Shelbyville and I have so many good memories and good friends there. I am looking forward to tomorrow morning!

I hate to think beyond it, but after the show, my son Ben and I are heading to Nashville, IN to the Ferrer Gallery and the second Saturday Gallery Walk. This one will be special...along with my two sisters Patti Beck and Rosey Bolte, Ben and I are being featured in a gallery show called "All in the Family." This will be the first time my sisters and I will be in such a show together and adding Ben makes it even better! Can't wait!

The picture is of my latest and favorite ever Santa, a woodland one with three birds. He is inspired by my wonderful seven acres on Rabbitville Road, my studio in the woods. His robe has pine needles and cones stamped on it and I have added bright red berries for color. He reminds me of my Dad.

I have so many Santa ideas this year, I can't wait to get back in the studio. But first, some good times with my old friends, and some happy hours in beautiful Brown County and the gallery.

I had better get some rest...

It's Fall on Rabbitville Road!

I love fall. I am an October baby and I love when the air is crisp and dry and the leaves start to turn. I have been busy working on my fall collection and have been really enjoying my fall shows. Here are some new pins I have made...ravens are so cool!

I don't know about you, but I always get excited when I go looking for pumpkins. There is a pumpkin patch around the corner from me and they offer all different colors of pumpkins and gourds. They are amazing! I am loving those white ghost pumpkins but the green ones are so different and spooky looking. I found a glaze that comes close, so I painted some of my new batch in those colors. Fun!
Witches. spooky, funny, scary or just plain silly. But this witch, my "cow-witch" is over the top. Look at that skirt! Crazy with color. I love it! This is a rather unconventional view, but I wanted you to see her bright blue bloomers. Who says witches are dark and dreary? Not in my storybook!

My seven acres are full of inspiration! The sun wakes up and turns my yard all golden. The leaves are changing into their fall colors and I am drinking it up like a big cup of cider from Apples Acres. Turkeys chuck in the valley below my house. Mama deer and her twins visit the persimmon tree off and on all day, munching on the plump little purple fruit. Crows call and the holly berries are bright red on the strip of bushes out my studio door. It is sublime and it is rich and it fills me up. I have firewood stacked and ready for the coming winter, but for now, I will love this fall, I will enjoy deeply the colors. sweet!

Bridge Club

I am purging. I am shedding. I am getting rid of stuff that has followed me around for many many years. I have my stuff, my kid's stuff and some of my parent's too. It's normal for a woman my age. My kids are helping and their more modern attitude of shredding and pitching is an obvious result of one fact: their parents did NOT grow up during the depression. Mine did.

This process has had many hilarious moments. "Mom? Really?" I have heard it over and over. going through these things has also stirred up some wonderful memories, those tenacious thoughts that are velcro-ed to old stuff long packed in a box, away from everyday life and attention. It's interesting how the most common items can bring a flood of laughter, tears and stories. And it fascinates me how many common household items are now unrecognizable to the next generation. Times change.

"Mom, are you keeping these? They weigh a TON! Why would you ever need them?" The card table. A simple device, it quickly becomes the child's table at a big family dinner, (and I did come from a big family, all those cousins...double cousins too!) Set up in the kitchen, it makes a great surface for drying those delicious noodles that only a mother can make, or a perfect place to create that watercolor or other work of art on a rainy afternoon. (Resourceful mother) Sales table at rummage sale, I can go on an on. But this middle age woman 's memories ran straight to the chief purpose and name sake for this piece in the storage room, Bridge Club.

My mother played bridge. Like thousands of other women her age, in her time, she belonged to a card club. They took turns entertaining their friends, round robin-ing their visits to each other's houses, dressed to the nines and ready to win. I simply loved the nights my mother had bridge club. I looked forward to it and I committed each night to memory. These ladies seemed so sophisticated and chic. They wore hats, they drank cocktails and some of them even smoked! I was named after one of them. It was sublime. My little sister and I would hide at the top of the stairs and watch this social event until we were forced to go to bed. I would silently pray that they did not eat all the bridge mix and salted mixed nuts. They would gently stir their mixed drinks with colorful swizzle sticks and decide what to bid. It was a place in time, an institution, and I loved it as much as my mother. I remember.

"But Mom! Really! They weigh a TON!" Happily, our memories only weigh on our hearts. We can carry them with us and they won't take up much room. Those same swizzle sticks sit on the wet bar in my kitchen. I look at them and smile. And the card tables? My own card tables I have carried for 30 plus years? I'm not getting rid of them just yet. I might need them. You just never know.

The Nana Club

April 1st I joined the Nana Club. My first grandchild was born that day. His birth date was appropriate; he was not due for 12 more days and I had planned my show season remembering that neither of MY babies were born on time let alone early! My daughter called the day before, kinda stammering around that maybe these contractions meant something. I packed my bag. I kept working. Later, when she called and said they were going to the hospital, "just in case..." I put the bag in the van. I was pacing when my son-in-law called and said "It's a go!" I drove off and my life has never been the same.

I met this little fella when he was 20 minutes old. He looked around, he looked adorable. I totally fell in love the first time I saw him. He was tiny, but a complete replica of his Daddy. And he was my first grandchild. Bliss. They brought him home and I was fortunate enough to be asked to help settle them in. It was a Nana's dream, helping her daughter embrace the most important and wonderful task of her life.

Back home, my friends welcomed me into the Club. The queen of babies, friend Deb took me out for dinner to a perfect lady's place and introduced me to online photo albums and modern breast feeding stuff and all the upcoming joys of my new station in life. Older sister and my original teacher about babies, Patti filled me with wisdom and brought back memories of our babies together so many years ago. Naturalist and earth mother friend Maria delighted me with anecdotes about her own new grand daughter as we virtually danced about the computer with our delight! More friends poured out of the woodwork with their good wishes and over and over said the words "There is nothing like it..."

It continues to be wonderful. I accompanied my grandson and his mommy to the Nature Center at their state park last Friday. He is old enough now at almost 4 months to decide what he likes and is interested in. He bounced and stared and cooed over the squirrels at the bird feeder and in the pictures in the exhibits. His eyes and head followed the turtle as it swam back and forth in its little tank. And he bravely looked out through a porthole in the shipwreck exhibit as if to see his future unfold. That was in my mind anyway, because I am a Nana.

I watched him an entire day by myself while his mommy ran the market in town. We played, we cuddled. We had bottles and we burped. We laughed and we made plans. We talked about plants and leaves and felt bark for the first time. We found our first cicada shell. And we vowed to teach each other every single thing we know. It was a wonderful, simple, normal day, but I will never forget it.

About 4 months ago I joined the Nana Club. And you know what? There's nothing like it.

My Grandson

Trips to the dunes must inspire me. a year ago, I saw this canoe in the early stages of completion, while touring the Nature Center in the middle of its renovation. Six months ago I visited during the cold cold winter and happily anticipated the birth of my first grandson. Needless to say, I have made a bazillion trips up here to see him since he was born on April Fool's Day! Time to write again...a lot has happened in the last year.

Today, my daughter and I took Asher to see that Nature Center, all finished and remodeled and receiving company. We marveled at the exhibits and I carried him around and showed him each one and told him how they were not ready a year ago! I was very interested in canoes last year at this time, and look at us here, sitting in that very birch bark canoe that we first saw a last summer, half covered in tarps in expectation of display for children just like him.

Asher is interested in everything. He particularly loves animals and pictures of them. Today at the Nature Center we saw the squirrels outside at the bird feeder and then a picture of one on an exhibit. I held him up to the turtle cage, he peeked at garden snakes. We climbed around on the exhibit that explains ship wrecks and we even let him peek through a porthole. I firmly believe that he enjoyed it as much as his mommy and I did. Seeing the world through his excited and curious eyes is beyond description. Having a little one to take places like this and show the wonders of this beautiful earth is a precious gift. His mommy grew up in wonderlands like this, in state park after state park. And so did his Nana. My Dad took us and engendered a love of nature and its exploration that still fills my soul with sweetness. I will be sure that my grandson is similarly blessed.

Winter at the Dunes

What a difference a few months make. My last post was written in the warm summer months. My good friend Gail and I were visiting my daughter and walking on the beach...

I just returned from four days in the same area during some really cold weather. Wind chills of -17 degrees kept us from walking the beach and watching the beautiful sunsets but they also gave us a deep appreciation of warm fires in the fireplace and delightful knitting lessons with friends.

Cold temperatures keep us in and cozy. We talked, we cooked and we tried to fix each other's knitting. (Now how did she do that stitch?) During the summer we are in the middle of work and production, ramping up for the coming busy season. This time of year we are looking back at the just past Christmas season and planning the upcoming year. How wonderful to sit by a warm fire, count our blessings and anticipate the wonderful changes that will naturally come with a new baby in our midst!

Yes! I am going to be a GRANDMOTHER! I will be visiting this outpost a lot this coming year!