Snails, Flowers and Friends in the Everglades

Just had to add a few of my pictures of snails, flowers and friends from our recent Everglades trip. It was fantastic! This was the only time I've been to the Everglades when the weather was cool and the mosquitoes were almost zero! It's not the best time for capturing images of the Liguus Tree Snails as they are usually sleeping through the dry season in some comfortable crook of a tree and not moving around. But, I did locate a few (about 12) and have included some of their pictures below.

 The above snail was crawling on the ground. Cindy spotted him as I was focusing on the trees. To find one on the ground, alive, and moving around during the dry season is unusual.

It was also a great time for finding thistles and tiny little wild flowers.

I am so grateful to have friends willing to travel to the Everglades and even camp two nights there. (See how close they are to that huge alligator!) Thank you,  Carmen and Cindy!

Cindy the Muse becomes Cindy the Model

In November I designed and printed a scarf inspired by both the wonderful Liguus Tree Snails with their bands of beautiful designs and my good friend and fellow "Piece" Cindy Michaud. Cindy loves black and white checks and she loves red. So, I dressed a snail in fairly traditional patterns, like swooshes and triangles and added a few black and white checks for fun. I stuck to a red, black and white color scheme. I had Spoonflower print it on both cotton silk and voile. The silk one is shown here.

The fabric I got back in December was beautiful, but not exactly red, black and white. Lesson learned - printing at Spoonflower is like printing anything - colors can be a little quirky - the red turned out sort of a coral and black is sort of gray. Nevertheless, I made up my scarves and presented a voile one to Cindy. She actually wore it out to a meeting today and made it look really good. And when I asked if I could get a photo, she was a good sport to pose as my model.



And then she became hysterically funny recreating poses she'd observed on (I'm assuming) Next Top Model! Not all of them are shown here!



I'm always so inspired by the Pieces of 8 - and they're such a hoot!

Donation to Everglades Completed

Just after we left on retreat I got an email that my donation to the Everglades was due on October 25th. (I really have until next July to donate, but by delivering it early, they frame it for their Christmas Show.) Since I didn't get home until October 2oth, that left me struggling to get it finalized (they wanted a version without words) and printed in time to deliver it.

I'm happy to report that a local business was wonderful to work with and printed my poster to a beautiful watercolor paper at a very reasonable price. The colors were true and the turnaround time was less that 24 hours. For those of you looking for a nice printing resource for your artwork or photos, I'd like to recommend Canvas Depot. You can find them online at http://www.canvasdepot.com/ or you can drop in to the former Christmas Cottage in downtown Melbourne where they have a booth.

And for anyone interested in Liguus Snails, let me know. I have a half hour photo heavy presentation that I'm happy to give at schools or local gatherings to tell anyone about these wonderful little creatures, their habitat, and why they are protected.

And if you want to find and photograph them for yourselves, they can only be found in Florida, between Big Cypress, the Everglades and the Keys.

The Great Tree Snail Hunt

I've just returned from a wonderful trip to the Everglades looking for Liguus Tree Snails. They're an inspiration for a project that I've wanted to do that explores the relationship between the patterns on these beautiful shells and the incredible designs on Seminole/Miccosukee clothing. When I first saw the collection of tree snail shells in cases at the Ernest Coe Visitor Center over 30 years ago I immediately thought of the designs in Seminole Patchwork. The relationship seemed obvious. But research back then didn't support a connection. Still, it has stuck in my head that there is one.

The cases have long since vanished - possibly in Hurricane Andrew. And speculation is that the snails with the beautiful colors I saw in those shells are now extinct. During my trip I was able to find and photograph over 50 unique snails at Royal Palm, Pinelands and Pinecrest. As you can see in the three photos of snails here, they are still amazingly beautiful and inspiring.

I also visited the outstanding Ah-tha-thi-ki Museum south of Clewiston to do research on the origins of the clothing in their library. The Museum itself is small but the exhibits are so modern and incredibly well designed it's a real treat to visit. And their collection is said to have over 4000 artifacts, much of it early clothing samples. I didn't even get to that yet!

Last month I purchased Henry's Close's wonderful book on the Liguus (The Liguus Tree Snails of South Florida) and he devoted a small chapter to the connection between the snails and Seminole clothing. And at the Museum library yesterday I found a quote from Harriet Bedell back in 1941 that totally supports the idea. The quest for more information is going to be fun! I have much more research to do and am excited to have the opportunity to be the Artist in Residence in the Everglades for the month of July to continue work on my project.

If you have an interest in Liguus or Seminole clothing, please write!