I have not written in this blog in a long time.  We both stay too busy and way over committed and just don't have a lot of time to sit down and write out the story of the day.  I know it's all the rage for a lot of folks these days, but we haven't figured out how to find the time.  You may see my pic in the "about me" section and see a bunch of Japanese there.  I have another blog which I am using to show patterns to be used in material and it is primarily a Japanese site.  When I made the "about me" for that site, it also bled over to the Carlton ART Factory blog.  So....anyway....that's why that's going on over there.  OK, so here's a very quick picture tutorial of some of the things we've been up to lately.

 Mike has spent months working on this marble angel who will end up being placed in a cemetery in Texas.  She's not done yet, but she's getting close.

I was just in a wonderful production of Steel Magnolias.  I was Ouiser.  It was produced by Circle Ensemble Theatre of Athens. (Georgia) Photo by Jason White

  
      We also have a beautiful fox that comes out of the woods to eat in our backyard sometimes.
         

 A month or so ago Mike found a dying little baby robin in Wendy's parking lot.  She had a hurt foot and couldn't put any weight on it.  He brought it home and we ended up hand raising it, feeding it chopped up worms from the bait store. We called several rehabbers, but couldn't find anyone interested in taking a baby robin  She was only with us about 10 days.  She healed and grew miraculously fast.  For a few days she lived in our back yard and would fly to us to be fed, but after a few days of outdoor life she took off, never to be seen again....so far.  It was really fun for a few days to have a relationship with a wild bird.  We think she found some robins to hang out with.  She was so sweet.

Mike has some sculpture on exhibit at the Quinlan Art Gallery in Gainesville.  Here are some of his pieces on display with some paintings by Peter Loose.  The exhibit is up til early August.  He's been making lots of smaller wooden pieces lately, too.  Some of them are up on our carltonartfactory.etsy.com site

OK.  That's it for now.  Maybe it won't be so horribly long before I get back to this.  Night!

OCAF Holiday Market 2011

Mike and I will have sculpture and pysanky at the OCAF Holiday Market Dec. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Here's a link to learn more about it. OCAF

Examples of Mike's artwork for consideration by Moonlight Gypsy Market

Mike's latest carving

Mike carved this life-sized lab to lay at the foot of a guy's cemetery monument. The dog's chin will rest on the monument base and his eyes will look up at the monument.

Mike and Stephanie go to Japan

There are lots of photos here, I know. Some are shrines, some temples, some cemeteries. We saw so many beautiful things!! The outfits you see Nick and Yukino wearing up top are outfits they'll be wearing at their wedding party and the bay cruise afterward. Japan is a welcoming, gorgeous place with tons of affordable, good food, beautiful sights, incredibly kind people, a great train system, and streets safe from crime. We had a fabulous time.