Beaver Support System

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Who's saving beavers now? January 19, 2016

Yesterday I indulged in some ‘begging for beavers’. With a few successes. This from Miss Johnny Squirrel in Florida.

Who wouldn’t want a beaver making s’mores? This hungry beaver pillow is hand printed, stuffed, sewn and will make a great addition to any nursery or home!

She doesn’t have any more for sale at the moment, but go check out her other items which are equally adorable.

Another cheerful willingness to help comes from artist Elly Brinkerhoff in San Diego, recently relocated to DC. She says of her artwork,

As a child, she surrounded herself with stories and puzzles and was deeply inspired by children’s book illustrators. You could often find her outside collecting birds nests, digging up clay in the backyard, or climbing trees. If she wasn’t outdoors, she was inside drawing at the kitchen table.

I’m imagining this framed over the mantle. But how perfect would this be for a wedding invitation?

I’m not always successful of course. A 10-1 ratio is usually par for the course, but sometimes its whittled to 5-1. I came across this yesterday and wish with all my heart it could be in the auction. But I’m at least going to enjoy sharing it. This is from writer, artist and archaeological consultant Dwayne R. James in Peterborough Ontario.

I wrote a final artist who gets no link. They advertised a cute beaver pillow for sale.

WITH OUR SILHOUETTE OF THE STANDING BEAVER!

I explained that the silhouettes were made by an artist from our photos for our use and that a donation was the least they could do.

Finally, I was visited by the Middlechild Productions team ghost asking for footage of public support and I remembered doing this. Wow, this was a long time ago, at our very first festival, but it made me very proud of us.

Let the record show…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior August 10, 2015

If you, like me, you were too busy at the beaver festival to watch Robert Rust create his historical, artistic all natural wattle and daub beaver, you might enjoy this video taken by Bob Kobres of Georgia documenting his creation. This is at the very back corner behind the festival, and there’s still a fair amount of traffic. Remember he started with a framed beaver filled with a crosshatch of willow stems, and fills it in just like a real beaver.

So after he was done weaving, he mixed the wattle with his bare feet and dabbed it onto the beaver over the course of an hour. Here’s the exciting conclusion. If you think Bob is more historian than artist, pay special attention to the 8 minute mark when he gets down to finishing touches.

I’m so grateful for his wildcard of creativity which always brings something magical to the festival, and for Bob Kobres capturing the thing on video. I spend a lot of time planning how the festival will work, but I could never even dream up this and sometimes the unplanned things are the very best!

_______________________________

Lately I’ve been thinking about the way that beaver life is written in the water, and the intimate relationship beavers have with it. A kind of mirror they live with every day that records their every intention. This probably isn’t the last poem I’ll write about it, but it will do for now.

Cute Beaver Ideas that are not mine…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver-themed merchandise, Creative Solutions August 9, 2015

I couldn’t help browsing around to see what other fantastic beaver ideas there were in the world. I came across this adorable kickstarter project that is very near its goal. Lucky for us, we still have time to help.

Little Beaver Builds a Bed is a short, illustrated children’s book focused on the importance of making things by hand, doing things well, and working together to get the job done. This book will be beautifully hand-illustrated and will be great for kids on an age 3 – 5 reading level. Through the book I hope to connect more kids with the craft of woodworking and introduce them to the value of making things with your hands.

In this delightful story, you’ll follow Little Beaver as he follows his curiosity about the amazing things his father builds in his woodland shop. Little Beaver will learn a lot about patience, making something from scratch, and will get to build a special project with his Dad.

Go here to help Katie bring this project to fruition, because we need some copies for our silent auction next year. The children of Martinez have certainly learned something about creating with their hands. These fuzzy little illustrations by Kristen are adorable. They should be prints as well because I bet I know where they would sell nicely.

Meanwhile here’s some fantastic children’s artwork by Caroline Brose, a young artists featured on the Ink and Snow website. I think this needs to be a t-shirt, don’t you?

Big smile for Caroline. Thank you!

I idly thinking how to make our awnings more beaver-y and wondering about whether we might let kids paint our art table awning next year. Since awnings are waterproof it’s a pretty sticky proposition to try and paint one. Look how this artist solved the problem. Jeanette Janson did a beautiful job setting her artwork display apart from all the others at the vintage fair. She’s an artist who got tired of her plain white display canopy used at fairs, etc. So she painted her own.

There were 48 birds by the time she was done and it took her an entire weekend or longer. She ended up with something truly awesome that made her booth completely visible and unique. It was a lot of work. Because if you do the math it’s 40 feet total (10+10+10+10).

But it would be a lot easier with 100 children to help, right?

Great people do great things for beavers!

heidi08 Beaver Anatomy, Beaver Art, Beavers and water, Beavers elsewhere, Creative Solutions, Educational, Environmental, Festival, Friends of Martinez Beavers, Who's saving beavers now? February 10, 2015

Need something beavery to do tomorrow morning? There’s still time to sign up for Joe Wheaton’s webinar on Beavers and Climate Change. Offered in combination with the Grand Canyon Trust and Utah State University, you know I’ll be there and it will be a dam good time!

Beaver and Climate Change: Free Webinar

They are the West’s most savvy water engineers. Here on the Colorado Plateau, ground zero for climate change, we humans have a lot to learn from these furry creatures.

What Can Beaver Teach Us About Adapting to Climate Change and Building More Resilient Systems?

FREE WEBINAR February 11, 2015 10 -11 a.m. MST

Utah State University fluvial geomorphologist Joe Wheaton studies rivers and the changes we humans – and beaver – bring to them. Joe and his colleagues observe, map, and document what happens when rivers are fortunate enough to have beaver, both here in the West and around the world.

In this 1-hour webinar, Joe will share what he and others are learning from beaver, explain where and how their dams interact with climate change, and take your questions.

Go here to register, and pass it on!

Now it’s time for our awed thanks to our Martinez resident talent Amelia Hunter who has outdone herself yet again on the poster image for the 8th beaver festival. I don’t know about you but that might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Note mom’s tail. This is the first painted image of a beaver getting a tail ride on the entire internet. I’m expecting it to inspire a Canadian coin design next year.

Original artwork by Amelia Hunter

A well-made tool finds many uses…

heidi08 Beaver Art, Beaver Behavior February 7, 2015

Okay, first of all, I am getting very sick of all the downhill championships in Beaver Creek CO because it means most of the alerts I receive are about skiing. And second of all the next time a woman brings a kangaroo into McDonald’s they better not do it in Beaver Dam WI because I have gotten literally a million alerts about that story. Work hazard I guess, but because this recent headline is so clever I’ll share the pain. Believe me this story has been in 60 papers before any copy editor was smart enough to think up that one.

Hoppy Meal: Woman tossed out of McDonald’s after taking ‘therapy’ kangaroo to lunch

The strange situation took place last Friday, but was just reported recently. At 11:41am, Diana Moyer entered a McDonald’s in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, with a baby kangaroo accompanying her. Moyer and her husband, Larry, actually own five kangaroos at their home, according to the Beaver Dam Daily Citizen, and they have been taking the young animal to that same McDonald’s for three months. Moyer told police the kangaroo was a service animal whose use had been approved by a doctor, but the argument did not convince police, who said that customers did not feel safe. Moyer left after this and no tickets were issued.

This is the kind of story they like to blame on California. But not this time.

Third of all I just want to say that the beaver silhouettes made for us from our photos by Libby Corliss are the most useful gift we’ve ever been given. But unfortunately the file is too small and I need a Adobe wizard to make it bigger. If that’s you PLEASE help!

Now as for my beaver negative space project, did you really think I would stop at three?

There’s been such interest in this project that I would consider doing a calendar IF the silhouettes were larger files. They’re too small at the moment to print. But I’m trying to fix that. Wish beavers luck!