Something new every day

Open Minds tarp after the demo

I'm home now from the last Open Minds demonstration of the school year.  This was a grade 4 class who are spending the school week at The Rooms.  After the flintknapping demonstration the kids took some of the reproductions back to their tables to sketch and do "Condition Reports" on.  One of the students brought me back a soapstone plummet with a magnet stuck to it.  I had no idea that soapstone could be magnetic.  I knew that some of the soapstone from the Baie Verte Peninsula in Newfoundland contained iron and would weather with a rusty appearance, but I didn't remember learning that it was magnetic.  Pretty cool.

Soapstone plummet with magnets

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Craft Council AGM Weekend

A going away vest!

This past weekend was the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador's Annual General Meeting and get together weekend in St. John's.  There were studio tours on Friday, a day long board meeting and presentations on Saturday and the members Annual General Meeting on Sunday.  This was my last AGM for a while as I stepped off of all of the committees that I was on.  Its a great organization, but I need a bit of a break to focus on other areas for a couple years.

'Robot Contemplates Flight' Mug from Blue Dragon Clay

Maaike at the Clay Studio Fundraiser

We paused Saturday's board meeting to attend a Graduation Exhibit at the Anna Templeton Centre and a Clay Studio fundraiser at the A1C Gallery.  At the fundraiser, I picked up a Robot mug from Maaike Charron from Blue Dragon Clay.   I especially like how big and light the mug is.  For Lori, I picked up a ceramic chimp.  The traditional gift for 9 years is pottery and since she was on the road during our anniversary last week it seemed like I should bring something home.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the name of the maker - but hopefully someone who sees this can fill us in.

Ceramic chimp on the wall

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

New Photo Scales: A little more gear

New Photo Scales

I'm winding down Elfshot for the summer and gearing up for fieldwork.  My to-do list is slowly changing from flintknapping wholesale and one-of-a-kind reproductions to gathering equipment and supplies for a couple months of work in Nunavut.  My head is still pretty much in Elfshot mode, but in less than a month I'll need to have everything wrapped up and be ready to head north.   Lori picked up some new rain gear for me at Mercer's Marine in Clarenville earlier this week.

1 metre scale in a small caribou blind

Today,  a new 1 metre scale and north arrow came in the mail from The Trowel Shop in Montreal.  The scale splits into two 50cm pieces which makes it handy to carry on a backpack and the round cross-section means that it doesn't have a front or back and looks the same in every photo.  Each coloured band is 10 cm long.

Back of North Arrow

The north arrow has 1cm and 10cm divisions and a list of common hypotenuses on the back.  We use hypotenuses all the time to measure the diagonals of grids when we set up units on a site.  So the table is a handy little chart to have close to hand.  Both photo scales came with their own cloth bags with velcro closures to help cut wear and tear when they're not in use.  

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Wednesday's Blog Post... Finally

Newfoundland Chert points and Endblades

Getting something up on the blog is the last thing I have to do today before I can call the workday done.  I've been working the past couple of days on a secret project that's pretty much done now.  Its a fun piece that I'll be able to talk about in a couple months time after its been delivered.  In the meantime there's still jewelry to be made and this weekend is the Annual General Meeting of the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador.  Its being held in St. John's this year and it will probably be my last CCNL AGM for a while.  Archaeological and Elfshot work has been preventing me from dedicating the volunteer time that committee work requires so I'm going to take a break.  I'm sure I'll be back once I get my work-life back under control.

These pieces will likely end up in a shop in Gros Morne.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Long Weekend

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Ochre warms them up

I took a few days off work this weekend.  Its hard to take time off when you work at home without feeling guilty, but its been such a busy winter and spring with a hectic summer and fall around the corner that I really needed a couple days of downtime.  Today I was back in the workshop.  More wholesale and custom commissions.  While the sun was out, I was spraying a protective clear-coat on a a few Maritime Archaic Indian pin reproductions.  These are made from caribou long bones, stained with red ochre.

This is pretty much how the pins would have been oriented in the long bone when I cut them out.  I use the long part of the shafts for the body of the pins and orient the heads where the bone flattens and flares out towards each end.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Introducing the Nikon Coolpix P500

Obsidian necklace

Now that I've moved on to slightly smaller orders, it feels like the pace has picked up a bit.  I have another gift shop order ready to package, but I want to hear from the customer before I go ahead an put it in the mail.  There's a rumour that Canada Post is on the cusp of a strike, so an alternate shipping option might be a safer bet over the next week or two.

My new camera - Its red!

I've been doing a bit of gear shopping in anticipation of the upcoming field season.  We've been buying Nikon Coolpix cameras as good mid-range point and shoots for the last 5 or 6 years.  Last summer I took the Nikon Coolpix P100 into the field and was really happy with the 28x zoom, hi-def video, in-camera battery charging and flip screen.  I continued to use it almost daily over the winter to record works in progress and to take artifact shots.  I had no intentions of giving it up, but then Nikon brought out the P500 with a 36x zoom.  I ordered mine from Futureshop and it arrived on Wednesday.  I'll post a proper review later in the summer, after I've had a chance to use it a bit more, but so far it seems very comparable to the P100, but with a much bigger zoom.  It should be good for wildlife shots.

Bands of minerals create colour

The photos of the obsidian necklace on this post are some of the first I've taken with the new camera, but from now on, most of the images you see on this blog will be coming from the P500.  Lori has inherited the P100 and is giving her P80 to her parents.  It'll be their first digital camera.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

My Trashy TV List

Elfshot's Mess, Mythbusters' Explosion

Lori dropped of the big Historic Sites Association order yesterday at their St. John's warehouse, which means that I can move on to an all new set of orders today.  So there's more knapping during the day and assembling jewelry in front of the TV this evening.  I'm really struggling to find something new to blog about because my work has been so repetitive lately.  But I've been watching lots of TV while working on the wholesale orders.  Here's my current watch list.  Feel free to mock me, I'm not proud.

Dog the Bounty Hunter : Dog Chapman and family track down bail jumpers in Hawaii and/or Colorado.

Pawn Stars: Big Las Vegas pawn shop which gets in amazing items. I love Chumlee.

Repo Games: Answer 5 Trivia questions and they won't take your repossessed vehicle.

American Pickers: Looking for junk to sell as antiques.

Canadian Pickers: Looking for junk to sell as antiques in Canada.

Doing DaVinci: This one's pretty cool - a team of builders tackle constructing a different DaVinci machine every week.

Hardcore Pawn: I hate watching this show.

Extreme Couponing: Its crazy.  People will plan for a week and buy $1000 worth of groceries for $50 and a stack of coupons.

Swamp People: Hunting gators with awesome accents.

Mythbusters: You know the show.  Still great.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast