by Carol Conklin | Feb 22, 2021
As the temps drop and snow builds up I find myself heading to check on, feed, water and clean Star and Vanilla more often than in the nicer weather. It is beautiful these cold mornings. But Vanilla is now an older llama, approaching 20 years. Star is young and...
by advokate | May 20, 2020
It just seems as if I should be waking up soon, but the dream continues… I never thought this coronavirus would overtake our country and the world. I thought the cases would be caught and isolated and things would go on as they were. How wrong could I be? I...
by advokate | Feb 21, 2020
Every morning I get out early to take care of Star and Vanilla. Soaked beet pulp and grain is fed to Vanilla and Timothy pellets with a wisp of grain to Star with a few apples or carrots and some whole peanuts… (She likes them and there is no sugar.) I like the...
by advokate | Jan 24, 2020
I walked down the long hallway. It was freezing, and it smelled bad. It was the way to the outhouse in the first school I ever went to up in Maine. We lived as far north as you could go before coming to the mountainous forests between Maine and Canada and our town was...
by advokate | Jan 13, 2020
This batik was created starting with a black piece of fabric and after drawing on lines of wax from the tjanting and brush painted areas to save the black. It went through discharge dyeing and many more dyebaths to achieve the soft earth tones. This batik shows an...
by advokate | Jan 6, 2020
I finished my batik, Morning Light on the Night Shadows, last August after Matthew Rogowicz from WMHT was here to do a video of me working on my batik art. This batik shows a playful frolicking horse galloping in the field and I like to think of the hills behind my...
by advokate | Dec 20, 2019
My dad’s words came to me quickly after I slid down an embankment late this fall and managed to catch myself on a thin fence wire which wrenched my collar bone, shoulder, back and neck. It was a thin and sharp jolt, and as I climbed down the embankment to the...
by advokate | Dec 18, 2019
Vanilla at sunset a few years back…. How strong he was…. He remained strong until after my cow, Steppin Up, his good friend passed. Strong and showing off when Star, My pretty pony mare arrived and very cantankerous, but then last winter he was sick and...
by advokate | Oct 17, 2019
Back in the day, I did a batik demo at Bedlam Farm at their Fall Open House. People often ask me if I give classes, and I usually groan and say no, please, go to my website and look at my tutorials. I have so much on there. Maybe I have too much information and it...
by advokate | Sep 13, 2019
In my studio, I work with three different types of wax: Beeswax, which is soft and does not crackle; paraffin, a harder wax that, used alone, can crackle too much, to the extent that your image can be lost; and also soy wax, which I buy in bags of flaked wax. This is...
