Lady's Archery Score Kit

1850-1860: "This is a lady's scoring kit for archery. These usually hung from a lady archer's belt together with a quiver, a spare string, and sometimes a purse containing shillings. Three golds (arrows in the centre) entitled a competitor to receive a shilling from each opponent.

The kit has three parts: The acorn-shaped cup or pot contained grease (a mixture of mutton fat and tallow) which help the finger protectors or shooting glove slide more easily off the bowstring.

The pricker is the tubular object with a sharp pointed stiletto used for marking scores onto the card disc which holds a circular replaceable printed paper bulls-eye card with circles in gold, red, white, black and blue. Players scored nine for gold, seven for red, five for blue three for black and one for white." Link

Jessie Newbery

1900: "Newbery believed design the most important element in her work. Despite being highly stylised, her patterns are based on her lifelong interest in botany. Each element was reduced to a geometrical, almost abstract, shorthand which helped evolved the Glasgow style." Link

The History of Plants According to Women, Children and Students

1542/2002: "For this suite of prints Borland selected 10 plates from one of the earliest and most important woodcut herbals, Leonhart Fuchs' 'De Historia Stirpium' (History of Plants), published in 1542, and reworked them as etchings. Fuchs' herbal is one of the earliest books on plants which can properly be called scientific, and it was immensely influential in medicine and botany in succeeding decades. His introduction credits the artist and engravers involved in the production of the images, but those who coloured the plates were unidentified women and children. Hand-colouring was skilled work which required careful copying from master copies or from the original watercolours. Crude, uneven or inaccurate colouring could obscure the finely-printed outlines, or misrepresent the species or variety , and thus undermine the usefulness of the image for purposes of identification. It was common practice for print publishers to employ women for this work, but there contributions were never credited.

Borland's [2002] publication of these prints reversed the usual hierarchy of credits and recognition - though a number of people were involved in the etching and colouring of the plates, only those undertaking the colouring were paid and credited." Link

B & I work in progress: Bed of Roses

2008: Working on a simple 100% cotton unbleached/undyed coverlet with embroidered roses in collaboration with painter Melissa Lessmann. Above is a rose Melissa painted which we will reference for the final embroidered coverlet.

White Squirrel Wars

Brooklyn, NY [Source]

2008: Running through beautiful Prospect Park a white squirrel crossed my path...

"Not one, but five towns use albino squirrels as their claims to fame, and none is particularly happy about the others. Kenton, Tennessee, accommodates about 200 of the furry rodents. Residents insist that the squirrels "have been here the longest" and claim they were left by a "Gypsy caravan" in 1869. Is Kenton, we asked, where the other towns got their white squirrels? "Well, they had to come from somewhere."

Olney, Illinois, is the loudest booster of all albino squirrel towns, titling itself Home of the White Squirrels. It scoffs at the other towns' albinos. "Most of theirs have dark eyes," they told us. The town conducts and promotes an annual white squirrel count, when locals scour the landscape inch by inch to determine population or migration trends. Roadside America." Link

Vegetable Ivory

2008: Digging through the web I've just discovered vegetable ivory and the tagua nut. See links below:
"Tagua, also known as corozo, is a name used for the tagua nut in the South American rainforest. When dried out, it can be carved as an ivory replica." Source
Ecuadorian Tagua Nuts Link
Tagua: The Vegetable Ivory Substitute Link
Is it a poodle? A german shepherd? Link