Artist-In-Residence: Dreher Island State Park

My 5th Artist-in-Residence opportunity with South Carolina State Parks brought me to Dreher Island State Park this October, just outside of Columbia, SC. I spent the week hiking, exploring, observing, and creating art. The spacious lake-side villa gave me an opportunity to watch the sunset every single day of my stay and also a peaceful place to create fiber art & paintings surrounded by nature.

I only left the park for a few hours one day to hike the Firebreak Trail in Harbison State Forrest, but other than that, all of my hikes and explorations were inside the park. There’s enough trails and flat walkable roads that you can see almost all of the park on foot, if you like. It’s a large park but most of it is lake, so although I didn’t have a boat, I can see why so many people visit just for the fishing. The park is on a series of islands in Lake Murray and so there’s an enormous amount of shoreline, countless coves and plenty of peninsulas.

During my time at Dreher Island I created eleven needle felted landscapes, one mixed media fiber art landscape, two small paintings, and two series of painted pendants, all inspired by the natural beauty around the lake and forest. I loved the way the color of the lake depended on the sky, and one of my favorite color observations was the shock of orange at the shore where the water meets the red clay.

A huge thank you to South Carolina State Parks for selecting me for this program - it’s an honor! And thank you to Dreher Island State Park for hosting me for the week - I really enjoyed it! South Carolina really is a beautiful state and we are lucky to have so many parks to visit. I can easily find inspiration in all of them!

I hope you enjoy this short recap video of my week and all pieces are now available at www.onceagainsam.com

Artist-in-Residence: Cheraw State Park

Time in the woods, by a lake, or anywhere out in nature is what restores me the most. Making things with my hands is what gives me energy and joy. Put the two together and I’m one happy adventuring artist! My week as Artist-in-Residence at Cheraw State Park in South Carolina was such a wonderful experience. This was my fourth consecutive residency through the Parks program and as before, each experience is totally unique and always exceeds my hopes and aspirations. I feel so lucky to be invited to these parks each time, and it’s definitely one of the highlights of my year.

Cheraw is a small town near the Great Pee Dee river in northeastern South Carolina. I’ve lived in SC since 2010 had never been to this part of the state, so I was eager to get out and explore. The park sits on 7,000 acres of lake and woodlands, and is home to a huge variety of birds and other creatures.

Each day during my stay, I watched the sun rise at the lake, then went off for several hours of hiking either around the park or within a 30-40 drive. The afternoons were spent back at the cabin, creating needle felted landscapes, jewelry designs, and paintings inspired by what I’d seen earlier that day. Then I’d head back over to the lake for the sunset and a quiet stroll before a little more creative time back at the cabin in the evening. I love this schedule - explore, create, explore some more!

Favorite Things: about Cheraw:

Hiking Trail: The Cheraw State Park Trail

Sunrise Viewing & Birdwatching Spot: The Eureka Lake Boardwalk

Park Wildlife: Fox squirrels, woodpeckers, and deer!

Plant Life: Cypress trees growing in the water and the carnivorous flowers by the beach

Daytrip Destination: Carolina Sandhills Wildlife Refuge (Tate’s Trail)

The new collection created while at the park is now available on my website. I hope you’ll enjoy this short recap video of my art-cation experience!

A huge thank you to the South Carolina Parks program for hosting these residency’s and a special thanks to the Park Rangers at Cheraw for making me feel so welcome.

If you’re interested in hearing about my past residency’s with the South Carolina Parks Department, you can find them here:

2020 Devil’s Fork

2019 Edisto Beach

2018 Poinsett

New Year, New Studio

Greetings from my new studio! After nearly a month offline, I’m finally set up in my new workspace and it’s a dream come true. This dream has been many years in the making. For the last 9 years I’ve had my workspace spread out over 4.5 rooms and a storage unit, and while it certainly worked fine for a long time and allowed my business to grow from a hobby to a near-full time gig, it wasn’t ideal for my workflow.

My husband and I closed on a house this fall, started renovating it immediately, but I left my studio untouched because it was my busy season - the holiday rush is not the time to shut down! Once my Christmas cutoff date passed, I started packing up my supplies and implementing my plans for the new space.

One of the big reasons we chose this house was the studio space, which is a one bedroom apartment over the garage. It’s attached to the house, so I can still come up in my slippers and start working while I finish my morning Earl Gray, but it’s separate enough that I can “leave” work at the end of the day and I don’t have to see shipping supplies or inventory bins while going about the rest of my life.

The 800 square foot apartment needed some work, and there’s many things I’ll update / change out in the future once my bank account recovers from the initial renovations, but as of this week, I’m officially moved in and open for business once again. It feels so good! The natural light is amazing, the view of the cows and chickens across the road is still very exciting and novel to me, I’m thrilled to have heating and air (and running water!) in my laser room for the first time, and I love love love having ALL of my workspaces in one space. It’s so efficient! I’m now able to laser cut, paint, assemble jewelry, do computer stuff, store inventory, photograph things, pack and ship all in my studio apartment. I feel so grown up.

Before moving in, we had the popcorn ceiling scraped, textured walls sanded and painted, new carpet installed, got new sub panel and outlets for my equipment, and put up new light fixtures. I was able to reuse almost all of my existing studio furniture and only had to replace one desk since it wasn’t the right size.

In the future I plan to replace the green tile floors in the shipping area and bathroom, replace the doors to the deck, get new countertops, and add a few can lights, plus little odds and ends like dividers for my wall of wool and yarn.

Here’s a peek at what the space looked like before we started renovations:

Working with Insects

This spring, while everyone was stuck at home, everything was canceled, and most things were closed due to the pandemic, I found myself learning all sorts of new things. Trying out new mediums & hobbies gave me something to look forward to when there wasn’t much else going on. I learned to make gourmet popsicles, got into ice dying on my back porch, and my favorite new thing: insect art.

I had been needle felting insects for years and launched several handmade bug collections in the spring and summer, and I suppose all that research, finding images of beautiful bugs to inspire my felted ones, led me to work with real specimens for the first time.

There’s a lot more to insect art than I expected. First off, you’d think you can just walk around outside and find specimens easily enough, but that wasn’t the case for me. I did find many (already dead) specimens on hikes and walks, but they were rarely in good condition. I did get lucky a few times and was able to find and preserve a found beetle, bee, or butterfly, but I quickly realized I would need to find another source for insects if I wanted to create the large display piece I had in my head.

I was pleasantly surprised to find several reputable bug websites online and the colors, shapes and sizes of insects available was far more interesting than what I would be able to get by happenstance. The bugs can be ordered mounted or unmounted, and so I opted for the unmounted version and learned to do the rehydration and positioning of the specimen myself. It’s definitely an art! I broke off my fair share of legs and antenna on some of my earlier attempts, but I eventually got the hang of things.

This short video shows the process of working with real insect specimens. Although I read my fair share of how-to articles on preserving and mounting insects and there are so many different tips and tricks out there if you’re interested in working with bugs. BIcsBugs.com is a great resource for buying specimens and InsectArt on Etsy is as well.

Artist in Residence: Devil's Fork State Park

I just spent a week staring at the most beautiful green lake. I hiked, I paddled, and I made lots of art! This was my third artist residency through South Carolina State Parks and this year I was assigned to Devil’s Fork State Park in the northwest part of the state, where I’m starting to think there are more waterfalls than people. The landscape was gorgeous and there was so much to explore. Although I had a very full week, I feel like I could have spent a year there!

Every day I got up before sunrise and headed out for a hike in a new place. I averaged 4-7 miles each day, usually on a trail that lead to a waterfall or two, and soaked up as much inspiration as I could. In the afternoons, I enjoyed the panoramic view of Lake Jocassee from my cabin porch, making needle felted landscapes and painted pendants inspired by my surroundings. It was so easy to find inspiration. Not only does Devil’s Fork boast a lake so clear and green it looks like pool water, but there’s the majestic Blueridge mountains at the horizon, and of course acres and acres of magical woodlands full of creatures and flowers. This place has it all.

I am so thankful to have the opportunity to get to know another State Park in this intimate way and it’s even more special this time because this residency is the one and only thing on the calendar for 2020 that didn’t get canceled. It was the one thing I got to keep, I got to look forward to almost a full year, and the experience did not disappoint in any way.

I hope you enjoy this short video recap of my time at the park! All needle felted wool paintings are available here, the one mixed media fiber art piece at the beginning of this post is available here, the painted landscape pendants can be purchased here, and the laser engraved pendants are here. Use coupon code JOCASSEE now through 10/15 to get 20% off your order of $50 or more at www.onceagainsam.com

Once Again Sam’s Nature Report:

• 6 Bald Eagles

• Countless monarch butterflies (on their way to Mexico)

• 1 Otter

• 4 Great blue herons

• Many fishies-a-swimmin’

• 5 Belted king fishers

• 1 Bear (possibly)

• 2 Deer

• Several chipmunks

• All the squirrels

• 17 Waterfalls

• 0 Snakes (hooray!)