Mr. Leatherman

I have been trying to take advantage of Nepal.  It is hard work running around the city and dreaming up ideas of what I need made.  We found a Leathersmith here and he is awesome.  You name the color and style and he will make you anything from purses to skirts.  Here are a couple of our creations:

This is a bag I designed.  It has bright pink leather straps.  I love it.  It is the perfect size for the beach.  I bought the pink camo in Utah when I was there.

I am thinking about having an orange leather purse made as well.  I am running against time, but when my mom decided to get a leather jacket made for my dad the day before she was to leave, the magical leatherman said, 'sure'.  In less than 24 hours a beautiful leather jacket was made.  Amazing.  

The love of the leatherman has spread.  For the first time, Axel was enthusiastic about creating clothing like I was.  His inner child came out and he had this jacket made:

Look familiar?

If you have the jacket, you become the person, right?  Wolverine is not a hero I prefer, Spiderman is much cooler in my eyes.  I better not give Axel any ideas, or else he might come home looking like this.

With all the cool tailors around, it is possible.

More Woodcarving

This is Axel again. It has been a while since I posted my woodcarving projects, so I thought I would put up what I have been working on over the last couple of months.

Two carvings I did for a bookshelf for Heavah's room. I did the one on the bottom in one day. I was pretty proud of myself. And it was on pine. Which BTW is a crap wood to try and carve. It chips all the time. Lots of superglue on this one...

It turned out better than the one we got at Ikea.  And was about the same price.

Before Linda left she found this blank one and asked if I could carve one of the local snake eating gods.



So I did. It was fun. She helped me on it too. It was a lot of fun teaching her to do it. She is really enthusiastic when it comes to art, which I love about her.  I am glad my mother in law, mother and wife all care about art.  Heavah and Xay are in to it too, so the cycle continues on. 





My dad sent me some carving tools and with them this piece of wood that I think is basswood. I did a carving of a celtic looking cape buffalo in honor of our going to Africa this October.



This one is a pair of 'Nepali' carvings I did from ideas of ones around the city. The first is a lady dancing with a snake, which is common here ('em, and ready to be submitted to the Ensign for art projects...) Then I figured if I did a woman with a snake I should do an Adam killing a snake. It turned out more like a Conan the Barbarian killing a snake, but hey, it was my first pair of more 3D carvings...



This is how they are supposed to be displayed



I had an idea to do a headboard for a bed for Terah and I so I drew up this Celtic one. It was also in pine. I am not so sure I want to work with it again. It is a tough wood to carve. One of the hardest parts about carving is the thought process and drawing. It takes a long time to get on wood what your idea was. Once it is on, the carving part isn't that hard.



The first cuts is the deepest. Sorry. Couldn't resist that one...



Here it is done. It has a yin and yang in the center, one being Terah's chinese animal year (the dragon) and the other mine (the rooster). Four columbine flowers to represent our kids, and our love for the flower that we gained during a trip to Colorado when we were first married. Also, two celtic circles that are actually two seperate parts woven together



Detail of the dragon/rooster yin and yang.



Here is the celtic circle and the flowers.



Then I got really excited to do a mesopotamian carving. I saw some of the big reliefs in the Met in NYC and I always wanted to do one. So I researched it and found out they had a tree of life story too. So I drew this one up. It is Terah and I around the Tree of Life (Caballa tree of life) with the Holy Ghost over it.



Here it is done. I did it on Sal wood (whatever that is - some Nepali jungle hardwood). It weighs a ton. I had it stained and I am not sure I like the staining job.



On this side is the male side. With the male God (bull) at the top, Aries the Ram at the bottom (my sign), an Eagle god who is protecting our family (Adam was from the Americas, so it was supposed to be him) and the two boys next to me. 

In between Adam and the animal gods are the Mormon temple sunstone for the celestial kingdom, the moon for the terrestrial and the star for the telestial.

 I also transliterated some cuneiform alphabet (I had some special tools made for that purpose) and put my favorite scriptures about eternal life and the tree of life around the edges.



This is the female side. It has the female Goddess at the top and Terah's sign (Leo) on the bottom. I also put her favorite scripture on the side in Cuneiform.

This is a close up of my Aries one.  I had fun designing this one.


Here are Terah and I partaking of the Tree of Life. The same drawing as above.



This is just me. Notice the ripped muscles. I tried to be as life like as possible.



Here is Terah's side. She has the two girls behind her with a God behind her too. The God is the 'Lion of Judah' or Jesus. Aslan if you will... Hey, if CS Lewis can do it, so can I. He has Alpha and Omega on his clothing and a crown with a Star of David on his head. Then the three degrees of glory too.  Also, the number 12 appears twice on him.

It took me about a month to think up, draw and carve. I am pretty happy with it even though these pictures didn't turn out. I need to do a proper explination on the back of it in permanent marker (I do that on the back of all my art) so when I get old and feeble I will remember why I did what I did.

Some people might get ticked that it is Mesopotamian because Sumner and Akkadia later went on to become Babylon, but if you remember it originally was the location of where Noah landed and Abraham (and Terah, his father) birthplace. So I think at one time this area definitely had the truth, just by the time Babylon came around they lost it. I wonder how long that took? more than two hundred years?

It makes a nice addition to my 'One Eternal Round' art collection I am doing. Different cultures and arts that have parts of our truth in them. Next I need to do a good Mesoamerican one. Also Greece, Roman and early England. So much art to do, so little time... And with Qatar coming and me having to travel three weeks out of the month, even less than I had here...

My Orchids of Nepal

This is Axel again.  We are exactly a week away from leaving and of the million things I am going to miss about Nepal, collecting orchids is going to have to be up there in the top ten.  Since I got here I have been going out with Debendra (our driver) and getting all the different kinds I can.  I think we have collected over 40 different orchids.  Here are some pictures of the most recent outing with Xay.