….Three Star Owl is hitting the road!For three days — Thursday, Friday and Saturday August 4, 5, and 6 2011, I’ll have a booth at the Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival in Sierra Vista, AZ.
For more info about the festival, click HERE.
<< VLO (Very Large Owl) effigy and a couple of coati tails.
Special Note: THERE WILL BE OWLS. Also, lots of mugs: hummers, horned lizards, corn, ravens, and more!
Hope you can make it!
Update: if you’re looking at info on what areas are open for birding/touring in Southeastern Arizona as a result of the fires and floods, here’s a link to a useful and interesting July 19 2011 article in the Arizona Daily Star online: http://azstarnet.com/news/science/environment/article_ad90f282-df75-5c6e-b35b-2f80335577bc.html
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Last April at “Birdy Verde” (more properly known as the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival), Three Star Owl floated a trial strigid. That is to say, I put out a couple of Retro Owl Whistle Necklaces,
to see how they would go over. Since the two I had along were gone early in the show (admittedly a small sample), I thought I’d make more, and here some of them are, en masse.
The somewhat artsy, purposely grainy photo to the right shows main necklace components — the owly whistle parts — piled together in a herd. The finished necklaces are on a faux-leather lace, some with additional hand-made beads, knots, and the like. They are “retro”-styled, colorful, and shrill, which makes them perfect for everyone except the boring and humorless. Please note, they do not summon owls. But you can try. (No refunds for those attracting less desirable organisms.)
*IMPORTANT NOTE:
For those who are wondering, the organizers, guides, and local birding hosts of SWWings are carrying on with the festival despite the Monument Fire which affected so many of the rich and unique sky-island Huachuca mountain/canyon habitats that are home to wildlife, plant, and human communities. They will be running fieldtrips into unaffected areas, such as the riparian zone along
the leafy San Pedro River (left, shot in early spring — it would be much leafier now), the arid grasslands of the valley, and forested parts of the Huachucas that didn’t burn. The Southeastern Arizona birding community, many of whom make their living guiding, hosting, conveying, feeding, and otherwise welcoming birders and other nature-enthusiasts, could use your support. Visitors, where access is allowed, can see the results of astounding heroic efforts made by fire and public safety teams in the Huachucas
and the Coronado National Monument during the fires and the subsequent monsoon storms to keep people, habitats and wildlife safe to the extent possible. It’s an ongoing process: the fires burned hot in many places, leaving steep slopes bare of vegetation, and subsequent seasonal downpours have washed feet of black ash and rubble into homes, property, and waterways in the canyon foothills, changing the natural and human-modified landscape for the long-term.
(All images A.Shock)
…and other creatures of shift and change.
The day began with a coyote, and an oriole. The coyote we encountered in front of our house, at the start of our early morning walk toward the neaby desert park. It was on its 
end of the day commute — on the way from our street where it had likely been marauding for spare cat food and spare cats, back to the neighboring butte <<, where its family lives. This time of year the desert dogs are very much in evidence: the butte “goes off” every time a fire engine roars up the surrounding streets, especially in the early or late hours of the night. In the dark the porous rock seems to emit howls and yelps of a number of coyotes, and sometimes the yips of a local gray fox or two.
The cheeky Bullock’s oriole we saw as a brilliant orange flash overhead against the early blue sky, is also a migrant, headed to its breeding grounds uphill from the low desert. This 
bird might have been close to the end of its journey to cottonwoods somewhere in one of the riparian corridors of Arizona’s mid-elevation waterways and lakes, like the Verde Valley or Lake Roosevelt. It flew scolding out of our palo verde and we didn’t see it again. (Photo of male Bullock’s oriole by Kevin Cole from Wikipedia Commons)
The day ended with migration, too, but of a different sort. Friday night Three Star Owl was part of a trunk show hosted by Tuttibella Designs (thanks Teresa!), and during the evening, several items 
migrated away from the home territory to new nests: including an owl jar with a continuously swiveling head, a blue raven mug, some hummingbirds-of-AZ-ware, and an octopus mug. May they bring their new caretakers much pleasure!
>> Three Star Owl Beastie Ware (iPhone photo & mugs, A.Shock)
Finally, in a true stretch of the migratory theme that also has to do with acceptance, Three Star Owl has finally wandered into the milling herds of merchants who take credit cards. This has been a grudging and lengthy journey with what I hope will be a satisfying and stable ending, in which submission to technology and its costs brings benefits to everyone. And fortunately, so far, so good!
It’s time for the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival, and Three Star Owl will be there in the big white tent, along with other vendors and exhibitors Thursday 28 April until Sunday 1 May, 9 – 5 Thu-Sat, 9 – 1 Sun. Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Cottonwood, AZ.
Come on by and see what’s new! The event is free, but a park entry fee may be required, although they may waive it for the Festival.
Click here for more info and directions.
Hope to see you there!
<< the Bundle-feather jar with Owl finial will be there (stoneware, 10.5″, A.Shock, 2011) And, definitely click to enlarge to see piece in truer, richer, color.
I wrote the following promo last month and then promptly forgot all about it in my WordPress “drafts”. So, here it is, to be used as a reminder that the exhibition is almost over:
Allison Shock/Three Star Owl is pleased to 
debut the new piece “Assemblage: Owl Hives” at the Arizona Clay Annual Juried Exhibition at the Chandler Center for the Arts. The “Assemblage” is a group of artefaux which may provide evidence for the ancient and apocryphal practice of strigiculture — the raising of owls — for either domestication or ritual purposes.
detail, “Assemblage: Owl Hives” (photo and piece by A.Shock, click to enlarge) >>
The Exhibit features work by more than 40 Arizona clay artists, and runs from 18 March – 16 April 2011. Come to the Chandler Center for the Arts, and see what the Arizona clay community is up to.
March 18 – April 16, 2011
Exhibition Dates: March 18 – April 16, 2011
Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Saturdays, Noon – 4 p.m.
at: Chandler Center for the Arts
250 North Arizona Avenue
Chandler AZ 85225
Sponsored by the Chandler Center for the Arts, the Chandler Cultural Foundation, and the Chandler Arts Commission, Chandler Cultural Foundation
Images courtesy of the artists.
For more information call 480-782-2695.
The Owl Hives are in Chandler.
On Friday night, March 18, the All AZ Clay Invitational Exhibition opened at the Chandler Center for the Arts, displaying the work of more than 40 clay artists from all over the state of Arizona. Among them is an installation of artefaux by me, entitled Assemblage: Owl Hives.
>> Assemblage: Owl Hives (photo and piece, A.Shock 2011)
The piece is composed of a variety of related, archeologically-themed elements, and is intended to be viewed on its own æsthetic merits. But, if you read this blog regularly, parts of the installation will look familiar to you, since I’ve posted bits and pieces of it before, in progress. Also, in the Assemblage, you may recognize a tie-in to the fictional posts that appear here irregularly: according to the signs, the piece is purported to be on loan from the august but mysterious Ganskopf 
Foundation. In addition, the ubiquitous and insinuating Dr. Darius Danneru has graciously provided an excerpt from a recent article, supplying authoritative and scholarly, if prolix, context for the piece. <<
I hope you can stop by the Chandler Center for the Arts’ Vision Gallery anytime before April 16, when the show closes, to see what the 
Arizona clay community is up to, including three pieces by Don Reitz, from the CCA’s collection. More info below, or click on Three Star Owl events. (Photo E.Shock>>)
Exhibition Dates, Hours, and Location:
March 18 – April 16, 2011
Vision Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 am – 5 pm, Saturdays, Noon – 4 pm
at: Chandler Center for the Arts
MAP/Directions
250 North Arizona Avenue
Chandler AZ 85225
For more information call 480-782-2695.
It’s not every day a big red tour coach pulls up in front of the house to let people off.
Recently an opportunity came my way to take part in a tour series run jointly by Ultimate Art and Cultural Tours and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. The event is the Behind the Scenes Artist Studio Tours, and today two
groups of visitors came by Three Star Owl and other studios in the neighborhood to see what we’re up to.
There were Wares available for looking at or buying, the small clear studio space was as buffed and
burnished as it gets and open for visitors. I set up a table just outside its door, and demo’d a large coil owl and stamped raven mugs. And E had spiffed up the yard and plants to such a degree that ladies were trying to buy some of the cactus with beautiful spring blooms on them right off of his shelves.
Folks marched in the back gate and across the wash, but we had no worries about the groups accidentally disturbing the hummingbird nest — the nestling fledged the day after this post went up!
(All photos E.Shock, cliquez to enlarge)
For those of you who follow Three Star Owl clay studio, I’ve just updated the Events page — it had been neglected, I’m sorry to say — to reflect upcoming shows and sales.
I announce them here, but the Events page (click on Events tab on the bar at the top of this page) will take you to what’s in store for the future with one click, with dates, times, and links to the sponsoring Festivals, if appropriate. A few past events are included, too, at the bottom.
>> Osprey magnet (stoneware, 2.25″X2.25″ $16, A.Shock)
The next bird-related event for Three Star Owl will be The Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival, at the end of April, in Cottonwood, AZ, affectionately known as “Birdy Verde”, or, sometimes, accidentally, Verde Birdy. Now, you can check the Events page to see exactly when!
Here’s cheers to all of the Three Star Owl friends and clients who came by, old and new (nice to meet you, Doriot!), to the San Diego Bird Festival this weekend. And many thanks to Karen Straus and the volunteers and organizers of the San Diego Audubon Society for all of their good care and hard work.
<< wall art, Campland on the Bay (photo A.Shock)
As always, there were fascinating people to meet, new things to do (more on that later — it involves a friend, two raptors, and a jackrabbit!), with the added bonus of barn owls calling overhead last night. Now it’s time to pack up a soggy wet tent/office (the rain held off until last night), hop in the truck, and head back across the desert to home.
See you next time, San Diego!
