V.A. Olney - Art Work - For Sale

This West Coast Native artwork is by V.A. Olney. For a short time, inspired by love, he signed his work V+V Olney, for himself and his beloved Vi. This is one of the very rare V+V Olney pieces. Framed.
$100 each plus shipping.

Wolf

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 Whale

Trike Bling

As I began to tell you in the last post, I am working on some new artsy/craftsy things.  My good friend Phil is teaching me his skills so I can make things for my trike like he has made for his Harley Davidson motorcycle.  It really is lots of work but the end product is pretty cool.  First, you have to decide what it is you are going to make....  not as easy as it might seem, haha.  Then you have to draw it out (for me, very hard, for Phil, fairly easy in most cases) and make it into a template so you can transfer it to the aluminum. Next, you take a Jigsaw and cut it out.  Now the work begins!  You need some good files which you use to file the raw edges to smooth, then sand them to make them shiny. Now you start sanding the smooth surface.  What grade of sand paper you use depends on the condition the aluminum, if it has bad scratches you need to start with a more coarse grit, while if it's in fairly good condition you can start with finer.  You sand... and sand.... and sand some more, all by hand, until it is very smooth and free of any scratches or imperfections. Now you are ready to start polishing the aluminum until it shines like a mirror, again a very time consuming undertaking.  Wow, it sure is worth all the work though, when you put it on the trike and see it shining, knowing you made it yourself.  Also, it's pretty cool when people come up and 'oooh, ahhhh, and WOW' over the work you've done.

 Photo 1 & 2 - The feather is being cut out of the sheet of aluminum:

Photo 3 - Phil is filing the raw edges with a tiny round file:

Photo 4 - One feather is all done, including a spine engraved onto it.  The bottom feather has been sanded and is ready for the polishing:

Photo 5 - Both feathers are now all shiny and nearly ready to be applied to the trike. All that needed done in this photo was to engrave the spine on the second feather and to redo the engraving on the first feather.

I don't have a photo available with them on the trike. Must still be in my camera and I will have to move it to the computer.  These both went onto my gas tank and look beautiful.

With my laptop battery about to die and me not home to plug in, I will have to share more of this 'bling' later. What do you think so far??

Arts and/or Crafts

Over the years of my life, I've done many different crafty/artsy things.  There are so many things I've wanted to try doing and have taught myself many of them.  When I was into Ceramics, I gave lots of it as gifts and I kept several pieces for myself. I still have most of those pieces I kept. I taught myself how to crochet, again lots of gifts and lots of things for my home, and yes, I still have most of them. I also have a bag full  of beaded jewelry which I made in various styles, using little seed beads for all of it. I used to always be wearing bead bracelets on each arm, necklace, earrings, hair clips/wraps, 'Medicine Bag', etc. and usually I never wore the same ones two days in a row, or even 2 days in a week for that matter.  I had lots of them by the time I finally lost interest and went on to the next thing... and there were many.

In more recent years, I have not done as many arts/crafts as I once did.  In fact, I think the last thing was spinning wool, yes with a spinning wheel, including taking the raw wool and preparing it for the spinning. A lot of work, a labor of love for me.  The weaving I did sometimes used my hand spun wool, or sometimes other types of threads I purchased for the piece I was working on just then... these included scarves, table runners, a poncho, etc. etc.  After an upsetting event, I no longer had interest in these things so, though I still have all of my equipment for this work, they have just been collecting dust while I hope that someday I will again 'get the bug' and go back to doing this sort of thing.

Now.... I am working with aluminum!!! A friend is teaching my his 'skill' of turning ugly pieces of aluminum into beautiful, shiny things for my trike!!! I will be happy to share more of this with you soon... and to show some photos too.