VISITING THE LISTENING TREE

...we recently had an delightful vist to shelley noble and her husband paul's lovely home and halfland studio. so amazing in fact that's it's been hard to find the words to describe it....but here is my feeble atempt:

first of all shelley's studio is disneyland for someone who likes to make stuff.....anything you can think of that you might need (yellow feathers you say? any color of raw wool? the tools to make it into felt material? tools, in fact, for any function you can think of....beads, strings, armature stuff, mold supplies, glues....inspiring pictures, notes and objects everywhere you look, (and behind that stuff as well) the place is oozing with creativity and everything you need to make what ever you want to make...and even more amazing than that, it's all organized! (wow.)

and the halfland set is even more impressive in person than it pictures on her blog, so exciting to see how committed shelley is to her process and the superb quality of all that she makes. the set details are mind blowing, from the tiny bread she has cooked and green beans, garlic string, and other veggies she has fashioned; the bottles, jars, and baskets to put them in; the material she has dyed to sew clothing out of; a wooden table she has made from scratch; the handmade tiles, flooring, molding, beams, windows and doors; the tree! the leaves!! the puppets!!! the list goes on and on and on, it really, truly boggles....

and best of all the day was about hanging out with AWESOME PEOPLE shelley and paul are kind, generous, funny....they gave us yummy food....and, well, these words i'm writing feel so ineffective to describe their hostpitality and good people-ness....

i guess our daughter aedon, who is 5, summed it up best when she said as we were getting in the car to leave "mommy, can we go back to shelley's house again on another day?" i hope so sweetheart, i hope so!