The first "Fete de St Michel" was amazing. I was happy to see so many talented artists from St. Michel and the region of Bellechasse, as well as other performers, and vendors. Thanks to all who made it happen, and to everyone who came in support.

La première "Fête de St Michel" était incroyable. J'étais heureuse de voir autant d'artistes talentueux de Saint-Michel et de la région de Bellechasse, ainsi que d'autres artistes et vendeurs. Merci à tous ceux qui ont rendu cela possible, et à tous ceux qui sont venus nous soutenir.

​https://sites.google.com/view/rocstmichel/nouvelles

Thank you all for the amazing welcome and support at the festival decouvrarts. It was an incredibly uplifting experience with so many kind words of appreciation and encouragement. It was great meeting so many new and friendly faces, including the other artists and performers. I hope to see you all there again next year. In the meantime of course you're all welcome to visit my gallery in Saint-Michel and thanks for visiting if you already have. Thank you again so much to all the organizers of the Festival decouvrarts in Cap Rouge. I would be honored to return again next year if you'll have me, and I'll have some new pieces to show. JP

Merci à tous pour l'incroyable accueil et soutien au festival decouvrarts. Ce fut une expérience incroyablement édifiante avec tant de gentils mots d'appréciation et d'encouragement. C'était formidable de rencontrer autant de nouveaux visages amicaux, y compris d'autres artistes et interprètes. J'espère vous y voir tous l'année prochaine. En attendant, bien sûr, vous êtes tous les bienvenus dans ma galerie à Saint-Michel et merci de votre visite si vous l'avez déjà fait. Encore un grand merci à tous les organisateurs du Festival decouvrarts à Cap Rouge. Je serais honoré de revenir l'année prochaine si vous m'acceptez, et j'aurai de nouvelles pièces à montrer. JP

Hello and seasons greetings! It has been great showing my work at the library exhibit in Saint-Michel. I will still have my exhibition there until November 21, then it's on to the next exhibit. I will be participating at an exhibition with a portion of my works, alongside other artists at the "Offrir l'art" exhibit at the Espace-temps gallery, located at 284 Rue Saint-Joseph
Lévis, QC G6V 1E8. For this exhibit, For this exhibit I am offering pieces valued at $300.00 or less, and this will also include some jewelry I've made as well. Looking forward to this event in a beautiful and quaint area of Levis with the delightful owner of Espace-temps, Jocelyne. Hope to see you there.

Bonjour et salutations de saisons! C'était super de montrer mon travail à l'exposition de la bibliothèque à Saint-Michel. J'y aurai encore mon exposition jusqu'au 21 novembre, puis c'est à la prochaine exposition. Je participerai à une exposition avec une partie de mes oeuvres, aux côtés d'autres artistes à l'exposition "Offrir l'art" à la galerie Espace-temps, située au 284 rue Saint-Joseph
Lévis, QC G6V 1E8. Pour cette exposition, pour cette exposition, j'offre des pièces d'une valeur de 300,00 $ ou moins, et cela comprendra également des bijoux que j'ai également fabriqués. Au plaisir de cet événement dans un beau et pittoresque quartier de Lévis avec la charmante propriétaire d'Espace-temps, Jocelyne. Espérons vous y voir.

My first exhibit at the local library was a success, and a real fun, entertaining day. We had around 150 visitors, half of which were trick or treaters during the last half of the event. That's me in the Viking costume, and the event organizer and manager of the library, "Sheriff" Louis. Held in the basement section of the library, part of which was the first prison in the village, which lent a great atmosphere for the Halloween aspect of the event. Lots of new friends met, 3 sculptures sold, and one happy artist.

Hello friends, just thought I'd give you a glimpse at my work when it's in progress or even before it has begun.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take more progress photos for each sculpture, so I only have a few pics to show you now.  I'll add more to this blog if I find any and I'll try to take more progress photos for future works.  So here they are, I'll start with my recently completed shark, shown here with the head, and the left and right sides of the body being glued together.  I use string, small clamps, or clothes pins to hold glued objects together overnight.  I also use screws (if possible or necessary) or pins to assist in holding things together.  After the glue is applied, I pack any exposed glue in the joints with sawdust.

Now here's a sculpture before I started any work on it, the Galapagos Tortoise.  This is the torso/shell piece, which is a very unique piece of driftwood root burl.  It was found as seen in the photos (top and bottom views).  

This is the owl with three pieces glued together.  The main body piece of driftwood, the front piece of driftwood bark (cottonwood?) and the head which is a coconut shell.

I think I've got at least a couple more of these progress photos somewhere in my archives, but it will take some searching to find them.  I may post progress photos of new sculptures in a new blog.  Thanks for your interest and support!  

Just letting you know I will be updating my photos with better quality shots from my new camera.  I will also be mounting all or most of my new sculptures on a black wood base, and I'll try to mount the older sculptures in the same way.  Thanks for your support and interest!  J.P. Clough

Well it's an exciting day.  My sculpture will now have a trademark brand burned into each one with my new branding iron.  Now I haven't got all the details on it yet because it was made in Quebec by a machining company that my mother and her friend found, but I don't think it's actually an "iron".  I'm not sure if ranch animals are still branded but they used to use real iron to make branding irons, hence the name, but this looks to be some sort of alloy similar to brass.  Whatever it's made of, I think it looks great and I can't wait to actually see it in person but that will have to wait until  summer of 2019.  I'm also thinking I may be able to use this for more that just branding my sculptures.  Ok that's all for this blog, here's a photo of my new "JPC" branding iron.

​     Hello and welcome to my first blog here at the Creature Tree website.  My name is J.P. Clough, I'm a multi-faceted artist but currently practicing as a driftwood sculptor, and along with myself, I'd like to introduce to you, two very special mothers in my life.  They are my own mother, and mother earth, a.k.a. mother nature.  For the first blog on my website, it made sense to start from the beginning of my career as a driftwood artist, but first to give thanks and credit to what got me to this point in the first places.  I'll get into the role my own mother played in this endeavor soon, but first let me talk about the other mother, mother earth.  As the matriarch of my work, she's the inspiration and source of basically everything I do with regarding art, but also my life and most of my casual studies.  On top of that, in terms of artists, there's no doubt that she is the first and greatest artist of all.  What I do with my own art is merely a way to emulate her creations and accentuate her design. 

     After embarking on this path as a driftwood artist, and assembling a few sculptures, I felt a need to create a tribute to my idol, and that need materialized into the mother earth totem shown below.  Of course this icon and figurehead of my work is not for sale, and will remain firmly planted at the heart of my gallery, there to remain as my representative, and good luck charm.  This totem is made using a porcelain mask, which I normally wouldn't incorporate such a thing in one of my sculptures,  but this piece had a special purpose, so an exception was made for a unique idea and my design rules were over-ruled.  The mask is painted to match the driftwood that it's mounted to, and adorned it with materials from nature.  Aside from the dfiftwood log and the climbing roots, the materials used are a bird feather, cedar foliage, snail shells, and  the ears are milkweed pods with acorn caps.  She is also cradling a nest with a tiny spruce cone in it, symbolizing the birth and nurturing of a tree.  I added in the tree graphics base just for presentation.

     Now I've got my idol and a few of her representatives, and I'm ready to take this to another level.      Let me start from the roots of my work, and branch out from there.  As you know by now, my art is about nature, and all the life and death within it.  The flora, from roots to leaves and everything in between, and fauna, from the smallest insects to the biggest of beasts. Even the ground itself is included as I use minerals of every variety and form.  I use all of it in just about every piece, combining organic, biologic, and mineral specimens into one representation of a real creature, whether it's fiction or not. The beauty of nature, even in death, is where it began for me.  Like a stone found in the mud and turned into jewelry, I take nature's detritus and turn it into treasure.  With that said, I want to give a little history on how I got to this point in my life.

     Even from an early age, I always noticed interesting pieces of wood or rocks, and I thought, "I wish I could make something with that", but usually I didn't have the time or the means to take it with me, or the know-how to make something with it.  It wasn't until a few years ago when I had mentioned to my mother, that if she found any driftwood on the beaches of Quebec that looked interesting, to grab it and I'll try to make something out of it.  Time passed and I forgot about driftwood until many months later, when my mother, always so supportive of my creativity, brought a piece of driftwood for me while visiting on vacation from Quebec.  I used that piece to create my first driftwood sculpture of a dragon.  It had lobster claw horns, glass eyes, and tiny sea shell teeth.  It was rudimentary in design by my current standards, but not too bad overall and it had some admirers from home and abroad. However, with no materials to work with, making driftwood art went on the back burner for quite a while.  I then turned to making jewelry from scratch, using locally found stones and that was very rewarding, and well met from friends and family, but without a proper lapidary shop, it just wasn't feasible for high production, so that was put on hold too.  Now there was a small craft project floating around in my head for a while about making insects out of metal, then I thought why not use natural materials like nut shells or small evergreen tree cones.  So, after watching the movie "Silence of the Lambs", I decided to make the death head moth out of a small spruce tree cone and it turned out great. I'm actually working on a natural display setting for that and other insect pieces right now.  Upon showing the moth to my mother, we both decided to try the driftwood thing again.  A short while later a package arrived at my door from my mother-containing various pieces of driftwood.  The first piece I made from that was "The Black Vulture", and with the response I got from it, I haven't stopped making them ever since. 

     In closing, I want to say that making driftwood sculptures is the most enjoyable art form I have ever done.  With that said, it's also the most difficult, especially with the rules I impose on my work, but that challenge is probably why I like it so much.  The process of finding sites to gather materials, to building a large enough stock pile and start working, is a long one.  I don't just choose a subject I would like to build and then just start building it from the ground up.  I study a piece of driftwood, sometimes for months, until I see some creature in the shapes of the wood.  Like I always say, it has to present itself to me, then I build from that piece.  That leads me to the next topic I want to discuss.  How I make driftwood art in comparison to other driftwood artists, but that's another blog.