Nymbol's Secret Garden

It may be in the stars, It may be earth changes, It might be the cosmos and it’s grand sense of humor but something is afoot. I am not sure what it is,…….but we have embraced the feeling and are excited to see what happens next. I know it will be exciting and fun. Throw into the Mix that Nymbol has volunteered us to babysit, if you can call it that, a drake from the eastern mountains. He will arrive sometime in June and if all goes well will come with us to faerieworlds. Be warned, here be Dragons. After watching “King of Thrones” he got all excited and made some calls. I am more than a little nervous. Below is my drawing based on his description. I will update you with more details as we confirm various flights .

stay tuned for more info! 

I was reminded through FaceBook of a friend we are dearly missing. He wrote a book and I illustrated it. I wrote this for the publisher to share the story behind the story and they put it at the end of the book.  It is about Jim but it also shows another side of Lance that we should never forget.

Jim and I met at  “The Ride for the Roses” in Austin Texas. We took our picture together and the start of the ride and chatted a bit before the ride really cranked up. I was immediately struck by his big smile and honesty. His internal strength while he talked about his disease was truly inspiring.

A couple years later the phone rang and it was Jim. He told me that he had written a story and would like me to illustrate it. He sent me the manuscript and I knew he had something unique. A clear and simple way to tell his 6 year old why he didn’t feel well. I showed it to my wife and she said, “you have to do this.”  The work began slowly at first, but the book started to take shape. Jim and I had some long discussions over the phone and had a pretty good disagreement about how to deal with the “Faith” aspect of the book. It forced me to look outside my own opinions and ask others about their thoughts on the subject. I learned a great deal through those discussions.

The book moved forward slowly and Jim called again to see if we could meet in person. He was very excited. The American Cancer Society wanted to publish the book.  He was up in Seattle and we planned to meet in Olympia Washington. I was proud to show him the progress I had made but was taken aback when I saw him. His Cancer had a strong hold on him now and it was evident. We made plans to really get this thing going. I promised I could have all the illustrations done by January 1st.

One of the things we talked about in Olympia was to see if Lance would write the forward for the book. I wasn’t sure but I thought there was a possibility. I called his friend and agent Bart and sent him the manuscript. A month later I had all the sketches dialed in and was ready to start my finished art.  I kept working and called Jim a few weeks before Christmas to give him and update and Jim didn’t call me back. This was very unlike him and I was nervous. He called a week later and said he was having a tough time.  I kept focused on the goal of the first week of January and  kept going.

I called Jim one night and he was really struggling but he really wanted to know about Lance and that foreword. Barb got on the phone and gave me the update. Jim had taken a bad turn and there were no more medical options.

I focused on what I could do and called Bart again the next day. He told me Lance was going to write the foreword. I excitedly called back and talked to Jim very briefly. Barb and I talked again and she said he was really close. I called Bart back again to ask if there was any way Lance could call Jim. I was not the only one.

On the Saturday just after Christmas Lance called Jim and talked for a while. Jim was lucid, had a great chat and heard from Lance about all the phone calls he had received on his behalf. Lance also told him he would be writing the foreword.

The next morning my phone rang and it was John, Jim’s brother. The moment I heard his voice I knew why. Jim had passed that morning. John and I talked about how Jim had really hung on just to make sure that Lance would be part of it.

I really struggled when I sat at my drawing table to finish the last two illustrations. I just stared at the screen for over an hour before I began. Once I started I don’t even remember time passing. As I worked on the last drawing of Jim and Max riding together the strangest thing happened. I started to laugh out loud.  I wasn’t really in a laughing mood until I realized it was the joyful way one laughs when they go for a ride around the block with their son.

Jim, you will be missed.

Douglas Herring photo

I can’t begin to tell you how much fun we had this weekend. I remember a quiet moment on Thursday evening after we finished setting up our space but that is it. In a blink it was over. Coming out of the realm I hope three years have not passed while we were away. It will be a couple days before our heads clear and we can focus on the human plane again.

Here are some highlights and Thank You’s

Thursday. We made it to Seattle without incident and found a “premo” parking spot to unload the van. The elevators were a little tricky but all of our stagecraft made it upstairs without incident. Things went together pretty seemlessly and the new room was a big step up from last year. Rick Shell helped us get all of our sound working only to find out we had no security in our area so we took it all down again. Troy and Ellen Ulmer were a huge help as we lugged things up and to the third floor and got set up.

Friday. By the time we got to our stage Buck had set up his sound system. Yeahhhh! He plugged us in and we were off to a much bigger than expected crowd. We tried out a new Nymbol story and it went really well. Nymbol keeps changing it everytime he tells it but the story is coming together and the crowd seemed to like it. They laughed at least. The show was a little rough around the edges but it is like a dress rehearsal in front of a live crowd. The batteries died on my headset half way through and I remember being confused when I was changing them out wether I had done that particular miq already. Rookie mistake. Billy Scudder then taught Nymbol and Wotan a lesson during a panel they were all in that will not soon be forgotten. Serriffina managed to stay out of trouble but Nymbol was more scared than if Wotan was chasing him around. That night Delhi to Dublin rocked the Ballroom and we all danced into the wee hours.

Saturday. A great day. We started with a strong show and some of our set from FaerieWorlds last summer. Nymbol’s Secret Ride story had a relatively new audience so I didn’t feel too bad when he told it again. Blarney pushed past some imaginary boundry by mentioning something totally gross but we recovered. We then spent the next few hours following Nymbol around interviewing faire goers about a lost egg. Very strange indeed. Caven and Nicole brought their A game to shooting these antics and I can’t wait to see it. We ended the night with the Highlight of the whole event. Tricky Pixie followed by Faun. They are both amazing bands  that truly defy categorization. Listen to their music and buy their albums. They are amazing. It was so much fun to see Tabatha and Sam dancing in unison as they tooks turns with some moves they have been practicing. The real magic moment for me was to see Izzy and her friend Shyan dancing together with wild abandon. Izzy has been a chair sitter up to this point so it was a huge 180. After Faun’s double encore show we hung out with some of our FaerieWorld friends on the 28th floor and slid down the elevator and to bed far too late.

Sunday. Our Show was one of the best we have done. The crowd was on and so was our troupe. The banter came fast and furious but the laughter kept up. Nymphaea really stepped into a new arena by reverse pranking Nymbol and Blarney which she has never done before. Not that they didn’t deserve it,…The totally did. It made for a very funny moment. We had a spectacular final show with Wotan. He ambushed us on stage only to have the FaerieQueen bind him with a spell that left him immobile. He was savaged by a flock of nubile fearies who took great pride in relieving him of the “Moon Egg” he had stolen. It was a very fun moment. We sang our last song and when Nymbol said goodbye he got a little verklempt realizing were on our last day. In the 45 minutes between our last show and a class I was teaching on puppet making I made notes, a contesant list and got ready for FaerieCon’s Got Talent. At 4:06 pm the show started and Nymbol began to host and I laughed and was amazed for the next hour.  I am not saying there isn’t room for improvement but it really was a great show. If you didn’t see it you missed  the birth of a concept for FaerieCon and FaerieWorlds that will only get bigger.  Mark, Alex and Billy really strutted their stuff but so did the other participants. Wotan only used his hook once but it was more for comic relief (and part of the act) than anything else. We got a glimpse of rising stars and names to remember. Katie Tinney, Tabatha Cass*, Obadiah Brown Beach, Brandon Cruz, and Koe Sozuteki were AMAZING one and all. When Nymbol said “see you this summer!” we were done.                    (*type in “song”)

Anita Marier photos

We took a short breath and started to take down the whole stage. Once everything was made into nice big piles the entire Nymbol Troupe went out to dinner at Tulio’s the next block over. Absolutely wonderful Italian food. Had to pull the cork out of the Piggy Bank for that but it was worth it. We rolled ourselves back to the hotel to see the last four songs of Faun’s Sunday acoustic show. We would have loved to see more but food with friends had to come first at this point of our adventure. There were many goodbyes, big hugs, well wishes, and plans to plan what we are going to do this summer. It seems like too far away right now but I am sure we will all be frolicking around in Eugene before we know it. Just the thought of it makes me smile and I so hope you can be there with us.

A HUGE final thanks to Mad Matt for risking life and limb as the stellar opening act of FaerieCon’s Got Talent but more importantly slugging through being tired to help us jam the van to the brim so we could get out of Seattle.

See you this summer!!

What a year that has just passed. Our little troupe could not ask for more. I could ramble on but I think I will let Nymbol do the talking. Pay attention to the words in his toast here. They are said for all of you and are heart felt. Click on the Photo  for a link to the video including a little run around with Krampus or just read the words below. Happy New year from the whole Cass family and our little band of creatures.

This is a toast to all of my Fae friends. To the ones my eyes see before me, to the ones who couldn’t make it here tonight, and to the ones we can now only hold in our hearts. This is to you, to the many adventures we have had, to the new year, and the many, many adventures yet to come. I thank you for being my friend. I thank you for being who you are. You makers of mischief, singers of song, weavers of magic, creators of light, and producers of odious smells. I love you all, you are so much a part of me that I cease to exist with you. Happy Yule and a most Merry New Year.(this is where you say) Happy Yule and Merry New Year.

-Nymbol

Here at Nymbol’s we are getting excited for the holidays. Nymbol and troupe are getting ready to film a Video Holiday Card that will go out soon.  Caven Keith is going to film it and we are setting the studio. It is rumoured that Krampus stopped by the shop looking for someone who was Naughty. I can only guess who he was looking for but fortunately Nymbol was off SnowBoarding with Blarney now that there is snow on the mountains. It reminded me of the illustrations I did a couple years ago during Nymbol’s adventure with Santa on Christmas Eve. There is more to the story but I thought you might enjoy the illustrations.

In other news  Serriffina cleared the studio today by knocking over a bottle of aged troll snot and it smelled horrible. Nasty stuff that. This did not go over well with Sam who despite being a gimp was the only one there to clean it up. (she wrecked her ankle roller skating)

Sam was most frustrated as she was starting to delve into kickstarter rewards and compile her list when the “stink attack” happened.  Between that and her ankle she called it quits for the day and will get on it tomorrow after the studio has off-gassed.

As the holidays approach we wish everyone the most merry of Yuletide greetings and are looking forward to an amazing new year. It will be full of new adventures.

Keep and eye and ear out for our video. Happy Holidays.

If you made it to our website you are in for a treat.

Be Warned. They are bloopers, not ready for primetime for sure. If you are easily offended,…DO NOT WATCH!

Password: nymbolnuts

I plan on pulling down soon but thought you might get a kick out of it. enjoy. Some new characters in the mix too.

A great time was had by Nymbol and the Troupe at FaerieCon East. It is the first time we have come out to the east coast and we had a grand time. FaerieCon East was filled with lots of music, magic and miscief making with all sorts of new friends. Wotan was there but Nymbol made the best of it and escaped once more. Anyone from our Puppet Making Workshop can Click Here for the file I was talking about. It has a bit more detailed in it’s description of how to make our super patented hoodie recycling program.  The detailed download will show you how to make a “Croodyle!” Even if you didn’t take the class, download, have  read and create your very own friend. The folks in the class did an amazing job. Thanks everyone.

It was lots of fun and there are more updates coming as soon as I catch up on a tiny bit of sleep. Highlight of the trip. At our last show a little baby was in her mom’s arms behind the last row of chairs. For just a second it sounded like she was crying but then we realized the baby was laughing every time we moved around. She was Laughing HARD. Nymbol tested to make sure it was us causing this merriment and waved at her. She erupted in peals of laughter. She was so sweet and her laugh so infectious it made us all children again for a beautiful moment.

I’ll tell ya more soon.

Here at Nymbol’s we have been a buzz of Activity lately. Getting ready for FaerieWorlds, A poster for SJ Tucker, Continued finessing of our Kickstarter Campaign, Starting to Pack, and Getting Croodlys ready for FaerieCon. I need to find a little time to draw something else tonight too. Kickstarter has 9 days to go and will finish right after FaerieCon. Hopefully that will be the shot in the Arse that gets us over the top. We are tracking well and surprising donations come in from all corners. Thank you soooo much. If you haven’t checked out our videos lately there are some new ones up. Kickstarter Obviously, but “Big Dark Scary Mountain” is one of my favorites. We had lots of fun doing that but the girls really enjoyed themselves. It was great fun watching them Ham it up in front of the camera and start to come up with there own material.

We are Very Excited about FaerieCon for a couple reasons. The first is that we are travelling as a troupe for the first time ever. Learning and seeing what does and doesn’t work. Nymbol and Wotan have been going at it over email, phone and facebook. I am sure the Chaos will continue for a while. Beware if you find yourself in Wotan’s site line of Nymbol. Do what Nymbol does. RUN!

We are also looking forward to Listening to and getting to hang out with SJ Tucker and Betsy Tinney. They have been fast friends to Nymbol and the Troupe and are Amazingly Talented. There is Talk about doing some future Album Cover art along with a limited edition poster run available at the show. This is the poster Sam and I came up with for her last concert of the Year. We had fun doing it and added a certain amount of Nymbol Flaire for sure. If you are in the area don’t Miss it.

Gotta go pack. Hope to do some updates from the road. Staying in a hotel rather than camping does have it’s advantages.

Why are we doing it you ask? It is actually a funny story. Some friends of ours asked us to put together a proposal for another website with a similar business model. We said, “sure, we would love to help.” It would be fun  and would give us a chance to shoot some great video, practice our skills and learn on a whole new level. We wrote a script, created the set and props, got Caven on board and shot some video. It sucked. On first viewing it was pretty clear we could do better. We revised our script and took another shot at it. Much better this time around.  Caven did some masterful editing, fixed the sound, and turned my art into some great intro shots.  We jumped through all the hoops and waited for the launch of this new website. As bad as our first version sucked, the website sucked more. We pulled the project in the first day. Our friends are fortunately still our friends and they withdrew their involvement too.  Writing this got me thinking and I just checked the website again.Within the first day of launching our Kickstarter campaign we have more support than all but one of the 7 projects received in there 30 day run. The only person receiving any support was the one who ran the website. Weird that.

After a few weeks of  being deflated by that effort we took a deep breath and realized we should launch our project on the authentic crowdfunding website. KickStarter.  Sam took the bull by the horns a jumped through the many hoops needed to get us up and running. It was worth it.  Obviously, we would love to make our goal. We would be able to pay Caven for a small portion of the time he has donated thus far.  Kickstarter has already helped us reach  out a little further.

Nymbol is at his best when he is out in public, meeting people, having a laugh and making merry. Since moving to Whidbey we have been gifted with so much talented support it makes my head spin. We are eternally grateful. There is certainly some magic in those creatures. In the three years they have been with us we have had some truly amazing experiences. I must also say that the blooper reel we got out of this shoot was worth the whole effort. We will be posting that on kickstarter in the very near future.

As a family we have a fairly clear vision of our dream for Nymbol and the rest of his ever-growing troupe. Up to this point we feel like we have been invited on a very wild and immensely fun adventure. We have been moving steadily forward, creating stagecraft,  creatures, music,  stories, illustrations, props, costumes and a frightening amount of sound and lighting equipment. Who knew? Not to mention the experience we have gained by performing our own shows and at festivals.  As I write this Sam is sewing the last of the panels together for our new travel stage. It has been like that at our house for the last three years. This is a big step and in the right direction.

Thanks for any and all support. If this is not your cup of tea. No worries. If you get a chuckle out of it please share with  your friends, and donate if you can. A small sum times many is the whole concept behind KickStarter.

There are plenty more adventures to go on and share with you.  Nymbol has assured me,….”We are just warming up.”

Serriffina helping to add some trim to the new stage

Our little troupe of misfits are getting ready to attend FaerieCon East. Below is a repost of an article for any of those who are wondering what we are going to do in the puppet making workshop there.  Please read the write up below and look at the photos.  We changed the class from a “show you how to make a puppet” workshop where you may or may not go home and make a puppet to a “finish a puppet and bring it home” experience.  If you take the class please try to  bring some baby clothes you minght find at your local thrift or something your child has outgrown. Size 6 months to 2 years should work. That “thing” that you have been holding on to for years and wondering what you are suppose to do with,….. bring it. It was meant for your puppet. Anything personal you can add to your puppet will only make it better. It must also be noted that SJ Tucker has a Croodyle named “Viola” and her boyfriend Ryan has “Red.” Red performed in our Midnight show at Faerieworlds this past summer and has his own wonderful redneck rendition of the witches spell from Macbeth. Maybe we can convince them to perform with us again at FC East.

Original Post from February…….        We have finished putting together our class workbook, concepts and puppets for our class. We are getting excited. It is time to dial in all the other details and pack. We are soooooo looking forward to not only that but roaming around with Nymbol and Caven with his video camera. It’s gonna be fun. If you are around please make sure you find us.

I Think you will like two of our new friends below. We actually like the white eyes.  kind of freeky. It means any where they look is where they are looking if you know what I mean.

These new puppets are called nymbol Croodlys. This is the logic for the name. Creature + Hoodie + DYI . Plus to “croodle” means “to cuddle” in the urban dictionary. I find myself checking that more and more these days just in case. This was a positive check.

These functional puppets were created with the idea that they would look cool, be made from Recycled material, be inexpensive at about $5.00 a puppet and are fast to make. About and hour to get the basics done. The longest has taken 3 hours*. All the material for these puppets came from our local thrift store. The base for the puppet was a fleece hoodie just a couple hours before. The size is perfect to use almost any infant clothing you can find at the thrift too. Imagine my joy to find a $2.00 pair of carhart overalls. The bottom even has all those snappy things so it works perfectly for a puppet. We were playing with them tonight and trying to find some fun voices. Their personalities are coming out.

*unless you are Sam and weave a bunch of hair for your puppet or make a custom vest and vambraces out of an old boot.  A nike one I might add.