Merry go round - Does geographical location affect your art/craft?

It''s time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of 9 artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month's question that we will answer is: How much, if at all, does your geographical location affect your art/craft?

A bird in the hand.....

A piece that reflects how fortunate I feel to live in such a wonderful environment.

 I feel so lucky to live in a lovely rural environment in Northern California.  The scenery, the birds, our vineyard, the wildlife, are all so beautiful and inspiring so it naturally plays a huge part in my creations. Also the fact that I feel so comfortable, happy, and at ease here frees my mind so that I can be creative.

The only grape design I've ever made!

We have many lemon and citrus trees in our garden

While I have done very few obviously vineyard inspired pieces - ie only one grape necklace, we named our vineyard Birdland Vineyards for a reason! We get lots of different birds visiting us all the time - building nests, bathing, eating, singing, growing....  And if you've ever seen any of my jewelry - you'll know that birds feature in more than 50% of my work!

We built a duck float for our pond one year and thus came this ring!

There is a certain tranquility to our home.  When people come and stay, you can see a visible difference in them after they've been here 2 or 3 days. Their shoulders drop, they relax, they breathe slower and more deeply......The wonder of nature is all around and you can't fail to be affected by it.  It is a little piece of heaven. 

In terra pax - On earth peace

And when you live in this environment,  it seems obvious that I would categorize my jewelry in terms of "playful, happy, serene, homey, and comforted".   Those are the emotions that surround us and thus my work reflects that.

"Songbird" - we  are lucky enough to share our property with countless songbirds everyday

So yes.  My geographical location - my little slice of heaven - plays a huge part in all that I create.

I hope you'll check out how the geography of the other merry go rounders affects them by clicking on the links below.  We live in many different places around the world from Singapore to Turkey to the Outer Hebrides, to the Netherlands ...... so it'll be interesting to see how these places affect the artist who lives there. (Remember that this also means that we live on different time zones so some may post later than others.)
Thanks for looking.

Alison at Tweed Delights - http://idreamoftweed.blogspot.com
Mitsy at ArtMind - http://artmind-etcetera.blogspot.com
Kim at Vilt a la Kim - http://viltalakim.blogspot.com
Sara at Crafts of Texture - http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com  
Fabienne at Easterya Jewellery Creations - http://easterya.blogspot.com
Mariana at Florcita - http://www.florcita.eu/
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent - http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com
Lily at Lily Pang Art and Design - http://lilypangart.blogspot.com