The price of pie


Made a great piecrust (from scratch!!) this weekend. Big move...as I normally cheat with the freezer case version which is fine...but after this cinchy one from scratch, I don't think I can go back unless I am quiche-ifying for 80. Also used up all the brown bananas with two big slabs of banana bread...which is almost all gone. Am shocked by what I learned at the Mecklenburg Mercantile, our little local store where the ladies get all sorts of basics from flour to spices, to cocoa powder to blocks of yeast and repackage to smaller containers. They have great stuff (King Arthur Organic Flour as a for instance) and I generally go there to support the ladies and get a few boxes of basics (popcorn, cumin, basmati rice, twizzlers...you know, the basics). I was buying said flour and was shocked to find out that it was $6.25 for a five pound bag. The proprietor said that with the weakness of the dollar, we are selling all of our wheat to European and Asian countries and we are being socked with a significantly higher price for our own food. What is this? What is Obama saying about that? The non-cookie making former First Lady? The possible first man? Gas prices are appalling...but when it gets to flour...it is the building block of most things we consume! If G. Bush is handing out checks...will the $300  or so begin to cover the significantly higher costs of basics and gas? Maybe for one month? But we all haven't gotten 30% raises to accomodate the changes. I find I am working longer and harder for the same paycheck (I am the boss so that is expected)--but does this mean that others who may work hourly? or paycheck to paycheck may have to take on other jobs just to stay status quo? This is me, the business girl talking...not mommy housewife. If 50% of the economists say no recession and the other half say yeay...how are we going to get off this slippery slope that seems to be moving rather steadily downwards. Any answers?

Was working on a wood duck image yesterday while R. wrote reviews. Kids skiing. Week promises to be busy but not uncomfortably so. Was in the Pool of Dilemmas this morning...to my delight...no sharing of lanes, bright sun on the water, the perfect water and the distribution of this into this column and that into that. Organized head, more organized life. Need to start whaling on K and A's summer activities. And what about April break! Yikes!

a pursuit of felt


I've got felt on the brain. Industrial felt...the fat kind... you know, around 1/4" thick. I am interested in cutting out some of the momento mori work out of white felt and blanket stitching or decoratively tacking the shapes to the top. Additionally, I would like to cover this felt entirely with buttons, old white buttons with all sorts of patina of age. I would also like to cut some squares of color (1" sq.) and tacking them in the middle. Kind of like tacking confetti to heavy weight fabric.

I found this cool site>>-- The Aetna Felt Corporation. They have all sorts of felt from woven, to pressed to needled. Whole Wool and composites. There is lightweight felt all the way to equestrian felt to a felt that is promoted as stiff as wood. There is felt for cars and for metal parts. There is felt for violins and instruments. Even chalkboard erasers have thick felts. And boot liners...it goes on. Buffalo Felt Products has an enlightening selection>>
More later. Have to get to some work...and then cooking.

Winter in Sheldrake





Frosty. Great rafts of ducks and geese. Standing on legs in the water. Beaks tucked under wings. Brrrr. Some were bold enough to tip upsidedown for the possibility of a a fish or watery snack. Bright skies. The Luckystone beckoned after some delicacy with the heat knocking off...and the dangers of frozen pipes very possible. R. solved it all with the ever present and helpful Mr. Houseworth. So, we just checked in...and Shady Grove and I scrambled outside to blue snow, snapping branches and monkey brain spheres rotting in the snow. The lake was tropical in it's blue color. I loved the way the privet hedges sans leaves are a nice source for linear pattern. The air was fresh and delicious. I love the lake in the summer...but the surprise of the winter is always a shock. I love the winter too. The best of Central New York.

funny muse

So, the Muse sez to me, he sez: "So, you will migrate from Memento Mori to MENTOR Murray?".

You betcha! Bring on the Mentor!

Whimsey


I thought I would get your attention with the whimsey header. I have been intellectually chewing over the suggestion my Mentor made about my thesis. And, in the spirit of growing and stretching I am in agreement that something has to happen to move my hand, head and thinking beyond something that has already been masticated. I mentioned this to my Muse, and he said, that though he is 100 percent behind anything I want to do,he FULLY ENDORSED and AGREED with the thinking of the said MENTOR. Now! it's from a math standpoint, two against one...but with two of them equal 100...So, its Memento Mori as the pre Hartford project. Punto. Bring on the the hard stuff.

Now what? I was thinking of asking the Mentor to give it to me straight. What do I need to work on? Color, composition beyond "one potato", and intertwining? What else? Now, back a concept onto the "key learnings"(to use a yucky corporatese type of phrase)--and create a thesis chock full of head/hand/eye busters. I would like to have some fun with it? What do you think? Make sense?

Matriarchy

1. A social system in which the mother is head of the family. 2. A family, community, or society based on this system or governed by women. In both senses also called matriarchate.

My cousin Liz called last night about a memorial dinner she is having to celebrate the life and spirit of my Aunt Jean, my father's sister, who died on the verge of cousin Liz's daughter's wedding. So, the family postponed Jean's gathering to her birthday in April for the appropriate send off. Interestingly, the wedding was a bit of a tribute to Jean, her humor, her love of all things common in Pittsburgh, her edge and bite...so this memorial dinner seems like the other bookend in this experience. Tribute and Memorial. They are really two different things. One is a salute, the other wrapped in memory of things past, a life lived.

In that spirit, I have been thinking. Liz said that there would be speechifying (no pressure but somehow as the group is going to be small...) and I was musing in that zone between awake and actively awake. We are as a family, on my father's side, a very matriarchal group. We have, in each little sector, little subgroup, an organizing, opinionated woman making plans for the larger group. I don't know how it happens, but it does. One becomes the matriarch. In my subgroup, and that of my husband's family, I am a matriarch. I make plans. I cook dinners (and serve them). I make holidays (when I can't avoid them with holiday travels etc.). And when I flex my muscles, some people wince (including me)--so I keep that rare and brief. I didnt get voted into this job--it just happened with a significant funeral, wedding, party, holiday--and everyone calls you. "What's happening?" etc. and surprisingly, a ton centers around food, eating and more food. And often, it is a now thing. Not a lot of planning--but 24 are coming for dinner--you fire up the engines, chop everything in sight, get out every plate in the house and start backing a plan out of what is hot, what is not, wha is for the vegetarians, the heart unhealthy, the picky and the foodies. When is the food on? Who sits next to who? Who can I rely on to be pleasant? fussy? prickly? And where does everyone sleep? Breakfast? Decaf or Caf. And then there are the rules and rulings that real matriarchs make. I have yet to do that. Judgement for others is rancorous...that maybe this matriarch will shrug it off.

Liz is an impressive matriarch...one I bow to. She is a planner, organizer extrordinaire with tact, taste and style that existed (from her Mother) wayyyyy before that upstart, social climbing Martha Stewart made an empire from her matriarchy.Liz is kind. She listens and hears. She weighs and balances. She knows she might step on toes and yet in her sheer worry, makes everyone understand none of this is easy and is taken lightly. She is considerate and funny. She is someone I respect and wish to emulate...though, I fear, I am meaner than. Don't get me wrong...Liz has an edge...but it is softened with love. Jean, Liz's mom, was a matriarch...but not to the degree Liz is as she was the child of the Queen of our Matriarchy Clan, Grammy. If Grammy was a viking, her name might have been Jean, the Emasculator. She was matchless in her terror. It took a generation for the tribe to calm down from her. And now, her granddaughters have taken up the scepters and are wielding them in their respective clans.

Jean was often referred to as a bad child. I have always been bothered by that. Bad in opposed to good. I would like to think of her not as bad, but as strong minded, singular maybe a bit willful. And she grew up strong minded, singular, and a bit willful.And, that is what we loved. She was a women with her own mind--not giving a hoot for what other people thought, for social conventions that were so important in Pittsburgh (of the time and currently). She liked to smoke, drink coffee, speak her mind in a very forthright way and live on klondikes (an ice cream confection made by Isleys in Pittsburgh)--waking up late, and going to bed very late amusing herself with crossword puzzles and talk shows. She fiercely loved her children...and those she hand selected. Fiercely. And in that close group, the prickles on this rose unfurled to show us the beautiful bloom that this willful, stubborn child grew to. She allowed all of us to be a bit stubborn, a bit singular and a bit ourselves...and held up a mirror to encourage us to continue on that path. She laughed a lot...and told stories with sharp insights and messages...with absolutely no candy coating. She too, had great style from her backhanded, eccentric handwriting, to perfectly wrapped packages at Christmas that looked like a professional did it. Small details were her gig...and she was excellent at it. And, you know, Liz is focusing on the details to make her memorial just perfect.

IF: Multiple [Multiply]


Philosophers multiply our general nouns and verbs; they give fresh sense to stale terms; “man” and “nature” are their characters; while novelists toil at filling in the blanks in proper names and at creating other singular affairs. A novelist may pin a rose to its stem as you might paper a tail to its donkey, the rose may blush at his command, but the philosopher can elevate that reddening from an act of simple verbal predication to an angel-like ingression, ennobling it among Beings. The soul, we must remember is the philosopher’s invention, as thrilling a creation as, for instance, Madame Bovary.

William Gass (b. 1924)
U.S. critic, philosopher(1971).

The philosopher's invention is the soul...and how is it manifested? realized? If the philosopher invents the soul, is it our challenge to define, refine and see that invention? If we choose not to agree with the philosopher, does that then keep us from the soul? our soul? Is philosophy the key to understanding the next chapter, our progression beyond this plain? or is it our faith and belief founded in nature?

The questions multiply. The answers are scarce.

Heavy stuff for such a cold, bleak day.

bowing down


Murray saw book two and related to Carol who related to me that it needed some space. I totally agree with this. The spreads are crowded with images and sketches...without breathing. The intent of these paperback Memento Mori books is to show the range of sketches...and in the case of this second volume, not to lift from this blog or from the world to spin more messaging. However, three will have that. Then after all the sketch books are finished, a big edit would happen and a 36-48 pp book would be designed (real spreads etc) --and produced. But, I am proceeding with three and will add space as I go on this one. I can redesign later with two and one. Murray is dead on...and I bow to him...and will listen. I am a bit wild these days with work..so I feel a bit like being on a Catherine Wheel. WHeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Up to my elbows with webpage redesigns and revisions. Yesterday was a head splitter...but I am thrilled to have gotten the work on for PR. I want to talk to you a bit about something Richard surfaced in our conversation. Its a bit soapboxy-but I need to talk about it.

Later

lunar eclipse @ 10 p.m.


Off the front porch of our house--there was a wonderful lunar eclipse all orangey red and glowy that these pictures don't even begin to capture...but this is hand held with the new and very focusy Canon Powershot 720 sans flash...leaning up against the house.
Imagine!

What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature.
Henry David Thoreau.

eye on you


My head is splitting. I entered Communications Arts, Print Magazine, The Schweinfurth Made in NY 2008 show and prepped for the American Illustration/ American Photography--which is an online entry. Also entered and R got the art to the Kitchen Theatre for an art auction and art auction website going up in March. Each show was different, with different rates, expectations etc. I hope its worth the effort! It generally is try try try and you are out out out. But, who knows. If you throw enough seed, maybe some birds will circle...and if you are lucky, one might land to eat.

Had a lively chat with the cute Murray Tinkelman this morning. He was full of all sorts of news, ideas, thoughts. He wants me to give Memento Mori a break as it might not be the right project for my thesis. I will give over and see what happens. There is a wealth of stuff to do--and this work is not for naught as my hand has freed up; I am working positive/negative, negative/positive again; and I am taken with the content regardless of the final. Maybe something having to do with Hindu mythology? Likenesses? Images from the Pool of Dilemma? The Chinese signs of the zodiac. Murray hinted at more than a single potato from a composition standpoint. That's what I do...a potato...thats it. So maybe layouts with two potatoes, three potatoes and a radish, four potatoes, a radish and a daisy? If this thing doesn't push me, then what sort of educational bang for my buck will I see? So, now I have something new to worry in the timecracks during the day.Lucky you. You get to go up and down the rollercoaster with me while I piddle my way through all of this.

The eye is the graphic for a possible 1" button for the Chicken Chokers (along with some copy? some color treatments of the Chicken etc.)? Should be fun. The buttons are really cheap (500 pieces for $65).

Spoke to the fabulous Richard Williams. He is teaching everywhere--but on a class by class assignment which sounds like lots of time in the car. It sounds like he is getting worn out. We talked about possible other ideas for bodies of work that might really get him noticed....and he seemed excited about one in general. It would be cool if he pursued it...as he truly has the skills to do it...just the push to make it happen and do a bang up job would get it noticed for the content alone. If it starts happening...I will give you a peek under the tent. Also heard from Ross Hogin, SU classmate and Art Director extrordinaire, who is painting up a storm in Seattle. I betcha he is getting traction...as there was tremendous promise in the paintings he did while he was with us at Syracuse. Maybe I should beg for a jpg?

Gotta go. Mike Callahan, a friend that goes way back with us, is playing at the Pour house.

A domani.

Honk for Service


Guess where the Wonderbus is? Right! at the House of Service at Ithaca Honda (with an interesting waterfall, yes, Taughannock Falls from Tburg, as their logotype). Hopefully, we will have a functioning sliding door (which hasnt worked since day one)--and which, we have tried more than two times to get fixed. Always an issue--a part, a this, a that. I am optimistic. They say third time is the charm. I am hoping.

New CD pack designed for the Chokers along with a sticker (from Sticker Guy) and possibly some collectable pins too. They are doing a "repressing" which is exciting as they have sold out of their stock. Jim Reidy has mentioned that there is another CD in production from old performances possibly coming out in the next year. I will, of course, update you all as we go. Chokers to play with the Toughcats this Saturday at Castaways. Chad Crumm and Friends are playing at Felicias from 5:30-8:30 this Friday. So--amusement galore.

Got the samples of the Memento Mori Vol2 in the mail. Overall, the square format is working, bigger type is working and the brevity of copy is a nice change. However, there were some fingerprinty types of white marks in the luscious blacks that I need to check the files to see if they somehow are there. It looked like a onesie...but, it was marked the same way in all 3 books. Wierd. Will amend and then do the first printing. Movement.

Another bit of Memento Mori news: Amanda! Amanda, our gal Friday and future Cornell student (we hope) has tattoos. Yesterday, she asked if she could use one of the illustrations from the Memento Mori Vol1 book to be tattooed on her upper arm. She is going to get the"deco" area (I hope) and we will revise accordingly (adding another thistle etc.). So, that will go in the thesis as well as the other random stuff that has been falling out of this sketch process. How does one work the rights? I guess its a one time use?!

More later>>

Big melt





The thermometer on the wonderbus read 41 degrees this morning after the vigil at the House of Health. Every teacher who has the day off today was there...happily doing their own thing, talking smartly and acting efficiently making the regular attendants (me) feel like maybe staying in bed was a def. option. However, after slugging it out--I gave myself a treat and drove the long way home through Taughannock State Park on beautiful Cayuga Lake. There were three of us entralled with Taughannock Falls and the tremendous volume of water streaming from the top. The bowl of stone surrounding the falls still was covered in ice, snow and spray--but it was so wonderful I had to dig out the little picture machine and take these for you. Every little fall, little creek and stream were raging this morning--and with snow and ice back on the schedule for later this week are trying to become one in the lake...with more water promised later. I would like a mess of snow though. Grass seed (another favorite of mine) becomes an option on fluky days like this.

Got all my stuff done for Hartford. Room scheduled, slides collected, little "this and that" about me, etc. All I need is to get my physical done, with the requisite paperwork completed. Soon.

Choker mini poster done. Same with the Sticker. Need to call and confirm the sticker. Toughcats playing with the Chokers this week. More later on that.

Keith Frank played at the Rongo last night...to a huge audience. Its great that the Embassy got a good group and could be vital. Gal Pal Amanda said it was an impressive show.

Gotta go. Work awaits. More later>>

Good stuff

Esquire recognizes the best sandwiches>> and guess what? Primantis in Pgh. ranked! No surprise here... Here is what they say:

Ham and Cheese
Primanti Bros., Pittsburgh

A relic of Pittsburgh’s steel days, this sandwich was made for steelworkers who had to eat fast. Everything that typically comes with a sandwich comes on it: meat cooked hot, bacon, tomato, provolone, pickles, slaw, an egg for fifty cents extra, even fries. Shove it in your lunch box. (46 Eighteenth Street; 412-263-2142)

So when down in Burg...do what the locals do...chow down on one of these goodies.

tburg dim sum


Yesterday was back to back fun. We took a carload of teenage boys (stony silence peppered with the twing of their cellphones texting them from the random slew of girls) out to Dryden for a scrimmage with other guys the same age. We took the queen of fun, K...so we were bound to have a lot of laughs and talk around the "seriousness" of our sport. So after dropping these guys off for a half an hour of warm ups--and skittled off to Cortland for lunch at Doug's Fish Fry (another part of the Skaneateles Doug's empire). We had an engaging conversation about "America's New Top Model"--and it rang bells for me about how huge this is for the teen set. Can you say Ca-ching? How do you play this out further? Magazines? Websites? Its a lifestyle thing for this group of teen girls. Even the most sensible, Queen of Fun, is crazy in love with this stuff.

The drive to Dryden was beautiful. High blue skies, lovely blue shadows on the sculpted snow. Days like this makes you love winter for the color, shape and liveliness outside. Growing up in Pittsburgh, winter was always grey. Blue skies were not an option.

We took the troop of boys out for a big mexican food lunch which they vaccuumed into their gullets (continuing the stony silence with the bleeping texting)-- with K playing solitaire while we waited for the consumption to finish. It was a speedy time with the significant caloric input. Amazing.

Then home to buy a case of vitamin water type stuff at the Cheap Store (Shop +Save) for skiing on Sunday. R. was busy splitting wood into little pieces for the cricket on the hearth, the Jotul 602. Shady met us with a pinecone in her mouth for us to toss for her. I grabbed it from her and looked in my hand. No pinecone! YUCK! IT was a deer hoof and first(short) little bone to the first bone all nice and freezy with hair and the whole works. A perfect specimen of deercicle. And Shady was so pleased with herself.

We had a a nice hot fire in the Jotul--which R exclaims " you know, I haven't yet had to shovel out the ashes" (meaning it burns hot and completely). We now have shortie logs (poplar, walnut, oak) which is tailor cut ( bespoke?) for this great stove. If you are thinking a little wood boost for your house, this is the stove for you.

Had a nice time Friday night getting a pile of stuff ready for Hartford. Am a bit twitchy about it...but have focused the thesis to being 12 illustrations derived from the sketchbooks...in color and black and white. Plus, if there is time, I would develop the illustrations into 6 products/housewares/etc. and have comps made. Those might include a skateboard, a pillow/purse thing, a quilt, glass bottles/rondelles, a brooch?

Am immersing myself into the world of Jim Flora for now. He is sooo good. So original. So happy. I am trying to understand his design and thinking to see if I can learn something from him. Working on an illustrator silhouette--for an idea or two. Also want to cut a few animals to test out an idea as it could really work for a client's holiday card coming up this spring.

More later.

IF: Theory


What has any poet to trust
more than the feel of the thing?
Theory concerns him only
until he picks up his pen,
and it begins to concern him
again as soon as
he lays it down.

John Ciardi, poet
Recalled on his death, NY Times 2 Apr 86

I love this quote and how it relates to those of us who are maker doers--makers of images and art. Theory gets the artist to to the process of rendering the image and picks up as the pen is returned to it's stand. The artist is no longer theoretical when he acts and renders the reality of the image. It is sad to think that we then need theory to justify or define this product of action and not thought.

White out


Have I praised the wisdom, wit and teaching of the Business of Illustration guru, Jim Carson? I am so thrilled I am re-upping with him at Hartford as his class alone, has been worth the price of admission. I just had a wibbly wobbly with a client who might be wanting to fiddle with an illustration I have done, and because of my class with Jim, I have the confidence (and language) to stand up for my rights, what surrounds those rights and what I plan to do. Prior to my new life as an illustrator, I would have fumed and whined and not been effective...plus, I would have given away the store. Now, like the Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow, I have a cerficate that affirms that I know something...and it has given my the push I need to move forward positively.

Snowing steadily--hasn't ceased since early this morning. I think it might mount up. Shady Grove is delighted. She loves snow more than anything...and sets about making snow angels, digging up pinecones and overall leaping and frolicing in the whiteness. A is home with the stomach/head thing. K. has been going full force with the fetal pig project. R had a successful day in NYC getting everything done despite the early shuttle home (schedule moved due to the predicted bad weather).

Need to get down to business. Had 3 hours at the school to be the parent rep for the Committee for Special Education (thought it was an hour...but it wasn't). As usual, it was educational and fascinating to peer into that silo of life...and hope there was something we did would help these kids learn and build their lives into something that gives them happiness. These are all good kids that just learn differently and have different abilities. My heart is lightened with these meetings as I know we can help.

More later>>

Tuesday morning


Snow on hand today and tomorrow. R. to NYC today after his car didn't start in the lot last night (I am thinking tooooo cold to turn over though he has other ideas). K had a real growing experience with being pushed out of her corner to be the hands to perform the fetal pig laboratory in Biology. She had been worrying it for weeks (we had hints but not a direct confirmation that this was going on)--and had all the workarounds and thinking all worked out. A. is busy with basketball and friends. Not much bugging him these days other than there aren't enough girls or time for those girls. I, had the deer incident... but was really productive (with more today).

Spent an hour hunting down eccentric Caslon fonts yesterday. Am working on a logotype for a show for the Corning Museum of Glass based on antique bookplates and handbills. I have some caslon...but the italic is blimpy and round...not pointy and eccentric with whack ligatures. Found a handful and today I will need to buy one or two. The type is good for this Museum piece...and we are building some funkiness into the look.

Talked with my mother who hates my memento mori work.She doesn't get it...and making no bones or attempts to understand it. She was poo pooing the first book and hoped that would stop with the first batch of images. The fact there was a second book on the way, the body of pictures and that this was the basis of my thesis work really didn't work for her. Then, when I told her that the work was a treasure trove for a series of illustrations for the the Steuben funeral, memorial program they are developing. Even linking a dollar sign to this obscene work didn't legitimize the work, the thinking, the pursuit. I am not waiting for any sort of approval or I wouldn't do anything at all. Come to think of it, this headset would only be happy if the work served her and the "small season" of entertainments and friends that she has embraced. So, acceptable work needs to be lightweight from the content standpoint and "pretty". However, it does point up that I need to distill what this work is, what it is about, where the themes and content flows from, where the technique and style comes from etc. Sounds like I need to do some writing to give me an "elevator speech" (a distilled mission/vision) on this work.

Are you ready for valentines day? Amazon awaits!