Locavore

Hardware Store Punch, Q. Cassetti, 2013Tomorrow I have the opportunity to speak to the Farmers Market Federation of New York at LaTourelle Inn and Spa about how our board works with our Market Manager. Just thinking about the points I am going to make, has forced me to think about how I have engaged in the local foods movement, and the progress that has been made in the last 18 months.

In the past two years, I have provided pro bono work (some design, some consulting, some both) to: MyerFarm Distillery, Redbyrd Orchard Cidery, Good Life Farm, Sweetland Farm, Tree Gate Farm, Stone Cat Cafe, MacDonald Farm, Wide Awake Bakery, Farmer Ground Flour, Regional Access, New York Foods, The Trumansburg Farmers’ Market,  Central New York Cider Week, Forge Cellars, The Piggery to name a few. I am sure I am forgetting someone. It has been an amazing journey learning about these farmers, their farms, their livlihood, their focus and why they farm. I have learned that farmers may not all be born marketers, and that the perception that there is fairness in the world/ and in the local economy should be cultivated (to that, I believe that the market teaches us if we listen—to tune our products, product selections, and the work we do to be desirable….We just have to each listen, and hear). I have learned about the import of transportation, of distribution hubs wheither it is in the form of a weekly pick up or CSA, a pop up shop or a truck that delivers to a bigger area. I have learned about farming during a drought, and the sheer knife edge these farmers live on between the seed purchases to harvest with bugs, and water, and hail, and heat or lack thereof….defining success and financial disaster. I have learned that sometimes, just sometimes, I need to give my farmer friends a bit of rope to figure things out themselves, and in the same way, give myself permission just to take a little time and let things simmer and evolve. These are people who know about watchful waiting. They know about seasons and time. They know about light and darkness, heat and cold. These are people who will move greenhouses around on tracks to make sure their greens have the best source of light and heat to bring us delicate greens in the middle of March. These are passionate people who love deeply but because of their trust and collaborative make up, can be hurt as deeply as they love. These are people who do not mind getting dirty, working hard, and when possible, playing just as hard. They care about their apples, their greens, their flowers and boules and link it to a larger, more spiritual notion. Allison Usavage  created a lovely film about Stefan Senders and David MacGuinness’ Wide Awake Bakery and captures this spirit that seems to be an overlay to the local food scene here, here is the vimeo link>

This work sometimes can be challenging…but the film shows the reward. To be able to drink from the same cup as these hard working people is an honor. And, to try the first fresh greens of spring, to taste Eric and Devas sublime sparking cider as delicate as a bite of apple, or see tiny Melissa get her massive horses, Randi and Betsy pull together for her, or taste Stefan’s wonderful hot bread made from Greg’s flour (Farmer Ground) which was ground from Thor’s wheat….Or to try Tony’s black beans…the circle is complete. One blessing after the next—from the farmer to the consumer and back to the lovely land we live in and on. The same birds sing to my farmers as they do to me. The same rain and snow come our way. It is all right here, right now. And we all live in it for now.

Peace

Winter on Cayuga Lake, Q. Cassetti, 2013The sun finally shone today. First real sunny afternoon since February 1.  The light was so welcome, so crystalline and bright, bouncing off the snow, casting deep blue shadows. It was a miracle to feel the heat of the sun heating up my studio, heating up my heart a bit.

It has been a cold, dark, grey few weeks. It has been a hard time for all of us, most particularly Mary, Rob and Gloria at Two Camp Street with our sudden loss of Ron.

We have all been winded by the whole experience starting with his last trip to the hospital through to a week where he was admitted to hospice and by the following week, gone from us. The whole experience felt as if it was triple time, and we were all trying to learn the new normal, the new dance steps for the next day, and the day beyond—finally feeling that we could do this, could incorporate this change into our lives when he left us.

We were told we had weeks not days… but we had days. Albeit, the end was sweet for him. He was comfortable, with his family, and spent the last few days with us enjoying the simple things like a perfectly poached egg on toast, listening to Wodehouse read by his brother, talking about summers in the Thousand Islands and his large Italian family of uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. He had his family, his wife/son and daughter all around him during that last week, attentive and sweet. He was at peace, and he left us gracefully, quietly, as if letting go of a light tether that bound him to this plane. It was a gentle moment of passage—a soft birth into the next chapter.

I cannot say enough of the little village we live in. It is times like this that the rubber hits the road—and we were supported, cared for, and loved by the remarkable EMS team who were with us at the end—gentle and respectful, kind and giving—taking something that could be frightening and embueing it with humanity, humility and  grace. They were there to allow Ron to leave us, and help us to understand he had left us. Their kindness went way beyond their job, and we will be forever grateful. We had a beautiful prayer and service with the Episcopal minister while Ron was here…and when Mary was ready, Joe Sibley came with hugs and common sense to take Ron to the funeral home. That evening was filled with sadness, but also with heart, and life confirming. It confirmed we are in the right place surrounded by the right people who care. We are part of a community that reaches out and hugs those in need….and know it is the right thing. It was a blessing that Ron waited for his brother to come. It was a blessing to have Rob’s first cousin here. It was a blessing we had Alex over the Presidents Weekend…all of it bolstering and bracing all of us.

We are now putting together a Memorial for Ron—with poetry, music and spoken word. There will be a reception chez Camp (2 blocks from the Church)—and  I am scanning cookbooks and catalogs to see what we can do. We have guests coming in from California and Boston. We will have people from Corning and Elmira, Rochester and Ithaca. Of course we will have those from his little village. We will have jazz, as Ron would have liked it. We may even have martinis as that was his most favorite. So, forgive me for my silence…I have needed to gather my wits and calm the spinning wheels in my brain.

I will be able to say a bit more tomorrow. Thank you for your understanding.

What a week

Summer in Ithaca, Q. Cassetti, 2013, Adobe Illustrator Cs5Things have been a bit wild around here. My father-in-law was rushed to the hospital last Friday with a significant nosebleed. He was in the hospital for a few days—and then the process of interviews, deliveries, questionnaires, phone calls and the beginning of the “new normal” began. Hospice has begun. He has moved downstairs as his movement/mobility is challenged. He is not in pain, though breathing  is challenging. He has limited time awake and conscious with most of the time asleep. We are all trying very hard to wrap our heads around this change…and it is stressing us all out in different ways. Everyday is different—and all of our independance is challenged as Mary and Gloria need time to tend to their lives as well. This week with Rob is going to be tough as he is seriously busy and travelling, so I feel I will fill that gap as well as I can. I have set up a Caring Bridge site (a wonderful service that is private and allows a family to talk about  a family member who is sick/ailing/challenged etc to a wide community of friends—essentially making the same “phone call” over and over again…and keeping all the friends and wellwishers up to date with the status quo. I have taken this on….and I hope its been helpful for Ron and Mary’s friends. To learn more about Caring Bridge (www.caringbridge.org)

Rob has been busy moving furniture, making beds out of sofas, moving trip hazards, supporting the change next door in a broad physical way. He also has been very kind and open with his dad and mom…spending time with them and sweetening the sadness that we all have. Lightening the moment with stories and popcorn. He is such a wonderful guy.

We got an impressive amount of snow on Friday. Its been grey until today which has given us a blazing blue and white day to relish the snow bouncecard effect on the light, and the lovely blue shadows we have here on our plateau.

I am rounding the corner on a lot of projects from the candle packaging for “Bee of Life” (using one of my bee goddesses as the image and I created a hive texture and my bees as a complement and background for the paper labels) to Sagamore’s Benefit event package graphics. My big client is bending and changing, and we are bending and changing with them. I am working on box graphics and some vintage related publications for Forge Cellars, updates on the packaging and new ideas for Redbyrd Orchard Cider. The Piggery seems well on their way with new programming and promotion (their BaconFest was a huge success) with Valentines Day seatings filling up, and plans for a St. Patricks Day Sausage Fest on the horizon. Good Life Farm is ramping up for Asparaganza this spring, so we have had a meeting about that…and putting plans in place to support this event. The Farmers Market has sent out applications for vendors (I think I may be a day vendor for a few of the markets just to sell my little thises and thats along with cards)….but we will see.

Creatively, I am a bit shot. I wish I had the zing going on that the Advent work had, but given the changeability of the moment, I am just happy to make little creature doodles in my notebook and focus on the work at hand (teasing out a content review of a website for one) to make psychic room for the extra stuff. I have also decided to spend time learning new things, so I am trying to do a few Lynda.com tutorials during the day to keep my head in the game…and learn something that can make me more productive etc. Plus, I love my digital tools….and the more I learn, the more fun it gets.

Scary.

Glamour Girl, Q. Cassetti 2013, Adobe IllustratorIt was a mild spring day yesterday, but this morning snaps us back into winter on the first of February. All of our mounds of velvety moss had seized up into bright green patches by the side of the house. Shady romped while Mr. White wriggled on the pavement with feline delight. Today we will be running for the radiators and prime spots under the stove. Its frosty and white.

Love Leif Peng. Love Leif Peng’s “Today’s Inspiration” illustration history blog which surfaces people, time, projects, trends of illustration. Leif recently interviewed my mentor, Murray about Herb Lubalin and more broadly, on the ’70s. Take a look. Murray and Leif surface some lovely things and trends highlighting the amazing PushPin Studios along with the work of John Alcorn (wooooooweeee!!)

More pictures of percieved glamour… Here is a vintage Barbie with the half frisbee eyelash shelves, pouty lips and the tiniest pre-surgical nose in the universe. Freakolicious! Isnt she horrifying? Not surprising, even in her updates, she continues to be horrifying though her nose gets a scootch bigger, and her body a bit less atomic…its still pretty unreal. Good thing Barbie never gets old, gets pregnant or has gall bladder surgery. Middle age Barbie goes to the PTA meeting?  Colonoscopy Barbie? And its also good that Barbie is independently wealthy, so Barbie working at the Grocery Store or Walmart is out of the question. If she does work, she is a Vet or owner of a candy store…but never a window clerk at the DMV…though I am sure she has some rocking denim studded number that would really make folks sit up and take notice.

heya.

Troll, Q. Cassetti 2013. Adpbe IllustratorAlex is back at Hofstra. Kitty has started classes. Rob is busy. I have pulled another muscle in my leg…so I am hobbling around cronelike…and living for the heating pad. We are a few days into it…and I must admit, its getting better—but not as quickly as I would like.

Lots of work from Great Camp Sagamore. Just finished a poster, quartercard, black and white ad, ticket, web icon, Facebook graphic to promote a benefit folk concert April 5 in Saratoga Springs with the Jamcrackers and another group. I have their benefit invitation, website work and then, hopefully we can do a bit of a dive into a brand. After the board meeting, I now grasp how I can help the team move the needle in branding, brand building, promotion and programming which I am beginning to understand I am pretty good helping spin ideas about. The Piggery did a Bacon Fest which we talked out…and it rang the cash register, drove traffic and awareness and was a complete success for them. I hope with Sagamore, we can drive more people to visit, to give and to support. So much is volunteer, that those with means should contribute a bit….but that is a later story.

The troll is one of a series of illustrations I am going to work on—portraits of toys that terrified me as a child… breathing alittle life into their scariness. I finished a Barbie and have a few more Barbies to do…as I am stunned by the big lips, and the alien eyes that these oddly shaped iconic dolls portray.

frosty

Winter on Cayuga, 2012, Q. Cassetti, Adobe Illustrator.Wintery mix. The weather got so nice and warm this weekend, it was doors open, with Rob chipping away all the left over ice in prep for the next go round. It is white and magical this morning, with a slow fall, falling quietly albeit not too oppresively. Alex is itching to work, and I need to figure out how to get him occupied for a significant amount of time so it isnt this little thing and that little thing. I have projects to do, and with the littleinterruptions all day, it can make things a bit unwieldy and though productive for him, not so for me.

I got some bad printing back (first time ever) from an online source who has an email customers service thing…and I am anxious as the job is def needing to be reprinted and it is their problem… I think I am going to send another email with a photo of the job attached….so that the question of fault goes out the window. It is a time sensitive thing, so I need to get them rolling and I do not want to take a hit to reprint a job that I am doing as a courtesy for a friend. Quel Drag.

The winter bunny is an exploration of the color palette for a local college who has gold and blue as their exclusives, which I have pushed to a rainbow of tints, with beige. I was monkeying around with it for a legit picture, and figured I would salvage some of the parts and make my own picture just for kicks. They also are looking for another approach which dawned on me could be a photographic collage which skirts the color issues (no guidance on photography) yet, gives me some leeway with imagery and the mooshing of all sorts of ideas. So, I did one for kicks yesterday in addition to the vector image just to see what their response would be. These images may be “grandmother tested” when the kids come back to school to see what they respond/react to, and then move accordingly. Collage is a whole world of opportunity we have not really even explored! How exciting! Equally time consuming but in a different, more humorous way.

 

Citric Acid

Citric Acid, Q. Cassetti 2012, Adobe IllustratorHave been full bore on work and trying to slip in an illustration  or two just to keep the advent buzz going. A local college contacted me for an illustration for their summer program (which formerly they have mined my existing images that we would change out to suit their needs). But now that they have a new branding program which is fairly constricting, with a very intense, very quiet palette which they are firm on…I figured this was a good challenge to create within these bounds to see what could happen. Interestingly, the more limits I iput on myself with the color, the better the illo got (using basicallly two colors and the myriad of screened color). I hope it is something we can go with. I am intrigued to see where this can go combined with the trippy brushes, objects, and animals.

Alex is helping me with cards for Valentines Day. We are cranking them out from my printer and my accucut die cutter. We have about 10 different designs for sale at Sundrees along with some pins, some pendants and some little collections of tiny food that can be purchased in a nice tin box. We also have a cute Bakery Case (mini) to show the cake and cupcake pins, and some little unfinished/raw pine tables for sale to go with the little food for Valentines Day. I am focused on this as I am delighted that we made a bit of money out of one venue in December, and hope to see where this can go as the possibility of going to the stationery show in NYC and selling cards is not an impossibility. Consider that I have well over 40 images from the current Advent Calendar, why shouldnt I take advantage of that income stream.

Walking in Sunshine

Walking on Sunshine, Q. Cassetti, 2012, Trumansburg, NYWell…it is snowing, and snowing and I couldnt be more pleased. It is mounding up and needs to be plowed… And I am coming off the Advent Calendar blitz by reacting with full Kawaii, full Lisa Frank, full Alex Grey, and the tools of candyshop illustration. I am just going with the flow…to see what evolves. I have a lace brush, rainbow brushes, a beginning knowledge of a few new tools, and the urge to take cute and run with it,. I have instruction from Kitty that the new neutral, the new grey for me to work in is rainbow. Wow. Far from the discipline of black and white and a second color. This is hard going to let the reins out.

Christmas: Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty Five, Christmas Peace

Christmas: Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty Five, Christmas Peace, Q. Cassetti, Trumansburg, NYPeace be with you and yours on this day that reminds us that each new day is a new birth, a new opportunity to grow, change, give and love each other. Have a lovely and warm Christmas with those you hold dear.

Advent is done. Christmas is here. However, if you want to review the images created for this years Advent Calendar, they are all compiled here (and a few more I didnt post)… its right here


Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty Three

Christmas Eve: Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty Three, Wrappin’ Mr. Giftie, Q. Cassetti, Trumansburg, NYLove to all my friends and family here and abroad on this Christmas Eve 2012. The day looks to be promising, filled with light, people gathering, and the space for all of us to assess all that we have to be thankful for—in the past, present and hope for the future. May you soak in the day—with those you love.

Sunday Special: Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Bonus: A Little Happy Time

I know its off topic, and I know it really isnt part of the proper advent calendar, but it was created only last week, so I will post this as a bonus on a beautiful Sunday before a week of celebration and joy.
Sunday Special: Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Bonus: A little happy time, Q. Cassetti, Trumansburg, NY

Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty Three: Kawaii Snow Globe

Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty Three, Kawaii Snow Globe, Q. Cassetti, Trumansburg, NYWe got some snow yesterday. So, it is feeling a bit more like winter. Kitty made a ton of earrings out of the dollhouse treasures—and sold $70. worth to friends during the course of the day. Alex visited with friends and helped Rob get the tree. I wrapped presents while waiting for my computer to boot up from the numerous crashes while making tomorrow’s picture for the next to final Advent Calendar project. I love what is going on with this picture and my mind is whirring about what is next. So, this body of work drove technique inspired by content, and now the content is evolving for the next collection of images inspired by the new techniques.  The Catherine Wheel of insipiration keeps proving itself to me.

A person saw my food brooches at Sundrees and contacted me to create a holiday feast without the pins to give to his wife for a holiday gift. I have a bunch of small pine tables and whomped up platters of cookies, veggies, a turkey, tea in cups with lemon, bread in a bread basket, a pie and more…so cute…I think I have another product to sell for Valentines Day? I need to get the valentine printed…and create a few to sell. Maybe this little deer would like to be part of a Kawaii valentine? Or the head of antoher stratosphere suit. Why didnt I see that yesterday? Jeez. Not much time to reflect on what is being thrown out the door.

Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty: Punch in the Box

Sugar Coated Advent 2012: Day Twenty: Punch in the Box, Q. Cassetti, Trumansburg, NYAlright, I couldn’t resist. There were two Jack in the Boxes done for Jennifer Houghtaling….the happy and cute one posted earlier, and the Punch in the Box (as in Punch and Judy) that I had to do (if anything, to see if I could make a monster brush, which I could)… and so, I need to post that right now as a counterpoint to cute. Punch does not have his club, but as you all know, he uses his head as a battering ram on his poor scapegoat of a wife, Judy. I hope Judy gets a break over the holiday….