A Death in the Depths of a Drive

[Artwork: A Portrait of John the Baptist, Bees wax, paper, found objects, 2003]

That is to say: My hard drive crashed.

This is so sad. Not only do I have lots of art related stuff stored on that hard drive. I also have honeymoon pictures and engagement journals. Of course nothing is backed up. It might be retrievable, but only for large amounts of cash.

Life.

Since I don't have hours of access to a computer, here are a few lists for fun and a quote from the Grapes of Wrath, which I'm currently reading, for your general inspiration.

Interesting words from last night's Scrabble Game with David:

1. Quad
2. Talkie
3. Novice
4. Gonad
5. Latex
6. Venus
7. Ooze
8. Jihad

Things we have eaten this week:

1. Spicy Sausage with Fresh Corn and Tomato/Cucumber/Feta Salad
2. Al Pastor Tacos with Avocado, Chips and Salsa
3. Ancho Pepper, Tomato, Feta and Sausage Frittata
4. Buffalo, Rutabega and Imperial Delight Squash Soup
5. Grilled Brie and Tomato Sandwich with Spicy Mustard
6. Beef Fajitas

My To-Do List for Today

1. Make bed
2. Fold laundry
3. Clean kitchen
4. Make GF (Gluten Free, not to be confused with Galactic Federation) bread
5. Make hummus
6. Make granola
7. Work on email
8. Blog
9. Pay bills
10. Make acupuncture apt.
11. Water garden
12. Call Erin
13. Put away winter clothes
14. Get in the studio
15. Swim laps

My list of art pieces to make:

1. Heart Sleeve
2. Kingfisher and chickens
3. Bears and small horses
4. Kids with snake
5. Crouched girl
6. Kids with big tall hats
7. Honey Buzzard
8. Gloynbyw - Butterfly or living coal
9. Paralian, one who lives by the sea
10. With gladness and singleness of heart
11. The beginning and the end
12. Swan song

***********************************************************

"The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog's coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse's fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep's wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal, twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man's trouser cuff or the hem of a woman's skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed of the anlage of movement."

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (Chapter 3, Paragraph 1)

Please note that entire paragraph is all one sentence.

I hope you get all your to-do's accomplished today!

Stuff That Makes The Old Wheels Turn

Alexander DeMaria

Rachel T. Robertson (below)

Well. Happy Wednesday to you all!

I wanted to share some music with you that I have enjoyed listening to when working on my drawings. I need music. It seems to help distract my brain just enough for the ideas to come. If I think too hard about what to draw I always get stuck. So, for your enjoyment here are two artists whose music completely inspires me.

1. Hey Marseilles, To Travels & Trunks.

Matt Bishop - To Travels & Trunks from loc on Vimeo.

Here is what the Seattle Weekly said about them:

“For all the room-filling beauty of the symphonic climaxes on their first full-length album, there’s just as much power– and passion– in the record’s simplest, sparsest moments. What makes To Travels & Trunks so incredibly intoxicating, however, is something less definitive than notes and measures: A youthful earnestness, a genuine, unsullied passion for song, shines through every last second of Hey Marseilles’ music.”

2. Laura Gibson , Beasts of Seasons.

Here is a blurb on her from the Portland Tribune:

“Her clear voice is riveting and perfectly framed by subtle and tasteful instrumentation – muted trumpet, vibraphone, saw and other recorded and found sounds give the music a wistful feel and let these lovely songs of hope and heartbreak gently shine.” - Barbara Mitchell, Portland Tribune

Both artists performed at a small show during SXSW here in Austin. The moment they started playing I knew that I loved their music. The fact that Ms. Gibson and all the folks in Hey Marseilles were delightfully winsome on stage closed the deal for me.

Since this seems to be a sharing post, here are a few visual artists whose work I have been looking at these days. The images for these artists are at the top of the post. I am using my husband's PC as my Mac died last week and I have forgotten how to use this strange machine. I can't move the images around for you so you will just have to bear with some funky formatting for a while. I see that the text is also doing its own creative thing. I am at the mercy of my ignorance. My apologies.

Rachel T. Robertson (Second image)

Just today I found Rachel on Etsy and I can't get enough of her beautiful layered little collages. Her drawing style reminds me of my dear friend Ben. Maybe that is why I like them so much. I am challenged by how she turns her simple little drawings into such lovely treasures. It encourages me to keep things simple in my own work. I would love to own something of hers some day.

Alexander DeMaria (First image)

I saw his work in either Art Forum or Art in America a few months ago in an ad. I am always interested in artists who are working on creating mythology, so when I read his artist statement I was immediately intruiged. The things he writes about his work reminds me of J.R.R Tolkien and his love of mythologies and ultimate creation of many. For me it is a powerful tradition to assosiate myself with as an artist. When I think about creating my own mythology it gives me the freedom to just touch my toes down in reality and make everying else a little bit out of the realm of possibility. Alexander creates these gorgeous, clean, rich drawings that are feasts for my eyes.

And finally, I will leave you with a little sonnet from my friend John Donne. I figure any day can be made better by having a sonnet in it. Enjoy.

XXV

That our eares sicknesse wee may cure,

and rectifie those Labyrinths aright,

That wee, by harkning, not procure

Our praise, nor otheres dispraise so invite,

That wee get not a slipperinesse

And senslesly decline,

From hearing bold wits jeast at kinds excesse,

To'admit the like of majestie divine,

That we may locke our eares, Lord open thine.

A Return to Quotidian Delights

April has been a very busy month around the Taylor house. Actually, we have not been spending much time in the house. Our hours have been happily full between the Arts Pastors retreat out at the beautiful Laity Lodge, visiting my parents in Houston, Q conferencing, Wedding Showers, Engagement parties, Blessing ceremony evenings, and a wonderful Artists retreat with the good folks of various villages in upstate New York. We are happy to be home now for a few weeks. Catching up on laundry, sleep and conversation with each other!

In between all this movement I have been stealing moments in the studio. Some days 30 minutes has been all I can spare. I find it is good for me to build the muscle of creating in small moments as I am quite sure that life will only get more full of good things as we go on. Uninterrupted hours in the studio are probably not going to be a reality for me in every season of life. Getting right down to business with out long hours of piddling is something I am happy to be learning.

This is a piece from the new body of work I am making. The images come from a photograph of myself and my brother. We drank a lot of tea growing up.

I have a few more new pieces that I want to share with you but the day is very cloudy and all my pictures are dark and damp looking. In the next few days of sunny weather I should have more to show you.


In the mean time here are a few shots from my first attempt at creating a Japanese dinner. Going to the Asian grocery story is one of my favorite activities. My visual self is very satisfied by all the magical looking dried things in colorful packages. My odoriferous self is overwhelmed by the smell of sea creatures, some dead, some still alive. My global self is inspired by trying to pronounce the names of things in Japanese to the kind people working who are from Latin America. Hearing Japanese with an Mexican accent is quite a delightful experience. It made my day.

Miso Soup, Kim chi, Chopsticks.

Salad with Nasturtium flowers and leaves


Warm yumness

No Pill Bug Left Behind!

Things are stirring in the studio and I have some pictures to prove it. But first here is a story from the garden:

On Saturday we put in all the summer stuff: twelve varieties of tomatoes, yellow straight neck squash, zucchini, hot Thai peppers, jalapenos, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, radishes and assorted herbs. It was so beautiful all lined up perfectly in rows, dark composted soil neatly raked, mounds of fragrant cedar mulch in little donuts around each plant. On Monday it rained a lovely, long, soft rain and I thought to myself: "How perfect!"

Unbeknownst to me a silent but deadly attack was taking place all day Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. When I marched out to the garden to check things out yesterday afternoon I was dismayed to see two tomato plants completely chopped in half (or should I say chomped in half), a fan of slowly decomposing radish leaves on the ground and half of a squash plant gone. I bent down to take a look and discovered the soil moving. It was, I am sad to report, a veritable army of Rollie Pollies, Pill bugs in mass, Sow bugs on a mission, Woodlice at war. These little critters where attacking all my new plants by gathering in a group, surrounding the stem and munching it until it timbered to the ground. Upon closer examination I saw they were eating the roots as well. Argh!! What to do?

All afternoon I battled the critters. I dumped diatomateous earth over everything, poured coffee at the base of the plants, scattered coffee grounds, set orange slices out to trap them, picked off the bugs one by one and even squished them with my bare hands! Did you know that these ugly bugs are edible? It turns out they are related to shrimp in some bizarre way. I read online about one man who dared to scoop up a spoonful and try it out. I am not that brave or that desperate.

Today there are less around, but I lost a pepper plant and another piece of the squash in the night. By tomorrow all the plants I have been mothering for weeks on the porch may be reduced to stumps. That would certainly make me weep. I might even tear my hair out a bit. For now the Great Rollie Pollie War of 2009 roars on. I am preparing yeast traps as we speak!

Other parts of the garden are thriving so it is not all going bust. I have 4 new plants volunteering from my purple passion vine. The bees are out in full force, drawn by the amazing fragrance of the blossoms on the lemon tree. Yellow daisies are bursting out of a bush by the front door. The old fashioned rose is covered in beautiful little white buds that smell divine. I have a vase full on my desk right now.


Here are a few pictures of some new work. I am calling these things "experiments". It helps me to play a little if I don't have the burden of having to make ART hanging over me. Three pieces made with watercolor and gold pen.

These next two pieces I did for Lent and Easter. The Lenten piece was used for the cover of a Lenten Devotional that David and I put together.

Lent

Easter

Finally, and just for fun, a whale:

Assiduous Hours and an Inventive Polyglot

“I wish life was not so short, he thought. Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.”
J.R.R Tolkien

Drat! Despite my fervent hopes I have turned out to be a negligent blogger.

Sigh, weep, gnash teeth.

Life just seems to be full every day! My to-do lists dance in my head like sugar plum faeries gone to the dark side. Sadly, I always think I will get more accomplished in one day than I actually do. As an update here are a few before and after shots of projects that I have been working on. Sometimes it is impossible for me to make new art when things like this are lurking nearby.

A before version languishes in the garage

After, cheery in its new kitchen home.
(It's light blue.)

Before, a dreary old dear.

After, with burlap seat covers and a happy blue paint, darling!

When I think of people like J. R. R. Tolkien, who created entire languages in his spare time, I sometimes get very depressed and think I must be the laziest person on the planet. He not only created but also wrote poems in these new languages. He even wrote his personal journals in his favorite made up language. I think that particular one was based on Finnish which, as we all know, is a remarkable easy language to learn in the first place. My only consolation lies in the fact that it took him 12 years to write the Lord of the Rings.

Nonetheless, I will write again after I: get all my mending finished, sew some stuffed critters, finished the planting, pull the rest of the wild onions from the lawn and make a cape for my nephew. Oh yes! I almost forgot there is art to make as well. I am, after all, supposed to be an artist. I think somehow my days are full of shorter hours than everyone else. Sort of like my own personal wormhole. You see, I had planned to do all this while David is out of town for the next few days. I now see this is highly unlikely.

If by some small chance I do manage to accomplish this herculean feat, I will feel like this:
Until then, many happy Orange Julius to you, little cabbage.

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
J.R.R. Tolkien

"There lived a 'prentice, once, in our city, And of the craft of victuallers was he..."

Little Whole Wheat Loaves.

Let's talk about bread shall we.

O! How wonderful to eat bread!

When I realized I could no longer eat gluten I was very sad about having to give up bread. Warm fluffy bread is just about the most comforting food I can think of.

Bread with Cinnamon and Sugar sprinkled on it makes me think of my childhood. Bread dipped into hearty soup is a perfect lunch on a chilly day. And don't even get me started on grilled, open faced, tomato and cheese sandwiches with oregano sprinkled on top.

Mouth.

Watering.

Now.

So, when I discovered that I could make warm, fluffy gluten-free bread I was overjoyed. In breaking with my tradition of trying to make everything by hand and from scratch, I use a bread machine. This is one shortcut I don't mind. All the sensory enjoyment of making bread by hand is missing when you make gluten-free bread. You don't knead it because there is no gluten to activate by kneading. The dough is just kind of sticky and wet and not very fun to put your hands into.

I make bread for David and myself on Mondays. He gets a French Bread-style loaf with rosemary in it, and I get a gluten-free loaf or as I like to call it: My Bean Bread.

I love that my week starts with bread: basic, nourishing, aromatic. It encourages me to do other basic and nourishing activities throughout the rest of my week. It makes me want to cook yummy things to dip bread into.

I do laundry on Mondays also. I love the experience of looking out my kitchen window to see laundry flapping on the clothes line while smelling my bread baking. In that moment I pretend I live in a little house on the prairie and Pa is around the corner chopping wood for us. It also makes me happy that we are saving money by baking our own bread--and of course it tastes better.

When I first got the bread machine I experimented with a lot of different recipes trying to find the perfect one. I did finally settle on one that I really like, but it tastes almost exactly the same as the Bob's Red Mill mix that I usually end up using. I believe it is called Gluten-Free Wonderful Homemade Bread Mix. And it is just that, wonderful. It gets big and airy, the crust is perfectly golden and I love eating a piece of gluten-free bread that does not need to be toasted twice or loaded up with butter. An added bonus is that nothing about it resembles a brick, which is what most store bought gluten-free breads feel like.

Here is the recipe that I have used when I don't have the mix on hand. I find the mix to be easier. With this recipe you end up needing to store a lot of different kinds of flour and I just don't have that much pantry space.

Four Flour Bread
From "The Gluten-Free Gourmet" by Bette Hagman

This should be doubled for use in a 2 Lb setting on a bread machine.

2 Cups Flour Flour Bean Mix *
1 1/2 Teaspoons Xanthan Gum
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Unflavored Gelatin
1 Teaspoon Egg Replacer ( I use one egg instead)
2 Tablespoons Sugar
2 1/4 Teaspoons Dry Yeast Granules
1 Egg plus 1 Egg White ( I use 2 whole eggs)
3 Tablespoons Butter
1 Teaspoon Dough Enhancer ( I use Apple Cider Vinegar)
1 Cup (more or less) Warm Water


-Warm water according to instructions for your bread machine. Mine indicates between 80 and 90 degrees.
-Combine flour mix, xanthan gum, salt, gelatin, egg replacer (omit if using egg) and sugar, in a bowl.
-Combine eggs, butter (melted) and vinegar and whisk together. Add most of the water.

The remaining water should be added as needed after the bread has started mixing in the bread machine.

Place wet and dry ingredients in bread machine in the order suggested by the manual.

For my machine I put wet ingredients on the bottom and then dry on top making sure all the wet is covered by the dry. Then I make a well in the top of the dry ingredients and put the yeast in the well so that it won't get wet.

My machine has a gluten-free setting so I use that setting which gives me more frequent mixing and less rises. You can also use a white bread setting with a medium crust.

*Four Flour Bean Mix:

2/3 part Garfava bean flour
1/3 part Sorgum flour
1 part Cornstarch
1 part Tapioca flour

Eventually I will have used up all the random kinds of gluten-free flour in my pantry and I will just buy these four flours and mix up a big batch of this to use as a baking mix. If you are just starting out baking gluten-free, this is what I would recommend doing. This mix can be easily substituted cup for cup with wheat flour. It also works well in cookies and cakes, but I always add extra xanthan gum and fat (usually oil) to make sure its moist enough and sticks together.

Well, those of you who have no interested in gluten-free baking are probably bored stiff! Here is a little pictorial journal of my cooking adventures this week to wake you up:

My new favorite Kitchen activity is making stock.

Lately I have been saving all the left over bits of onion and garlic along with peels of carrots, outer leaves of cabbage and potato skins in a bucket in my fridge labeled "stock scraps". When this is full, I throw it all in a pot, add some cold water, 10 peppercorns and simmer for an afternoon. The most exciting part about it is that I would have composted all that stuff anyway. Now I've got stock and compost. Welcome to free Vegetable stock!

This is Curried Cauliflower. Gone in one day.

Cauliflower.

Brain.

Cauliflower is one of those foods that has never been on my favorite list. I enjoy lots of different kinds of vegetables but cauliflower always seemed so bland. Not really crunchy like a carrot, but not soft either. Sort of flavorless and that taupe color...Yuck! Plus, it looks like a brain.

However all of that has changed with the discovery of a recipe for curried cauliflower. Now I can easily eat a whole head of cauliflower in one sitting. David and I sometimes fight over who gets the last bit.

I have a little notebook in the kitchen where I write recipes that are home runs in the taste department. The rule is that I have to have made the recipe at least 3 times and loved it. This recipe is among that august company. I have had to repent to The Cauliflower for my past abuses, but now we are great friends.

Curried Cauliflower

1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1 1/2 Teaspoon Turmeric
1 Teaspoon Ginger
1 Chopped Onion
1 Chopped Cauliflower
1 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Cayenne (more=spicy)
2 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1 Can Diced Tomatoes (or about 1 1/2 Cups)
2 Tablespoon Cilantro ( I use tons more)

-Heat oil and add spices (except Cayenne) and onion - cook 3 minutes
-Stir in Cauliflower, Cayenne, Lemon, Salt, and Tomato.
-Cover and Simmer for 20 minutes.
-Sprinkle with chopped Cilantro and eat!

These Illustrious Players....

...Plus these noble fellows...

...Equals Rishta: Egyptian Lentils. Yum!

And just in case you thought cooking was the only thing on my mind, I found these friends appearing in the garden:

Spring brings Baby Lettuces!

Anna Banana, jump into the stew:
Gravy and carrots are good for you.
Good for your teeth,
And your fingernails too,
So Anna Banana, jump into the stew!

Happy cooking everyone.

Paraprosdokian Perhaps

Warning:
This has turned into quite a lengthy blog due to the fact that I have been a bit behind on the blogging. Let's forgo the part where I make excuses and tuck right in.

But first a disclaimer:
I have been asked to share my recipe for gluten-free bread. And I will! That recipe, among others, will arrive in the next blog on happenings in the kitchen. In honor of my brother's request to write more stuff about food, I will be covering such topics as a) how Cauliflower looks like brains and b) my attempts at making bitter leafy greens taste good.

And now an interlude:
Let me introduce you to a new friend of mine: Simon Ferdinand Merely. Below is a photo of him. He would be positively aghast if he new it had been taken at such an uncomely angle. For shame! Fortunately this is not a cameo appearance; he returns toward the end in a slightly more flattering pose.






I declare! On to more serious matters:
Two weeks ago David and I celebrated our anniversary. We went to stay on a friend's houseboat for a few days. The funny part is that we had no idea it was a house boat until we saw it. We thought it was a house by the lake! It turned out to be wonderfully perfect. We cooked in the little kitchen, enjoyed hours of reading, watched movies, gave each other gifts of more books, and rested.

Eating Indian food (cooked by David) on the houseboat. Quirky rabbit rug for atmosphere!

My card to David. A tiny packet of images from a medieval manuscript and hymns; a small handmade book titled "50 Things I Love About David"; an accordion-style card full of quotes and thoughts on our first year.

After a few days on the boat we drove out to Laity Lodge and enjoyed an inspiring weekend in the company of some of our favorite writers. The Chrysostom Society was having their annual meeting and we just happened to be out there at the same time. We enjoyed meals with them where they fired limericks back and forth and talked about publishing and books and a common love of good words. It was amazing to have conversation with authors whose books have so shaped me.

I spent most of the day working in the well-stocked art studios making things out of sheet of copper--a new material and technique to love! We left feeling so refreshed and inspired. Truly a great way to start our second year of marriage. On the way back to Austin we stopped and ate in Fredericksburg. Spicy sausage was the perfect completion of a great week.

Working in the art studio at Laity Lodge.

My little copper plaque.

Eating German in Fredericksburg. (German food, that is, not an actual German.)

Hungry animals loose in FredricksBurg!

I have been reading Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales again. I am overwhelmed by how unusual they are. It's really a great exercise for my imagination. People are always getting turned into birds or flowers, Witches appear everywhere, and someone is almost always either being captured by the wicked or banished to a tower. It's great and sometimes pretty strange! The best thing is, they all end happily and the good folks always survive. Ahhhh that's the world I want to inhabit.

Creatively, things have been busy for me. David went out of town for a few days and I took the opportunity to make a huge mess on the dinning room table. Snips of thread, scraps of fabric and pins everywhere. I covered some floor pillows for my sister-in-law in a fun red corduroy, altered and repaired tons of clothes that had been in the mending basket for months, and made some fun and weird little stuffed animals for a friend's baby shower. It was great not to have to clean it all up at the end of the day!

Meet Simon and Symore Merely. The first friends from the family of Merely's. Samples currently being made in the test studio, soon available for sale on etsy. (Cat pattern came from the awesome book: "Amy Butler's little stitches for little ones")

Two weekends ago our nephews, Cormac and Brendan, came over. We had a grand old time playing in the art studio. They helped me dig out some beeswax from old sculptures and watched me burn wax out of shoes with my propane torch. I love my propane torch.

We also made some awesome monoprints. One printed with me in the garage while the other practiced doing very important things, like balancing a wooden pole on your nose, with Uncle David in the front yard. It was glorious.


Lots of new creative projects are on my to-do list including making more little creatures. Can't wait to introduce you to Chalmers Tavish Merely!