GARDEN UPDATE: HARVEST

SWEET VEINS

First, I must share with you the genius that is Treat Street, "an occasional secret roving bake sale" that happens regularly in and around Los Angeles. I learned about Treat Street from Jen Sall over at Gold & Silver Stars. Whoever came up with this guerrilla bake shop idea definitely has their priorities in order. Love them.

And now, the treats. They have the requisite cookies and cupcakes and bars and things. But then they also offer little sugary gems like these atomically correct heart cookies. Brilliant. Just brilliant.















The heart cookies remind me of an artist I've had my eye on for a while, Ryan Jacob Smith. The painting below is entitled "A Lot to Think About." Check out his other work. You'll be glad you did.

THREE BASKETS

These three baskets all reside in my living room. When I went home last night to photograph the sweetgrass basket that I bought in Charleston, I realized how very many interesting handmade baskets I posses.

The one on the left is made with recycled candy wrappers and is from Nepal. It's one of the many treasures I brought home from the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe.

The middle basket is the sweetgrass basket I just got in Charleston. This basket-making tradition was brought to South Carolina from Africa more than 300 years ago. Read about the history of the sweetgrass basket here. See more examples here.

The smallest basket is from Africa and is made using recycled telephone wire. There are some truly incredible examples of this work right here.

I also happen to have a bowl made of buttons, which is from Vietnam. It was a gift.

So you'll notice that only the sweetgrass basket is made out of natural materials; all of the other baskets are made using recycled materials. While I absolutely love recycled anything, especially when the recycled materials take the form of a decorative object, I am suddenly struck by the plastic of it all. What's more, sweetgrass baskets are getting more expensive because the grass is becoming scarce. Development in South Carolina is erasing fields of material. We might one day see Charleston "sweetgrass" baskets made out of our own trash. That's something to think about: a centuries-old tradition changing before your very eyes.

GARDEN UPDATE: PASSION FLOWERS

CHARLESTON

Almost a week in Charleston and not much to show for it. In photographs, anyway. I hardly used my camera at all on this trip. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the six-day food coma. Whatever it was, Charleston went woefully undocumented by this gal last weekend. Still, the few things I captured pretty much sum the place up. To me, thee three images speak to the creativity, eccentricity, and history of Charleston.

And yes, I did buy a sweet grass basket, which I am absolutely in love with. I may not have come home with many photographs, but I definitely came home with a treasure.

KEEP COOL AND BE GAY

Greetings, friends. Many apologies for my long absence from the blog. Charleston was a whirlwind--a very hot whirlwind--filled with just about everything but a moment to make a post. I'll share some photos from the trip later on today.

Until then, here's hoping you'll get a chuckle from the witty bit of advertising pictured above. The "Keep Cool and Be Gay" slogan graces the side of a box containing a hand fan. I am completely convinced that hand fans can and should make a comeback, especially after the 100 degree temps I just experienced in Charleston. I actually have a hand fan but failed to pack it for the trip. I'll definitely be keeping it close at hand from now on, though. Because I certainly want to keep cool and be gay.

GARDEN UPDATE: 'MATERS

I'm in the road again this week--Charleston, SC, this time. Look for an update on my adventures later tonight.

Until then, how about these 'maters? We have forty-six plants. That's a lot of 'maters.

BUY ART THAT YOU LOVE

This is kind of a postscript to my Art Markets post from a few days ago. I love this drawing. I bought it. It was $150.

I visited the Wootini store and gallery in Carrboro, during my recent work trip to North Carolina. It was a happenstance kind of a thing. Truth be told, I had to walk through the shops at the Historic Carborro Mill to get to the CVS Drugstore. I had some time to spare, so I wandered on into Wootini. And much to my surprise, the fine folks at Wootini are the keepers of much original and affordable art.

The exhibit that was up while I was there was entitled "Back Woods Golden Gigantic." The drawing above--the one I purchased--is by an artist by the name of Matt laFleur. The only information I can find out about this guy anywhere happens to be on the gallery's website:

Matt laFleur was born in Troy, N.Y. in 1981. He lives and works in Taborton, N.Y. located twenty miles east of the Hudson river. As well as being an artist Matt makes his living as a chimney sweep. Backwoods Golden Gigantic is Matt's first showing outside of the Northeast. Some favorite pastimes include dirt track racing, looking at Grandma Moses paintings, and splitting wood.

What's not to love about a chimney sweep who finds time to make art? Or perhaps he's an artist who finds time to sweep chimneys. No matter. Thanks, Matt laFleur. If you happen upon this little post one day, get in touch, won't you?

Again, buy art that you love.

MAKESHIFT STUDIO

I spent the better part of my weekend making drawings. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn't make them in my studio; I made them on our dining room table. See, the thing is, I have poison ivy. Yeah. And so, seeing as how the studio is, in a word, hot, I brought my supplies inside. More specifically, into the conditioned air. What a wonderful invention. But I digress. The drawings.

Inspired by the talented Ann Rice, I cut up a few grocery sacks and got to work. I've always loved working with Kraft paper, and now what a wonderful resource: brown paper in the kitchen closet! And it's free! I particularly love the creases and edges and marks--the qualities of the original sack that become a part of the finished drawing.

So I spent the weekend at the dining room table, creating nine drawings (and framing them). They're mostly pen and gouache, with a little bit of collage here and there. It was so fun to create these little things--little sketches that don't live in a sketchbook. The one pictured below is called "Electric Pie." You can see the rest of the drawings here.

Mmm, pie.

GARDEN UPDATE: SQUASH

AMY ART IN THE WASHINGTON POST EXPRESS

Check out the blurb about my work in the current issue of the Washington Post Express (scroll down the page a bit). The article is about the three paintings I did for the restaurant Johnny's Half Shell.

Melissa McCart, who has the food blog Counter Intelligence, wrote the piece. Thanks, Melissa, for the ink!

And big thanks to Ann and Johnny for being fans of my work.

ART MARKETS

I purchased this 11 x 14 watercolor at the Flea Market mentioned in yesterday's post. It was twenty-five cents. There's no signature, and I, of course, know nothing about the person who made it. Still, it speaks to me. It's so mysterious--the barely touched foreground, the two naked trees, those windows. My favorite element of this painting is the window just to the left of the two brown tree trunks; its placement looks so purposeful. I'm really glad to have it. I would have paid more. There's nothing quite like digging for a twenty-five-cent treasure, though.

And so, last night I happened to watch a documentary about another piece of art that was found at a flea market and purchased for whopping five dollars. This one, though, is an original Jackson Pollock. Or so some think. There's no signature or provenance (such a high-falutin' word), so there is some doubt. But forensic science has authenticated the painting with fingerprints--Jackson's own--and other evidence. The Art World, however, considers it a piece of trash. Teri Horton, the woman who found the painting, has been arguing with the art world ever since. Fifteen years, to be exact. What's riding on all of this is, of course, the value of Pollock's work. If Teri's painting is deemed an original, it would then--and only then--be worth 50 million dollars. Or more. The film is an eye-opening look at the inner workings--and egos--of the people at the top. A must-see.

As a postscript to all of this, here are a couple of links to articles/posts about the art market in general that have recently come across my plate, thanks to my plugged-in friend Rob.

Jen Bekman on Art Collecting
Money Talk blog post by Diana Fayt
20x200 Project Q&A

Buy art that you love.

THE SEAT OF SUMMER

This glorious vision in plaid happens to be the seat of a lawn chair. I love lawn chairs like this. This one lives on someone else's porch in Clarksdale. I wish it were in my yard.

I've been wanting to amass a collection of these vintage lawn chairs for what seems like ever--every time summer rolls around, anyway. I've been looking for them everywhere but no luck so far. No luck, that is, until I was in North Carolina.

As I mentioned before, I experienced the absolute greatest flea market on this planet earth, during my trip to North Carolina earlier this month. It was the Alamance and some-other-county flea market, which benefited a local hospice. It's only held once a year. I was there at 8 a.m. on the first day. There was a mountain of lawn chairs. They were $3 each. I couldn't fit them in my suitcase, so they had to stay put. If only I had driven to North Carolina! I would have brought back a bevy of these chairs--and whole a lot more.

THE ART OF SUSHI

Some Japanese friends of ours had us over for sushi Saturday night. We made our own rolls, as evidenced by the loosely packed pieces above. It was a fun night, though, and definitely yummy.

Making sushi is, of course, an art in itself. But there's a lot of art inspired by sushi, as well. There are sushi quilts and needlepoints and drawings with sushi and even "Naked Sushi."

My favorite, though, is this illustrated diagram of how to make sushi by Flickr member MontanaRaven.

Bon appetite.

DUMB AS A DONKEY?

Hardly. The donkey is a symbol of patience, gentleness, and peace. What sweet creatures. I met these two in Mebane, NC. Boy, do I wish I had a couple of donkies

A peaceful weekend to you all.

URBAN ART

Living in small town Mississippi, I rarely get to experience the beauty of graffiti. But I got a little fix, during my recent trip to North Carolina. This spray paint mural is on the alley wall behind Urban Artware, a very cool folk and fine art gallery in Winston-Salem, owned and operated by my friend Lisa's friend Millicent. I'm fairly certain that Millicent had something to do with this chicken of the sea.

I'm a big fan of graffiti. Sure, there are tags and profanity and whatnot that are part of graffiti culture but, more often than not, graffiti is just another form of creative expression. We all want to leave our mark on the world. Some people choose to do it with spray paint. These are talented artists, and they use our world as a canvas. What's not to love?

Check out the work of Os Gemeos (identical twins, Otavio and Gustavo from Brazil), who just did a mural at Coney Island. Read even more about them here.

I'm also a fan of Wooster Collective, a group that's "dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world."

And then, of course, there's Graffiti.org.

Two artists whose imagery is completely urban inspired are Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen. Margaret's work just plain knocks my socks off.

Here's hoping you'll never look at graffiti the same way again.

GREEN THUMB, BLUE THUMB

My husband is the green thumb in the family, as evidenced by the bounty of cukes in the post below. And I am a blue thumb, as evidenced by this picture here. Okay, with a little bit of brown mixed in. Just another summer day in the studio.

And yes, the lemonade was good.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Another highlight of my trip to North Carolina was a visit to Clyde Jones's place in Bynum, NC. Mr. Clyde has upped the population of this tiny hamlet by at least double with his menagerie of critters. There's one in every yard, a line of them heading down the street and, of course, quite a few in his yard.

How about that giraffe?

You can learn more about Clyde Jones and his critters here and here.

PICKLES, PICKLES EVERYWHERE!

Part of my time in North Carolina was spent in Winston-Salem, where I came across this dapper fellow, Mr. Dill Pickle. The Dill Pickle is a restaurant downtown. Unfortunately, I didn't eat there, nor did I get a chance to meet Mr. Pickle himself. And I have no idea whether or not dill pickles are on the menu. I ate Thai food this day. When one is on the road documenting Southern food, ethnic food fills a rather large hole, pickles or no pickles.

Upon my return home, however, I found a bevy of cukes in the garden. Oh my, how cukes grow. And we have so very many plants that I can guarantee that we'll be pickling some. Soon, very soon.

Mr. Pickle would be proud.

THE BEAUTY OF BBQ

Half of a pig, 20+ shoulders and some chicken on the pit at Allen & Son Bar-B-Q in Chapel Hill, NC.