corn and art

Friday night one of my neighbors who works on a local farm knocked on the door. He had a truckload of freshly picked sweet corn and wanted to know if we wanted any. He did this last year too. He refuses money, just spreading around the goodness. We got 2 dozen ears so Saturday Marc and I shucked them and Sunday I processed them for the freezer. Blanch in boiling water for 5 minutes, dunk in cold water to stop them cooking, cut the kernels off the cob (you can freeze the whole thing but we don’t have room in our freezer for that), and bag up in vacuum sealed bags. I got 11 2/3 cups out of 18 ears (I kept six back for immediate consumption).

He’ll have more in a week or two and I’ll repeat the process so that we have corn for as long as it lasts. I don’t buy corn at the grocery store. I don’t know the farmer, I don’t know where it’s grown, I don’t know how long it’s been picked, and most the corn grown in this country is genetically altered. As the farmer who I used to buy my corn from said, if a worm won’t eat it neither will I. Turns out he was the brother of another neighbor and he died. The same neighbor has another brother who grows corn but I missed his harvest this year.

I did finish the zucchini part of the painting. I don’t know if it would pass for a botanical illustration but I’m happy enough with it (so she says but I may darken one area) and more than ready to be done with it. 

I did the flower part first in glass as part of the botanica erotica series and then I did the drawing where I included the zucchini.

And I started on a new little painting, a pomegranate, 4” x 4”. It is also from the botanica erotica series. I thought some of them would make nice little paintings to put in the market at Hesed House.

Here’s the glass version. 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".

I got the proofs for the notecards. There are 7 designs but I’m going to package them in groups of five. Ten copies will give me 14 sets of cards. The bee will be turned so it’s horizontal on the card.

I have another follow up appointment with the ophthalmologist today and I hope that she will discontinue the drops. 

done

I think it's finished. It is, it's finished, I'm not doing anything else to it. I made two minor adjustments today, one to the coral on the top, removing a small piece to create a little negative space and changed the paint on the purple coral of the inlay from gray to white to match the other two.

Straight on view.

Slightly elevated looking down.

Inside.

getting there

That rain Friday and a short burst on Saturday brought us some cooler temperatures, a few days in the low 90s and this week highs in the high 80s! Still humid though and more rain predicted. One thing about the no rain and high temps, we haven't had mosquitoes at all this summer. That may be about to change though since we got more rain last night and this morning.

I headed over to the shop Sunday after our late morning breakfast/brunch. We skip lunch on Sundays since we eat our first meal so late and then have an early dinner. What that means is that I have a large block of uninterrupted time to work. My goal for the day was to fit the inlay of coral on the front of the box. It took about 4 hours but I got it done faster than I thought it would take with that curvy undulating edge. I eventually had to go get a lamp and my 200% magnifier glasses to get the last bit of fine tuning done switching out to smaller and smaller diamond grinding bits. Look close to see where it's hanging up, grind the spot for a second, check the fit, pick another spot, grind for a second, check the fit, over and over. Now I have to pare down the sides and bottom of the inlay so it's flush with the sides and bottom of the box. You might remember I made it a little larger to ensure that it would be the right size. I probably didn't need to do that, just made more work for myself. Once that's done then I can fit the feet, polish the box and whatever else needs it. Really getting close now.

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I didn't get over there at all on Monday. Since I had to get cat food I went ahead and did the week's grocery run instead. Yesterday I did a little more fine tuning on the inlay and pared down the sides and bottom so they are now flush with the sides and bottom of the box and started on fitting the feet starting with the two in the back. One is done, the second perhaps is acceptable. I've decided I'm not quite happy with the top, I'd like to see some extending over the side edges so with that in mind, too late to make a wax model of something I don't have a clear image of and cast it so I'm going to sort through my bag of coral pieces when it gets here and see if I can incorporate some of those. If not, well, then it will be as is.

I think these will be the last pictures until it's completely finished.

 

no success on the one hand but the box is coming along

My great niece is getting married the end of September. It's in the afternoon and dress is not casual but not dressy either. So Pam, the grandmother, and I went to a mall yesterday to try and find some nice dresses, something above shapeless wear around the house but below cocktail, plus we didn't want to spend a lot of money for dresses that would probably only get worn once. OMG. Needless to say we came away empty handed. The selection was dismal and everything was that stretchy synthetic slinky jersey which does our 70+ year old bodies no favors and the majority of everything was black or navy or orange large print and/or ruffled. If we wanted cocktail or formal, lots to choose from but a nice day dress, not so much. Pam found one dress that she liked enough on the hanger to bother trying on and, um, no. 

We passed one shop, several actually, that had some questionable garments. Like this.

I hate to call it a dress, well, actually I called it a 'fuck me' dress. If it was an inch shorter there would be no secrets, baby come on in, the door's open. How do you sit in something like that or bend over or even squat without showing off everything that's not already exposed? Or this one, the front of which had the entire midriff exposed.

Or the one I didn't take a picture of which was a top and long pants both of which were completely sheer. And, you know, I'm not a prude, if you want to go around nearly naked, I'm OK with that and I wore my share of mini-skirts in my youth. It's just that the clothes weren't even all that attractive. And then there were the short short Daisy Dukes with frayed hems and tears for $50. My advice is go to the thrift store, buy a faded pair of too small jeans, cut the legs off at the crotch, take a razor to what's left, throw them in the wash and you'll have the same thing for about $2.

Alrighty then.

Here's the body of the box de-molded.

And after being washed with vinegar. I think it came out a little darker than the sample but that seems to be how it goes these days.

And with the top and corals (nothing is permanently attached) so we can see how it's shaping up.

Tomorrow I'll start grinding the excess off the bottom of the box and the rest of the excess off the inlay. Then it's polishing all the pieces that need it, fitting the inlay, fitting the feet, and glueing it all together. Fortunately starting tomorrow high temps will only be in the low 90s for the next week.

That little bit of rain we got last week caused the yellow rain lilies to pop out yesterday. This is the most I've ever had.

 

the deplorables, the box, the cat

I see Trump's glee club, the same handful of wackos and deluded, is still flooding twitter with lies and accusations. It's pretty much all the GOP does now. Now they're demanding the DOJ release the affidavit that led to the request for the search warrant because they're never satisfied. The DOJ has requested the court not release the affidavit because it would identify their sources and hamper an ongoing investigation which is probably exactly what the Republicans want. After screaming about how the DOJ and the FBI treated a former president so unfairly, accusing them of political retribution to take Trump out so he can't run for president again, now they're screaming that if it was so urgent, a matter of national security, what took them so long? I kid you not. There is no winning with these people, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The kiln had run through it's program yesterday but I didn't open it, giving it another day to settle. I finished the major and minor grinding on the crab and corals, the minor grinding is smoothing off any sharp points and roughness on the castings. I reshaped the rocks a little bit so that they aren't a smooth curve but dip in a little here and there. I like that better. Next is the polishing but I don't think I'll need to do too much of that as they came out pretty clean. And of course if the body of the box cast well, then I'll have more major grinding to do to take off any excess and flatten the bottom. I aggravated the recurring injury in my shoulder doing the previous major grinding so the week or so off waiting for the frit to arrive and the box to cast was beneficial.

Checked the kiln and the box body looks good, what I can see. Marc is de-molding it for me. I don't think I could have done a better job of calculating the amount of frit. It has just enough extra to keep the bottom edges from being rounded so I'll have some excess to grind off but not much. It won't be as dark as it looks encased in plaster...I hope.

CleoCat's appointment to be spayed is tomorrow. I called the vet this morning and told them she is definitely pregnant, at least 4 weeks. She said they could still do it if I wanted. Well, I don't want a bunch of kittens I can't get rid of. So I'm going to take her in and tell them that if she's too far gone to do it safely then I'll come get her.

This is one pissed off squirrel. You should have heard it expressing its displeasure after CleoCat chased it up a tree this morning.

 

flowers and espionage and anniversaries, oh my

My frit finally arrived Friday afternoon, too late to go over to the studio so I didn't get the last mold filled, the body of the box, until Saturday afternoon. It's in the kiln. It might come out tomorrow but more likely Tuesday.

Friday's mail also brought a little check from the gallery. The sunflower sold.

Saturday morning I went to the Earth Lab series at Hesed House, this month on Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging and instead of just a presentation on the history and development, we also got a hands on workshop where we all got to try our hand at doing an arrangement. It was a lot of fun. My sister Pam is the coordinator who lines up the speakers and topics.

Here's my effort.

We're getting a much needed break in the heat today, still in the 80s and should only get up to 90 and we're getting another little shower, no thunder so far but rain is all it takes for the dog to tremble. The frogs are loving it though. Tomorrow, back up in the mid 90s.

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After it was revealed that Trump had super sensitive top secret documents, some marked SCI meaning that they are to be viewed only on a need to know basis by those with the highest security clearance and only in a secure room from which they were never to be removed, and was being investigated under the espionage act the far right wackos with their lies went silent for two days apparently told to back off the volatile rhetoric by other republicans (though now they're back to attacking Biden and lying about the Inflation Reduction Act). The documents retrieved were so sensitive and national security related that the FBI is dusting every page for fingerprints to see who touched them. One of the documents was the list of our uncover agents and their payroll information. There's no way to accurately describe the danger and damage to our national security that these top secret documents in the hands of a man who already tried to overthrow our democracy incurs. Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station does a good job though. You can read his essay on this here. It's long, as his essays are, but well worth the read if you want to understand just how damaging Trump, who no longer has any kind of security clearance, having these documents for a year and a half is. Anyone else would already have been arrested for espionage.

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Some things blooming in the yard. The rangoon creeper, the coral butterfly ginger finally started blooming, the bridal bouquet plumerias, the morning glory bush for all that it likes heat hasn't done very well but is starting to bloom a little.

I should get over to the shop and continue the cold work on the pieces already cast but today is our 46^th anniversary and that's as good an excuse as any to be lazy today. That's beer in our champagne glasses.

exploding heads and further progress

The Republicans are losing their fucking minds. Well, the far right wackos are, you know the usual suspects. They were on twitter non-stop for three days leading up to the vote and after, telling lies and trying to spread opposition and discontent about the Inflation Reduction Act to derail Biden, not only individual senators and representatives but the GOP Senate and House and GOP and RNC accounts as well, tweeting over and over all day long. It's astounding how they flooded twitter with their lies about this bill while failing to mention that they voted down the $35 cap on insulin for people on private insurance ie not Medicare or Medicaid. They are almost apoplectic that Biden and Schumer persevered, got Manchin and Sinema on board, and passed it in the Senate through reconciliation with only 50 votes and the VP tie breaker (the same way the Republicans passed their very unpopular permanent tax cuts for the wealthy, rich corporations, and their donors), incensed that they couldn't stop Biden's administration from doing something good for the average American, the country, and the planet.

And if that wasn't enough to give them all aneurisms, the FBI enforced a search warrant on Mar A Lago Monday related to the boxes of secret and classified documents Trump illegally removed from the White House when he left. The DOJ must have compelling evidence to get a federal judge to issue the warrant. Far right wacko republican outrage over the IRA forgotten, now they're getting hysterical. If they can do this to Trump, they can do it to anybody!!! Well, yes, it's called law and order and no one including Trump and his cronies are above the law.

Their tweets Tuesday were full of threats of political retaliation should they get control of Congress again while accusing the DOJ and FBI of political retaliation, calling the warrant a third world junta, calling to either defund or eliminate the FBI and DOJ altogether. An unprecedented attack on a former president in our nation's history they cry, should not be allowed to happen! You know what else is unprecedented in American history? A president who sucked up to tyrants and fascists, who refused to acknowledge he lost the election, tried to pressure election officials to throw out the opposition's votes or find new ones for him and when that didn't work, attempted a coup to get himself instated, and when he was finally forced to leave the White House, took secret and classified documents with him.

Maybe there will be some justice after all.

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Tuesday was grocery shop day and also my night to cook so I took a little break from sweating in the hot shop even though all I could think about through the night when I would wake up was finishing grinding the excess glass off the corals.

My Monday progress...I worked on the inlay until I realized I had removed enough of the white that I was losing my white behind the purple and green. 

Hmmm. Too much color, not enough white. Still had about 1/16” to go to get it down to the wax model thickness so I've put that aside for now. 

Then I worked on cutting and grinding off the disks on the four feet using the ring saw and the upright diamond wheel grinder (both use power!). 

And then I did one of the corals. Here it is in its place on the top.

Today it's back to sweating in the shop.

 

starting on the cold work

I did the vinegar soak Saturday and started in on the grinding even though it was hot in the shop, my sweat dripping down mixing with the silicone carbide/water slurry. Then we got a little rain for about 10 minutes which cooled things down some.

Turns out it was closer to 1/8” I had to grind off the bottom of the top piece. I think. It's really hard to judge. Took me a couple of hours. I think. I wasn't really paying attention to the time. The inlay looks to have closer to 1/4” to remove. I've already got an hour in on that one.

Went back after lunch better prepared, moved a fan to blow on me and a bandana to tie around my forehead which was wet enough to squeeze water out of by the time I quit.

I didn't have enough of one of the colors of glass I need to fill the mold for the body of the box though. Damn it. I could have ordered it when I ordered the color I needed for the feet if I had gone ahead with my first choice for the box instead of second guessing myself and wanting the inlay cast first. Well, I've ordered it now.

Yesterday I got the corals and feet out of the kiln and de-molded them and brushed them off. They look pretty good, everything cast well though I didn't have enough glass in the crab mold to completely fill the base the crab is sitting on but the crab itself is complete so I'll make it work. The brain coral piece came out really dark, way darker than I wanted but can't do anything about that unless I want to try and do another one which I don't. I'm starting to think using the white mix for the top and the rocks the corals are on was maybe a mistake but I wanted a balance to the white feet. Well, I can always use a bit of paint to tone it down if need be. Here are the corals in the grouping as they will go on the top.

And the feet which have a weird sort of greenish cast to them which I totally don't understand.

And then I worked on the inlay some more, less than an hour, have about 1/8” left to take off but I was hot, my bandana was soaked (again), and I was tired.

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Some sad news...I learned yesterday that Mage of the blog POSTCARDS finally succumbed to the cancer she had been fighting so valiantly for so long. Fly high Mage.

 

with acceptance comes happiness

The first two pieces for the box are out and de-molded and brushed off but not had the vinegar soak yet, giving them a day to settle first. They look good. I try for certain color and intensity when filling the mold but it's always a surprise after firing. All three colors turned out to be stronger than I was going for which is OK, probably because I used some powders and sifted the finest particles out of the frit. I'm determined to be OK with, to accept the way everything turns out, not harbor any disappointment, as long as they cast completely and maybe even if they don't. It depends. I'm mostly concerned about the feet.

I had quite a bit too much glass in the inlay mold and will have to grind off over 1/8” thickness but the top I did a better job of calculating and only have to grind off about 1/16”.

Here's the test piece, the face with flowers on the heart. This is just brushed off as well and needs to be flattened on the bottom so more grinding there but that will wait.

All the corals, the crab, and the four feet are currently in the kiln. I wanted to do the corals and crab in one firing and the feet in another but Marc put them all in together, not sure how many firings he will get out of the kiln before the top and door elements crap out. They might not. We're really just casting these pieces on a wing and a prayer. Still one more firing after this one for the body of the box which I've decided to do in a light aqua. I hope the finished piece all comes together with so many elements and different colors with the white top and feet.

One of the regulars at Abby's yoga class recently decided to get certified as a yoga instructor through an enrichment program for teachers and students connected to the ISD where she works (not really sure of the details) and her 'final' is in a few days so she practiced on us last Wednesday, her first try to actually lead a class, and she started out by saying that she wanted us to focus on acceptance during the class, acceptance of what our bodies can or can't do at this particular time, acceptance of the things in our lives, that without acceptance there cannot be happiness, that happiness comes only through acceptance. I thought that rang true. Maybe not happiness because happiness is fleeting but certainly contentment and isn't contentment really what we want in our lives, content with who and what we are and have?

It certainly applied to our lives as working artists. We had no guaranteed income, living basically hand to mouth. It varied month to month, year to year depending on how much work we had. Some months we had no income, some months we managed, some months we were in high cotton. Part of being able to live as we did was to accept the fact that this was going to be the way of it, probably would never be able to afford a lot of things, the 'stuff' my kids' peers' families had, expensive playthings mostly, the stuff our culture told us to want. We always managed the basics and the important stuff and now and then something special. When our peers were double and triple locking their doors at all times, living in fear of being robbed, we lived with our door open to the world with no such worries. By the time we could afford to buy stuff, we really didn't want to, used to a simpler life.

Happiness through acceptance, accepting what our chosen path allowed us, freed us from being jealous of our friends' successes, from living fearfully. Well, mostly. There were times when I resented an artist's success who had a working spouse that supported them, when someone got into a show and I didn't, when a friend got a commission that I thought I was going to get, when other artists sold work at shows and I didn't, etc. which only made me unhappy and depressed. Acceptance is a practice, like yoga. And when I practice it, I'm happier.

Well, once again it was my night to provide dinner last night. I did a simple meatless stir fry with naan.

Onion, garlic, celery, carrot, broccoli, yellow squash, and cabbage. After this cooked down a little more I pushed it all to the sides and added 2 beaten eggs in the middle and scrambled them, slowly mixing in the vegetables, added the cooked short grain brown rice and some soy sauce. It was really good.

 

two steps forward and one step back

Well, the kiln is only half working. First was a programming error...heating 5˚ an hour instead of 500˚ an hour for that segment. Marc reprogrammed it, all seemed well until we checked it again later at 1370˚ with the FTH error message...failure to heat, which meant it couldn't heat up as fast as it was programmed for. Front loading glass casting kilns have heating elements in the top, all three sides, and the door. Turns out only the top and door elements are coming on which means it takes longer to heat up. We think we can still get the pieces cast for this box with the kiln as is, it will just take a longer firing schedule. Once we've got all the pieces cast then he can take his time trying to figure out why the side elements aren't coming on when they're on the same circuit as the door, especially if he has to replace the coils.

The test firing is done, the face with flowers on a heart mold cool enough to take out of the kiln and it looks fine, has a little devitrification which is why it looks cloudy at the point, probably from being at a particular temperature for too long.

So the first two pieces for the box, the inlay and the top, are now in and the kiln started. Fingers crossed!

Chloe has totally ignored the scratchy cardboard, even with a sprinkle of catnip. And I'm still not convinced this cat isn't pregnant. I swear her little nipples are getting bigger and her belly is firm though when I squish around on her tummy, I don't feel any lumps in there either.

Today's predicted high is 98˚ with a real feel of 107˚. Currently 91˚, real feel 103˚. No rain forecast til Friday.

I'm at loose ends waiting for these two pieces to come out which will be several days. I should be doing a drawing or a new watercolor but I'm sort of paralyzed with indecision. I've got two books from the library and can't even settle down to read for more than 30 minutes at a time.

recently hatched baby anole.

model making and the queen of the night

We're finally getting our blue sky back but it's still hot and dry with temps in the high 90˚s. One thing about this dry weather is we have had no mosquitos to speak of so that's something at least.

My days are still basically the same...watering in the mornings and evenings, working in the studio, hiding from the heat streaming, fixing dinner my two nights, volunteering on Thursdays, sometimes yoga.

Here's the two new little corals.

Now I'm ready to compose them all in some sort of cohesive little reef. Either that or work on the feet and I still need to trim down the wax slab for the top so that it fits the bottom. Right now it's a little longer and wider which I did on purpose as it's easier to trim down than build up but I might keep it that way.

So today I arranged 6 compositions with the coral and crab. Turns out I don't have enough room for all 7 corals and the crab. I can use 5 corals and the crab or 6 corals. I put aside the one from the reproduction mold and these are the arrangements (feedback welcome)...

I'll probably play around with them a little more before I decide, before I permanently attach them to a base (and each other) for making the mold. I have to visualize what the steamed out mold is going to look like, make sure I have easy access to all the forms when I'm ready to fill the mold with glass frit.

Also today I worked out my concept for the feet. It's still very rough, still tweaking it, but I think this is it.

Three or four more days and maybe I'll be done with all the pieces and ready to set them up for the mold making process.

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Last week I noticed that the night blooming cereus had 20 buds developing, a few days later 4 had turned yellow and fallen off. Tuesday night two of the remaining 16 bloomed and I missed them. Wednesday night I set a timer for 10 PM and went out to look and they were just opening. I locked up and went to bed. I woke up at 2:30, cause that's just what I do, and laid there for half an hour trying to convince myself that I wanted to get up, throw on a shift, and go out and look. At 3 AM I had to get up to pee so since I was already up and out of bed, that's what I did. I didn't get the flashlight, just aimed my phone camera in the dark and depended on the flash. The flash tends to wash out the flowers but I did get a few tolerable pictures. Fourteen flowers open at once the air smelled provocative, sweet and lemony.

I have other flower pictures but they'll have to wait.