digging and planting and weeding and being outside during this glorious week

The weather this last week has been glorious including today...in the 50s in the morning warming to the 70s, low humidity so of course I've spent as much of it as I could outside. In no particular order I got my green beans in the ground, moved the five plumerias to their summer spots sinking two pots in the ground and planting another straight into the ground after I broke its pot last fall moving it into the garage, sprouted heavenly blue morning glory seeds to plant over at the shop, did a lot of weeding in the flower beds, added dirt to my potato plants (I'll eventually fill the big pot all the way to the top as they grow), sowed marigold and nasturtium seeds, planted moss rose, a trailing petunia, and two pentas either in pots or the ground, spread fertilizer in pots and the ground, used the trimmer to tidy up around all the flower beds and around the bluebonnets in front that are going to seed, moved the small clump of elephant garlic allium, moved some of the yellow and white butterfly ginger to the front along side of the deck, planted the firespike I rooted over the winter in the front, moved a small volunteer beautyberry, dug up the dewberry vines that had invaded the west flower bed, tossed out more zinnia seeds, planted the morning glory bush cuttings I rooted, used the chainsaw to cut out and cut up some dead branches in the photinia in the little backyard. And that's probably not even everything.

Some pics of what's blooming...

rain lilies

third round of blooms on the walking iris

clasping leaved coneflowers

queen anne's lace

byzantium gladiolas

I have a new plan for the old turtle pond. I have two smaller ponds that I grow water plants in, some of which I grew to feed Big Mama, and they are all going in the big pond now and I'll get rid of the two small ones; one round and one kidney shaped. I already had lizard tail in there because she wouldn't eat that and the other two are parrot feather and sword leaf which she did eat. The small round tub with the miniature water lily I'll keep.

Last Tuesday was the last cardio drumming class and I'm going to miss it but at least it will make it easier to get dinner done and I won't have to get all my prep done before I go to class.

The T-rex that guards the entrance to our neighborhood has acquired some new companions, a pair of velociraptors.

I went to the annual training meeting at SHARE this morning which basically consists of treating the people who come for help with dignity (for the interviewers) and not giving them out of date food or any package that has been damaged (for those of us who fill the food requests) which means checking the sell by date on everything that is donated. Sometimes people just clean out their pantries. We've gotten stuff that is years out of date, not often but it does happen. After the meeting there was a potluck lunch that I did not stay for...you're not staying? No not this time, I have things I need to do today. What I didn't tell them was that the 'things' were outside on this glorious day, way too nice to be spending it indoors and I got the last major weeding done in a flower bed by the fence that was neglected last year. I still have a couple of small areas but I need to use the trowel to get around the things I don't want to dig up.

this area was filled with weeds and stuff I did not want

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.

 

Rockport Art Festival 2019

You might remember about this time last year my sister and I went to the Rockport Art Festival. I did a post on it. We made plans to go again this year and so we did. That was today. There were a lot of the same artists this year as last but also new ones taking the places of those not back. I didn't take as many pictures this year. I don't know if there was less to get excited about or because I didn't bother with some artists that caught my attention last year even though their work was just as fine.

Anyway we wanted to get there when it opened so we left about 8 and by the time we had parked and got in and made use of the facilities after the two hour+ drive and made it to the booth of the pastel artist who does the most exquisite drawings of birds it had been open about 40 minutes. I wanted to make a beeline for James Offeman to see if he had some smaller work than the ones he had left when we came across his booth last year. Forty minutes into the show and his spot was crowded and he had already sold at least 4 of his pastels. He did have two smaller works, neither of which thrilled me into spending what he was asking though they were wonderful and I would have paid the price. I didn't take any pictures then as it was too crowded and we never went back but you can see his work in last year's post or even do an image search.

As usual, there was some great art and some head scratchers that left you wondering how the hell it got juried in. Lots of painters (24) and jewelers (22) and ceramics (14) and mixed media (16). All the other categories had 10 or less, 8 in the 'glass' category and with the exception of the guy I included here it was all amateur fused stuff.

So on to what did catch my eye for whatever reason...

Stacy Gressel - encaustic and mixed media

Barbara Francis - pottery

starfish box

Unknown jeweler - They had gone off and forgotten their cards and I didn't ask their name I narrowed it down to 12 out of the 22 jewelers based on the photos that preceded and followed but could not find any images that matched this picture. I have an idea but I'm not certain so whoever you are, remember your cards next time because I loved your work.

Bill Killian – carved wood sculpture (no internet presence)

Aly Winningham – mixed media mosaics – I love her work!!! Went by this one twice and I also posted about her work last year. I really wanted one of her pieces, want one of her pieces. When I came back her helper there asked me if I decided which one. I told her yes and no. Yes, I was going to buy one but no not today. I want one of the larger pieces than the smallest she had so I want to save up some money, got on her mailing list and they have several open houses at the studio during the year so I plan to make the trek up to the hill country for the next one.

I almost bought this one

Christopher Alan Smith – hand drawn maps – gorgeous work

Craig Riches – kinetic metal sculpture - the picture is from his website because while I picked up his card I failed to take a picture of the piece I liked

Ann Feldmeir – pottery – I would never buy one of these lidded bowls but I thought they were kind of clever

Lorie Dorpinghaus (no internet presence and I failed to get her card) - handcrafted silk Japanese shibori tie dye garments and scarves

soft and luxurious camisole, if I was a lady of leisure and means I would have bought this

Cindy Gentry – flame work bead and silver jewelry

Al and Jenny Hoeksema - pottery

Robert Derwick – carved glass and painted

work in progress - heron box

I'm still in model making phase, the sculpture part. I probably enjoy this part the most as this is the real making of the piece. What comes after is just transformation from one medium to another. I've switched from feathers to another box, the heron box. This is the last box I have planned. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be the last box I do but it is the last one waiting in the wings. The last four and this one, I've been playing with precast inlays as decoration. I cast all the pieces separate and then, with a fair amount of cold work, get the recess in the side of the box and the cast element to fit easily and then I glue the inlay in. Of course the separate wax pieces fit together as wax but there's a lot that happens between wax and glass and some tweaking is always necessary. I don't use the precast inlay as an inclusion in the wax box because in the mold, the inlay will be vertical and once molten again, the glass could start to flow out before the rest of the glass fills the space.

So far I have the inlay carved and mounted on a sheet of wax in preparation for the mold making 

and the box constructed and am carving water lines on all four sides. 

The top, which I haven't started yet, will have a feather as an ornament so in some ways, I guess I'm still working on a feather piece. I have an actual blue heron feather that I found years ago when the grandboy was here on one of his weeks. We drove out to Lake Texana State Park on the Navidad River, or what was Lake Texana State Park before the state relinquished it, and I took the boy out in a canoe and there on the opposite bank of this little lake was the feather. I made him get out and fetch it for me. I haven't worked out the feet to the piece yet.

I enjoy showing my models and their progress as I work on them though I am thinking I may stop doing that because maybe seeing the models prejudices the viewer's opinion towards a piece. My cast glass has never been monochromatic and working in the pate de verre technique was the first time I ever really worked with color. The other glass art that I have done, the commissioned etched and carved glass, has all been nothing but monochromatic. The point about showing, or not as the case may be, my finished models is sometimes people mistake them for the finished glass piece. Sort of the flip side to that are the ones who suggest casting it monochromatically because they love the way it looks in wax. I haven't so far because it requires a sea change in my thinking about whatever particular piece is being discussed and because the whole pate de verre technique is about color and color placement. I don't reject the idea out of hand but I'll have to do a piece with that in mind from the beginning.

I have done a set of pieces, the bark squares, in black and white, or rather 5 black and one white in the set so far, but I've put them aside for now because I'm still not sure what I am doing with them.

bits and pieces

We finally got some rain, 2 1/2” between Saturday night and til about noon on Monday. Everything looks much happier. Sunday, after the previous night's rain and before it began again, I went out to the garden and dug up more potatoes and got two really big ones and a handful of smaller ones. I'm supposed to keep all the little ones for seed potatoes for a fall crop, so say all the country boys in the neighborhood.

Since so many of you were interested in the roasted tomato sauce, here's the recipe I found on-line:

5-6 pounds medium or small tomatoes, stems removed

1 medium head of garlic, peeled (you can chop the garlic if you want but can keep cloves whole if you'd like)

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Place the tomatoes on large baking sheet with a raised 1-inch lip. Add the garlic cloves and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Use your fingers to mix well to coat. Top with torn basil leaves and season with kosher (I used pink himalayan) salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 4 hours or until tomatoes are soft and bursting (it was 3 hrs and about 20 minutes or so for me so keep an eye on them). Allow to cool then pour into a blender in batches. Pulse 2-3 times then blend for 1 minute or until desired chunkiness. Pour into quart jars or pour into freezer bags to freeze flat. Will keep in the refrigerator for 1 week or 4 months in the freezer.

a moth and a butterfly

You might remember my birthday was last month. I think I mentioned it in a previous post. Our usual celebration is a movie and dinner but we had to wait until the following Friday since the movie I wanted to see, Guardians Of The Galaxy II, didn't come out til then and it even starred my only still living heartthrob, Kurt Russell. I'll spare you the trailer because if you are a GOTG fan, you've already seen it. However the other thing about my birthdays is that I buy my own present. This year I bought a small stone sculpture by fabulous stone sculptor Jennifer Tetlow who lives and works in North Yorkshire, England. I've followed Jennifer's work for several years and I really love her aesthetic so I finally am the proud owner of one of her pieces...Flutter.

my pink crinum lily

One last item of note...another surprise in the mailbox, Barbara at Kittrell/Riffkind Gallery sold another piece for us. I guess if she's going to keep doing that, I need to start making some new work.

the Mimi decapitated

I woke up Friday morning to let the dog out and looked up to see the flower head of The Mimi had fallen off. Again. It's been just a little over two years since we got it back after being repaired the last time. Which was the second time we had it repaired. The first time we had it repaired, I had gone outside to see the whole thing laying on the ground, broken off at ground level, the spidery fingers of the flower scattered all over. This was when it was still at the city house.

This was not my favorite of Lee's outdoor sculptures but at the time I bought it about 10 years ago, he had only three or four in the show and while there was another one I liked a little better, mostly because of the colors, I decided on this one because it seemed a little more unique. I guess I know why, now, he didn't do more like this one. I don't know if it is a bad design (the head is actually very light) or if the material he built it from was already too far gone (the wood at the break is very soft and spongy), but regardless, the Mimi is headless again.

We haven't taken down the stalk yet, no where to put it except over at the shop, and I'm sure that 28 hours of rain we got starting Saturday hasn't done it any good with the raw wood being exposed. In retrospect, I guess I should have covered the broken end with a plastic bag.

We're thinking of ways we might try to fix it, Lee certainly can't since he died shortly after repairing it this last time, but anything we could do won't make it look pristine. If all else fails, I'll figure out a way to mount the flower head somewhere in the garden.