2011 

Early Saturday News Year Eve

Crab cakes, Singing and "Let's Make A Deal" and Happy New Year.

I thought I would post how I make my crab cakes.  There are lots of recipes I'm sure, but this one suits us just fine.  We learned it from our Chef friend Uwe about two years ago and make it for our parties and to help out at fund-raisers.

I doubled the recipe for this party.   This made 51  2-3 bite sized cakes.  Sue is making some tartar sauce.  It has 1cup red onion, 4tsp garlic, 2 jalapeno (seeded), 4tbs cilantro, 3tbs thyme, 3tbs tarragon, 10tbs (one small container) mascarpone cheese, ½cup mayonnaise, 2tbs lemon juice, 2tsp zest and 1cup panko breadcrumbs.

Garlic, jalapeno (seeded), red onion and cilantro, minced and ready.

This is a reason I love cooking, scenes like this one

All those ingredients from above gets mixed with 2lbs of lumb crab meat.  You can use claw meat as well or a mixture of the two.

I try to be very gentle with the crab as I mix everything together, although it is important to get a consistent mixture, I love having cakes with lumps of meat in there, and lots of it!

So after it's been mixed very gently it gets formed into these cakes.  We used an 1/8 cup measurer for this batch of 40.  We pankoed the tray to lay the cakes on, then covered the cakes with more panko, covered the tray and left in the fridge overnight.  Tomorrow they will prepare for the hot oil.

I'll use flour, crushed ritz crackers, a little paprika, salt and panko.  Blend it all, coat the crab cake and dip into the egg wash and back into the crust mix completely coating.  Then dip them into 350 degree oil, maintaining carefully that temperature.  This will fry those babies and keep the oil from penetrating into the crab mixture, they will be crispy on the outside and wonderful on the inside.

New Year's Eve Party at the Gallery

Well, I don't know how many parties we've had in the gallery over the years, poetry readings, art workshops, drum workshops, plays, music.  We even had a ping pong party in there.

I know we've had quite a few New Year's eve parties, I can think of one where over 50 people came and it was so hot outside that year we had both of the gallery doors open like a summer evening.

This year we have an interesting line up.  The Jay Singers will be performing and acting in places.  Each will have a nice solo performance and they all sing together as well.  Annie sings a piece from Fiddler on the Roof.

Colleen sing's "People" and Kathy and Tara act out a song called "Sisters".

Sam is the music director

After the music section I will offer up "Let's Make A Deal", based on the original TV Game Show.  We played it once before about 6 years ago and our friend Herb MC'd for us and did a wonderful job.  This year I'll do the MCing.  We have a really nice assortment of gifts to trade for.

Then quickly after hosting the game I have to pop my spinach croquettes into the hot oil and immediately after that the crab cakes go in.  We'll have a pot luck thing going on.

We have a projector because one of the Singers songs requires a video to be shown as well.  Afterwards I will use the projector to show a live website of Times Square.

I have big plans for 2012, I'll have to write down my objectives next time.

Happy New Year, be safe.

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Wednesday December 21

Blog apology, thistle pots and quilting

I feel I must apologize to my blog for not visiting.  I feel terrible.  All my new plans to have videos up and running fell apart.  I shot a lot of footage of showing how Sue makes her thistle pots but for some reason my computer runs out of memory and I can't do anything with it.  It's so frustrating as anyone with a computer knows from time to time.  I had footage of our Holiday Sale too and how the gallery looked but that's not going to happen either.  So for now it's back to photos......

Sue got a wonderful order for 12 thistle pots, some with legs.  After I saw all the legged thistle pots it made me think of aliens from space, we fooled around with the idea of Sue pursuing a show of just all size thistle pots.  Some could be displayed in a diorama kind of display, and the background could be from the moon or another planet.

I've been quilting.  My Mom is going to be a great-grandmother for the third time this coming spring and she is making a quilt for the baby boy.  However this time she needs a lot of help.

Mom is 94 and pretty feeble.  On oxygen most days and 50% of the time uses a wheelchair to get around her house.  Although she struggle physically, mentally she's right on top of things.

This project has been going on for two months now.  We've shopped for fabric three times, and changed the quilt design about five times, but now we are on track.

I've cut fabric into the proper thickness, then put sewing lines a quarter of an inch indent from the sides, ironed and stacked.  So there's a nice selection of colors and patterns to choose from.

Mom likes to hand sew, and she'll do that when she's having a "good" day.  

Sue showed me how to use the sewing machine, and I'm still learning and improving but I've finished my first square.  The colors will be yellows and blues, and the pattern is a "Log Cabin" design.

Much of my time goes to helping Mom these days, but I am planning on some studio work real soon.  I need to prioritize my time again for myself if I want to get anything creative done.  The problem is I spend a lot of time on the piano and drums too.

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Thursday November 10

Video Success

Sue and I have been fooling around with video on our digital cameras.  It's so easy to video something, take the gizmo out, pop it in your computer, edit the video on Adobe Premier Elements and upload to my youtube channel.  Then I can embed it here.

How about that!  That was my first.  It's fun.

I'll be doing more of this.  I want to replace our "Tours of the Creative Source" on our website, which now is with still photos and text, I think I'll keep that option but also have the video selection viewers can watch as well.

This could be fun.

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Sunday November 6

Book party project, pottery and ideas

One of our local libraries put the request out for anyone interested in doing a project at the library.  I quickly remembered when we use to have the Book Parties in our gallery.  Back then we made it a pot luck and prepared special invitations, some of them were puzzles that had to be figured out.  People would come to the party not really knowing what was going to happen.  But they have turned out to be some of our best parties.

So....I thought of that and wanted to bring this idea to the Library.  What better place!

Seventeen adults and children passed through and created a book or two from this project idea.  You decorate a piece of paper, then with a series of folds and one cut you fold the paper into pages of a book.  Some of what you decorated is now upside down and totally out of context from the full decoration.  That is where you begin to write you book.  Look at the cover, come up with a title and write the book.

Sue and I did several of these pot luck book parties in the gallery and I created web pages that are part of the EatingArt archives section of this site.  One of the parties is from 2001 and it is here, the other is from 2006 and it is here.  At the bottom of the pages are links to the actual books that were made.

This group of young ladies brought their own leaves to color and use as a stamp, and they made some great patterns and designs on their papers.

Two weeks to the Holiday Sale, it's coming on way too fast for me.  Sue is busy everyday right now, making pottery, glazing and firing kilns.

Sue has these pots drying today.  Plates of a sort that are textured and a base is put on the bottom to lift them slightly.  I love the visuals that the textured patterns reflect.

It is said that an image is worth a thousand words, and it can be true.  We are currently working on making video's available through youtube, showing some of the work and techniques that we use.

I've been spending more time on youtube than on the tv.  I search for music videos a lot but I'm also interested in talks by university professors, and people who drum or act.  Like I've been working on the Rolling Stones song, "Angie" on the piano.  I wanted to see the Stones doing the song and I found them on youtube, but I also found many other just regular people like myself who were playing and uploading their versions of the songs and it was very inspirational.

It reminded me of when I was in art school and what a creative environment that was, to walk around the studio and see what everyone was doing.  The internet and youtube are kinda like that in that you can see what everyone is doing around the world.

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Saturday October 31

Mussels, Fresh Kiln, Tower Album III

It's Halloween night, I have to keep reminding myself, because I don't have any children to do the reminding for me anymore.  We always had a plan of attack for this night and the kids always got a lot of candy.  Once when Ula was here as our foreign exchange student she was so excited about Halloween, because apparently in Poland they don't have this.  She was beside herself waiting for the evening to come.

Sue and I love mussels.  We have a wonderful recipe we learned from Steve (Uwe) Riehs (gratifood.com).  Most other recipes I've seen for mussels are much simpler, just oil, garlic and basil.

This recipe is a little more involved, but not to, it also involves bacon.......ahh.....I have your attention now.  2 poblano peppers, half an onion, 6 cloves of garlic, a cup of chicken or veggy broth, blend.  (Crackers and goat cheese for a snack).  In a 6 quart stock pot, a little oil and just a little thick bits of bacon, brown and add the poblano blend, heat for a minute and add the mussels.  Stir and cook covered for 3 to 4 minutes until they open.  

In this photo I just put the mussels in, I forgot to take a photo after they were done, I was too hungry !!    Remove from heat, add juice from 1 orange along with some zest (because its free) and a bunch of basil and your ready.  Be sure to have a nice baguette ready to soak up the broth.

Here's Sue glazing a multi-cultural mug.

And here's the fresh kiln.

This kiln was about one third orders and I believe that from here on out all pottery will be for the sale, which takes place on November 19th and 20th.  Sue is going to try and have some pottery available on the website for web sales, all pottery will be 25% off.

Tower Album III

This book begins with ripping sheets of Reeves BFK, 100% cotton paper from France.  It's the same paper I use in printmaking and is also good for watercolor.  The tower album  has a binding that allows it to expand to accept photographs and cut-outs, such as scrap-booking.

On 30 sheets I place a 3/4 inch template and with a folder tool I made a score along the paper enabling me to fold the paper very accurately.

The paper has a fold on one end of 3/4's of an inch, so that when all stacked together the binding side will be thicker than the other side.  The fold accommodates whatever will eventually be added to the page by the owner.

The paper block is drilled through in four places and linen thread is tied to secure the block

The thread gets cut very close to the block.

Binders board is prepared.  One piece is cut to the correct size while the other has a gap which will allow a hinge to work

The hinge is a piece of linen tape.  This is the basis of a Japanese Stab binding.  A binding that works very well for this sort of book.  

I chose a wonderful piece of hand marbleized paper from an artist in Oregon for the book cover, and for the end sheets which you can't see here I have a Japanese paper.  The tower has a wonderful splotch of Oxblood Red on top, I thought it would work with the colors in this paper.

You can see more of this book and others here at my Book Arts site.

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Saturday October 22

Recording,  throwing pots and poetry

Sue's throwing pots and getting ready for her big pottery sale the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I'm suggesting we call it, "Occupy our Gallery and come to our Tea Party".
Because Sue always has tea and cookies for her sale.  I don't know about the name in this climate, but I think it would be fun.

Sue use to have the big tea pot sale, but after several years I think everyone who wanted one or gave them away did so and we saturated the local market.  But Sue will still have a nice selection of traditional and foot teapots for 25% off.

Right now Sue is on hold with the cold that I had last week.  Now my Mom has it too and I have to pay careful attention to her health now while she works it through her system.  Mostly it was one day of sore throat and a week of sniffles, so I'm hoping it will be the same with Mom and Sue.

I'm back in the Recording Studio, I should come up with a name for my studio.  I just turned, "Journey up Gill Brook to Indian Head", into an mp3, you can listen here, that's my Adirondack Drummer web site, give it a moment to load on a separate page.

I've hiked Gill Brook many times, meditating at all the waterfalls, drawing them and mindfully walking onto the next one.  I wanted to capture the wonderfully subtle changes in the sounds of one little waterfall to the next.  Then everything changes as you climb up to Indian Head outlook

I had written a poem about Gill Brook, titled, "Stream of Sound" and I would like to somehow incorporate the drum piece and the poems, this will be a work in progress.  Here's the poem.

Stream of Sound (on Gill Brook)

It might turn out to be that I do the poem and drum piece separately, reading the poem first and them drumming the rhythms.

My immediate recording goals are to finish the five pieces I don't have up on the Adirondack Drummer website as yet.  I'm relatively happy with the five that are up there, though I feel I can do better, but I'm still learning to record.  The ones with poetry and percussion are the hardest to record, because I can't seem to do them at the same time and I'm learning to get a good dubbing of my voice in afterwards.

Another thing I want to record is Sue's Udu's and Xylophones.

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Sunday October 16

First date, winter ready and back to work

When I was going through the scrapbook recently I came across this.

Sue and Terry, November 1981 at Steinhoffs Inn Wilmington
We were having dinner after the craft show we organized for
Mountain Artists of NY.  The photo was taken by Dick Parks.

I was a vendor at the 1981 Lake Placid Horse show, where I met Stevie Bowman, Jeri Wright and Annoel Krider.  We put together a party at Stevie's house for local artists and craftspeople to meet one another.  At that party and I guess a subsequent meeting we organized a craft show at Steinhoffs Inn.  I had experience in putting shows on and Sue joined me.  I guess you could say this was our first date.

Lately we've been out of the studio more than inside.

One day Sue went over to Scotts when he was pressing cider from his trees.  Sue loves cider, I'm not such a big fan.

I'm a bigger fan of goat cheese.  This is Asgaard Lane to the Asgaard Farm in AuSable Forks.  They are open on Saturday mornings and they sell organic meats and cheeses.

Years ago I did an etching of this lane.

Here's the scene outside our house's front door.  The gallery deck is behind the bush on the left and Hamlin Mountain across the street is under a cloud.  Autumn was a little later, very pretty, but our large maple which usually turns heads, stops buses and leaf peepers never got to its bright red this year.  But the bright orange was spectacular.

It's that time of year to finish up the outside chores and get ready for the inevitability of winter. I haven't as yet put away the outside chairs, there's still going to be lots of nice days to sit outside.

Sue's back in the studio, this is her second day of mug making.  We have a month until the Holiday Sale, the weekend before Thanksgiving.  Sue will be making a page of sale items on the website, if we don't have your email address....send it over and you will find out when the Website Sale begins.

This is why I wanted to have apprentices.  To cut and prepare as much of this work as possible.  When I got a response of 14 people I choose two and then Tropical Irene came to town.  My apprentices never came to help, because they needed to help themselves and their neighbors from the storm damage.  There are so many components to this piano hinge binding, staining skewers, cutting twigs off my bushes, folding and cutting paper.........I have made about 30 of them and I have ten others in the wings.  I will never make them again.

Perkey's Elves came to visit and we bought some of her Holiday work,  Tree ornaments and balsam pillows.  Mrs. Perkey is in her 80's I imagine and makes these wonderful crafts out of birch bark.  We haven't seen her for a couple of years, so this is fun to have her wonderful craft work again.

Sue made a new batch of "Warmers".  She picked out some wonderful fabric designs and filled them with seed corn.  Every year she make a batch for sale in the gallery.

Here's the madness in my studio....a picture is worth a thousand words.

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Sunday October 2

Food Prep, Studio Work, Tour and Life Thoughts

First off we've canned our grapes and apples, Sue did a wonderful job

Here's our apple jelly and today we did grape jelly, still have apple sauce to make, but we're making good use of this wonderful crop of apples this year.

I also made a huge batch of Onion Soup, seen above.  I caramelized the onions real slow for three hours, the baguette is from Lake Flower Bakery and the cheese is from Clover Mead Farm.  I froze the soup and now we have eight servings, waiting.......

Sue made this wonderful child's tea set, complete service for six, with little plates and a creamer and sugar.  It's going to the Lake Placid Center for the Arts as a fundraiser.

Studio Tour

It was disappointing, but also welcoming.  Here's why.  We pay $50, that's it, we don't do anything else except mail out some postcards and tell our customers.  That's welcoming.  

Compared to the Jay Tour we reached about 20% of what we would make in a good year.  That's disappointing.  We spend a lot of time in the studio getting ready for the tour, but we still have the work, so that's really not a loss.  

Of course gas prices, the general malaise of the economy and people's confidence in the future I'm sure affects the outcome of all business deals these days.

Which takes me to wondering about the next year of business and life.  Both of my daughters are working, but I worry about them continuing in their jobs.  You never know when you work for someone in an environment like we have today.  Corrine informed us that a friend was recently let go of her job with no advance notice.

It appears to Sue and I that there is going to be a new generation that is going to take a long time getting their feet on the ground to drive this economy.  Everyone seemed surprised when the crash occurred in 2008, but we had predicted it.  Yep, two artists in Jay predicted something bad was happening.  We began seeing the middle class disappearing from 2003 on.  We witnessed a lot of credit card use and just a general reluctance of politicians to do anything to reign in what they were calling American Exceptionalism.  Like it was our right to use as many resources as we could in the short life spans that we have.

Well, it appears now that future generations will pay for this exceptionalism that we enjoyed.  Little towns and shops everywhere will pay for the fact that the middle class was sold out to other countries.  That the big corporations that made their profits from the backs of our citizens, from the roads of our country, from the lives of its soldiers, are keeping their profits overseas, away from jobs and taxes here in the country that made them great.

Regardless of what your politics are you can't deny the country is in a mess, and it didn't start with a Republican or Democrat......it started with greed, in my opinion.

I would like to see us go back to a time with Mom and Pop shops, the local butcher, shoe repair, grocery....etc.....that's what I grew up with in New York City.  I would love to see more products made in this country and more people shopping locally.  I would like to see more people satisfied with living their lives with simpler things.  Like pottery and art, just as an example.

I'm not a big fan of free trade.  I'm still trying to find what it has done for me.  We get old food shipped thousands of miles to our shores, junk products from China, made by questionable labor.  Our corporations that have regulations here against using pesticides go overseas to use their pesticides and they wind back up on our tables anyway.  It just doesn't make sense.

It's hard these day's not to slip into a political discussion, or a weather related talk.  There is much going on, and it will continue.  We just all try to do the best we can, I wish those with the power to make true change would do the best they can too.

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Friday September 23

Studio Tour, Gardening, Canning and Freezing

It just got busy around here.  Studio Tour weekend, the apples and grapes are ripe, if we don't get the grapes soon the raccoons will eat them.

So we secured them with a mesh cover while they finish ripening.  After the tour we will make apple sauce and apple jelly, then work on the grapes.

We've almost always have had a vegetable garden in the back.  When the girls were growing up we grew a lot.  We even had a pretty good size corn field one year.  I can picture the kids picking the carrots, washing and eating them.  I remember when we hired Annie Wise, a friend and Sheppard, to watch after Emily during the summer months when we were busy.  They would stroll through the garden sampling the bounty.

This year we had problems in the spring.  It was too wet.  Our tiller broke.  We were too busy.  We started some seeds as we always do, but there was such a lack of sunshine that it was just terribly hard this year.

I guess that's why I'm so excited about the apples and grapes.  We made and froze seven apple pies yesterday.

With the price of food and fuel and absolutely everything, we are making a concerted effort to economize.  Canning and freezing berries and vegetables just makes a lot of sense to us right now.  We always have too much during the summer and not enough in the winter and I really dislike buying food from Mexico and Chile.  (Not that there's anything wrong with those countries, except for maybe the civil war going on in Mexico.  There might even be one in Chile and I wouldn't know right now, there's just too much going on here.)

Here's what the gallery entrance will look like for Studio Tour this year.  We got a good deal on 10 mum plants, love the colors.  In August we planted two very nice Asters.  The Aster pedals are very good in paper so I have to remember to peel them after this weekend and dry them for my next paper making episode.

Studio Tour 2011

This is the third year we're doing the tour with the Adirondack Artists Guild in Saranac Lake.  They do the tour in the Autumn, we always did ours during the summer months.

Initially the Jay Artisans Studio Tour was the second weekend in July.  The second was noted because it was always a slow weekend coming off of the Fourth of July.  Then the Ironman Race decided that was the weekend they were going to race.  Of course no one bothered to poll the businesses in town as to whether this was a good idea for our tourist dependant businesses and so we moved the Jay Tour to the second weekend in August.

I dug into the archives on my cloud and found this from 2003.  Cheri Cross went out and got sponsors for the tour so we raised move printing money.  I worked on the brochure.

By 2005 we were combining the JEMS brochure with the Studio Tour brochure, I think this was Fred's idea, it was also used to promote Tourism for Jay. I did the brochure and Cheri got our advertisers 2007 was my last year doing it, because it was too much of a hassle dealing with all the details it takes to put it together.  I had some serious fallings out with people and I just decided it was better use of my time to look after number one and our own business. Joan took the Tour over for two years and did a wonderful job.  It was a real treat to just pay our $50 entry and sit back for the benefits.  I never got paid for all the time spent on the brochure, gathering info and dealing with people. That's why we love this new Tour too.

Sue was the impetus to get us involved in the Saranac Lake Tour.  They get a grant and a large distribution.  There are over 30 studios to visit and it goes for three days.

We are very happy to be a part of it.  We don't see nearly as many people over here as they do in Saranac Lake and compared to our Jay tour it's probably less than 25%, but ours was in the heart of summer, and to have this Tour happen on a Fall Foliage weekend works really well.  This year we will be demonstrating, wheel throwing, clay instruments, raku and book binding.

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Wednesday September 7

Orders, new designs and cutting lottsa paper

Goblet sales had slowed down for this summer and then out of the blue four separate orders came in.

Sometimes customers want to have the wording around the rim specialized, I don't think Sue charges extra for that.  She keeps a list of her sayings posted somewhere in the studio, so she doesn't have to come up with new sayings each time.

We've never understood how retail sales work, but after being in business for so long we have seen patterns emerge.  One of the patterns is like these orders for goblets.  Goblet sales really were lax over the summer, usually it's one of the more dependable items, people are always buying them for gifts.  Then out of the blue come four orders.

Sometimes in the gallery we'll notice something that is just sitting there for the longest time, we will pay attention to it and move it, or turn it around or something like that, and very soon after it will sell.  No kidding.  We've seen it so much it's spooky.  It's like we put our attention and energy into the piece and customers were drawn to the energy that was still there.  We've talked with Lee & Cheri from the Jay Craft Center about this and they totally agree in this phenomenon.

Recently Sue did some Raku. We had a new propane tank put in and we tested it, it worked fine as you can see. I love her shapes they are so organic and alive. I'm her biggest fan.

A while back I advertised for apprentices to help me cut paper.  I got a big response from the Jay News and chose two.  One fellow I just never seemed to hook up with and he lived over by Styles Brook which flooded really bad, so I might not hear from him again, as he was a professor in a university and must be back at school by now.  My other apprentice still might work, but she teaches pre-school and we have yet to work out a time.  So....I started the dreaded cutting of signatures for forty books.

I have a cardboard template I made, line up the slots and cut away, I have 6 sheets of paper there, so I'm cutting through 12 layers all together once folded.  This is why I hate doing this part of the book, it's so tedious and hand numbing.

I'll also take some photos when I weave the pages and covers together, then I'll make a creative tour of the Piano Hinge book and put it on my Bookarts website.

Sue unloaded a kiln yesterday.

I thought this piece was really cool.  Sue was pinching this pot with the neck off to one side when she did a demonstration for someone to show them how her molds work.  She chose the cat mold and then she didn't want to waste the cat so she attached it to the pinch pot she was working on.  That's how this pot came about.  I love the little pink tongue.

I noticed this mug came out of the kiln, I love her blueberry design, I hadn't seen it on a mug before.

This is Sue's new blue glaze and new Multicultural design.  It's based on Henna designs and Sue keeps some ideas on a sheet of paper tacked up in her studio.

The thought just occurred to me about making an Eating Art page about all the things we have hanging in our studios. Recently I heard Sue telling a customer about the energy she receives from the gourds she has hanging in her studio.  They wanted to buy one and she wouldn't sell it, and that was the reason. Sue had a wall of admiration until recently, we had to move it when we put the pellet stove in.  It contained letters and cards from people and groups that Sue has made work for or did volunteer work for.  We'll have to find another place to put it. In my studio I seem to have a lot of written words on the walls, or sketches of ideas.

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Monday September 5

The Flood

The flood of August 28-29 in the valley of the East Branch of the AuSable River was devastating to many families and the community at large.

First off we had no damage, I was busy for three days running a generator for my Mom who was on oxygen, cooking and cleaning, etc.....

We have friends who lost their homes, some of them are salvageable but will have to be stripped of sheetrock and probably re-wired.

Luckily we only lost a week of business as roads into Jay were cut off and detours abounded.  We continue to help out where we can.

I feel really lucky and we are giving back to the community in many ways, but I also wonder about what is going on, with almost everything.

This flood was seven feet above the former high water mark, houses flooded that never flooded before in 150 years of living in the valley. That was pretty unusual.

I'm concerned that the weather is really affecting business in general, that the government, both sides, have really affected business too.  There just seems to be an incredible greed and corruption that has eaten away at the fabric of our Government.  I know business is good if your a very large international company, because they've moved all their jobs overseas for cheap labor, but that's left a huge portion of country out of the middle class and thus, out of small mom and pop business like the one Sue and I run.

I know it's a fact.  We have many friends who are just like us, run really small businesses and we are all in the same boat.  The fabric of this country is changing and I don't know it or like it.

So this has turned from weather into politics and that is never good.  ha ha ha

I guess it's just frustration with everything.  We have close to 30 years of business in the Adirondacks, many ups and downs, making it totally as craftspeople.  Raising two thriving daughters, contributing to the community and the Adirondacks in so many ways.  Making a difference I will dare say.  And now facing an uncertain future, with the weather and the economy.

Like so many others.

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Friday August 26

Piano hinge books and summer business

It's been a great summer for the weather, warm and sunny.  We are waiting for what will remain of Hurricane Irene.  With any weather event there's always the worry of damage to our property.  It's been so expensive and time consuming to keep up on the gallery and studio buildings, let alone our house and my Mother's house.  We're making a plan to re-do the roofs of the business, this time in metal.  I can't believe we're coming up on 16 years that the new gallery has been there.  We have been in business a total of 28 years, we had 12 years in the little gallery, that is now an office.

Gallery business is so different.  People are spending less and there are less tourists around.  Thank goodness we have 28 years of business with us, because we have so many great customers who regularly shop here for themselves or for gifts.

Sue and I had but one customer today, she was visiting with a long time customer of ours and she made our day.  We have seen over the years that the final week of August really gets quiet as people return home and to school.  We don't expect much this weekend because of the coming weather.

I've been prepping my hard cover piano hinge books.  I'm making 40 of them, so I need a lot of binders boards and stained skewer sticks.

I decorate my own paper using my paste paint recipe.  It's very simple. Boil 10 parts water to one part corn starch, to a pudding consistency.  Add 2 to 3 parts acrylic paint and 2 parts modge podge glue.  That's it, and it's very durable. I will get four covers from this sheet, enough for two books

I use a template to cut my paper, glue the board in place, then glue and fold the edges.
For the piano hinge, since I'm using a hard cover I have to have a hollow spine, so I only glue the tip and fold the unglued part over.

Eventually this hollow spine will be sectioned by a series of cuts that will allow it to be woven into the body of the book

Here's what 60 book covers for 30 books looks like.

Tomorrow will be a good day to finish the remaining 10 books.  Next week I'm hoping to meet up with my apprentices and get the pages cut to and ready to be woven.

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Wednesday August 17

Fresh Kilns and Calling for an Apprentice

Sue didn't do a Farmers Market last week because she needed the time to make pottery, and she just finished a large and small kiln.

Here are the contents of the large kiln.  Sue has developed a new blue and black glaze as well as some new designs.

The small kiln doesn't usually get fired to a glaze temperature, Sue uses it mostly to bisque the pottery.  It does a nice job when it does go to full temperature, both kilns are within three years old and both are run by digital systems.  They have been very acurate, but we've already replaced two relays in the smaller kiln.  It's not expensive or hard to do, but it puts the kiln out of work for a couple of weeks till the part arrives.

I haven't been writing because it's been busy in the gallery and busy in our lives.  We've taken advantage of the cultural scene in the Adirondacks, having gone to several plays and concerts.

But now I'm gearing up to make some books.  In September we are part of the Studio Tour created by the Artists Guild in Saranac Lake.  It isn't nearly as good as the tour we use to put on for the artists in Jay, but we're hoping that over the years it will build into a very profitable weekend.  This will be our third year and there are more participants in Jay this time and that should make it more worth peoples time to come here.  I think the first year it was just us and the Jay Craft Center and then next year it was four and now I think we have six located in Jay and more in Wilmington.

On Sunday of the tour I'm doing a book binding demo, of the Piano Hinge binding.  I want to have examples of the book in each stage of creation and then I want to have plenty of books to sell, because I will offer them at half price for that day.

There is so much cutting to do with this book, that I sent the word out, via Jay Community News, requesting an apprentice.  I received 12 requests and decided to choose two because there were so many.  The apprentices will cut the notches out of the paper for several hours.  I will go over the whole book making process with them and they will weave together two books for themselves as well.

If this works well, I have other books that need lots of cutting.

So today I cut some boards and papers and glued some test pieces to make sure I've got it right and the glue is good and it's a go.

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Friday July 29

Drying Pots

Although we just had a wonderful period of sunny, hot and dry weather now we are having rain and humidity and no pottery is drying in the studio.  Sue has pottery from a couple of days piling up and waiting to dry, right now she has two fans going, because she wants to run a bisque fire tonight.

Sue has colanders she's trying to dry and a group of pendants that have a horse image on them, they were ordered by the Morgan Horse Farm in Vermont.

The Ikibanas were made yesterday and still quite wet, they are under the fan now too.
It will be hot in the studio tomorrow with the bisque kiln going.

I saw Sue working on this interesting pinch pot.  The cat is from a mold she had made years ago, she was demonstrating her mold techniques (Sue makes all her own molds, from clay sculptures that she creates) to someone and used the cat, so she wanted to put the piece somewhere and attached it to this pot.

So the studio is a beehive of Sue activity, she is trying desperately to keep up with her pottery sales.

I'm working on construction projects here and at my Mom's house, man the gallery when I can, do my web work and play piano.  At present.

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Tuesday July 19,

Hot Days of Summer

Ahh....can't enough of these summer days.  Love to feel the warm ground on my feet.  I feel really restricted when I wear shoes or sandals, so I go barefoot most of the summer and in the winter I wear socks.  There are some days when my feet never touch a shoe, that is a good day.

Gallery business is slow, so we made the outside of the gallery look as if something big were happening over the weekend......

We put the canopy up, Sue put out her craft show displays, I put a painting on the outside wall.  I put a couple of "Pottery" banners up on the corner road side signs and we waited.

Saturday was a good day, we had several new customers.  The first lady to stop by said she's been driving by for years and always wondered about us, she was on her way to play golf in Placid, but she bought a nice bowl and said she'd be back.  So Saturday turned into an old fashioned summer business day.  Sunday though was a bomb.  One week to "The Ironman Race" and we will have to close for the day.  There are only 8 or 9 summer weekends for businesses like ours and they have taken one away.

Now I love bike riding, swimming and running, and I admire the athletes who participate in the grueling Iron race, I just wish they would close someone else's road for the day.  As an Adirondack business in the Town of Jay, it's been a challenge to make a living as an artist here.  We have had to use our creativity and raw energy endlessly to make it happen.

In addition I believe the "Race" has destroyed business the whole week prior to the event, because people now know that if you are driving in this area you have to deal with hundreds of bicycles on the roads, so they just don't come here.  Us and the Jay Craft Center agree that business for this whole week is terrible and the whole "Ironman" weekend is a bomb for our business.

It would have been nice had the Town consulted with business owners who would be affected by the race requirements that they close half of our most important roads in town for the day.

Last year Sue and I went away for the whole weekend and visited with Emily in Rochester, this year Corrine is coming home and we'll celebrate my 63rd birthday.  I'm planning on drumming the bikers up the hill as long as I'm going to be here.  I not a total sour puss....

Here's one of my fantasies...... learn about ten good blues tunes on piano and go to some bar and customers put bread in my jar.......I think I wrote about this already.  I'm working on it everyday.  Sue took some photos of me practicing "Misty".  Sometime's I sing along, but right now I need total concentration on my piano playing.

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July 14,

Fresh Kiln

Long stretches of silence this summer, unlike from five years ago when one of us would be in the gallery doing business all day long.  We're not seeing tourists come through our neck of the woods this year.  Yet.  

We still are busy though, Sue did the farmers market in Lake Placid today and had a kiln cooling and also worked on making a dozen small plates.  I looked after the quiet gallery, we had one good customer at the end of the day.  After being in business for 28 years we've built up quite a lot of love out there and customer/friends always come around when their in town.

A friend came by and we shagged golf balls into the woods, I'm keeping a club to practice my swing.  I use to play golf on Long Island, but when I moved up here I left everything behind that didn't have to do with art.  So I haven't played in 30 years.

I played a lot of piano today too.  I'm working on "Misty", I'm so happy when I play piano, I get so lost.  Like when I use to do artwork.  I just am having so much trouble getting into any artwork right now.  The only thing that actually appeals to me lately would be building some of my clay towers, firing them and then constructing books for them.  I've been eyeing the slab roller when I walk by it and picturing a project going on there.  That's a good sign.

After Sue came home from the market, which isn't up to par either, she emptied her kiln.  Let's see  what was in there.

Here is what I am most excited about, the Butter Dishes.  Back on June 28th I took pictures of them in their raw state.  Here they are finished.  Love the Cow.  I'm sure they will go fast, I need to get some good pictures tomorrow.

Lately the kilns have had a good amount of orders in them, that is so good in this economic climate to be out ahead of selling what you are making.  In Sue's case I'm sure it's because her work is of the highest quality and creativity.

A dinnerware set that was sold off the website as a bridal registry.  Five piece service for eight.

Platters with the leaf design

Bowls with the leaf design

Sue always has something drying, something ready to bisque and glaze.  This time of year she fires about three kilns a month.

Sue empties the whole kiln and records a list of all the pottery.  She's been doing this for many years, it enables her to tell at a glance what she should make for the coming year, what she should stop making, etc.

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July 9,

Music Day

Today was a music day.  It actually started last night when Sue and I attended the second night of "Opus" at the Recovery Lounge in Upper Jay.  It was an excellent performance and probably the best I've seen there.  Of course excluding the one's I wasn't able to see there, because I was in them.

I was  wired from the play last night, almost like I had performed.  It was that good for me.  I've been thinking a lot about music and loved the way that Bob's character, Dorian, described the sexual nature of the music he was playing.  Just several days before I had been telling Sue of a goal I've developed for my piano playing.  I want to be able to play a small repertoire of bluesy tunes, enough to be able to go into a piano bar and have people "put bread in my jar".  I was describing what it's like for me to get lost in the music, the only comparison is having sexual energy welling up inside and taking over.

I've had a piano ever since I was ten or so.  Took lessons twice in my life and have continuously played all these years.  Presently and for 20 years we've had an upright that belongs to Sue.  Although she doesn't play much, she can read music enough to play a  tune, she's better at guitar and I love listening to her play.

Playing piano has been a struggle for me, I really have to work at it, it doesn't come easy.  For years while the girls were growing up I worked on Beatles tunes, but now I'm getting back to my blues roots, whatever that means.  I'm working on "Misty" at present.  I'm going to be working on "St. Louis Blues" which I already know somewhat.  Another one I'm seriously looking at is "Bell Bottom Blues".

I go to a place on the web to buy music, it's called Music Notes, and I can print out the music and listen to it on an application from their site.

So....I played piano a lot today, but I also was in the gallery with customers and one woman wanted to buy my drums.  I told her they weren't for sale, and of course we got to talking about drums.  She is from India, her husband is from the US and has lived in India for quite some time it sounds like.  He happened to have some wonderful music from Shujaat Khan on sitar and gave me a copy.  At the same time a good friend Erdvidlas came in, he's given me a wonderful collection of Indian, Asian and Middle Eastern music.  When I work in my studio it's usually to sitar music.  So this developed into a social event in the gallery, especially when they spotted my sitar.

You never know what adventure will happen in the gallery.  After being in business for 28 years, we've met a lot of people and made a lot of friends.

Everyday in the gallery is like a blank canvas.

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July 4,

Independence

The summer season is off and running.  We pretty much stay close to home during the summer because a large part of our income, comes from summer sales, so we are open every single day.

Now with the Ironman bike race in the area we have to close that day.  Last year we closed for the whole weekend because business was so bad.  Don't know what we're doing this year for Ironman.  I'm feeling like staying home and drumming for them.

Sue took on a dinnerware order.  She's not turning anything down right now.....so this would be a great time to get her to make something she wouldn't have made several years ago......let's think of something.........hmmmm.....how about a salsa dish.....I remember her turning that down.  I mean she's taken on butter dishes.....!!!

So she's made the plates and now they have to slow dry and cycle through the kilns.

Earlier I talked about my etching "The Hunter", that I am framing for a customer.  They wanted it in a barn frame and I had just found an old one that was 13 by 16.....the print they had was in a 13 by 14 mat......So I added a turkey feather to the mat.....take a look....

It gives it a handsome look.  The guide Mark who posed for this etching gave me the feathers from a turkey.  I've used them for many things over the years, it's always good to have a bad of feathers around when your an artist.

I looked in on Mom this morning and we walked down her driveway, and fixed her food for today, she's all set for a nice fourth.

I'm going to take my watercolors under the tree and practice painting sky.  I'm loving the watercolors and looking for my own way to express them.

I'll probably play piano, I'm working on "Misty" at present, and play my drums, Sue will work on the dinnerware set, I think.

No kids home for the fourth, so it'll be quiet for Sue and I.

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Tuesday, June 28

Studio Action

First thing I'm going to do today is mat and frame an etching of 'The Hunter' that someone dropped off.  They wanted it framed in barnwood, but I don't make frames like that anymore, However, I just came across a frame for this, how about that for coincidence.   It's longer than the current mat, but what I'm going to do is make a new mat with two holes, the one of the bottom I will put a turkey feather in.

I made this etching in 1994, it has a soft ground etch with aquatint.
The hunter is in a camouflage outfit posed as ready to let loose an arrow.
I wish I'd done more soft ground etches, it has such a nice quality about it, and they were very enjoyable to do.  I think I did about three like that.

I got out my jewelers loop and looked at the image very close, I was amazed I was able to get some of the detail I saw in there.  It made me yearn to do an etching.

But what I'm doing today is watercolor.  I want to draw in ink and then lay in some watercolor wash to the image and I would like it to be on Arches text wove so that I can eventually print the images as well.

A hiker sitting on a mountain top.  I want to work on the rock he's sitting on today, I think that will be the biggest challenge of this work.

Also around the studio Sue just finished some special order butter dishes.

She got a request for one and figured she might as well make several of them, people have requested them in the past, but they are labor intensive and probably will be in the 40 dollar range, or more.

Here's my favorite one, with a cow on it.  Love it!!!
She's so talented!!!!

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Sunday, June 26,

A New Commitment and Look to the Blog

So much seems to change and yet stay the same.  What changed with Eating Art was my enthusiasm for it.  So many life changing events occurred in the last couple of years, that it affected my creative sensibilities.  However though it all I absorbed life and now I will try to bring it all out creatively.

Having our daughters grow up and leave home affected me deeper than I thought.  There were many nights of awakening, wondering and thinking about them.  When they were younger I never worried in the middle of the night about them, I could always just go into their bedroom and see that they were ok.

Having me for my Mom, soon to be 94, as her caregiver.  That's takes time mostly, but also it brings much thought and contemplation about life and what it's like to get old, really old.  Like Mom says, "If I only knew how young I was when I was 62".  She's an amazing inspiration to our family.

Having disillusionment with friends and not being forceful enough to express myself to them.  That pretty much changed a total social network for me.  It gave me much to think about and still does.

Having a heart attack, recovery and pills forever.  Makes one think.

So I guess I've spent much time thinking, writing down notes and visualizing.
I also have a passion for drumming and composing new Adirondack rhythms.  I want to incorporate more poetry and perhaps some acting into the mix as well.  I currently have a drum program that is 30 minutes long, consists of nine original rhythms, two with my poetry and one rhythm, re-arranged from the Mountain Drum days.  I want to make a one hour or longer program along these lines.  For now you can follow my progress here: AdirondackDrummer.com   But as I record new tunes and make better recordings of current tunes then I will post them here.

I'm developing a vision for my future, as I will be 63 on July 26th.  Once I read a book titled, "The Artist's Way".  It's a personal program one takes to restore their creativity.  Now I'm thinking of doing it again, just for me.  It will enable me to stay focused on what I truly want to do now.

One of my problems has been not being focused on my art work.  I do so many other things that aren't creative that I've found it hard to make that switch.

My new commitment to Eating Art and the blog will also bring me around to where I want to go.   I needed to meditate on continuing it, and I've remembered that Eating Art always promoted moving forward.  Taking creative risks, don't get homogenized and making the best work you can.

And this blog will follow me on my creative journey ahead, and I'm going to encourage Sue to also begin a blog.

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Monday, March 21,

However the drumming rehearsal went very well.

I don't think people liked the drum cakes, although the chocolate was very good on top. The pecan cookies were the big hit and the fruit.

I was pleased with my playing and energy, and I stayed focused. I made several mistakes, but of course no one but me would know. Sunday, March 20, 2011 Equinox I rehearsed twice today, and between the morning and evening rehearsal we drove over to see Corrine and pick up a load to store in attic. She's moving to her new job at a Rehab center. She will be a councilor and resident manager of one of the houses. She'll have from 1 to 3 people living in her house at any one time. It sounds really good for her because there are extensive grounds and they make their own maple products and many other things that they sell to make money and support this institution. It began almost ninety years ago. It sounds like Corrine will be able to work on other areas of the campus as well.

I'm excited, I can't help it. Only a few close family members have heard only parts of my program, so tomorrow night will be the first official rehearsal in front of a small audience. I wanted from ten to twelve and I have thirteen. I have some people who will make the second rehearsal in April. By that time I'm hoping to at least have one new rhythm and poem to add.

It'll be a totally new experience for me with these rhythms. I've played some of them now for over two years, it's easy to concentrate when I rehearse on my own. This will mostly be a great practice on staying focused and in the moment.

My method of playing this performance is to attack the drums and then make love to the drums. Caress the drums to get the most out of them.

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Drumming

I set a date and put up a notice in the Jay News and now I have 12 people who are going to watch my first rehearsal of "Into the Adirondacks", a Percussive Art Performance Piece.

I'm limiting it to 12 because I don't want a lot of audience and I only have 12 chairs, otherwise I'll have to scramble for more.  If I get more than 12 I'll see if I can get enough to have another rehearsal of the performance in several weeks, which is what I want to do anyway.

I want to hone my performance until this summer when I will perform it at an opening in the gallery along with new art, pottery and books.

This performance piece really means a lot to me, it's as important as any of my art works or books.  First off, its current.  Its a current work, its where I am at the moment.  It speaks of who I am, and how I perceive the world.  Although I've had 8 years or so of drum performances under my belt, 6 years with Mountain Drum, its always been within a group.  This is totally on my own, my own rhythms, ideas and words.  "Into the Adirondacks", is or course Adirondack inspired, from just living and hiking in the mountains.  Two of the current pieces have poems with them, when I write some new pieces after this performance, I will have more with poems in them.

When Mountain Drum broke up, I was practicing the tunes we used to play, but I was playing some of the other parts that I wasn't playing.  Being in a band like that, you pretty much just play your part in each tune, so it was like learning and discovering totally new rhythms.

One day I was playing on the deck when I just got into a groove while looking at the apple blossoms on my tree, the sky was blue, spring colors were moving up the mountains, the bees were humming around the tree and just found a groove and it turned into my first rhythm, "I Just Love Fruit".  It was written for all fruit, but inspired by my apple tree.

Unfortunately I make no income from the drumming, its just a hobby.  But one never knows.

Finished a painting......"Whiteface from Coperas Pond".

I'm still working with my colored pencils and ink and hope to have a beginning drawing finished soon.

Sue is making production pottery and doing work for Adirondack Life Magazine.  She's presently making a master for their Photography contest trophies, which are bowls of her's with the Adirondack Life logo on them......

 Here is Sue working under a magnifier on the master.  From this she will create a plaster mold in which she can impress clay to attach to the bowls.  This master has really presented some problems and this is her third cast, so we're keeping our fingers crossed on this one.  For some reason some of the plaster was staying in the mold. Friday, March 11, Learning to Blog What a day.  Can't complain.  I was in my head, because I had chores to do and had to check on my Mom and that took longer than usual because she was very tired and her back was out.  So I was with her for quite awhile till she felt better.

I didn't leave the house until 1pm because I was glued to CNN and the quake and tsunami.  I also didn't want to venture out onto my slippery driveway which was a coat of ice from the rain.

I just took care of a little web work and am anxious to experiment more with my colored pencils and ink ideas......I'm including a view of my sketchpad.....here.

I wouldn't say this idea has been torturing me for plus three years now, but it's sure been on my mind and I haven't quite known what to do with it.  It deals with trees, without leaves.  It deals with personalities and the transient nature of everything.  I want to be able to print the images that I make with this idea.  Be it either individually or in a book with poems.  We'll see.

I see that Sue has made two wonderful oval platters, that are sitting on the slab roller.  I'm sure she must have thrown the forms and then altered them.  They look really nice. I'm glad I'm able to put up images again.  I don't know if it was the blog program or the way I'm program, however I checked it out and it was working so I snapped a couple of photos.  It's so effortless to this when it works rightly. I'm going to devote this weekend to recording my new rhythms and getting them onto my website...... AdirondackDrummer.com  I have a couple up there presently, but I'm recording much better now and I've refined the rhythms since I posted those tunes. I would like to perform what I've prepared.  I have nine original Adirondack Inspired rhythms, two that have accompanying poems and I've added a tenth tune, an old Mountain Drum tune that I've arranged for a solo player.  It's a thirty minute program.  My goal is to write another nine and arrange one more old tune and make an hour long program and take it on the road. I'm thinking next Saturday night, I'm going to advertise in the Jay news for an audience and I'll limit it to about 10 or 12.  I want to practice in front of people and get use to it again.

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Thursday, March 3, 2011

I tried blogging on my computer, but it wouldn't work for me. I could upload pictures but I couldn't type. So this is cool just sitting back in the gallery and pecking away on the pad.

Minus degrees this morning and I had to take Mom for a doctors appointment. Everything went well, it was her first trip out of the house in about four months or so.

I spent the rest of the day painting, cooking and catching up on some T-Vo. I re-painted "View of Hurricane from Owl's Head". I don't like this either. However, I was just looking at it again and in the cliffs I could imagine a hiker, a climber in stone, seeming to be just a rock formation, but yet a sculpture of a rock climber.

I've decided that it will be my next pencil drawing. I was beginning to wonder when the next pencil drawing was going to come along.

I did complete two oils in February, I'll try to upload them here.

I guess I won't know if it worked until I publish. I'll have to get better at this blogging.

One painting is of Avalanche Lake looking south, and the other is Copperas Pond looking at Whiteface.

Sue fired two kilns this week, the gallery is flush with pottery. The gallery just had it's two worst months in a row in probably the 28 years that we've been in business. Even my web business is very slow and clients are taking longer to pay. It's probably the first time in three or four years that I don't have a site to build on a regular basis. My last one was for a painter in Florida and since I didn't have anything else to do, I gave him a lot more and he's told me he's going to talk me up down there. Aafinearts.com if your interested.

Things are picking up for Sue, Adirondack Life is commissioning a new pendant design and there's some other work "in the works" with them. Most recently she got some nice pottery orders. Next week she'll be working at the Keene school on the mural project.

I've decided to make the leap to Social Security. It'll help the income. We believe that things will be getting worse before they get better. Sue and I have been real survivors. We've always stayed true to ourselves, we've lived on fumes many times. This time everything just feels different, government really is not concerned about the little guy anymore. They've totally forgotten where this country came from. Their only concern is making the other side look bad, scoring political points at the expense of a country.

It feels like you could be flicked aside, stepped on and forgotten. Rather disheartening after 28 years in business together, 7 additional years for me before that, make that 35 business years for me. Also being a combat vet and having the feeling that your helpless to make a change in this great country.

We sure hope we're wrong on this.

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Monday, February 28, 2011

I'm wondering about the future of eating art and thinking perhaps it's time to move it to a blog or facebook kind of thing.

That's why I'm here tonight writing this, after neglecting my blog for year.

I could still post photos, I could have stories.....

I'm trying to convince myself.

It's working.

Eating Art Newsletter began mostly as an exercise in writing and communicating incognito with other artists, although it became quickly apparent to quite a few, who was writing.

The actual website was begun to showcase the work we were creating and family times. The two are pretty much the same in my mind, even the house is another part of studios, and there were always projects the girls were working on when they were growing up. Or Sue might have a project on the kitchen table and have to move it for dinner.

It's still going on, Sue has a mural project right now and the kitchen table has been active for several weeks, now that it's the two of us we sit and watch our favorites shows we've taped. It 's a different dynamic, that's for sure.

Major changes all over the world, why not at Eating Art as well. I'm certainly going through major changes myself, or probably I should say that all around me family is going through changes and therefore that affects me, in a major way.

I made three paintings on small canvases last month, 12x16". I'm loosening up to paint some larger canvas. I've been sketching out trees that I will eventually draw a series of on pastel paper, I'm really having fun with this idea now that I can see the direction and colors I want to use.

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