The view from back here

Sunday evening, feeling wiped out from a hot and humid weekend at the farmer's market. I don't think I'm giving away any trade secrets by saying that every market vendor I know also needs to take a big nap after a busy selling day.

I thought I'd give you a view from behind the scenes. This is how I view the market, from the quiet and safety of my booth. Here you can see the back side of some of my card displays and small framed etchings, a mug of green tea, the toes of my cowgirl boots where they are propped up for relaxation, some absolutely stunning roses from Plenty of Posies, the impressive display of organic vegetables at Sacred Seed Farm across the aisle, and a small swarm of people walking by. It's a very different view from behind the counter than out in the crowd...I would find it hard to survive the crush and furor of the market without my space back here.

I heart Forked Lake

Just back last night from a few days at Forked Lake in the Adirondacks. You've heard me talk about this place before if you've been reading my blog for any length of time. It's sort of tucked in between the better-known Raquette Lake and Long Lake, only about a 4 hour drive from here, and a little bit of heaven on earth. My friend Jean Elizabeth celebrates her birthday there every year, and it happens to fall right near the summer solstice...and I will take any excuse to load up my wee canoe and head north and spend a few days cooking over a fire and being slothful and indolent in the pseudo-wilderness.

I pride myself a little bit on my campfire cooking skills. For example: cut a head of garlic in half horizontally, drizzle with olive oil, reassemble the halves, wrap securely in tin foil and roast in the coals for about 20 minutes. Mmmm-hmmm. Also for example: steaming asparagus in tin foil (add olive oil, a little water, salt and pepper, and some white wine or lemon juice if you have it). JE is a whiz with a camp stove, and she can make curries and fancy breakfast treats. We really don't rough it.

And now back to my studio, since there is ONE WEEK left before my show goes up!

hee hee hee

This is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen. C'mon, admit it...I can hear you laughing all the way over here.

(with all due thanks to engrish.com)

Works in progress

Friday already. My car is packed up for market tomorrow morning (early), and I am yawning widely while enjoying the fireflies and citronella of a summer evening on the porch. I haven't blogged all week, and these photos should tell you why. Getting ready for the Kitschen Sink show which goes up on July 1st....the new paintings are flowing nicely. There's some older paintings in the lower photo too, along with the things in progress.

Administrative whatnot

Monday morning. The usual two hours doing administrative whatnot in front of the computer that start out my week. More delaying tactics keeping me out of the studio (my favorite: wandering around on orbitz.com looking at fantasy vacation plane tickets). So before I stay here any longer, here's a photo I snapped yesterday of part of my notecard display at the farmers' market.

Not-so-skill saw

I got this beautiful maple board at a local wood place, with sap tap holes and everything. This tree must have been huge! I decided to make it into two manageable boards for paintings instead of one gigantic 9-foot extravaganza that wouldn't fit in my car. So my dad brought over his skill saw and let me go at it. Like any independently-minded young woman worth her salt, I get kind of a kick out of my occasional brush with power tools. I cut a fairly straight line with a minimum of smoke.

So, right...new paintings need to be happening over here at Christi's house for my July show. So far I've managed to clean the whole house and plant and fence the garden in a frantic bid to procrastinate. But I do have some good sketches and ideas and am just waiting for a sunny energetic day.

Please note that the classy toilet seat in the background is not there for decoration, it's the last vestige of last week's home improvement project and it is now gone.

Sunbeam Candles

I can finally reveal the details of the big project I was working on last month! Sunbeam Candles, a local super cool candle company who use only SOLAR POWER to produce their products, and use lovely pure ingredients, and who are generally really good people....well, they asked me to create twelve new paintings for them for their new line of aromatherapy votive candles. That led to more labels for some beeswax candles. All of the designs are up on their website, and I will try to figure out how to make a slideshow of them here (which might be impossible). Meanwhile, here is the patchouli and eucalyptus designs.

Rainy day in Ithaca...enjoying some Rickie Lee Jones and just about to go clean out my studio a little, sand a few big boards to paint on, and start working on some new things.

Kitschen Sink

This one's not gonna wash off

Here's the rest of the tattoo story, and a look at the final result. Apologies in advance to anyone who is squeamish about needles...

Brian's appointment at Model Citizen was for 5:00 on Friday afternoon, the day before he was to leave town for several months. I was still drawing the final version until about 3:00 and getting a little panicky about it. It's not every day that your artwork is going to be tattooed (like permanently) on a friend...so if there's a time for perfectionism, this is it! When I got to the shop, I was definitely the nervous one.

James, the tattoo artist, made the stencil and we talked over the details of placement, etc. He transferred the drawing, Brian approved of how it looked, and they settled in to work while I settled in to watch and photograph the process. Brian said it didn't hurt too much, just kind of pinch-y and stinging, and was really calm...but about 5 minutes into it his eyes rolled back and he passed out. Yikes! Apparently not uncommon, since your body can react to the outrage by basically going into shock. James calmly revived him, and I got him a sweet soda to raise his blood sugar, and once he was back to normal they carried on. I appreciated the chance to watch the process, and was especially impressed with the shading part.

An hour and a half later it was finished and everyone was happy. We negotiated our way through the teenage punk band crowd in the outer room, and I steered my happy-but-wobbly friend out through the Ithaca Festival crowds to get some stabilizing food. Not my usual sedate Friday evening.

Brian's tattoo, part 1

My friend Brian asked me to design a tattoo for him, which he wanted to get before heading out to California and beyond. No pressure, but ya know, he's going to have MY DRAWING on his back for the rest of his life...I wanted to make something worthy of that kind of compliment. Many conversations and multiple sketches later, here is the design.

The full moon, mountain range, and twisty tree are all images from Yosemite (that's Vogelsang Peak on the right). That's a bass guitar neck in there. The overall design idea was inspired by a t-shirt I found in Thailand.

He was successfully tattooed last night, and it looks fantastic. The rest of the story will follow as soon as I get the photos downloaded.

File under "raccoon"

On my drive home from Michigan today (smooth, easy border crossings, book on cd, reasonably speedy, Thai take-out), I got a message on my phone from one of my housemates. Poor woman, whenever I go away it seems that some of my chickens meet messy ends and they have to deal with it. It seems that a marauding raccoon killed Clara and Edna yesterday, feathers all over the place and general carnage. We think it's a raccoon because one was sighted in the yard this afternoon.

I called my farmer friend Thor to get some advice re: raccoons and chickens: when active, how to prevent more attrition, uselessness of roosters, opposable thumbs, application of big flashlight and shotgun, etc.

As we were talking, I suddenly remembered an odd little snapshot from my past. I have spent a lot of time working on a farm in Florida (ECHO), learning about international agricultural development and pulling some weeds, but mostly being artistically useful...illustrations of rooftop gardening techniques and such. I lived on-site with the interns, many of whom are still my best friends. One weekend afternoon I was hanging out at the picnic table by the guys' house, enjoying a book and a snack and a peaceful moment in the shady sunshine...then Charlie appears. (Charlie was an amazing man, in his 70's at the time, a self-described Georgia cracker with loads of big-time overseas experience in Africa and other exciting places. He was also a total hoot.) He slaps a gigantic dead raccoon and a big knife down on the table and announces that THIS is what's for dinner. I was outta there faster than you can say fricassee.

Not sure why I feel compelled to tell that story on my blog, but I'm fascinated by how our minds take photos like this and file them away...in this case under "raccoon." The remaining four chickens are barricaded tightly in the coop tonight, and we'll see what happens.

Baking and biceps

A few years ago I spent a memorable few weeks here at Au Sable working with my dear friend Jean Elizabeth. We were kind of a force to be reckoned with around the saucepans and coffeepots, and coined the phrase "kitchen hotties" to describe ourselves. We were also kind of a comedy team, and I laughed every day to within a whisker of acute embarrassment.

Every year now I work with a different crew, and they all carry on that flame.

After all this talk of baking and biceps, here's me in action with my locally-famous cinnamon rolls. I'm out of practice, since I don't eat that gluten stuff anymore, but my past bakery jobs still have left their mark in my muscle memory.

Tomorrow is the big drive home again. I'm always sad to leave, but after all the travel from this winter I'm ready to be settled at home with just minor camping trips and local adventures for most of the summer. I'm going to shift my mind to making some new paintings for a show at the Kitschen Sink in July.