Heart Sold

Last night was the closing bid for the “Shrines and Reliquary Show” at The Arts Center. It had been delayed due to bad weather on Saturday.The event started at 4pm with people slowly trickling in after work. Staff provided wine, cheese, crackers, chips & salsa, and a few cookies. I had a great visit with quite a few friends and pretty much expected to be purchasing my sculpture back.

The heart reliquary received active bidding on opening night and made it up to $160 by the start of the evening. The story became a bit more interesting when a woman started really looking the piece over, and I mean picking it up, turning it over, looking at it with the lid on & checking the battery area. In short a potential purchaser! Wait!! Panic!  Not someone I recognized in the arts community. Can I let the piece go to someone I don’t know???  Interestingly enough, she didn’t place a bid from what I could tell. Now enter potential purchaser #2. She went right over and upped the bid. Wow! Who is this person? She sort of looks familiar, someone in the arts community. Her number was #316 and had placed some of the earlier bids. She was determined to take the piece home. I was a bit reluctant to let go of this piece but once it went over $200 and I talked with her a bit, I released the heart.  Santuario del Corazon will now reside in Albany with people who really wanted it.

The piece engulfed a lot of my emotions and connection to my mother.  Letting go is healthy and I should practice this  more often with my work. Bidder #316 lost her father back in August, also grew up in Eugene, lives in Albany & is the same age as my brother Tom.  According to several friends she is an excellent painter.

The heart has found a new home.

Thinking of hearts & homes, Lee will be taking Evelyn walking this morning then head to Yachats to check the assisted living facility there. Maybe if she is back at the coast, more hope will return to my mothers heart and healing will proceed.

Teabag Hand

With over 500 teabags, the hand weighs in at 3.25 lbs.

Created about 9 years ago, the hand was constructed using teabags, hot glue and pva glue. The project was part of my beginning 3D class assignment to find an object/unit that could be used to create a hand structure. I chose teabags and what I thought was a Buddhist mudra hand symbol, but I was off by a finger. It should have been the index finger touching the thumb.

It still resides on a shelf further cluttering the studio, but this was a nice opportunity to document a past creation.

December Birthdays

The month of December holds 4 birthdays in our family. One on the 6th, 14th and 2 on the 17th. This year is the “Threes”, 23, 53 & 83! Shannon is an honorary 43, which she was quite fond of.

We celebrated in Eugene at the old house. Kim and her two oldest made it (Alex & Kirsten). Mike & Shannon picked up Bryant before heading to town. Lee was there too, being the oldest birthday boy. Evelyn received visits from us on our way home.

Kim picked up Lee’s favorite cake from Metropol Bakery. September 7th is the type. Extremely rich with lots of airy frosting and whipped cream interior. Dave & I picked up sandwich fixings, M & S picked up chips and dips. Nothing fancy and it was a quick party with Kirsten & Alex both having to leave early for work.

Mike, Shannon, Lee & Kim

Kim, daughter Kirsten & son Alex

Dave, Bryant & Shannon

Shannon Guthrie, Lee & Kim

The cake and official “December 2009 Birthday Sumo Trading Cards”!

The twins, Alex & Kirsten Olsen.

Kim & the Bali heads complete with party curls.

A tired looking Gale!

Evelyn received a new cell phone since her new room doesn’t have one. They have her in the “resident” section of the facility. Elevator door & stairwell doors are security coded so people can’t escape. A very different feeling upstairs. It’s also $320 a day for her to be there. Medicare denied her claim so Lee is having to provide coverage. We hope the change pushes her to WANT to leave.

What do I do with Chanterelle Mushrooms?

Over the past week, my good friend Joni has passed along 2 bags full of chanterelle mushrooms. She and her partner Ed have found a new picking location loaded with these wonderful orange jewels of the forest. The have been gathering for the past two weeks, filling fridge and freezer with freshly sautéed shrooms for a later date. We lucked out by receiving the gift via brown paper bag. Will the picking continue? Probably not. The weather has not been cooperative this past week. Our temps have dipped as low as 9 degrees, almost unheard of in our rainy climate. The frigid temps have most likely destroyed the remaining crops left under the Douglas Fir trees. Fall closed quickly and winter has arrived.

My first chanterelle recipe was for a soup. Not bad but I probably added too much broth. No photos of the concoction.

Meal #2 was the Chanterelle and Leek Quiche. Kind of a mix between the tart recipe Joni passed along but mixed with my standard quiche recipe. Altered slightly to fit the pie dish.

Wild mushrooms require cleaning. Their gills hold bits of forest dirt and fir needles (and possibly some creepy crawlers too!). I like to add fresh cracked black pepper to the mix during the saute to hide any remaining flecks of dirt.

The cleaned mushrooms were too beautiful!

The leeks were prepared next. Cleaned and cut.

The ingredients were then sautéed separately in a skillet with butter. A basic swiss cheese was grated for the mixture. I probably would use a little stronger swiss, like Emmental, for the next time.

Mushrooms, leeks and cheese are ready. The small cup above the bowls was created by artist friend Sandy Segna. We purchased cups and a large wall hanging from her and partner/potter Ted Ernst during their studio sale. Sandy’s cups are now used for wine and Ted’s are used for beer. The bowls were created by me.

The pie crust was rolled out using a 22oz beer bottle. All rolling pins started life  in the kitchen but have migrated to ceramics area. If Dave ever made pie dough, we might still have one residing in the food area.

It was a very tasty quiche for dinner and several breakfasts. Thanks Joni & Ed!

Morning Poem

Poetry by Clem Starck, photo credit by Carla Perry.

Sitka Center for Art & Ecology is hosting a poetry writing workshop by Clem Starck in Newport Oregon. I’ve run across his poems from time to time and really enjoyed this one listed in the Sitka e-newsletter. If you are unable to read it in the image, here it is:

“Why not study ethnobotany,

or practice juggling?

I could learn to read Chinese, and start in

on the ten thousand poems extant

of Lou You.

It’s unlikely I’ll take up blacksmithing,

or become a backhoe operator.

For the time being

I think I’ll just concentrate

on finding the words

for the mist that rises from

the fields in the morning,

or the moon

as seen once from Joel’s truck

on the way home from a job in Corvallis.”

Clem Starck

For more information on the poetry workshop, check Sitka Center for Art & Ecology.

Arrangement update

Today, The Beet Gallery inquired on the price of the submitted work. Wow! It’s actually being viewed and considered. This is a very good thing! To think my crazy art might end up in a funky-cool gallery! At least the waiting will be easier now.

Can you tell I don’t enter many juried shows?

Maybe the leaf coat will venture out of our home some day soon!

🙂

The Arrangement

Many of you have requested an image posted  of the newest project. Since I just sent the image off to the Beet Gallery, you might as well get a peek at it too.

Darn and drat to those couple of wrinkles on the cloth in the first image!  This is probably one of my better photo shoots because I spent some time purchasing a mid-tone grey cloth and figuring out a light diffuser for the clamp lamps. Cynthia’s set-up really helped quite a bit. Still have quite a bit more tweaking to do like elimination of glare off the hog gut.

Materials are wire, hog gut, acrylic wash and a walnut base. It comes in 2 sections & are adjustable to please the viewer. It took a couple of trys to get a nicer arrangement of the forms.  Title? I’m calling it “The Deflower-er Arrangement”

Mom’s Heart: Nov 29

Here are the updates from the Evelyn front:

This week hasn’t been comfortable for her. She made a trip to Dr. B’s for a stern pep-talk on Tuesday. The doctor prescribed no tube feeding for 48hrs, then feed for one session and pull the tube Friday.  Dave & I stopped by for a visit on Turkey day to discover a very unhappy mother unwilling to eat or visit. Brought Dave to tears. I wasn’t much better, but held it together until the car ride to the house. We went shopping & prepared a pork roast with figs, garlic & Pinot noir, plus mashed potatoes, cranberries, and lots of yummy snacks. Mike & Shannon brought 3 pies. An unusual Thanksgiving but at least it was tasty!

According to Kim, the tube was removed on Friday but she had not increased her self-feeding levels. No food is ever right in taste, texture, temperature, or anything. She has been adamantly using only plastic utensils up til now due to a taste difference (she could taste the metal or it felt bad in her mouth). On Saturday she started using the metal utensils offered on her food tray.  What caused the switch? We don’t know. Tom also came for  a quick visit and headed back over the mountains.

So that’s the basics. Tube removed & still not eating enough to keep her going. There was an EKG done the week prior and something about her having a heart attack…. but the doctors did not pass any information to Lee or her primary physician.

Positive and Fun!

I’m attempting to finish a project for an image deadline next week. The Beet Gallery in Portland has two call to artists due December 1st. I’m going for their February show. More wire, pig gut and a lot of humor! Friends and family have requested images to be blogged, but I don’t think they would be appropriate. Let’s just say it’s an Ikebana flower arrangement of a specific male body part. The 2 leaves turned out quite well.

Today was the gutting process and seems like it went well. The more times I work with the material, the more comfortable I become. Still have some problems with stretching things thin enough. Tomorrow I figure out the stand before heading to Eugene.

Also received a phone call from Animal Crackers for an order of holiday ornaments. 12 woof & 12 meow! Yesterday I dropped off 32 ornaments at the Arts Center and had a full look at the show. There were a couple of pieces I would like to bid on this weekend.

Happy Turkey Day!

Ornaments Anyone?

Yesterday I  finished attaching string & labels to over 200 ceramic snowflake ornaments created in the last 2 weeks.  Now all I have to do is find homes for them! They are already available at The Arts Center in Corvallis. Maybe this is my opportunity to try Etsy.  There are two other venues of interest in the Albany/Corvallis area.

This year’s words include: Peace, Love, Snow, Joy, Winter, Believe, Imagine, Solstice, Woof & Meow.

I use a white clay body fired to cone 5 in an electric kiln. They are stamped with a hand carved block, have a 2″ diameter and are stained blue.  Each one looks different due to amount of stain deposited in the patterns.

They sold well last year during Winterlight at The Arts Center. Hopefully they all will grace trees in other peoples homes before December 24.