My Bit of Earth

Wednesday Poll: Join My Etsy Insanity

It could be my rabid crafty kick.  It could be that it's nasty outside.  It could be that it's been a slow week.

Whatever the cause, I have spent the past 48 hours freaking obsessed with etsy.

For the uninitiated, etsy is a website where people can buy and sell handmade items.  Everything must largely be the work of the person selling it, and no mass produced items are allowed.  The result is a very artsy, fun, and neat little marketplace.

My very favorite local artist, Rachael Sudlow, has a little shop.  I'm getting some great ideas for felted bead necklaces here and here.  This little heart would be the most perfect thing ever for Valentine's Day.  And I just bought the pendant pictured above from Littleput Books.  (Her little recycled scrabble tiles are so pretty, it took me almost an hour to pick the one I wanted.)

I'm usually so against promoting the accumulation of stuff--'cause don't we all have enough?--but today I'm making an exception.  For this week's poll:

Do a search on etsy--you can search by category, location, or even color, but personally I'm a big fan of the "pounce" feature.  Leave a link below to one thing you absolutely love and tell why.

Comment and discuss.

Who's Been Eating My House?

Today's Christmas fun was the 13th Annual Gingerbread Festival and Auction.  It works pretty much the same way the Festival of Trees did--people give a small donation to get in to see the houses, then eventually the houses are auctioned off with proceeds going to Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

There were graham cracker houses made by little kids, log cabins made of pretzels, some very pretty sugar stained glass, and even a few Lawrence landmarks.  It totally inspired me to make a gingerbread house this year.  More pictures (including a few of Sweet Husband's booth at the Holiday Art Fair) are here.

Holiday Art Fair (Shameless Plug for Sweet Husband)

If you're local be sure and stop by Sweet Husband's "Oread Designs" booth at the Lawrence Art Guild Holiday Art Fair. 

The Fair runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. tommorrow at the Lawrence Arts Center which is at 940 New Hampshire Street.

A Sign?

Mass Street Totem

Painting With Flowers

Sweet Husband and I took a country drive to Pendleton's Market today to see the newest bit of work by crop artist, Stan Herd.

This particular piece is a gigantic version of one of the new stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service celebrating pollinating insects.  It features a Southern Dogface butterfly.

I wish we could have made it out to see it last weekend when they were doing the first "unveiling" because they had a 40 foot lift, and I think we would have been able to see it better from higher up.  Even from the little side tower that was there it was still pretty cool though.

Here's a news article with a better picture and more info.

Abstract Alphabet

This evening Sweet Husband and I went to the opening of Stephen Johnson's "Abstract Alphabet" exhibit at the Spencer Museum on KU campus.  As I may or may not have said before, my general criteria for good art is stuff that makes me smile.  And in that regard the alphabet was definitely a success.

As we walked up to the museum, there were adults and kids making brownie sundaes (with sprinkles!) in tents on the front lawn, and brightly colored hula hoops were scattered about.  The first piece inside the door was a set of painted, curvy spoons (for the letter "S") set vertically on square and round blocks.  But further in was my favorite--"Meditation on the Memory of a Princess"--a gigantic, pink, 8 layer, air mattress tribute to both "the princess and the pea" and the letter "M".  Very fun!

The exhibit runs through August 5, so if you're local go check it out. 

Native Birds in the Japanese Friendship Garden

Daisy Dead Petals

I was running errands on my lunch hour the other day, when I saw a man on a corner selling flowers from a cart.  I stopped and picked out some beautiful variegated daisies. 

Later on, finding myself a little bored, I started picking the petals off of one and realized they'd make a great subject for s'more "scanographs".  There are a few more of the daisy here, as well as a few of the little "Iron Cross" begonia that also lives in my office.

Wednesday Poll: The Last Supper

Over my lunch break today, I ventured out into the rain to see an exhibit called "The Last Supper: Final meal Requests of U.S. Death Row Inmates”.  Julie Green, the artist, began the project in 1999 after being disturbed that the last meal requests of death row inmates were published in the newspaper.  According to what appears to be her website, to date 234 plates are complete, and every death penalty state is included.  Her site also says:

"Because of the content, The Last Supper is challenging to produce and may be challenging to view.  While painting, I think about the death penalty, the victims, the heinous crimes committed, the individuals executed, the large number of minorities on death row, and the margin for error in judicial process.  I think about food, choice, and whether inmates are able to eat the food they order.  Specific food requests, often regional specialties, sometimes tell where the individual lived and may provide clues on the one’s race and economic level.  Inmates in some states are limited to food available in the prison kitchen.  There is a great deal of red meat but few lobsters, and no sushi or Godiva chocolates."

I absolutely love the concept of this exhibit.  Whatever your opinion is about the death penalty, I think we do ourselves a disservice by de-humanizing criminals in general and death row inmates in particular.  It's easy to say that X-convict did such and such and is therefore a monster and not fit to live; it's much harder, but much more honest, to realize that he or she is a person--a person who has done horrible things, no doubt--but a person all the same.  And I think it's easier for the rest of us to identify with someone who likes Coke or (as on one of the plates I saw today) pickles.

As much as I liked the idea however, I didn't care for the way it was carried out.  The monochromatic paint (Sweet Husband said it's called "China Paint") made it difficult to make out exactly what some of the requested food was, and the whole thing had a kind of junior-high art student feel to it.  I did like the way the plates were displayed though--as I stepped back to look at them all as a whole it really struck me that each one represented a person.

Regular readers will by now be thinking, "OK, OK, art-shmart--is there a Wednesday poll question coming soon?"  Ah, but there is--have you guessed it already?  For this week's poll:

If you knew you were going to die at midnight tonight, what would your "last supper" be?

Comment and discuss.

Holy Cow(scapes)!

Sometime this summer, I was at the frame shop waiting my turn when I noticed that the lady* in front of me had a very interesting little print.  When I asked, she said it was a photo she had taken herself.  Turns out she was a local artist whose latest project was taking pictures of cows in such a way that they looked like landscapes.  Being a big fan of art that makes people smile, I thought her "cowscape" was charming.

So, when I was surfing through the paper this morning and saw that even more of her cows were going to be part of tonight's downtown gallery walk (article here), I decided I needed to go see some moo...er, um, more.

The slide show doesn't really do the cows justice.  Up close (and 5 times the size of course) you can really suspend reality and see the cow as a prairie landscape.  The hairy texture looks like exotic grass with a wide blue sky background.  They were gorgeous, I only wish she would do more.

(*My mysterious bovine-loving, frame-shop lady's name is Rachael Sudlow.  In addition to her cow pictures, she also sells jewelry.)

Playing With Scanography

Sweet Husband, Nice Redhead Friend, and I braved the ice and snow today, to go to one of the neatest art exhibits I've been to in quite awhile.  The artist's name is Bill Bowerman, and he uses found objects and various lighting techniques to make beautiful "scanographs"  (Check out just a few of the things that were in the exhibit here, and an online chat with Bowerman here). 

Of course, when I got home I just had to try it for myself--mine aren't nearly as cool as "the Scan Man's", but I really had fun trying.  This paperwhite blossom is one of the things I made, and here are a few more.  I think the biggest challenge was keeping the scanner bed clean--that and finding things that scanned well (for example, some loose tea that I tried just ended up looking blah).  But overall, I was pretty pleased with some of my results, and I can't wait for gardening season--this is definitely going to put a new angle on things!

Art in Linsborg, Kansas

This ring (made by Sweet Husband) was one of 70 pieces out of about 300 chosen for a student show at the Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery in Lindsborg, Kansas.

    

We drove to Lindsborg this past weekend for the show closing--more pictures are here.  I have to confess, I was a little disappointed in Lindsborg itself.  Everyone kept saying it was such a cool little town, but I didn't think it was much different from any other.

Sweet Husband's Senior Show

This weekend was Sweet Husband's Senior Show--here are the pictures.  And he made the paper even.

Shameless Advertising

If you're around Lawrence this weekend, you should come to Sweet Husband's show. I have some pictures of his work posted here, and here are the details for the show....

Reality and Virtual Reality

These are two of Sweet Husband's projects. One is a picture of a real object, the other is a computer rendering--the object itself doesn't exist. Can you tell which is which? Leave your guess in a comment if you'd like, and I'll post the answer in a few days.

A Hot Date

Last night Sweet Husband called on his way home from work and asked if I would like to go to a bronze pour with him. One of his co-workers at the jewelry store (who shall be known hereinafter as Nice Kim) also casts large bronze pieces as part of a family business that he runs with his father. If you've seen the huge Jayhawk in front of Strong Hall on campus, you know their work. A "pour" is the step in the process where the bronze is heated and "poured" into the mold.

I almost decided not to go. Standing around watching people play with hot metal (as punny as it may be) is not necessarily my idea of a hot date. But, in the end, I was persuaded, and I was glad that I went. Nice Kim and his family really make it into an event, and it was interesting to watch.

When we got there they were moving the molds into a sand pit. Sweet Husband explained that the molds are placed in the sand partly for safety reasons. If the molds should break or something should go wrong, the hot metal will be absorbed into the sand instead of spraying out onto people. The people in the picture are Nice Kim (down in the pit in blue) and John, the designer of the sculpture.

Sweet Husband was quickly put to work tamping the sand in tightly around the molds.

When they were done, the molds were almost completely buried.

While they were getting the molds situated, an underground furnace was heating up a large crucible of bronze.

Before taking the crucible off the heat, everyone donned protective jackets, gloves, and face sheilds.

The crucible was lifted up with a tool that looked like a big set of salad tongs. Two people on each side steadied it, but the lifting power was partially provided by a chain hoist on the ceiling.

The crucible was then placed out onto the floor so that the temperature could be measured. To fill the mold properly, the metal needs to be about two-thousand degrees. Too cold and it might harden before it fills all the spaces, too hot and the structure of the metal won't be right.

Then, again with the help of the chain hoist, two people lifted the crucible up using a long handle. A third person used another pole to keep it all steady.

Then the entire team carefully moved the crucible over to the molds.

They carefully poured the hot bronze into the tops of the molds. I thought that it might be kind of gloopy, but the metal flowed out of the crucible just as easily as water would have.

Here you can see the whole team working.

They filled two molds first and then had to melt more metal in order to fill the third.

After waiting a few minutes for more bronze to melt, they filled the third mold.

Sweet Husband says that a crucible is usually made from "a high temperature clay-silica mix, but it might have been graphite". (I don't think he's really sure!) Whatever it was, it was hot!

Once all the molds were full, Nice Kim poured the remaining metal into trays to make bronze ingots that could easily be used for something else later.

It made me think of really hot ice cubes.

The end result was three filled molds and three leftover ingots. I talked with the designer a little later and he said that the molds were for three of the legs of a twelve foot bronze deer that was going to live in Andover, Kansas, when it was all finished.

Once the work was over, it was time for fun. After a toast and introductions, one of Kim's daughters pulled out a basket full of popcorn. It turns out that the residual heat from the furnace makes a great campfire substitute.

It takes a certain technique to properly cook this way though. In order to keep everything from falling off, the last piece on the stick had to be meat. If you wanted a slower cooked kabob, you could hold your stick just over the hole on top.

But who has that much patience? Sticking the kabob into the fire cooked it in seconds, and spinning the stick made neat "fireworks" as the grease caught on fire.