Bits and Pieces (Mosaic in Process)

Ah yes, the old cliche about breaking a few eggs to make an omelette! I have been saving blue dishes for almost a year now. It helps to work at an auction house where endless amounts of table top porcelain appears- some of it damaged. The chipped, the cracked, the broken and unwanted all made it home with me, as long as there was some blue pattern or other. (Until about a week ago when three vast stacks of white china with a gold rim were being thrown away. I am so glad I thought to take them home! I would never have had enough blue material and the white set the blue off marvelously!)
In any even, on the eve of actual walkway construction, I made a fast stop off at a local thrift store and secured a large quantity of the above dishware, "Winter Holiday" by name. The nice elderly woman who waited on me kept remarking, "What a lovely pattern this is!" I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was taking it home to smash it all to bits...Bob and I smashed all kinds of dishes, bowls, plates, platters, cups and mugs. Very satisfying. One large bin was mostly blue; the other mostly white. We set to work, mixing manageable batches of concrete: one part Portland cement to three parts sand and enough water to make a loose mix. It took only one mix load to realize the best consistency and then we were in business.

We used plastic garbage can lids as "palettes" to hold our busted bits. We troweled on about 2 inches of concrete over the gravel (which was also about three inches deep). It worked so much easier than I thought. We had debated whether we'd need a edge of metal or wood, but the concrete didn't seem to need it.
Have you gotten the idea that I'm teasing here? I'm disinclined to show the walkway as it really is spectacular and I want to unveil it on our garden tour (the topic for my next posting).
But here's a detail of the mosaic:

We varied the sizes of the pieces to make it a more dynamic pattern, plus the fit together better. I devised a simple to follow pattern, sort of herringbone alternate stripes of blue and white. There's also quite a bit of gold which makes a nice sparkly detail. Again, thank goodness for all those many white with gold rim dishes I took at the last minute! I'd be plumb out of luck if I'd held out for just blue! And really? I think the walkway would be far less interesting...
We finished it! I wasn't sure if we'd get it done in time, but we succeeded and it is so much cooler than I even thought...

Piles

Oh no! Sort of deja vu all over again... I think I'm seeing piles of sand and gravel. It must be last year and we're only starting my studio project! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
But wait; could it be that we're finally embarking on the famous "Blue Plate Special" Walkway Project? Bob and I spent yesterday morning (which you will remember as being incredibly hot and sweaty) procuring- and then unloading- an impressive pile of gravel and sand. This took two trips to our local sand and gravel emporium; that's quite an exciting field trip! Towering heaps of all sizes of gravel and dirt and sand and giant trucks (which dwarfed our full sized pick up!) and large hoppers and conveyor belts delivering tons of processed rock. Altogether lunar and very dramatic! They load you up with a huge scooper bucket loader that appeared bigger than the truck.
All I can say is that I was altogether exhausted and on my third tee shirt by the time I had unloaded and then completed excavating the remaining dirt on the soon to be walkway. Another pile was created:

This may not look that big but what with heat and humidity, I was too exhausted to even spread the gravel out into the walkway. And that would have been very satisfying and impressive. Instead I made the mistake of taking a break and visiting my horse, who had thoughtfully provided me with several "piles" in her stall. This was to remind me to clean the pasture.

A woman's work is never done!
But here's a shot of the completely dug out walkway, awaiting Fourth of July gravel:

I made it with a unique and swishy lopsided sway, that I thought referenced those "Stella Doro Breakfast Treats". (Kind of an expanded S). I get my inspirations every where!

Fussy Eaters

Doesn't that look delicious? And quite the flavor assortment, attractively presented... Jules is being offered the equivalent of the "all you can eat buffet", and he turns up his nose. (He even has a handmade personalized place mat and still he refuses to eat!) I have heard that male dogs are less fussy that females, but try telling that to The Dog. I fear he's gone on a hunger strike, except that he seems to believe that old kleenexes and squirrel fecal material are tasty alternatives to wholesome, holistic organic doggie trail mix. (The above offered biscuit option is sweet potato and granola; can we get any more wholesome than that?) And how could I neglect to mention that Mr. Dog has an uncanny ability to know when the bag of dog food is 2/3 empty and starts refusing his dinner? I am not even purchasing the big 30 pound bags that could possibly go stale or taste "old". I am spending more by buying the 15 pound bag which would seem to retain it's factory freshness. But The Dog knows and I must bring home a new bag (and show it to him as I bring it into the house) so that he can rest assured I'm not pawning the stale dregs off on him.

Here he is: playing dead and being (typically) melodramatic when asked if he's interested in eating. He seems to be saying, "Go away. Do not bother me with that tasteless, disgusting dreck". I keep insisting that we don't want him becoming pale and weak. Poor thing! All he can do is lay there!
And The Horse? Just as bad!

Here Maggie is, ignoring me and my pleas to get out and graze. I painstakingly assemble temporary pastures for her and she prefers to stand in the barn, awaiting my deliveries of hay and grain, the equine equivalent of "Take Out". I think she feels grazing is beneath her and altogether too much work.

Look at all that green stuff to chow down on! But her response is to amble about, putting nose to ground in a desultory manner, picking halfheartedly at a few blades of grass and then returning to the barn. Fussy eaters!
Bob and I have no such compunction. We clean our plates. It is a rare occasion indeed when we miss a meal or pass up on seconds. Bring it on!

Sort of Boring

This is sort of a boring post; probably a bit on the lower key side now that I'm actually in my studio and the big drama of roof-raising and sheet-rocking is a thing of the (recent) past. Hey! Go back and take a look. It did take a full year from conception, design and completion. But I love my studio.
In the meantime, the garden looks terrific. Above is a sort of cliche shot of a Connecticut Copper (the butterfly- I think I identified it correctly!) and a lovely Tithonia (rotundifolia "Torch" for those that pay attention to such). The colors are spectacular!
And they'd better be, as our garden tour is only two or three weeks away and there's still loads to do...

I wasn't sure which shot I liked better. I like the fact that the butterfly sitting on the flower made me stop and look for a couple of seconds, as opposed to my running from one task to the next, without really looking. But I guess we soak up through some visual osmosis the many little lovely moments like this that happen almost unnoticed while we work in the garden. How do we find the time to do all we do... I guess that's rhetorical! But I did manage to plant our prickly pear cactus and some other plants graciously given to us by friends. Friends are great for filling in holes; in one's life as well as in the ground. Beatrice and John gave me an early (yeah!!) birthday gift which filled another hole. That would be a spectacular Yucca filamentosa because (ooooooooooooooooooohh!!) it's variegated!!! I do love my spots and stripes...
And here's a gratuitous photo of a lime meringue pie I made for my sister and her partner visiting:

It was delicious!

Falling Through the Cracks

The upshot is with all the moving studio to studio and living room from studio (and back again) certain other things inevitably get neglected. Like our deck could be mowed! (Bob's foot presented in an interesting seated position. Not a typical occurrence!)

Looks like salad underfoot! Oh well, you can't get to everything... I am embracing a really philosophical view as the work entailed in construction (and occupation) of the studio was all encompassing. But the interior looks fantastic and last night, we had friends over to initiate the new spaces. It's nice to see the studio- as well as the living room- from other's perspectives.

We do have some weeds. The garden is probably 90% planted, but now things loom like edging and staking and weeding. It is truly a never ending cycle. But look at this!:

I'm actually working in my new studio. I'm so psyched! So what am I doing here, posting on the Internet? Signing off for now...

Transitional Chaos

This posting is going to run heavy on pictures and lighter on verbiage as I'm so tired from moving furniture and stacks of art work and books! My hands are all curled up like little dead animals. Bob and I moved the large cabinet that was in my (old) studio last night after I got home from work. It weighed a ton, but it opened up a whole new dimension in living room horizons... Yes, we have a living room. It's still in upheaval, as seen in the above photo, but it's getting there. Tomorrow, we move the flat file.

And of course, we have to be doing thirty thousand things at once... like starting seeds. Sun flowers (two kinds) and morning glories (Flying Saucers). Don't ask where those are going to be moved to, after we relocate the flat file to my new studio. Lets' move them at least twelve times!
And remember that nice empty, open studio? Well, not for long. take a look at this:

Piles of art work and boxes and raw material for collages and junk. It will get better eventually, as all this is going into the studio annex. I am really going to try and keep most of my working space unencumbered by clutter- see how long that lasts. Hahahahahaha.

I love having a studio annex. I can store all my completed work and the raw materials like fabric and paper out of the way. Looks different, doesn't it? I hope our friends Sheldon and Louise see this posting, because this is the room they stayed in while here in March! It will take a couple more days, but then i should be able to settle in and start making art!

The Whiteness of the Walls

Look! I have walls and they're painted white!
A blog posting of few words and several sundry pictures... because I'm tired! Nay, exhausted! All the schlepping and screwing and spackling and sanding then computer dilemmas that didn't want us to go online and post our progress. Days spent on ladders and in cars and trucks making endless forays to Home Depot. All the doing and wiring and then...
I have a studio.

I have switches- three way, no less (Thank you Jonathan!) (Surrounding wall not sanded yet in this photo.)
I have a fan: (well, I'd like to think I have many...)

That fan really works! It was quite hot in my studio the other day and I was worrying that the summer would do me in what with a black roof and lots of windows but the fan is super! Three speeds of air circulation and what a difference.
And I have lovely studio corners and spaces:

Look at that handsome space! I am so happy! But so tired. I'm retiring now. I have moved piles of art materials from here to there (and living room materials from there to here) and I deserve to sleep. I'm hoping to move the rest of my things in tomorrow, or maybe the next day. And  then to work!