Friday, December 10, 2010

(Beautiful!) Alert!: Banquet

Taken directly from the info section at their shop site:
"Banquet Atelier & Workshop is a Vancouver-based studio, creating inspired learning for families everywhere. We are currently obsessing over handmade quilts, making blood orange marmalade, Eastern European folk costumes, Maira Kalman, the boreal forest, homing salamanders, and growing succulents. But that's just this week."
...I'm in love.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Wednesday Work: Jennifer Angus





A couple of weeks ago, we were lucky enough to see the work of Jennifer Angus, up close, and in person. Let us just say, was that real? These ornate objects are so meticulously curated, the composition, oooh!, the colors, ahhh! the beetle wings, eh?

Her installation is part of The Philadelphia Art Alliance's "The Sitting Room: Four Studies" which also includes installations from Ligia Bouton, Carole Loeffler, and Saya Woolfalk.


Angus' site-specific instillation is loaded with nature, mostly insect carapaces among wax-infiltrated structures. After seeing the many different site-specific installations on Angus' website, (there are so, so many,) I began to realize that she has a true vision for the incorporation of nature into design. All of her set-ups appear so different aesthetically, but all use the same pieces-parts from nature, mixed in with just the right amount of Victorian relics to make the once-live objects resurrect into beautiful dioramas and wallpapers.


These images of the Philadelphia exhibit do the real thing no justice, so if you're in Philadelphia before January 3rd, 2011, you must see this exquisite display.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Wednesday Work: Lunch!


It's about that time around here - time for lunch! Almost (but not) more than eating my lunch - I love preparing my lunch, styling my lunch; and looking at pictures of lunch once the eating is done.

You can see my measly offering up above (we're talking some serious constraints here in accessibility and styling - the carrots would not agree to be shot head on: I'll have to check their contract).

But alas, there is puh-lenty of B E A U tiful pictures of lunch out there in web land for you to look at.


I saw this cake as an angry face, until just now. I was attracted by the humor ... that apparently isn't there. But anyway,
Design Sponge has a lot of great recipes and A LOT of wonderful food photography.
You can find images like this below, outlining the ingredients of a dish,


Or you can head over to Grass Doe 's Johnathan Levitt, who takes a viewpoint more so on the side of commercial restaurant photography.

My favorite food photography is one that sets up a scene, a scene with a story. Then not only can I daydream about the food I would be eating, but imagine who it is I might be sitting across from and what we might be discussing.

Some kind of "When Harry Met Sally" road trip rendezvous or an afternoon at home building a print shop in the basement,

Or my favorite - - traveling with my lover through Iceland's cold countryside, boots crunching the snow, perspiration freezing us to our scarves, on our way to the next, then the next town for a bed and breakfast and a cross-country ski trail, stopping for a hearty bowl and a delicious brew,
Check out 101 Cookbooks for more images like the one pictured below.

All this talk of food! With Thanksgiving right around the corner! What will your holiday table look like?

Sunday, November 21, 2010

TO-DO: 10 things to-do before you make your way HOME for the holidays

(source)

1. Listen to records, LOUD...
2. while staying up much too late...
3. drinking PBC beer or liquor drink of your choice...
4. gluing found objects ...
5. to precisely cut out paper shapes...
6. getting glitter all over the rug...
7. make dinner at midnight...
8. eat ice cream at 2am...
9. and watch Hellboy II on Netflix Instant...
10. go to bed naked. ***
***(but don't forget to set the alarm!!! tomorrow's still a work day!)
(11. remember who you are.)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Wednesday Work: Abelardo Morrell - Coming to Philadelphia!

Abelardo Morrell is coming back to Philadelphia!!! -> To the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC) on November 18th, 2010 @ 7:00pm!



I had the pleasure of hearing Morell speak at the PMA in the Fall of 2006, at the onset of my graduate study. I had studied photography in undergrad, had made many photographs, and thought a little bit about the life of those photographs in the world - but I had never thought about the stuff that comes before the photographs, before the images are made, at the moment when they get caught. I had never thought about the mechanics and the machine involved in the act of making a photograph.
Had definitely never thought about it as another way to manipulate the image. *** This is what excites me.

Abelardo Morell opened my eyes, with his images yes - but with his process double yes. To make these images posted here, Morell used rooms across the world (hotel rooms, gallery rooms, abandoned rooms, etc.) to make simple cameras, Camera Obscura. He made the rooms themselves into the camera by covering the windows in the room with light tight material and removing a one inch square in the center of the window in order to create a simple lens.


Photography is the capture of light. The capture of light is done so by the camera. The camera is a glorified box used to hold light, let in by a little hole (the lens), until it can be recorded onto the light-sensitive material.
The earliest camera - the Camera Obscura - and the "cameras" Morell creates do not have the mirror system of the modern camera, the mirrors which flip the image over for our eyes to see the right way - therefore the images made in this way are upside down.
Morell's images of hotel rooms made into camera obscura contain not only the room which Morell's view camera sees, but also the image of what the room itself "sees" outside of its window, the image made by the camera obscura along the back walls of the hotel room. These light images of what the hotel room "sees" are cast as upside down images.
Sounds really complicated right?
Maybe, kinda.



Check out more of Abelardo Morell's work at his website, here. See his process here. Learn more about the Camera Obscura and the basic science of photography, here.
Go to the PPAC's website here.
And attend Abelardo Morell's Artist Lecture & Book Signing
at the PPAC
on November 18th, 2010
at 7:00pm
The Crane Building
1400 N. American St.
Philadelphia, PA.
Whew! Sometimes I exhaust myself...

PS Get outside & enjoy that weather - - NOW!

Monday, November 1, 2010

DEFY MONDAY: NOvember: Soup!

A "Kitchen -Sink- Soup" Fall Edition! What to do with all that overwhelming CSA? The weather is changing, cold salads are on the outs - unless (!) They are accompanied by a warm bowl of soup (and a crust of fresh bread) of course!

I had the good fortune to have a free chunk of time this weekend, a hankering, and with the CSA rotting - soup time it was.

On the counter up top we have: red cabbage! fennel! salt potatoes! a sweet potato! broccoli crowns! spinach! some carrots! and an onion! The counter below: cinnamon, Jamaican allspice, garlic powder, nutmeg, Nashville salt & pepper!

Not pictured: one pint of light cream, 2 lbs. of air-chilled boneless chicken breast, bullion cubes (both chicken and vegetable), and my super-secret ingredients: curry powder, and cayenne pepper.

The first thing I did was fill up the big old soup pot with 16 cups of water and bullion to start the broth. While I waited for that to boil, I cubed the chicken breasts and put them on the stove top to saute. I used 1 tbsp. olive oil, Nashville salt&pepper, garlic powder, nutmeg and curry powder.
For this step, I had a lot of help:

While that slow cooked, making a dark brown sweet garlicky syrup, I cut up the potatoes (both the salt and the sweet), then the broccoli and the carrot and added these to the stock pot.
The chicken was done, I put this aside in a bowl. Then using the sweet & sour syrup left behind in the pan, I sauteed two large white onions on the slow. (At this time I would like to thank my self-appointed sponsor: I would not have been able to get through this on the slow without my good friends from PBC. Philadelphia Brewing Company's Rowhouse Red today. Yum.)


Between sipping and onions cooking, I shredded the red cabbage, chopped the fennel and added them along with a large large handful of spinach to the stock pot to simmer.
While time continued to work its magic, I cut the chicken into even smaller morsels (I did not want a chicken soup, but I did want a hearty animal protein to peek in and out). Having that done, I added the chicken to the stock and then the onions, last but not least a pint of light cream, and all along, a shake of cinnamon here, a splash of allspice there, a forceful flick of garlic powder, a sprinkling of nutmeg, a dash of curry, a mild splash of cayenne pepper, and Nashville salt & pepper.
Put the pot on low and let it cook.
While I was waiting, PBC's Rowhouse Red and I cooked a pan of 101 Cookbook's Pumpkin and Feta Muffins, you can find that recipe here. I am not a huge fan of muffins, so I made it into a sort of large flat loaf using a 9x12 baking pan instead.
Suffice to say after an hour and half of this, the kitchen was rocking and the whole house smelled great! With the windows open, we even had company come by outside!

Big old cat on our cinder block fence. The backyard recently drenched. Dogs happy. Did I mention we were listening to Air? An unnecessary apple pie candle burning. The warm glow a of Rowhouse Red.
It was a wonderful, EASY, almost NOvember afternoon indeed!
***For your own twists on this recipe: cut the chicken and add sauteed tofu or seitan instead (now its vegetarian!), don't like cream? Try some unflavored soy milk. (mhmm - now its a vegan recipe!) Don't like spicy (Oh, I'm sorry! really.) Cut the curry, cut the cayenne - the cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice will leave you with a nice sweet soup- to this I encourage adding a diced apple, something hard, like a granny smith - but don't cook it with the soup, add it last minute to individual servings.
Anybody got a good crusty bread recipe? I need one!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Wednesday Work: Andrew Kozlowski


Triumph! screenprint 12 x 12, 2010
Pile screenprint 12 x 12, 2010
Standard Disaster screenprint 20 x 30, 2010
Crash screenprint 12 x 12, 2010
Bag screenprint 12 x 12, 2010

Down On The Ships intaglio 8 x 8, 2010
Them intaglio 18 x 18, 2010
Moon Viewing Point screenprint 20 x 15, 2010


Go see Kozlowski's solo exhibition, Dear Tree Hugger, at The Print Center in Philadelphia until November 20th.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Blogger Alert!: Crochet Bloke

Newly enamored with Crochet Bloke's blog - this is a red skull crocheted from butcher twine. Combine this post with others detailing how to cook fried flowers and lots of beautiful pictures - you've got my attention. Visit Crochet Bloke's blog, here and check out his Mr. Boo and Pumpkin Head patterns just in time for the holiday!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Defy Monday: Go Apple Picking


Mary Kate McDevitt says do it...
Buy it here.
Do it here.

A few weeks ago, this Tennesseean and this New Yorker went on a spur of the moment, outta the city trip to the apple orchard. (The Sea's first to a North Eastern orchard yet!)
And it was every bit as magical as they're depicted.

Now, I know the truth about apples... none will ever taste the same as the ones you pick yourself at the ripest pickin' time of the year.







Get some pumpkins, grab your apples, and sip some cider, most importantly: get out there in the fall sun while it still lasts. You'll have all winter to experiment with the pumpkin puree you stuff into the freezer.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Every once in a while.....:Vincent Colvin

Every once in a while - you have the good fortune to meet someone inspired, and therefore - inspiring. Vincent Colvin is one of the most sincere, enthusiastic, un-ashamed-ly full of wonder and curiosity, person/artist (artist=person=artist (?) (different conversation all together)) I have had the pleasure of getting to know in a long time.

Recently relocating from Philadelphia to Austin, TX (noooooooooooooooo!), Vince has been keeping us updated of his doings over at his blog, The Benthos. Earlier this week it was a post about an Ammonoid Fossil he found in the Colorado River. Then just the other day, an investigative post on the common wasp and why it might be going rapid attack on a moth in Vince's garden (complete with 5 minutes of live footage)!

(source)

We talk about art, the art scene, the art market, trends in art, contemporary art, art history, our individual art practices, politics, popular culture, top 40, underground, indie, folk art, DIY, crust punks, intellects, sculptors, curators, professors, meter maids, and lunch truck ladies - - - but we mustn't forget the origin of all of this : WONDER.
Why do we make the things that we do? What compels us to enter those secret and special places inside of ourselves? Why are you infatuated with old globes and snake skins? Why does the sight of a whole section of different color duct tape in the hardware store make us giddy?

Wonder: wond-der. -verb: to think or speculate curiously; to be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; -noun: something strange and surprising: a cause of surprise; the emotion excited by what is strange; miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon.


You get the picture. Now go pick some up !- figure out what turns you on and hold onto it! Wonder - it's what we can do.
Check out some of Vince's new experiments with woodcuts on his blog, here, you can also see more of his work on his website, here. Get jealous of Austin, here. Buy your ticket to visit and show up on Vince's doorstep, here.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Today the Sea was born!

(source)

Today the Sea was born! And she doesn't know it yet, but we have planned a fun filled weekend staycation. Thats right, we are going to vacation - at home. Not the toughest thing to do when you live somewhere as fabulous and full as Philadelphia ...
Don't want to give anything away - - - but for those inquiring minds, (Sea stay away) check out this link here and here, here and here, yum here, and the grand finale here.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Wednesday Work: Anslem Kiefer


A mixed media artist, painter, sculptor, installation artist - a mixed media artist who works with things like 700 lbs. of lead, making it into a book. A painter working with tar and emulsion, earth and concrete, and an eerie application of text. Anselm Kiefer.




Keeping with our October theme, macabre and gray. Have you heard the term "vernacular architecture"? Its a term referring to regional architecture of the home-grown sort. The row home picture windows full in complete decoration for every major, and all forgotten, holiday home to home, and street to street in South Philly - that is an example of vernacular architecture. The style specific to fishing huts built in the backwoods of Maine - things like that.
I can't help but think Kiefer's work looks German and that I would like to visit.


(source)

(source)