3 Creations, in Red

the summer bbq (these aren't mine but i would eat one)

 

objects by david neale

 homegrown big beef (you know i can't help myself)

art billboards

i saw these art billboards on the interurban trail north of Greenwood today.  the flip-book effect didn't really work for me...disappointing.  still kinda cool though.

My Summer of Flags

I just found these flags on the blogosphere. They're at Annie's Blue Ribbon General Store, so cute, and they made me want to report on some other fabulous flag projects of the summer.

My friend Elli who is a genius (and a 1st grade teacher) came up with a brilliant idea for her wedding. She sent squares of fabric with her invites and requested her guests decorate them before the wedding. A beautiful string of wish flags, each one unique, lined the site of the outdoor ceremony.

Two weeks later, I set out to help my friend Heather decorate the CAGJ banquet venue, a windowless box in the basement of St. Demetrios Church. We couldn't do much besides hang stuff from the stage and from the back balcony. In the spirit of CAGJ, a grassroots organization, I thought it would be fun to have all the volunteers decorate a flag, then string them between the balconies to lower the ceiling plane and give some color to the drab 80's banquet hall. We used CAGJ colors, green and orange and screen-printed some with the CAGJ logo. Lots of people pitched in but I have to give special props to Francisca, who burned the midnight oil with me the night before the event!

2 Fabric Projects

Last week I made two things out of fabric: a Banana Moon Monkey Pillow and a giant Godzilla. The former took three hours and the latter took fifty.

#1
On Saturday Greg and I made a trip to the Quilting Loft. Our ultimate mission: to make something for his sister on her birthday. The something was unknown and her birthday, the very next day. We looked at patterns...floppy sun hats-too tacky, skirts and bags-too time consuming. Aprons and house dresses-unnecessary. We contemplated what an artist with a deadline and mother of a 9 month old needed (besides time)... Rest, peace, comfort. Nap time. When Greg lay his eyes on the Banana Moon Monkeys it was clear. A pillow it should be. We spent the next half hour hunting for fabrics to match our new found monkeys. I fell in love with polka dots blue on brown and the little flowers unraveled by my boyfriend, fearless in a craft store full of Swedish sewing grannies.


#2
The Godzilla installation happened at Open Satellite, a residency program for contemporary art in Bellevue. The artists in residence, aka SIMPARCH, responded to the sterile weirdness of Belleview -Microsoft, hi rises, hi heels and polyester suits in the summer- with Godzilla, Exhausted.

I helped by covering the carcass with shade-cloth.


They ordered a special sound track from a sound artist...subtle screeches and rhythmic grumbles that sounded like coffee machines and cars. The sculpture transformed the gallery into a terrarium. Watching various Bellevue residents and office dwellers react as the project progressed was very interesting. Oh and you could go inside, but all my pictures are grainy.


This project made me think a lot about art and architecture and process. I want to write more about this but my pillow is calling me. Maybe later.

with a little butter and salt

the first big red of the season. i will eat one with a fork and knife. with some olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. and that will suffice.

Lo-Tech Yogurt

Duh! Of course making yogurt is simple...people have been doing it since Jesus was around. Fresh homemade yogurt tastes better than even the fancy store-bought stuff and by making it yourself you can avoid collecting millions of plastic containers.
I didn't find many connoisseurs when I was growing up in the suburbs of Littleton, but these days eating plain yogurt is hip and pretty mainstream. You can find thousands of DIY yogurt recipes online but mine, adapted from Najimieh Batmanglij's A Taste of Persia, is the best. No thermometer required. You only need:
1. one pot. preferably stainless steel with a substantial bottom and top (mine is from the dollar
store)
2. milk. preferably organic whole milk from local cows, goats or sheep.

+ Heat the milk on the stove-top on LOW heat with the lid off. This is important because if you heat it too fast, it will burn and taste bad or boil over and create a mess. Meanwhile, warm the oven.
+ When the milk is hot enough to boil, turn off the heat. You don't need to boil the milk, when the surface inflates or rises into a giant bubble the milk is hot enough. Turn off the oven at this time too.
+ Let the milk cool down until you can stick your pinky finger in and count to 20. If you can comfortably keep your finger in there for ages and the milk is luke warm, you waited too long. You need to heat the milk again and this is sad. If you burn your finger, it's too hot, and this is also sad. In either extreme, the good bacteria will die, so the first time you try, stay close. With a little experience it will be obvious.
+ Now that you have the right temperature, not too hot to kill the cultures but warm enough for them to proliferate, drop in several tablespoons of starter yogurt. For a half-gallon of milk I add five generous tbs.
+ Cover the pot with its lid and place it in the middle of the oven. Warming the oven created a temperature to transition the colony into a good growing space and since you turned the oven off a while ago, there is no direct heat to kill the colony.
+ Don't disturb for 24 hours. When it's done, you can store it in the same pot in the fridge or transfer to jars or recycled yogurt containers.

Okay! Now you're ready to make fabulous things with yogurt. Check out these cute little cucumber bites. Lemon cuc slices, yogurt, dill, grilled shrimp (pickled herring or smoked salmon would be killer too) and salt and pepper. If the thought of plain yogurt grosses you out, try homemade yogurt on crème fraîche icecream. Delicious!

Hambone VeloPocket

Found this TopTube VeloPocket on Etsy - by Hambone Designs. Greg can have the B.O.B trailer. I need the VeloPocket.

City Vultures Unite

Making use of discarded materials is one of the most exciting pursuits I can think of. I'm not on a mission to prove how useful your trash is, I just honestly think a random assembly of materials can inspire great design. Not only is building with reclaimed goods ecological, it's far less stressful than shopping at IKEA (which is pretty spendy for being so cheap).

Greg is totally my accomplice on this one. He's always saving lumber from the dump and routinely roots through our landlord's dump-destined pile (with permission) for salvageable materials like this angle iron. His pioneering spirit means we have a pretty good stock of stuff to get creative with. He also owns all the power tools.

I already wrote about the 100 degree weather that forced me to relocate downstairs. This meant Greg and I had to share an office space. We are both former architecture students and American, so naturally we both need 24" screen iMacs...and a giant desk. No problem, because there just happened to be a giant piece of plywood laying around. The angle iron must have been part of an old desk because they were the perfect length! It took us one day to make. In retrospect there are some things that we could have done differently, but that's what mock-ups are for I guess. That said, we are pretty satisfied. It's simple and stable and only cost us one Saturday and 5 bucks (for hardware). And that's beautiful.


Here are some other reclaimed-material projects. Click on the collage for a better view.