Salsa Factory

I acquired a bit more than a few scotch bonnet peppers from a customer, lets call him "Boomer", that comes into the bakery I currently work at. He handed me a White Castle cup that was full of peppers and tomatoes. I shared them with my coworkers before taking home five of the very hot peppers to make salsa with. The first time I made salsa out of these miniature habanero peppers they were much brighter in color, the dark red color of the new batch of peppers shows the maturity of the fruit. The first time we made salsa with Boomer's peppers, we didn't use gloves and all was fine. This time around, my fingers burn and while cooking I felt the burning in my eyes. Next time, gloves for sure.
While the spiciest peppers came from Boomer, the other various peppers came from the Divelbiss garden. A grocery bag full of banana peppers, red, green, and others I do not even know the name of.

Beware of the wooden chunk that remains in a batch or two of the tomato based salsa. While blending, Tyler (boyfriend and roommate) was stirring while blending? I tried to retrieve the chunk of wood whence I noticed it was removed from the spoon by the blender blade; however, I was unable to locate it.
You might enjoy the hints of pineapple in the tomato salsa; also in the tomatillo salsa you will find mango and cucumber. I do not know if it is acceptable to put tequila in salsa, I did this to one batch of tomato salsa; it has pineapple, cilantro, and an oz of tequila. It seemed to complete the blend. I will work on dispersing the salsa to friends and family, especially those who contributed to the ingredients of such. Tyler and I dropped off a bag of chips and 3 varieties of the salsa to his brother in the dorms. He was very excited.

Year Half Gone

My one year in this apartment is over half way now. Soon, if I stop dragging my feet, I will be in a place that has at least 2 bedrooms. I will have a stove that works all of the time, not having to relight the pilot light every time I want to cook. My kitchen might even possess a dish washer, and my cabinets enough dishes to fill it.
I will not have a strange infestation of bugs (that may have been coming from the leftover beer bottles in the recycles). I noticed a swarm of them on my ceiling last night, found them all dead this morning on the windowsill. There will be two large closets for the boyfriend and I to each have plenty of space. My studio will not be placed in the dining room, it will be behind a door and possess 4 walls. The dog bed will not be squished into a corner next to the bookcase, poor guy is sleeping on it right now watching me type this. Perhaps he will even have a small backyard to run circles in, a patio for me to watch from? I could read on the patio and do yoga all morning.
For now, an apartment is where I dwell with my pet and my lover.

macramé sculptures

How about trying to make a little extra money with my craft? I have a ton of beads that still need to be made into jewelry and I have a few necklaces/bracelets that can be sold in the meantime. How about we became a sculptor and create interesting artwork using the craft of macramé? While searching for unique macramé knots, I found an artist who does just this, creates sculptures using macramé, she first lays out her design on paper and then sets up an area to construct the piece. These pieces take a month or so to complete, once they have been constructed she paints them with a diluted water color.

Last winter I participated in the Wehrle art market for the second year in a row, the first year I sold a few beads for the boyfriend's mother and a couple of prints. The second time around I was convinced to make a bunch of necklaces and jewelry because everyone loved the designs I wore around campus. I did not end up selling a single one. I did trade one for a hand bag, however the buyers only wanted hand painted scarves this past winter. Needless to say I have plenty of these left:
I think that the jewelry resembles sculpture in a sense I have placed the beads strategically around a symmetrical structure. I need to come up with formulas for each necklace so I can recreate the necklaces. I have been talking to my parents about starting up an etsy shop together, they both have excellent talents that just need to be used for the mass producing force.
I went to Leen O's the other day with a friend and played a couple games of chess, It was a pretty hip place and the hookah was very good. You could get the shisha in fruit though with is a little much for me. Anyway, I found even more macramé art, this time it was hanging on the wall; rather it was helping something else hang on the wall.

Riskay

I do not know this woman; however, her wedding gown is very sexy.
I do wish to reflect on something wedding related that I can not seem to understand. I may never understand it, which is frustrating. My brother who is in Afghanistan has chosen to not attend his sister's wedding. This will be the second cherished moment in one of his sisters' lives that he will be missing. I am fearful that he will choose not to attend mine some day. I do know that if I was in my sister's place I would probably take it as a bad omen and not go through with it. I know that my sister is a very smart woman and will not do this, but if I were in her place I would only see it this way. Yes he is deployed right now and spending 4 days of his 14 day leave may not be in his plans but what the hell? I cannot understand it. I am kind of choosing not to because it is not right.
Sometimes we have to accept things that just aren't right in life but when it comes to family I believe that we should be there for each other all of the time, and support each other in all aspects of life.
On a lighter note summer is almost over, I know this because my birthday past and it always flies by after that. The search for a fall job and become severe and I am anxiously putting out cover letters and resumes. Perhaps a full time job teaching art to middle schoolers? Or perhaps a full time job working at a school tutor half a day and secretary the other half? Or perhaps paid intern at a gallery? Who knows, the possibilities are endless!

Dog park hopping

Other things that have been going through my head:

How to motivate and how to be motivated.
The boyfriend tries to complete a programming assignment in one night that should have been started weeks ago. He did not finish of course, all I could do was motivate, right? Wrong, all I could do was distract him from his work. I found myself trying to punish him for not going to class with things like taking away sex but that is harder to do than said. The question is how can I motivate him to make life changing decisions like setting aside two hours a day to work on that program that's due in two weeks? Still working on it, three years later, still working on it.

So today I decided to go dog park hopping with the dog I've had for one year this coming June.



One whole day off to do whatever I want! woo hoo what fun. I decided to take the dog on an adventure to a couple different places. The first park was big with a separate fenced in swimming area, lost the frisbee- who knew it wouldn't float. Some people just do not take the energy to discipline their dogs. Had to exit the swimming area because one big black frisky dog would not stop snapping at Cole and trying to start something. After three tries I decided to remove Cole and go to the grassed area. This man did not change the tone of his voice nor the volume of his voice when he spoke to his pet. How can a dog learn if there is no communication that there was a misbehavior? I found these people at this park to be slightly lackadaisical about their pets. This trip was only Cole's second time swimming this season, I fear he is a little rusty and needs more practice before canoe times.

The second park was very nice a large, no swimming area but there are several fenced in areas for different sizes of dogs. There is even a fenced in agility course. I will definitely be making the drive more often to get away from so many dogs. At the local dog park there are usually too many dogs and Cole does not have a moment of calmness.

I am happy to say that my summer tan is developing nicely and will most certainly be ready for the California trip that comes in a couple weeks.

A few trips to Michaels and we were on our way to making signs for parking. Thanks to Megan, Jessica, and Brodie for helping with this task! A few sharpies and a little spray paint helps make the show that much better.


Erin's handmade paper exhibition is totally the best in show no doubt it took my breath away when I saw it oh wow owowowowow. The headphones let you listen to the sounds of the paper making process.

I have a better version of my exhibition but I like this blury night version better than the ones I took. Come see the works in person please the camera cannot do them justice.


Done with painting beads and sewing on sleeves. I am even done with hanging the works on the wall in the gallery and mounting my artist statement. The gallery opens tomorrow morning at noon and the open house in Sunday at 1:00 p.m.
I am so Pumped!!
We will be out at the gallery hop on Saturday night in the short north. If you have never made it out there this is the month to go! They say the gallery hop in May is the best...!

Want a sneak peak? I hope you got it with this post. I am so pumped for the gallery hop this weekend. We will be out off of Ibiza in the Short North on High st. We will be doing a community art project, come join!

Filling in the Gaps

This morning I worked on filling in the gaps in my patchwork wall hanging. Frustrating stuff trying to make it all fit together. Wish I had been making everything symmetrical like mommy suggested.
Sloppy work!

Mandala s and Collage s

In the fifth grade we did mandalas and collages. Collages were in the style of Romare Bearden. Enjoy a couple examples of each.
My mandala:
My (and My C.T.) collage:
Student work:

Guest Speaker

I was the guest speaker today for 2 sixth grade classes. The teachers brought their students together just to hear me talk! I felt honored... I talked about the process of putting together an exhbition: promoting, describing, making the work, hanging etc. I also talked about my study abroad trip to Egypt. There are so many students who raised their hand when I asked if they might want to travel and study abroad in another country. There is so much to talk about and discuss on both of these topics I was not even worried that I had only 10 minutes to prepare.

Spray Painting Fools

Great Spring afternoon spent outside spray painting our logo! Sorry ODU, we only made a small oops on the sidewalk. On a sheer curtain we repeated the stencil, I am thinking long scrims? But it will hang in the Student Center in the Griff for publicity. Date should be the most noticeable info? I think so.
Moving right along with the show... I need to finish more pieces that is for sure.

A side project complete! Finally I have collected enough of Cole's rope toy.



It actually came from 3 different rope toys, technically.
CIAO!

Salvaged!

I love it when I can fix pieces that I was unhappy with, haha. I was afraid to start it but I did it. There are only a couple more things I need to do to finish it. The very first piece I did for my wall hangings did not turn out well, it is because I had NO CLUE WHAT I WAS DOING. So, I went back and actually tried and accomplished a good thing. There was a lot of use of the seam ripper with this job but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
I need to create borders and for my smaller piece and 1 more larger piece for the central scene wall hanging.
More pictures to come!

Some Examples of what I am Working on

None of these are quite completely finished.
I will add embellishments where I see fit when I construct my wall hangings. Each piece will be attached to a backing and stitched together. I use a straight stitch for all pieces that are attached to the background and I use a few different zigzag stitches to attach pieces to each other.








More to come!

more to come