Garden Discovery Walk

1. 2.

3. 4.

Lots of things are appearing that surprise me.

1. Last year we grew Giant Pumpkins in the worst possible spot and were lucky to get just one big fruit. But then we didn't have the interest in doing anything with it, so the plant got tossed aside at the end of the season, and we kept the pumpkin on the porch until it froze and then we just tossed it into the yard to decompose. Well, who would think that it would self seed. We have a lot to learn, because now we have a volunteer pumpkin climbing up the 'Suez Canal' feature that we built earlier this year.

2. The Echinops Ritro which is blooming! I didn't know much about this plant that I originally saw in Switzerland, and had to have in my garden. So now I know that it is a flower, not just an interesting seed head. Hmm.

3. I transplanted/rescued a sedum from the shade garden since its roots had been eaten away by the stinkin' voles, and put it in the lasagna bed. Somehow, with it another plant was in the same earth clump. It looks to be a Black-Eyed Susan, which must have been seeded at the nursery. Wherever it came from I am happy to have another flower, even by accident. I think by next week we should see the flowers.

4. OK this is no surprise, a big fat red lily. But I had to include it because its so beautiful. The stalk has five big flowers and the rain knocked it down so into a vase it went.

We have lots of wild black raspberries on the hill and I considered them a weed, a mean weed with lots of thorns, but this year we have had adequate rains and the berries are HUGE and sweet, so I am reevaluating them. I already ate the biggest ones, so no photos of those.

In case I hadn't mentioned it before, and you know I have, the frogs LOVE the lily pads, and here is a photo to prove it. Five frogs all lounging about in total peace. In the center is a plastic marker which came with the plant so we could tell where it was tossed into the pond.

And I was super lucky to have come across this teeny one inch long froggie, who is trying to be invisible. This fellow lives in the yard along with ten zillion others who serenade us LOUDLY all night. It's a frog orgy here at the Mexican Chalet.

The Silver Thimble II

The Silver Thimble II    Oil on gallery wrapped canvas 12x12x1” $150 Email me 

I’ve rearranged my lighting and cast a spot on the arrangement, and funny thing, I could SEE EVERYTHING SO MUCH BETTER. How much easier it is to get things to look right when one can see clearly the light and shadow.

The beads on the pin cushion are a perfect example. Each little bead casts its own shadow.

 

The Silver Thimble I                                         and The Silver Thimble II

The Silver Thimble

The Silver Thimble

Oil on gallery wrapped canvas, 14x11x1" $150 Email Me

With this painting I tried to limit my palette and to work with several items that don't have much reflective quality. The two pairs of scissors are matte and yet have wonderful colors. Same thing with the folded fabrics, but the threads and their little porcelain container had a sheen and a glow. Yet, next to the shiny silver thimble, it is clear what is the center of the composition.

I don't know why it has taken me so long to think to use sewing supplies as my still life subject matter. Duh! I am so glad it finally happened.

1-2-3 Pesto!

Basil Patch
So I am sitting there in the garden, enjoying the sun and breeze, reading my book, and I look up and see Dave weeding.

O dear.

I love that he is weeding but I fear for his choices about what-is-a-weed. I put down my book and join him in the task. It is theraputic, and the results are definitely worth it. I saved several real plants, and now we can see that we have bushes, which were quite obscured by the previous invaders.

At that time I noted that the basil had really grown back from my first harvest and I had better do something about it soon or it will go to seed and all will be tough and fibrous. So instead of cutting it now, I went inside and made two batches of bread dough. One will make a huge pizza and the other will make a loaf of pesto spiral bread. Yum.

Letting it rise is a job for the lawn chairs by the pond. I have covered each mixing bowl with plastic and a towel and since it is too cool in the house, the sunny spot by the pond will do the trick and help the dough reach its full potential.

I grow parsley to add to the basil to stretch it for pesto, but the parsely isn't keeping up with the basil so I will use purchased spinach instead. It works great. Here's the recipe.

Pesto

Handfulls of basil leaves and stems, washed

Spinach to match or parsley instead, whatever, also washed.

Walnuts

Three huge cloves of garlic, peeled

Put all in the food processor, streaming in extra virgin olive oil to lubricate and making into a creamy mix.

Turning off the processor, toss in handfuls of shredded parmesan cheese, pulsing the processor to just mix. Add more olive oil if necessary.

That's it. For the Pesto spiral bread, I rolled out the bread dough, spread it will a nice layer of pesto, and carefully rolled it into a loaf. I let it rise until way double in size, spray it will water, dust it with salt and sesame seeds and bake it on a cooky sheet in a preheated oven at 450 for 30 minutes.

We cut it half and froze it, keeping the other half for immediate eating. Yum.

How can I stay indoors?

The garden is calling me out and I cannot resist.

And why should I? Didn't we work diligently to bring all this beauty to live here? Yup. So I find myself wandering with my tea out to the pond in the morning to watch the water lilies open with the encroaching sun. When the new leaves pop up they are a deep magenta, and then slowly change to green. The lily itself is very light regulated and at cocktail time it slowly closes and recedes for the night. Our frogs are so happy to have lily pads to rest upon and it is a riot watching them mount them, which isn't always easy. Often a frog will push at the edge and the pad will move around like a pool toy, until he can finally climb on. The pad then begins to sink below the surface with the frog's weight. The little guys do better, but most of the frogs are long past little guy status.

The Asiatic lilies in the front garden are just opening and are a different variety than the Stargazers in the pond garden. Still very fragrant. And HUGE.

More exotic daylilies are opening in the side shade garden. A lovely pale peach double.

And an almost white one with lime green throat. Someone spent a lot of time and energy developing these beauties, and far be it from me to just nod Hello and go back inside. I have a good book to read and a comfy chair under a tree. That'll be my day today.

I deserve it.

Buttermilk Sky

Buttermilk Sky

Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas, 16x20x1" $150 Sold

It was during our bike ride last Friday that it dawned on me what I needed to do to make this landscape idea work. It had something to do with reducing reality to its simpler shapes, and forgetting local color in favor of imaginary colors. If I were doing this as a quilt I would divide my composition into segments, and fill those with flat color and details that would aid the design.

A few linear details would define the trees and houses and then I should stop before I overdid it. The fact that this is paint and not fabric makes it difficult to hold back, since even the tiniest lines and dots can be included ad infinitum. I like that part, since all the tough decisions have already been made, but those main areas should be allowed to stand alone. I'll keep at this for a while until I feel I have it figured out satisfactorily

This format is larger than I have worked in a while, and is a rescued canvas, or a failed painting from several years ago. I gessoed over the old piece, brought it back to white, and started anew.
Somehow that made it easier to begin.

Advice Bits

Melody,
I am a faithful reader of your blog and always look forward to hearing your latest adventure or endeavor.
I would appreciate some advice from you. I have a full time day job but want to transition to making my living selling my art quilts. What do you find is the best venue for selling your artwork?
Do you have to teach to sell art work or is it a way to diversify and supplement the income?
Do I have to have quilts on display at the major quilt show to be taken seriously? What are the top 3 or 4 bits of advice you would give? Thanks so much.


Dear Faithful Reader,

As you are aware, I am always happy to spew my opinions. So you want to sell your art quilts for a living? Here's some ideas that may work (in a perfect world).

1. Spread out all your available work and corral them into piles of like subjects or styles. Look at what is your best, or strongest original work. Eliminate dalliances in other directions as you want to focus your efforts and identify your strengths. Even if your best work is the smallest pile, examine it and write down ten things about it that are truly descriptive. Sometimes we don't recognize our own specialities. Check to see if those things are approaches/techniques you enjoy doing, because this is what you need to be making for a long while.

2. Make more work. The more work you make the better refined your ideas become, and the faster you are able to produce. Don't bother with difficult assembly techniques unless it truly shows in the finished product.

3. Take great photos or have great photos taken by a pro. Send or take these with actual quilts to galleries you know that sell fiber. hahahahaha. This is the catch. You may or may not know of any galleries that handle quilts or fiber art. Since I was recently approached by a gallery, I was disappointed to find that I was put on hold until December because she already had one quilter in her stable. ONE!
OK, that was not helpful.
Put those great photos in the hands of a professional website designer and have a great website designed for your work. I can't imagine how you can sell art quilts without one.

4. Yes it is important to have your work in competitions. It is a strengthening process to have it compete with others who have the same hopes of making a living with their work. And of course you must see it next to the others in your field. This is your education. It tells you to let go of some of your ideas and to put more effort into others that might improve your work. As far as being taken seriously, I am still waiting on that one.

5. Teaching may or may not be something you desire. I loved it but it is not for everyone. But I sold most of my art to my students. Let me rephrase that. I sold ALL of my art quilts to my students.

6. Send your work to magazines. Write articles or patterns or technique tutorials. The more that you share, the greater your audience. The greater your audience, the more your work will sell.

7. Try a vending at a quilt show. This is truly work, but the contacts one makes can spur quilt sales. Of course you have to have a product. Perhaps it is something you continually use, and can work for the company that produces it. Or something you make that is a draw to quilters. Or work in someone else's booth that will allow you to hang your work. Don't do outdoor venues where you are subject to the vagaries of weather and under-educated customers.

8. Approach interior designers with your work. Decide if you want to do commission work, in other words, the same quilt in different colors, or twice as large, etc. Be prepared to have them sell your work for twice what they paid you for it. ( I never did this. ick.)

9. Put your work in online venues like Artful Home or join SAQA which also has a selling site. And be careful not to underprice yourself, but do offer some affordable sized pieces too.

10. Find something in your work that shouts WOW! This can not be underestimated. When a person walks into a room to view a bunch of quilts, yours has to stand out from the crowd. When you look at other artist's work, determine its strong points to see how you might compete.

I hope these gave you some good ideas and encouragement.
Melody

Riverpark Ride

We couldn't have picked a better day to ride. Glorious sunny skies, not a bit of humidity, a good breeze at our backs and hardly anyone on the bike path. We rode about ten miles round trip and saw glorious scenes of river, swamp, marsh, and even a dense bamboo forest. Also lots of big factories, Pepsi, Dupont, Westinghouse, NK, and BASF...what a place to work.

Bridges and railings along the path are painted this wonderful cerulean blue and in perfect condition, not like they would be if Chattanooga had harsh winters. Just lovely. And we had the luxury of public bathrooms, water fountains and benches for resting, mostly under the shade of lots of trees. I imagine on the weekends that the lane is full of happy bikers, walkers and skaters, although the cement is sectioned so one's fillings might come loose from skating over those gaps.

Funny thing about the diversion... a revelation came to me, and now I know what to do with my new painting series. Blink.

We stopped at the lotus marsh and took a bunch of photos. I have never seen lotus in real life and these were more than huge.

It was great exercise and to finish it off we stopped for a hot fudge sundae at McDonald's. Then it was onto the rumdum, and the used bookstore, and finally Hobby Lobby, since I was out of yellow paint. What a super day.

Interruptions

I started a new painting yesterday and got totally lost. I planned on fixing it (always a mistake) when I got back from my doctor's appt. but then I had to grocery shop, and make dinner and feed the fish...all work avoidance. Sometimes it pays to admit defeat, and move on. I admit defeat on painting #2 of this new series. I am not defeated on this series, only stalled.

Another perfect day and we have decided to take the bikes into Chattanooga and ride along the riverfront. Isn't that a good diversion? I think so.

Down the Road

Down the Road
8x10x1" Oil on gallery wrapped canvas $100

Sold
For the last several days I have been searching the internet in hopes of finding new painting inspiration. I wanted to do something different and challenging but I didn't know what that might be. Yesterday I found the work of a painter I had seen before in Santa Fe (very Southwestern) and I decided to try the landscape idea...with a twist. Of course it must be about this area and in my colors. Part B. I was getting tighter and tighter in my painting style and needed to loosen up a bit. Less about exactitude and more about freedom.

Whenever we take a ride in either direction we see fabulous vistas and lots of 'character' in the structures on the land. I may have cleaned this barn up a bit too much. ha!
I had Dave drive while I shot photos and came home armed with about 130 possible ideas. That ought to keep me busy.

At first I thought I would go small and use oils but I want to learn more about the techniques I found in the inspiration paintings, so I will go larger and switch to acrylics. I will post my progress.

Speaking of progress...

And they smell so good too.

Critter Report: We went out to look at the flowers and there was a huge crane in our pond. It took off as we stood there, and it looked prehistoric. I was so afraid all our fish had become breakfast, but so far they all seem to be still here.

The Long Trip Home

Brooke

In twelve hours my sister Brooke and her family, Glory and Terry, will be boarding a plane and leaving Singapore. They will have layovers in Tokyo and LA and then land in Arizona, maybe Phoenix? This is a the long awaited day. I am all aflutter inside.

They will stay in AZ for a week or so and visit with Terry's family, whom they have not seen in four years. They have some household goods in storage there, and will decide if they want to move them here to TN. If so, it's a rental truck for the next leg of the trip. Brooke has the only driver's license at the moment, so she will be driving from AZ to TN. O boy. She is a good driver, but of course this is no picnic.

Now here's the thing. All the time that they have been married, they have lived places for Terry's education or employment and now it is Brooke's turn and they have chosen to live near me and Dave.
When they arrive we hope to have scouted out the apartments on her list and hopefully they will be able to find something perfect that is rentable mid-month. Terry has cat allergies so staying with us is going to be short. In the past he has slept in our van. This time we are talking about the garage or potting shed. Not my idea of a place of rest.

And they have no employment here, no car and no home. Is this enough stress for you? Only the young can handle this.
As for me, I will be so happy to have them here and I really hope they like it in TN as much as we do. And I hope and pray they find work they love and an apartment they love and a car that works.

Perfect Day Alert

Weather reports warn us of impending storms, cold fronts and heat waves but do they ever tell us of approaching perfect weather and what to do about it? Not likely, but I managed to recognize it for myself and take appropriate measures.

The sky was clear and the sun was definitely warming up the crisp night air, but the cool steady breeze was the clincher. I had to sit by the pond and soak up the Vitamin D and pure oxygen. Thinking ahead I brought along the Sugar Smacks to feed the fish. As I unfolded my lawn chair I noted the still water, and no visible fish. One handfull of cereal tossed and vroom! a feeding frenzy. They love that cereal.

It is my job to count how many goldfish we have. This takes infinite patience and keen eyesight.

The big four are obvious, but more two-tones have been spotted. Two-tones are fry which are both black and orange. I noted two, at first. Stubby and Spreckles. Then I saw another with just an orange snout. That's how it sometimes starts, with just a hint of orange and then the body shows signs of color and pretty soon we have a bona fide goldfish. One of last week's spottings is now almost totally orange and I am starting to think in terms of the big five.

My final assessment... we have EIGHT goldfish.

This is thrilling. It means that our pond is a good home for them. And did I mention the other pond fish? No I did not. There are many of them and they are a robust breed. They will come to the very edge of the water to retrieve a Sugar Smack or Cheerio, and the goldfish are learning how to compete with them. Their colorings aren't as thrilling as the reflective orange but when they leap for a bug we do get to see yellow flashes of fish belly. Nice.

After a time I began to get a little crispy sitting in the sun, so I went in for a shower and returned with an iced tea and a good murder mystery to read in the yard. There is shade under the redbud trees, next to the lovely scent of the stargazer lilies and I managed to stay awake for almost an hour, just reading and sipping.

One cannot rush about or raise a sweat on a day like this. One must listen to the sounds and observe the sights. We have house wrens and two were very busy flying about looking like they were cleaning up the place, dry brush and twigs in their beaks. Later I discovered they were building a nest (late?) in two red ceramic flower pots on the porch railing. The pots sit behind the purple clematis, just starting to bloom, and are in semi shade. House wrens are adorable little birds with straight upwards pointing tails. Lovely songs too.

And I couldn't help watching the hummingbird at the bee balm. He visited over and over again, defending his turf and chasing away the big bees. Note to self: I must refill the feeders...

Eventually dinner must get made, and thinking ahead I had a pork tenderloin in teriyaki sauce marinating in the refrigerator. A moment of inspiration hit when I waltzed through my studio and smelled the ripe mangoes. Hmm. Mango salsa? Yes. Adding two nectarines, juice and zest from a lemon, chopped jalapeno and fresh mint leaves from the garden and we had salsa. Dave grilled the big chunks of pork and I made perfect white rice and we loved the new dish. Pictures? Too late. By the time I thought of it, we had eaten it all.

There is a real possibility that we may have a week of perfection like this. Do I continue to take advantage of it, or stay inside and paint? What would you do?

Glorious June Garden

The weight of these delphinium blossoms bends the stalk. I must stake them today.

Lucky me that the previous owner invested in fancy daylilies.

The good old standby purple coneflower. The butterflies love them.

Bee balm grown from a tossed handful of seeds last summer. I guess I'll do that again, since this one is growing in shade. We can always use more shade loving flowers.

Another fancy daylily. Amazing how many varieties have adapted to my shade garden.

But the spectacle of Stargazers is just about to begin. This is the first of many many blooms to open this week. Get set for repeated views.

The weather has finally gotten back to normal temps and we can turn off the ac and open the window. Wonderful June.

The Guardians

The Guardians
12x12x1" Oil on gallery wrapped canvas $150 Email me

Once again the lighting has been the primary motivator of this work. I am more interested in how the subjects look in the light, and the shadows cast by that light than in the subjects themselves. The results are subdued and more difficult to see because the edges are often lost in the shadows, but at the same time worthwhile, because the lighting evokes a different mood.

The edges of the canvas will be painted but I wanted to show you the shot of the angled canvas in hopes of getting the color of the cup correct in the photo. It is really more of a turquoise, which I think the computer cannot duplicate. Take my word, the cup is more aqua.