Art Journal

Nature Ramblings ~ Past Times Time Travel ~ Romancing Daily Life

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Romancing Halloween in the High Country: That Old Chestnut

Please click on the picture to enjoy all the nutty goodness

One good thing about spending my Halloween gleaning chestnuts up at Skyline Chestnut Orchard ( just south of the southern Skyline Ridge Trail Head parking lot in the Mid-Penninsula Regional Open Space), was that it finally forced me to find out why people say "Not that old chestnut!" when somebody tells an old joke. Since I come from a family that repeats their jokes, and like to hold with this cultural tradition myself, I've had my chestnuts raked out of the fire quite a few times.

Yes, that's what's known as mixing metaphors. According to the web write-ups I found the line has to do with an old has-been actor, of the English Regency era, who overdid his storytelling. When he mixed up one of his standard stories, he was corrected by his hearers, who had heard the story so many times that they knew it involved a chestnut tree.

Another good thing was that I had an excuse to drive up to Skyline, the slow moving highway that runs along the top of the Santa Cruz Mountains on a gorgeous fall day. I should say that it's slow moving when I'm driving on it. Yeah, I did pull over whenever it was safe. And I had a few disgruntled locals shoot past me, when I couldn't find pull outs fast enough. It must be exciting to be so important that you are always in a hurry. Maybe.

And on top of that I learned the trick of twisting the chestnut burs in my hands to display (usually) three glossy nuts. If I'd only wanted a half a pound or a pound of the little beauties, I could have just scavanged for what was laying out in the debris under the trees. That was what the kids nearby were doing. They were delighted to show me how to gnaw open a nut with my teeth. I'd always had the impression you had to roast them before you'd want to eat them. Actually after trying this technique and eating them raw, I still think that. But don't tell the kids.

I spent about an hour and a half twisting open the prickly husks and plopping nuts in my container until I'd amassed nearly six pounds. Now comes the challenge of incising them, soaking them, roasting them and hulling 'em. I asked for advice from a few of the people I chatted up, as we scavanged cautiously around each other, never wanting to invade each others patches, but enjoying the company. A couple of people I talked to are regulars, each has their own techniques for removing the woody hulls and ideas for cooking them that had never occurred to me. A woman, who I think might not have been here long from Korea, boils them and eats them plain. She was interested when I suggested that she try making them into soup.

My gleanings cost me just under $30.00. The point is not to save money over buying them in the store. The point is the pleasure of gathering your own historical chestnuts from trees that are likely nearly hundred and fifty year old trees.*

It was a perfect California fall day, clear air, blue sky, slightly breezy, and no need for the jacket tied around my waist. And it was terribly romantic to imagine spending a few weeks in the fall harvesting chestnuts and then processing them at home. But I know the real reason I enjoyed my harvest was that it makes me appreciate how much autumn work I don't really have to do.

* Though the actual age of trees in the orchards is unknown, the orchard farmers have done some ring counting from deadwood.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Redwood Symphony: No stranger to Paradise


Like it - when the music resonates right in my chest.

Like it - when I see the performers putting on the show, and I can pick out where the individual sounds come from.

Like it - when that bit the oboe does is coming up, and I spy him picking up his instrument.

Like to - watch the concert mistress rise casually up and exert her presence over her fellow players. She’s one of the people, but she’s also a power within the group unlike the director’s baton. She decides which way the bows move in the strings, and her ear picks up things nobody else’s hears.

I got to attend the Redwood Symphony’s Halloween concert this afternoon. We’ve been on stage together, when my chorus sings with them, and it gives me a neighborly feeling to see their familiar faces. It’s not just a feeling that I’m acquainted with them, but that my voice has a connection to their instruments.

This group is always everything local, friendly music ought to be. Today they started out being Interactive. The audience got to tour the symphony, visiting with each section: winds, brass, percussion and strings. We got specifics on how an oboe is different than a clarinet (about six thousand dollars more for an oboe is one of the specifics) and how the pedals work on the harp (you can get three tones for each string). Then it was listening to lively melodies like John Williams Harry Potter music and The Polovtsian Dances. For me this is the Prince Igor or Kismet music. "Take my hand! I'm a stranger in Paradise. All lost in a wonder land, a stranger in paradise."

We finished up with more interaction. Ten kids attending the concert got an impromptu chance to direct the orchestra. The rest of us spontaneously clapped along to Souza’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”.

I don’t get any of this from itunes.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Harlequin Dreaming

Please click on the picture above to enjoy more of the Harlequins dreams

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Jane: Botanist, Lawyer or Chief Geologist?

Please click on the picture to enjoy the details

I found this lady in an antique store in San Luis Obispo. While giving back some new life to her photograph, I wondered about where Jane might be these days, and what she may have done with her life.

Don't you think she may have become a research geologist and done a lot of fieldwork in the Mojave desert?


Monday, October 25, 2010

Rank Sentimentality: Making Time Stand Still



Please click on the picture to enjoy the details

for making this vintage clock face available in the public domain

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Friday, October 22, 2010

Evening Music: Owls

Please click on the picture above to enjoy more details

The owls are always nearby on our regular post supper walk. We hardly ever see them, but we know them by their voices. I sometimes wonder what notice they take of us.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

City Bound: Angels and Crocodiles (Part 4)

Please click on the picture for more San Francisco charm and Blue Angel Flight detail.

I wonder if everybody have one animal that really scares them, but secretly they find it kinda intriguing. For me, it's crocodiles. Crocodiles seem like a much bigger deal than alligators, which are equally deadly. l hunt crocs out at the zoo, the aquarium, and I tried to find one when I went to Costa Rica.

I pick up any any book or magazine with a nature story showing a picture of an innocent flamingo fluttering down, looking for her shrimp. You know the next picture, SNAP! My favorite Number One Ladies Detective Agency story is the one where M'ma Ramotswe - hey wait a minute. Maybe you haven't read that one yet. Go straight to your library and look up Alexander McCall Smith. Then sit down with a big cup of red bush tea and don't expect to get up until you finish the first book.

Where was I? Oh yeah, crocodiles.

The same urge that draws me to crocodiles likewise interests me in cities - not something I really want to be close to, yet so intriguing. As you may recall from the previous three episodes *, I took a day off and rode my bike to the train station and on up to San Francisco. From there I biked along The Embarcadero and eventually went on out to Fort Mason. The road from Fisherman's Wharf, past Ghirardeli Square, up and over the hill, was crowded with people visiting for Fleet Week. This event is a demonstration of the United States naval power, and an excellent military recruitment tool. Everybody had their noses turned skywards as The Blue Angels demonstrated their prowess. No doubt about it, their skills are awesome.

I thought about crocodiles a lot while I was watching those pilots.






Thursday, October 14, 2010

Dancing on the Wire

Like Araneidae on the wire,


Like a drunk in a midnight choir.

I have tried.

in my way,

to be free.

With apologies to Joe Cocker’s “Bird on the Wire”


Please click on the picture above to really appreciate this lady's beauty

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Performing in the Moment OR Who's Paddling This Canoe Anyway?

Marcia and I performed together today. We did "Nell Cor Piu Non Mi Sento" a lovely Italian aria from the 18'th century. I got to sing.

Marcia played BOTH flute and piano. First, as we rehearsed it, she played the introductory part before the vocalist comes in. I stood and attempted to look both reflective, and a little humorous at the thought of my 18'th century boyfriend's infatuation with me. Being a first soprano, I made it clear that I would EXPECT him to be infatuated. Because that's the way first sopranos have been made since the dawn of time. We rule. We carry the melody about 95% of the time. And we get real cranky the other 5 percent, because we don't actually read music as well as the other voice parts, not really having to do it as often.

I was in the moment! Oooo I was enjoying singing the song so much that I forgot to hold out the 'nellllll' right a the most important part! That was the part where, as we had practiced, Marcia was going to stow her FLUTE on the stand and move her hands up to the piano to play the accompanying chords. Buuuuuttt, gosh I was SO into the moment, I just knew she'd come right along with me.

I LOVED IT, but maybe, just MAYBE it was not as fun for the woman switching instruments mid-stream. It was kind of like she was out there in a canoe, paddling away with a Steinway under one arm and a flute under the other - doing all the work to keep the boat bobbing in the stream. Meanwhile I was standing upright in the canoe, at the prow, singing "Loookkkk at Meeeee. I'm going down streeeaaaammmm!"

It was extremely nice of her not to drop me in the flood.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

On Boots and Dogs

These are the rules I follow for getting my next dog. I learned them growing up, and I like to follow the old ways.


I go to the Humane Society, when I'm ready for the next dog in my life. I think I'm going to find a little dog - and I get a medium-sized one (or vice versa). But there's always one dog there, whose pretty clear I'm for her (or him when I was sure I was going to get another her ). That must be the reason I decided to stop in there that day of all days. I know my dog when I see her, because she's waiting for me.


So the dog comes home and gets used to the household and one night we decide to take a walk after supper. Just an occasional walk would be nice. And the next night, after supper, we settle down and in trots the dog with an expectant look. So, guess what? It's time for the-after-supper-dog-walk.

From now on until that dog goes to the happy hunting grounds in fifteen years, we will go on the-after-supper-dog-walk. Because that's our job. It might be raining. We might be sick. But if we can walk, we will go. And maybe we'll even find that we kind of like the pattern. It's a lot better than doing dishes right away. My husband and I get to discuss any little items that have come up during the day. And supper starts to digest. One day we may even carry her on the walk or help him down over the steps. It will still be important to her to go and we'll go.

Saturday morning, I went out to the garage to put something away and heard my hiking boots crying in the corner. So I put them on and went up to hike at Pulgas Ridge.


The next day we spent cleaning out the garage. Back in the corner my boots were doing a two-step. By the time the garage was clean (or as clean as it's gonna be this time around), there was a great clattering in the corner. It was clear that my hiking boots are not unlike dogs. Or perhaps mine, have learned something from being around dogs. We both put on our boots and headed up for the nice long hike to Windy Hill.

Thanks again to all those people who fought to make the San Francisco,Bay Area Mid-Penninsula Regional Open Space trail system happen.

Sewing Tips: Angel Wings Pattern


This page is reserved for tips on minimizing sewing on my Angel Wings Pattern design for a Spoonflower.com contest.

Page contents will be available after the contest closes.

Thanks for dropping by. Feel free to enjoy my regular art-journal postings in this blog.

Monday, October 11, 2010

City Bound:The Ferry Building (Part 3)

Pedaling up and around the Embarcadero took me to the Ferry Building. You can have your Coit Tower or Fisherman’s Wharf, this place represents San Francisco for me. There was a wooden Ferry House here since 1875. This building dates from 1898. It’s where people who worked in the city crossed on ferries from Oakland and Marin, to get to work each day. It’s also the place where anyone traveling across the country by train ended up. A few people still commute in by boat these days, but most drive.

When I stopped and locked up my bike here, I could hear some of the ferry goers from another era scrambling up from their benches and rushing through the doors to crossover the Embarcadero, out onto Market Street to work. A group of women walk past me, laughing and talking. The dark-haired one, Emily, is a telegrapher. Later on this morning, she’ll be in touch with her fellow op’ in Chicago, my Great Aunt Mabel. Once they finish their business with the transfers, they’ll chat on the wire about Mabel’s handsome new male-friend. Then Emily will instruct her chum to make the next move in that ongoing chess game they’ve been playing for a few weeks.

If ever there was a natural Time Portal, it’s this building.

Please click on the picture above to enjoy the beautiful details

To Be Continued

(Final Episode is Angels and Crocodiles)


Saturday, October 9, 2010

City Bound:Biking the Embarcadero (part 2)


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It's got a reputation for hills, but San Francisco still has a good stretch of flat, bike'able streets. I swung out of the train station at 4'th and Townsend and headed out around behind the baseball stadium. From there I merged onto the Embarcadero. The old piers are on the water side, many of them have been gussied up as businesses and shops. Across from the water is the intensely downtown business district.

This guy thinks he’s working hard on his cell phone, but I see what I see.* This place has always reminded me of Toon Town.

Go ahead and click on the picture to take in a few more details. See what you think.

To Be Continued

* What's that you say? You suspect Photoshop CS4 had a hand in his headgear? Bite your tongue!

Friday, October 8, 2010

City Bound: Car Free to San Francisco (part 1)

Go ahead and click on the photo to fully enjoy the details of the rails. The bike car's the first car on the train and commands the best view looking north to the city.

I took Thursday off and biked over to the local train station to catch the 10:14. Like most romantics, my heart doesn't yearn for city sights. And at the same time, there's something awfully intriguing about the pace of totally urban life, for which I get a tremendous craving every once in a while.

I don't enjoy city driving. And there's no point in it when I've got a lovely wide tired, three-speed bike to companion me, and a train station that's a five minute ride from my house -ten if I stop and talk to a few neighbors along the way. Which I usually do.

Peggy had a bag of lemons out, so of course I stopped at her house too. One of those will come in handy when I make my London Loaf this week.

I made the San Francisco train with the necessary extra five minutes to convince the ticket machine it should accept my debit card, popped my pink cruiser bike on board, and settled into the bike car to listen to the clackety-clack back beat of the train starting up.

to be continued

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Do Bee Do Bee Do: The Anti Quiltin’ Bee

Please click on the picture above

to enjoy the beautiful fantasy quilt detail.

“I love these digital quilts I’ve been making, “ I told my friend Marilyn. “No scraps, no batting and a whole lot less time.”

“Yea, but what about all the fun they used to have at quilting bees?”

She got me wondering if quilting bees were as charming and folksy as they look in the movies. Were they real pals’y kind of places, or was everybody looking to see if your stitches were small enough? Did people feel obliged to go even if they didn't want to, like Tupperware Parties, or were they heaps of fun? I 'spose it depended on where you were and who you hung with.

Trying to imagine what a fantasy quilting bee scene would be like, I wrote a little Objective-C code to enable me to travel way WAY back to the time of home made lye soap (have a good time washing that out of your eyes), barn raisings, and quilting bees.

Loading program into debugger…

Program loaded.

run

[Switching to process 14843]

Running…

Welcome aboard PORTAL PILOTS , serving the needs of the time travel community for over three centuries.

Customer LRS531957 PLANNING A TRIP FROM THE YEAR 2010 TO 1893

SO SORRY We are experiencing a slight disruption in service. You will be dropped off at the nearest portal.

PORTAL PILOTS apologizes for any inconvenience to your schedule.

While you're waiting for the next Time Portal to open up in the year ... 1977..., feel free to complete our customer satisfaction survey, and be entered to win a coupon worth five percent off, on your next PORTAL PILOTS trip!

Debugger stopped.

Program exited with status value:0.

My ipod battery is dead and I forgot my charger. (I can’t even remember if we had three pronged outlets back then anyway). What am I going to do here for a few hours?

Hey, the summer of 1977! I remember this! I had just finished up my junior year at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and was living and working with my sister in Yuma Arizona. She had gotten me a junior programmer gig for the summer.

Trisha had gotten roped into going to a Tupperware Party. Her best friend, with whom she volunteered at the “League of Women Voters”, was putting it on, so of course she was stuck with going. I was stuck too but, coming from one of the more alternative U.C.’s in California, I saw it more as a cultural experience.

The nice-lady who ran it showed us a fine new product. A hot-dog bun keeper for the freezer.

The two of us stared at each other in amazement.

“Because, girls, you know the problem you have keeping hot dog buns in the freezer. You KNOW how those darn buns stick together!”

Trisha and I were both thinking the same thing. Don't they have a big knife to whack them apart with?

We drank our carcinogenic diet sodas and after 30 minutes, figured we could slip on out while the others were playing some kind of game with clothespins and a laundry bag that we never did understand.

The nice-lady’s skinny backside was firmly anchored against the door.

“Girls! (toothy grin). Where are your order slips?”

We managed to mumble that we were not buying anything.

She gave us a look of amazement, tinged with horror. “But what about the hot-dog-bun keeper?” (I'm not making that product up.)

The nice-lady swiveled her head slowly back towards the rest of the group, who were now frantically scribbling on their forms amidst a welter of clothespins.

Trisha swung one foot around the screen door. I slithered through, and we lit out like two banditas into the badlands.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Signs of Fall:Pixel Paintin' Pumpkins


I spent much of my day working on creating and debugging self-review exercises in my quest to learn Objective-C. I really like writing and debugging code, but it's hard teaching yourself a new programming language. Over the last few weeks, I've figured out a way to make my self-imposed homework fun, by linking them to my art-journal. I've shared my experiences in this online piece, Reviewing Concepts: Time Travel for the Masses, a piece I wrote at my self-education blog.

I also took a little time to create another fantasy quilt and stencil an imaginary pumpkin just like Martha Stewart, or one of her hard-working staff, would. My pumpkin, however, is one I plucked off one of my old photos with the help of Photoshop. And of course every pumpkin needs a quilt of it's own.

As always, if you click on the picture above, you'll see a lot more beautiful detail.

Monday, October 4, 2010

First Signs of Fall:Quilts, Squirrels, Fighting the Good Fight at the Polls

Please click on this quilt picture for more beautiful details.

I wish I had this fall beauty to toss on the bed. It's a lot quicker stitching up a new quilt in Photoshop than on my machine. When I did make quilts, I loved appliqueing designs on top of other patterns.

It really is getting cool enough here in the San Francisco Bay Area for an extra light quilt. As romantic as chilly fall weather sounds in books, I don't actually miss it. Or the snow that can go with it. Our summer crops are all harvested - all three apples worth. My neighbors little boy ate the other five while they were still somewhat green. And he was quite welcome to them. He clearly found the idea that edible food was just hanging there within reach of his fingers fascinating, and it was a pleasure to see him munching them. According to his mother, they never made him sick.

The squirrels weren't too happy when those few apples disappeared. They had to content themselves with harvesting our cherry tree during the summer. We've never yet managed to beat the squirrels to the cherries, but we have options they don't have. We're fighting higher density building in our area. Where are the birds and squirrels going to forage then? I guess that's what happens when you don't get to vote. I'm going to reread those city council platforms really carefully before I go to the polls.


Sunday, October 3, 2010

Pause for a SLO Sip: Drink your Milk (Vintage Style)


This picture, advertising a brand of milk I'd love to see in reality, is all my own work, except for the wonderful anonymous black and white cow. I wrote about how I found this great SLO moo drawing in a previous entry *. I'd still love to meet the person who drew this.

Please click on the picture to take in all the beautiful details.

(What I wrote when I designed the SLO SIP bottlecap)

* My daughter goes to school at Cal Poly Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California. She's a student in the Agricultural College. A polytechnic is run a little different than a run-of-the-mill university. Lots of animal husbandry classes and close work with bees and buds. The university store sells a selection of university farm product, but I'm pretty sure they don't have their own milk. However, I think this bottle cap would be just great for a big glass of SLO SIP.

The beautiful SLO cow picture I used to create this cap was drawn by an unknown Cal Poly student. One of my daughter's housemates found it in their rental house, and I rescued it from the recyling bin. I'd love to know whose work this nice SLO MOO is!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Pixel Packin' Mama

Please click on the picture to get a better view of the beautiful details.

These sunflowers are not my own photos. They are the work of designer Judy Shellabarger-Gosnell, creator and author of The Flying Chihuahua Blog.

Last weekend I went down to the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, to see the fusionwear sv exhibit my fourth prize winning design (!) was related to.

I saw lots of great exhibits while I was there and was particularly drawn to work by Sandra Hart and Gudney Campbell. I could see that they are as fond of using Photoshop as I am, and that they had come up with some techniques that I was itching to come home and try myself.

When I went to the gift store after enjoying the exhibits I found a book by these two great artists. It's combines aspects of how to use Photoshop Elements, along with ideas for design. I try hard not to snap things up in the gift store these days, but I couldn't resist Piecing with Pixels. This picture is the first piece I've created using these techniques and I can only imagine how much fun I could have creating other pieces and printing them on the printer fabric sheets, as the book authors suggest.

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