Pot pourri…

When we were in Italy last October I took one random segment of video. I have no clue as to why except that it was a beautiful clear day, I was overwhelmed by the environment, and I wanted to remember the music I was hearing. I have been carrying around this one and one half minutes ever since, not knowing quite what to do with it. Almost trashed it many times. Then, for the final project of the Xanthe Berkeley class I was taking we needed to combine video and work with “ducking” sound. I finally had a use for it and I made this memory of Italy from my iPhone photos. It was a fun project to try to find coordinating music for the rest of the movie.

Made a strawberry and ricotta tart after the Chandler strawberries came into the Farmer’s Market last Sunday.

Also came across rhubarb at Whole Food’s. Pulled out my favorite recipe from a book I got many years ago written by the proprietors from a Cafe in Paris. I am going to now have the opportunity to visit this cafe in person.

The black and white striped French fisherman’s shirt I ordered from LLBean has arrived in time for its trip to Paris.

The signatures for my travel journal are ready to be sewn into its cover.

It happened again: before we went to Italy I discovered a magazine I had kept for at least ten years. It was an issue devoted to Tuscany and one of its articles was a list of paper stores in Florence. I had a fabulous time searching for all the stores while I was there. A couple of weeks ago, I went to storage to get some furniture for my daughter who was moving apartments. There was a random box that was labeled papers so I brought it back home with the intention of sorting and recycling. The box was filled with old magazines that had belonged to my father. An example was Life magazine from 1943 talking about the war in the Pacific. (My father had been on a destroyer in the Navy.) There was also a copy of Holiday Magazine from 1948. (I was two!) The table of contents said the magazine had an article about the circus, but all the pages for that were neatly cut out. Most of the rest of the magazine was devoted to Paris! So now I have some wonderful graphics for my travel journal.

The most giggle inducing event is that a long-time friend (we met in fourth grade) and her husband are going to be in Paris at the same time. Happenstance is a powerful thing…if we had tried to actually plan this it never would have worked out. We are like school girls, school girls I tell you…

Still have to do the trial run with the suitcase and apply the Murphy rule. Pack it, then unpack and leave half of the contents at home. Counting down the days…

I no longer say ciao, I have switched to au revoir…

Gianni…

My brain’s ability to process all of the art I have seen and the museums I have visited is going to be delayed until I can get some perspective on this astounding place. Until then, small stories-starting with Gianni. Two days ago Terry cheered when I said I was done with paper stores. But then, today, we passed one more, a branch of one we had already been in (multiple times, even) and I almost walked right past but something tugged me. Last day…when will this ever happen to me again…what if there was something I missed? As luck would have it, Gianni was working the store today, even though he usually does the marbling. (He could own the place for all I know. It is called Johnson and Relatives.) He asked where we were from and then declared that San Francisco was his favorite place (all Italians say that) and then said, “Come look” pointing to his vat of thickened water. I say, “Is that carrageegan?” He explained that in the studio that is what they use, but in the store they use wall paper paste so that it doesn’t start to smell. They use acrylic paint so that it dries quickly. (Oh, I could do a lesson plan right now!) Then he invited me to comb the colors, all because I mentioned that I had been an art teacher. After we had gone off to see the owl in Michelangelo’s “Day and Night” (for Terry) we dropped by again to pick up my now dry paper to take home. I told Gianni that I would make a book from the paper and remember him. The process:

Worktable Wednesday…

Travel Journal

Thanks to this I have been making travel journals. I finished this one using scraps and things  just lying around. Lots of thread! All sewn by machine except for the buttons and signatures. Some pages are different papers sewn together to make the correct size of a page. Some pages are photographs printed page size (8 1/2 x 11) and folded. All the pages have things sewn on them including pockets, tags, and areas to write.

cover flap

inside front cover with antique pieced quilt block

first page

places for notes

security envelope pocket

pockets for pictures

photographs as background

wide variety of security envelope patterns and they come free in the mail!

lots of leftover, unused pieces of paper found a new home

inside back cover

back cover

This journal is ready to have photos, ephemera, and words stuffed in it recording journeys and places. Visit the blog of Mary Ann Moss. She goes places and takes a travel journal with her.

Getting ready…

Anticipating my workshop with John Muir Laws, I made a sketchbook and gathered tools for the looming event.

He has an equipment list on his website. So I found all my portable brushes that carry water in their barrels, waterproof pens and drawing pencils.

My sketchbook has two signatures. One has mi-tientes paper in midtone shades of oyster, moonstone, and flannel. (Great names!). The second signature has bristol and heavy weight watercolor paper.

My cover is created from some laminated paper I made and it has ultra-suede ties. It comes equipped with large rubber bands to secure pages out-of-the-way while working. We will see how all this functions “in the field”. I am excited that the cover is pretty much waterproof (if it rains) so I will explain how I made it below.

Laminated Paper

I use the two-ply paper towels left over wiping my brush during watercolor painting. (o.k., I have been known to add a little more color on purpose). I separate them and lay two on a sheet of freezer paper with about 1″ of each overlapped down the center. Using a wide brush I spread them with acrylic gloss medium and lay a second layer over the top. I add bits and pieces of scrap papers from other projects (the bird is a partial photograph) including tissues from store purchases. The flower-like shapes on this one are from one of the Lokta papers I scored at Anthropologie right before Christmas. It turns half-transparent. I end up with about three layers of paper. I coat it with a last coat of medium on top and sprinkle on some glitter or whatever happens to be handy. I let this dry for twenty-four hours and then peel it off the freezer paper and give it one more coat of medium on the bottom side. Transparent but plastic!

iPhone Photo Friday…

Shopping Circle

Nice time yesterday morning making a circle through the East Bay. First to Berkeley Bowl for nuts for the squirrels and then over to the fringes of Fourth Street to see if Anthropologie had the wrapping papers in their store that are in their catalog. Happy deal! They were on a 40% off table. Many, many book covers to come out of Nepalese lokta handmade papers. The clerk wrapped them in their own bundle with the store tissue (almost waxy) a milk chocolate brown with custom masking tape securing my golden present to myself. Literally- golden, gauzy, hand-made pulpy paper. Amazing.

Over to San Pablo for a quick-lunch at Cafe Fanny

confirming again my desire to be a barista in my next life because I think I would be pretty good at the designs in the foam on top of cappuccinos

to Acme Bread for whole wheat with walnuts (nuts, again??)  and New York rye.

and into Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant for some bottles for presents.

Then back home…considered a good days work after I had started on some book covers…

Taken with an iPhone 4 and the Hipstamatic app.

iPhone Photo Friday…

A San Francisco Thursday

It is hard for me to believe, but in my first year of retirement I may have been over to San Francisco more times than in the ten years previously. Something about freedom that makes you move…Yesterday was another excursion over to catch the Impressionist Exhibit at the deYoung Museum before it closes on Sept. 6. Woke up to the fact this week that I was going to miss it if I did not jump. I think half of San Francisco also realized that, because there were crowds everywhere.

Crowds to get on the bridge

Please note, this is an iPhone picture without post-processing, significant in the color of the sky. Big Note: no FOG!

Crowds to get off the freeway (construction on Fell St. backed everything up).

and crowds in the museum where you were not allowed to take pictures inside the Impressionist Exhibit…

So, I took what shots I could get a good vantage point of (with no one standing in front of me) and which thrilled me to see. There was Joan Brown’s Noel and Bob, 1964. Lush color and texture and great face on Noel (plus anything with a dog…)

and the other side of my psych that likes images that represent the simplicity of Asian Art was fed, too. (The murals by Piazzoni, The Sea, 1931, that were saved from the old library that is now the Asian Art Museum):

Then, as we waited for our appointed hour to get into the main show, I found a small gallery that swept me away—photos and grids, photos and grids, photos and grids, tra la…

Ed Ruscha and Los Angeles parking lots:

Even Dodger Stadium and Ruscha’s Every Building on The Sunset Strip, 1966, accordion book:

The only text is the street numbers of the buildings.

The grid of  forty-six photos on the wall taken in Iceland by Olafur Eliasson, The River-raft Series, 2000. Does repetition make it a mosaic?

and a collection of found everyday objects by Nigel Poor, “Found” Project, 1998.

A David Hockney photocollage of Luncheon at the British Embassy, Tokyo, February 16, 1983.

A panoramic view of San Francisco by Mark Klett and Michael Lundgren, 2004,

There was a lot in this small gallery to absorb. Note to self: try more black and whites and get into that panoramic mode!

After fighting the crowds, things took a definite up-swing when we found a new restaurant for a late, ravenous lunch that may have had the best pizza, evah…

Pizzette 211 at 211 23rd Street

The desert and frosting on the cake were the mosaic murals we passed on the facade of a school when we walked on 23rd Street from the restaurant back to our car.

“Art, art, I want you. Art you make it pretty hard not to.” (don’t miss this Youtube video)

A black and white using the RetroCamera app. Now all I have to do is find a large wall that is empty so that it can take twenty framed photos!

Now September…

The August Break was fun and I saw lots of great photos by scrolling through the Flickr site as well as visiting new blogs. Such creative people out there!

Last Saturday I went to an art exhibit in Walnut Creek at the Bedford Gallery (at the Lesher Performing Arts Center). It was such an exhilarating experience that I must share some photos. The exhibit was called Unbound, A National Exhibition of Book Art and featured the book in multiple interpretations (I didn’t see any Kindles, though) The exhibit will be open until September 19, so if you live near, do not miss this show!

Sculptures From Books

a band saw and a book

Luz Marina Ruiz, tunnel book with a variety of printmaking techniques

Jim Rosenau, books and recycled wood

Lisa Kokin, mixed media

Sculptures that Feature Books

Laura Raboff, wood

Stan Peterson, wood

Stan Peterson, wood

Paintings of Books

Dickson Schneider, oil on panel

Trompe l’oeil of Books

Helen Stanley, oil on birch panel

Digital Photographs of Sculptural Books

Cara Barer, digital photograph

Cara Barer, digital photograph

and (could this be my favorite?) a Ceramics professor who made clay sculptures of her sketchbooks to demonstrate to her students concepts in clay and ceramic decoration

Clay Books

Nancy Selvin, clay

Nancy Selvin, clay

All this for a $5.00 admission fee! Such a marvel and inspiration…

August/Fun…

I went to talk with the director of the local community arts organization about teaching some art classes for kids in the winter and spring and I had a great idea when I got home. I needed to send him an email describing what I thought the classes should entail and I wanted to illustrate some projects. I didn’t want to load down the email with lots of images and sometimes it is difficult for me to send more than two photo attachments at a time and I didn’t want to send more than one email. It dawned on me that the iPhone was my best friend and it solved my problem. The Diptic app was the solution because I could create one image with four sections:

Top left is a one page instant book. One sheet of paper is printed on the computer and then folded into a book with eight pages. Top right is an accordion book made from a map with pockets that hold small photos and it has playing card covers. Behind that is a water-color accordion book with pop ups and windows. It has paste paper covers. Bottom left is a rolled up scroll book and bottom right is the scroll book open. It has a conglomeration of types of papers and small prints of my iPhone photos. I have all sorts of empty handmade books I’ve made over the years. I never filled them until I started taking iPhone photos and needed a place for all the little test prints I was accumulating. Now my books are getting filled. Such fun…maybe I will progress to putting some words in the books, too.