Morning into evening

As I first started putting together this post one day last week I quickly made a note to follow up on later: "the difference between morning & evening." The first image was taken early in the day——a period when I normally do not even turn on my camera because there's no natural light in the apartment then——but the warm neutrals of the cappuccino & walnut toast on the wooden chopping board inspired me to record this peaceful moment of my morning.

Later in the day I photographed some plums in honor of a friend's birthday (below), and found the contrast between the morning/evening light & colors to be astonishing! I realized that the two snapshots did a good job capturing the difference between how I feel first thing versus later in the day. While my mornings tend to be quiet——more measured & contemplative——late afternoon & evening are when I seem to be in my element. I've actually always wondered if your favorite (or most "comfortable") part of the day is destined to be the time of your birth. Mine is recorded as 16:32, and I truly do feel most productive/inspired/hopeful/content around then (though, often, there's also a feeling of surprise that the hours have passed so quickly!).

This contrast-between-morning-&-evening concept feels particularly tangible to me at the moment, albeit on another level. As the minor injuries from a rather terrifying car accident I was in last week continue to heal, my mind keeps drifting to the "perfect" morning my parents & I were having as we made our way to their car on the outskirts of Florence. We managed to catch the bus before the public transportation strike began, stopped for a coffee at a lovely "bar," made a few purchases at the daily market in the piazza...

But barely ten minutes into our drive we entered a tunnel where a four-car crash injured eleven of us (some very seriously, though my parents & I were extremely fortunate). The sunshiny morning that began so well & easily, so full of plans, was instead spent in the darkness of the tunnel, waiting among the wreckage for ambulances that finally whisked us to an afternoon passed in the pronto soccorso. Not at all what we could have imagined or hoped for as we set out earlier. And yet, a complete 180 to the day seems so minor when you realize how lucky you are simply to be alive. It's amazing the "distance" that can be traveled from one end of the day to another, whether measured by sunshine or on a physical/emotional/mental level. Sometimes all of the above!

 

Wishing you all countless happy mornings & happy evenings...

*

It has been a while since I imported a post from

my original blog, but the return of plum season——and

wool slipper "season"——made me think of an entry that

I wrote on the first day of October, way back in 2009.
Crazy how so many of the same little things repeat,

year in, year out, holding the years together.

{You can find it here.}

From Venice to books & letters, writing & running, persimmons & milkshakes...

Once again, SORRY for the long absence since my last entry. This one covers a whole slew of topics, at times only tenuously linked, but you could probably say it's a fairly accurate representation of the state of my mind, & my studio.

It's funny how things seem to go in phases, and I have been in a rather 'closed' one—probably as a response to not having much time in the studio over the summer. I think, also, that the lapse of blogging has something to do with not taking so many photos lately; in part this is because of the diminishing hours of sunlight and the considerably fewer blue-skied days...nothing inspires me to take photos more than the presence of sunshine.

I have, however, been immersed in images that I've taken over the course of the year (and earlier), while putting together several new calendars for my recently opened Etsy shop. One of my favorites of these is the Venetian Quartets shown below, but I've also collected photos of things I like to photograph locally—the Arno's reflections & Florence's rose garden, as well as still lifes of produce & flowers.





Speaking of images, I have been enjoying dipping into those of the second volume of 500 Handmade Books, juried/curated by Julie Chen. One of my artist's books was chosen (Where Sea & Sky Meet), so I was delighted to find a copy from the publisher in my mailbox recently. Below it is opened to a spread with two of my favorite discoveries: on the left-hand side is Ying-Ting Chen's Dictionary of Textile Terms, made of tea-bag labels, banana fiber & cotton thread (I can't seem to find any info/links for the artist); and on the right is the evocative, somewhat ethereal, Bottled-up Emotions, by Leslie Pearson.

*

Exhibition image by Anastasia Kariofyllidis

Another creative endeavor I am thrilled to have been part of is A Letter a Week: Artistic Travels through the Alphabet, a six-week exhibition at the Butter Factory Arts Centre at Cooroy (near Noosa, Australia), which ran from 10 October to 16 November 2013. Fiona Dempster, an Australian artist who created A Letter a Week (ALaW) in 2010, organized this exhibition of pieces made during the annual editions thus far. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend, but it sounds like it was a great success. Hop over to the ALaW2014 blog to learn about the upcoming edition.

I ended up recreating both of my 2012 alphabets for the exhibition. For Be Amazed (& other words to live by), I took advantage of having an excuse to redo the cubes as I had meant to the first time. (In this blog entry I explained how I had wanted to mask each of the nine cube faces for each color to be different, i.e. so the spotted pattern would be different.) 

Here are a couple of photos I took before sending the piece off; the second one perhaps clarifies how the newly 'masked' patterns are each different in this version...

And this next photo is from a more recent 'photo shoot' of the water+oil concept that inspired the patterns I created for the Be Amazed piece. Please see the Persimmon Shake recipe (later in this post) for a new 'dotty' design to come from my latest experiments with this concept. Just as with traditional marbling, I found a 'size' of some sort was necessary—otherwise the multiple circles quickly became one. Once again, I tried the ground cornmeal used to make polenta, and it worked perfectly.

As for Twenty-six/Fragments, I was concerned about safely shipping a piece measuring 50 x 50 cm (approx. 20 x 20 inches) to Australia, so I re-did the letter fragments as a 'meander' book, i.e. a single sheet of paper scored/cut & folded into a 7 x 7-cm booklet. (The original piece is shown in this blog entry.)


 

Exhibition image by Anastasia Kariofyllidis

And here's a photo before sending the piece to Australia, showing it in book form...

 

*

Another activity that's kept me busy lately is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November (i.e. thirty days). The emphasis is on quantity over quality, which is completely the opposite of everything I believe in...but I suppose is equally useful for that very reason. My daughter also participated, so I have been in good company. This is our third year, and though it's surprisingly difficult to stay on track with an average of 1667 words per day, it always feels great to have strung together those 50,000 words. In fact, they equate more of a novella, as opposed to a full-length novel, and each year I have actually continued building on the first year's story. As someone who reads more non-fiction than fiction, and is also more comfortable writing non-fiction, I have to say that NaNoWriMo has been a great experience; I love how characters wander in & out, and how the story evolves & takes on a life of its own. And it's possible that another few years may even see a completed novel (though, as of tomorrow, it will be good to have an 'extra' few hours each day)...

*

C25K, or 'A cautionary tale' ~

My daughter & I also joined forces to motivate one another in a different kind of challenge: C25K. The nine-week program gradually builds you up to a thirty-minute/five-kilometer run. I was horrified to find how out of shape I had become—my usual form of exercise is yoga/simply walking around Florence to take care of business, so to speak (those fifty-five steps up to our apartment should count for something too). The last time I had run was about twenty years ago, and even this gentle program, which introduces brief spurts of running between periods of walking, proved a rude awakening for my body; within two weeks I had developed extremely painful shin splints. While running doesn't really appeal to me as a form of exercise, I found myself already hooked during those first 'workouts', and was truly disappointed at the thought of not continuing. (Besides, I hate giving up on something once I've started.)

I tried various treatments and, interestingly, the most helpful one ended up to be rolling the arches of my feet on a tennis ball frequently throughout the day (apparently several ligaments end somewhere down there, and 'massaging' them in this way helps to release the painful tension). I was able to pick up again within a couple of weeks, and came to quite enjoy this new routine—which brought a few firsts for me in Florence: my first time wearing running shoes (something locals don't do in public, except the few runners, of course) & my first time experiencing the city while listening to music. I must say that I've enjoyed observing the nighttime reflections as we ran along the Arno, and noting the rise & fall of the water and its turbulence vs calmness as it followed the usual cycle of autumn rains. I was surprised to find I didn't use the time to work out details for projects I'm working on, but rather to simply 'be'. While I'm turning more to yoga again now that it's grown so cold, I do hope to still get out there in my running shoes a couple of times a week. And one thing is sure: it feels good to be in better shape again.

If you're interested in the details of the C25K program, please click here.

* 

 
Locally, the persimmon trees are some of the few to take on ragingly gorgeous, track-stopping colors; first the leaves turn shades of gold & orange, then the leaves fall to the ground, leaving a ring of color under the tree. Any unpicked fruit continues to hang from the bare branches like orange Christmas ornaments, reminding me of my maternal Grandmother, whose Christmas tree for many years was decorated completely in orange. (Surely memories like this have caused me to gravitate toward orange, the color I most associate with joyfulness.)

We usually eat persimmons as one would a pudding—by simply piercing the skin with a spoon and scooping out the soft flesh. Sometimes I add a generous dollop of plain yogurt & a sprinkle of cinnamon. But recently I decided to try making a persimmon shake as one of our end-of-the-running-week treats. Very autumn-y, almost reminiscent of pumpkin (though possibly this is merely suggested by the inclusion of spices and the pale orange color).

As always, I offer recipes more as suggestions/starting points for tailoring to your own preferences & what you have on hand; I'd love to hear if anyone comes up with a new twist. (Drag the recipe below to your Desktop/right click to save for an enlarged view.)

 

Alternatively, you can use persimmons at room temperature; the consistency will be more like a smoothie, as opposed to a luxuriously thick milkshake. (I often keep frozen almond milk on hand, which can also lend thickness to a smoothie/shake if the fruit is not frozen.)

To celebrate completing the C25K program, we made a persimmon shake with ice cream instead of yogurt -> delicious! You could get very creative with complementary ice cream/yogurt flavors as well as other spices; I hope to be able to try out more variations before the persimmons disappear for another year.

*   

 

Marathoners brightening up Piazza Pitti last Sunday; a band played as spectators danced & cheered on the runners.

And I'll leave you with a song by Manfred Mann's Earth Band, The Runner. I like to live-stream the weekly Sunday Classics show on K-SHE95, the rock station I listened to as a teenager in St. Louis (a  l-o-n-g  time ago), and they played The Runner this past Sunday. I had forgotten this song even existed, and loved that the reminder came on the day of the Florence marathon (24 November)...which was also the day of my daughter's and my last official run for the C25K program.

Into the arms of fall...

Hello again (after so long). As I returned to the draft for this blog entry, which has been awaiting attention for quite some time, I wondered if maybe I was procrastinating because I didn't want that last entry—about cherishing those last days of summer—to be replaced...

Yes, autumn has definitely reached Florence. We're living in that unpredictable balance of passing the day in a shroud of clouds & trying to take in as many hours of breathtaking golden light as possible. I think often of my early visits to Florence, which were at this time of year. Leaves are changing to yellow, beginning to fall, and the produce stands display a whole new palette: the deep purples, dusty greens, rich oranges & variegated reds of figs, grapes, plums, pears, persimmons, pomegranates & apples.

After a few months of inactivity, the oven is back in use again. We've made scones (recipe in this entry), fig tart (using the sweetened version of the crust in this entry) & (twice!) a lovely rustic plum cake from my friend Tessa Kiros' first cookbook, Twelve. Unfortunately it's now out of print, but she's had several others out over the last decade. I treasure my copy, as it has the black & white cover from her original self-published version.

On the subject of books, the one shown in the image at the top of this entry (along with the fig tart) is a lovely adaptation by Peter Sis of The Conference of the Birds. I first came across it in the US during the summer, and was compelled to order several of his beautifully illustrated books once I returned to Florence, including this one. I remember some of his children's books from when my daughter was younger, but The Conference of the Birds is his first adult book. I love the story itself—a metaphor for the journey that this life is & the many ways people choose, or are destined, to live it—and the illustrations eloquently complement the text. (Details on the original poem, written in Persia in 1177, can be found here.)

Returning to the fruit... Shown in the apothecary jars below are the small green 'Claudia' plums & uva fragola, 'strawberry grapes', which are deliciously sweet. Their brief season has already finished, but now is the time for the intense little grapes found in schiacciata all'uva...a sweet flatbread with a bit of crunch from the little seeds, which remain among the sticky, semi-caramelized grapes.

 

And it's already time for the olives to be picked, so we can expect new olive oil soon—the first pressing always produces the most fragrant & flavorful oil. And on that note...

Below are some more 'story strips' from last month, using fallen olives from my favorite olive tree up at the rose garden. I was attracted to the intense purplish-browns & rough texture of these random olives, which had shriveled on their stems and then dropped to the ground. The leaf at the top of the right-hand 'page' (second image) is unusual for an olive leaf, but somehow they occasionally end up with irregular edges. I can hardly wait to get back to the rose garden again one day soon...I'm sure that its palette has also undergone quite a transformation.

*

And here are a couple of shots of the Arno—the view looking east(ish) from Ponte Vecchio, and then a detail of the reflections. The colors seem to convey the feeling of autumn around here right now...

* 

One reason for my absence in Blogland lately is that I've been immersed in working on a new line of items for my online shop, PaperSynthesis. You may also have noticed a new addition in my sidebar—an 'Etsy mini'—as I'm in the process of moving items from my former shop to this new 'space'. I'll post more about the whole process once things are a bit more settled/organized. And one of these days I will reestablish the pleasant ritual of visiting all of the blogs I have been missing in the last couple of months...

So, to conclude this long-overdue entry, writing the words "deep purple" earlier in the post made me think of Deep Purple and, consequently, a song I re-discovered through my daughter earlier this year: 'Perfect Strangers'. I love the rhythm (and it's truly ingrained in me after hearing my daughter playing it on the drums for the last several months!). Enjoy...

Circles of orange

There are few things making me happier this month than the three-kilo bags of tarocchi we've been buying. The tarocco (sing.) is a type of blood orange that often has red-tinged flesh & skin, but the color doesn't tend to be as intense as the other varieties of blood oranges. It is very sweet, easy to peel, and makes a beautiful juice. Lots of Vitamin C and other good stuff...

I love the patterns found when you cut through an orange: you get a starburst effect from slicing it around the midsection (i.e. horizontally), and then there's the more linear pattern that happens from slicing off an edge vertically (shown in the upper left image, below). These interior designs are such an interesting contrast to the simple (near) spherical shape of the uncut orange, with its fairly uniform surface. I suppose one appeal of the tarocco in particular is the mottled color; the skin seems to have been sponge-painted, and the flesh looks as though someone may have squeezed in a few drops of vermillion paint, which then proceeded to seep into the different 'sections'. 

Part of the '12x12' project I've mentioned a few times recently includes focusing on a fruit or vegetable that's in season each month, and exploring different ways to interpret it. These days, 'getting to know something' often seems to begin with the camera, but ultimately my hope is to also draw, paint, collage—or cook with it—as well. This month, I considered somehow using the 'net' bags I have been collecting—maybe for splattering paint?—but so far have only cut some circles from them. I'm not so sure about their plastic-y-ness. Along with circles of orange & red Canson paper, the net circles appear scattered through some of the images below, and I'll see where else they may take me.

*

This seems like a perfect opportunity to show off the gorgeous 'Orange' fabric that I won from Julie Booth last summer...she created the print blocks herself. I just love the colors (which are actually a little darker & richer than shown in the photo). She likes to experiment with using things from the kitchen in her printmaking, and includes details on her techniques in a monthly newsletter. I am really looking forward to trying out some of the ideas one of these days...

Orange by Julie Booth

Settling into autumn

 

After a period of temperamental skies and rain, Florence has had a week of classic autumn days ~

blue skied with a crisp bite

tempered by the warmth of

the kind of golden light that

goes hand-in-hand with

ever-shortening days

dissolving into indigo...

At least I think those dozens of gradations of blue at twilight culminate in indigo...though, in all honesty, I'm still not sure. With the latest ROY G BIV challenge at the back of my mind the last few weeks, I've kept my eyes open for the 'I'—which stands for indigo and is October's color. And it's brought up the question: What exactly is indigo?

The other artists participating in the challenge all commented that indigo was going to be a tough one. My perception of indigo shifts constantly, so I knew I needed to get a better grasp of what the color truly is. But trying to 'educate' myself only placed more doubts in my mind. Perusing the web didn't help much; I tried replicating the color 'formulas' I found for indigo, but the values that appeared on the computer screen each looked like shades of purple. In my mind, indigo more closely resembles the indigo dye that comes from the plant that originally inspired the name (which Wikipedia says is in fact closer to the 'Midnight Blue' used for the web).

As always, though, I enjoy the search. I was thrilled when, as I scrubbed the knees of my daughter's jeans one day, indigo dye began to run onto the washboard of the laundry sink. I grabbed my camera to preserve the watery lines of indigo, but in that darkest corner of the apartment the shots couldn't capture the color. It did remind me to find the scrap from a pair of jeans that I had spotted recently, as possible inspiration.

After the inconclusive research and the 'lost' dye, I decided to try something different this month. With the idea of creating some indigo-themed work in the studio, I visited a belle arti (art supplies) shop to calibrate my notion of the elusive shade. Fortunately, some brands conveniently define their colors with names, which made it easy to choose an indigo pencil and a couple of tubes of indigo watercolor paint. I also tried my luck at the only craft store I know of in Florence (a funny little place that never seems to have the items on my list—everything is always due to arrive 'in about ten days'), but I realized that many crafts companies code the colors of their products with numbers. I spent ages opening dozens of drawers as I searched for the embroidery thread that most resembled what I think indigo is, contemplated the bead rack before choosing a tiny container of sequins that may—or may not!—be indigo, and stood puzzling before displays of ribbons, paints, mosaics, glitter, papers, etc. I did walk away with a slightly larger collection of possibly- indigo-colored bits and pieces.

Each time I cleared up a pile, box or corner of the studio this month, I was on the lookout for indigo treasures; some are gathered on the tray in the photo at the top of this entry. Besides my small purchases, there's the scrap of old jeans, a postcard retrieved from a collage I made years ago, the book Everyday Sacred by Sue Bender, a sheet of locally marbled paper, and some vintage stamps—a thoughtful gift from Angela Liguori.

Building on a form that has guided several other projects currently in progress in the studio, the indigo things will be brought together and transformed into something new. I am hoping to have the project done in time to post photos before this month's ROY G BIV deadline (Saturday at midnight EST). Of course, colors don't necessarily translate accurately via the camera—which has proved to be another challenging aspect of this month's color...not to mention that colors show up differently from one monitor to the next. It only makes me want to laugh about this whole quest to find 'INDIGO'. Just another reminder of the importance of savoring the journey.

* * *

As I was brainstorming about 'INDIGO' one night, I remembered the title of an Italian song: Indaco dagli occhi del cielo. Translating as the rather vague 'Indigo from the eyes of the sky', the lyrics of this so-called cover recorded by Zucchero don't seem to have anything in common with the original, Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime. (I still remember when The Korgies' came out with the single in 1980; I was just twelve, and even now, hearing the song recalls that first summer in the US after my family had moved back from Brazil.) 

I'll leave you with a 'video' of the Italian version from You Tube. The sound quality is good, but there's only a still image; unfortunately, the only videos I could find were shaky recordings made at concerts. Many of you will likely recognize the familiar melody...

{I imagine that, as usual, Jennifer & Julie (the artists who first inspired this ROY G BIV challenge) will be posting their own images + links to other participants. I'm very curious, but am saving my blog visits until I've completed mine!}

And back to green again...

This post actually began 'growing' back in July. I had the images and tabbouleh recipe in mind for the 'Thinking of Green' post, but everything wasn't quite ready at the time—and then I got sidetracked by the green Arno reflections, the Regina Claudia plums and all of Venice's delightful shades of green. 

Whenever my daughter is away I use the time for a solitary creative retreat of sorts, streamlining the usual daily distractions as much as possible. This includes being as efficient as possible with my time in the kitchen; I eat well, but very simply. One of the things I like to make is a huge bowl of tabbouleh—my daughter doesn't really care for it and I love it. So much parsley...so much green goodness...

As always, I offer 'recipes' as guidelines, with the hope that others will use what they have/what they like and adapt that which they don't.

Each time I've made tabbouleh lately—or any other recipe for which mise en place is fundamental—I have used it as an opportunity to continue research for my Book Art Object (BAO) edition, as the title I have chosen is 'Mise en place', i.e. the assembly/preparation of ingredients. (I have only mentioned this project obliquely a couple of times this year and will give more background when my edition of artist books is complete, but the gist is that a group of nearly one hundred artists is borrowing story titles by another artist as inspiration for their own books.) After making so many past artist books in a period of mere weeks, in order to meet deadlines for various 'calls for submission', it has been such a pleasure to luxuriate in the creative process for this one. And from all of the research/brainstorming sessions/contemplation/experimentation has come the idea for yet another project using ingredients as inspiration...

I wrote this passage from the Piazza di Santo Spirito chapter of The Piazzas of Florence when the parallels between the studio and the kitchen were just beginning to dawn on me. It was perhaps the seed of what has grown into a fascination with photographing ingredients (usually before transforming them into something new), as well as learning how to embrace time spent in the kitchen.

After returning from the market I arrange the vegetables that will go into soup for dinner tonight. Each time I enter the kitchen my eye is drawn to the orange flesh of the pumpkin, the papery purple skins of red onions, the feathery tops of the fennel and the leafy cavolo nero, a cabbage so dark that it's called 'black'. In a brown wicker basket I compose a still life with the sunset colors of pomegranates, persimmons and new apples, then select a dark green and raw siena bowl whose colors, if mixed together, would create the same mottled hue of the dusky golden grapes now cascading over the edge. Although I often only have time to arrange the produce quickly, in my mind I am capturing these simple shows of beauty with a paintbrush or pencil. Of course, food is also a medium in its own right, offering the opportunity to express creativity for fleeting moments of time—as a weekday dinner, a long lunch, or a gorgeous dessert.

*

Returning once again to the green theme, here are a few more photos from the recent trip to Venice. I was already on the lookout for 'BLUE', but since I had just put together the series of images for 'GREEN' the day before we left, I found myself continuing to be alert to all things green. While Venice has plenty of blue, the lagoon is famous for its often-green shade. I'm not sure what causes the phenomenon, but it can be quite striking, and even jarring in its opaqueness (as in the second photo). The foliage of the hydrangea bush in the third picture looks rather anemic—a chlorophyll deficiency?—but was surprisingly similar to the color of the van behind it (this was on the Lido, where vehicles are allowed). I always enjoy catching the occasional mossy-green reflections of trees along the canals (bottom pair of images).

*

And here's one last photo, with multiple layers/textures of green, taken during a quick visit to the Rose Garden this month. I'm not sure what the sun-baked flowers in the foreground are, but they certainly caught the light beautifully that morning...