Openings, events, demos, or my!

Well, I thought this was going to be a relatively easy week, and it was, but not as easy as I had thought. (Read: I didn't get as much done as I figured I would.)

Lets see, I'm in the Book + Art show at the Collins Gallery at the Central Library, and the opening reception was Wednesday evening. Got to meet up with a bunch of artists that I don't see often, so that was wonderful. It was also the new haircut's debut! Afterwards, the Good Prince (I originally typed 'Good Prints') and I headed over to Ping, the new fancy pants pan-Asian restaurant in Chinatown, in what was the old China Council office, where I spent a lot of my time years ago. Well, I have to say that it was somewhat disappointing, given the amount of press they've had and the pedigree (connection to Pok Pok ) and all. But maybe it's just the 'getting it up and running' usual bumpy beginning, I'd certainly try them again.

Thursday—worked on my professional development grant application, and went to Art Spark, a monthly art gathering that I've been meaning to go to for a while but only made it for the first time this month. The format—short presentation by an arts group in the middle of the evening, but mostly just a networking/social scene, which I'm not terribly good at. I think I also managed to mount Prosperity Soup on board.

Then Friday (yes, this is the laundry list) was a pretty long day of preparing for my demo at Contemporary Craft, prepping a board with a new gesso that I want to try, working on my grant some more, and prepping for Portland Open Studios jurying.

When I taught the class at Springdale las week, they asked to keep the models for the school, so I figured Saturday's demo would be a good opportunity to make myself some more models. There was really quite a bit of traffic through there but I did get the 2 important models done (the two that I will need for this coming weekend's class), and I got started on a 3rd model that I want to have on hand. I have a 4th model I need to make for the collaboration my critique group is doing, but I don't need to have that done until next Friday.

Then today was the Very Top Secret meeting which of course I can't talk about, so that's that.

One down, one more to go

This was the first of the two Portland Open Studios weekend. I spent today recovering (read, sitting in front of the computer).

So, about Portland Open Studios...

It was much quieter than last year. Had about 150 people over the two days, compared with about 300 last year. And I didn't have a single person sign up for the only class I had scheduled. Last year, I couldn't beat people away with a stick and I didn't even have to mention classes, people just asked; and I filled up 3 classes during those 2 days. I did get 2 registrants today though, so that's a start.

Sales were down 70% compared to last year. People were really upfront—they didn't bring credit cards on purpose, they're not spending any money not already in their checking accounts, and they're trying to set good examples to their kids by showing restraint. All good reasons.

And all believable. But I'm obviously attracting the wrong demographics, because my neighbor 2 blocks down (a very fine artist) sold 9 paintings for a total of 4g! She said she got mostly young urban couples from LO who for the most part didn't come my way. But it is interesting, she herself just turned 30, so clearly her artwork is speaking to people of her generation. I'm definitely attracting mostly people of my own age as well. I do see some younger folks, but I'd say 75% of my visitors are my age or older.

On finding foreign substances in your food...

I find foreign substance in my food fairly frequently when we eat out, but the Good Prince never does. Why is that? I once found a piece of raw chicken in my hamburger at O'Connor's in Multnomah. Then encountered a long cucumber peel in my fettucini and then some strange orange lumps in a salad on two consecutive visits to the same restaurant. Needless to say, we've never returned.

Then there were the 2 earwigs in the quesadilla at a Mexican place that's no longer there.

Hair in my food, hah! Fugetaboutit!

And then there was the plastic bottle seal in my salad Sunday night (at a very favorite restaurant, so I shall not mention its name).

And then tonight...well, it was a slightly different problem.

On NOT finding the stuff in your food...

We tried a new restaurant tonight, Thong Thai (what a name!). We got the combination appetizer platter...but where's the satay? Then the salad came, without the ground peanuts! Heck, the ground peanuts was the whole reason why I chose that salad as opposed to the salad below. So I asked the waiter, who said, "oh some places put ground peanuts in that dish, but that's not always true."

Me, "your menu says ground peanuts."

"Really?!"

"Yes."

Then the curry came. When we were still perusing the menu, the Good Prince chose this, saying, "look, baby corn!" (One of my favorites.)

You guessed it. The dish arrived WITHOUT baby corn.

And there was a hair in the salad!

Board Retreat

When I told the Good Prince that the board retreat was happening at our house, his response was "I didn't know our house was that rustic."

Rustic or not, it worked out well enough, although 9 people was a bit crowded, and the Good Kitty was hiding downstairs the whole day. But we got a lot done, although I think I got my best idea AFTER the meeting was over and pretty much everyone had gone home. And it was a long day, by the time I cleaned up and returned the house back to normal, it was 7 hours later. I never even got around to washing my face (people arrived a bit early, right before I was about to wash up and change my clothes).

We tried a new restaurant today — Ho Soon Yi, a Korean place on Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy. I really liked my tofu stew, but their kimchee dishes selection wasn't as varied as some other places. Also, they didn't have a hot version of bi bim bop; although for a change, it came with lots of toppings and not so much rice, which is a big plus; but that may just be due to the current rice situation.

And the Random Movie the other night was Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Some movies are very lucky, like Forgetting, which was picked the first time it got on the random selection list. Other movies, like Kite Runner, which has been on the list since it opened, and same with Teeth and also The Other Boleyn Girl, and lots of other movies, never get picked, week after week after week.

Well, I didn't care for Forgetting, it was a bit raunchier that I like.

Pillow book III, day n+2

Sooooo, although the dog printed well enough on paper, on the tulle, stacked up, you can't really make out the details in the fur. And in fact, the more sheets of tulle I stacked up, the less well defined the dog became (all the definition in the fur pretty much disappeared, although you could still see the snout). So now I'm playing around with different ideas. I might have something to photograph and show tomorrow. For pillow book III day n+1, see this entry.

On other fronts, we tried a new restaurant today (new to us, it's been around for some time) — Pok Pok, Portland's own SE Asian street food restaurant. I think when they first started, it was strictly outdoors dining, but there's now a bar and indoor dining space. It was delicious. Afterwards, desserts at Pix, also excellent.

Pillow Book II, day 5

My sewing skills are a little rusty. I can still use the sewing machine, and do a nice job, but I forget things like the need for interfacing, or shrinkage.

This first photo was from a couple of days ago. I was trying out different arrangements, and decided I didn't like having the most 'readable' page in the middle. So this was what I ended up with:



I finished making the pillow case this afternoon. And after much thinking about Rachel's comment about things looking so 'new', I decided I'd wash the pillow case. Yes, I knew it would shrink some, but I figured it was extra big enough that that was ok. Here's the tulle pinned to the finished pillow case:



Well, two things --

1. I forgot that things shrink in the direction of the grain A LOT MORE than the other direction.
2. I forgot how MUCH things shrank.

So after washing and drying (in very low heat), well, the pillow case didn't quite work any more. It still fit, but I didn't have the border, which I wanted for this pillow. So two options:

a. Trim the pillow down and forget about the border.
b. Make another.

I went with b. I still had enough fabric left, and this time, I washed and dried it first! I'm not quite finished with the 2nd attempt yet, but should be finished tomorrow. In the mean time, I have an idea for what I'd do with the extra pillow case. See this entry for day 4.

I have the smell of the hot iron stuck in my nose, or maybe it's my head. I can still smell it. I smelled it while we were at the movies, which as promised, was the Chipmunks movie. It had me at the talking animals, what can I say. Although I was expecting that it would be a wee bit more sophisticated. But I think the Chipmunks should do a belly dancing album! That's what I think.

The persimmon 'custard' came out ok. I still think a bit of ginger would add a lot. The Good Prince suggested making a ginger sauce to drizzle on top...sounds like a fine idea.

Speaking of food, we tried a new restaurant today—Zeppo Italian Restaurant in Lake Oswego. I have to give it the highest ratings for the antipasto plate (that was my dinner), beautifully presented, a nice variety, and they took out the roasted garlic cloves and put them in a little side dish—very nice touch—so you don't have to struggle with them.

Pillow Book I, day 4

Last I left this book, this was where it was.

Having decided against the linear progression of a codex format with tulle pages, this book will consist of six small pillows to be arranged in a random sequence. Each pillow will have from 1 to 6 tulle page(s), making the image easier or harder to read. So I've made 6 piles here, starting from the upper right corner, going counter clockwise, we have 1 sheet, 2 sheets, etc, until the bottom right corner (which actually has 7 sheets because I had 1 sheet extra, and also I wanted it to be much easier to read).

To keep the stacks aligned, I pva'ed all the way around the edges, using sheets of glass as my work surface. So that's the white stripes you see around the images. The thicker stacks got much more pva. The sheets of tulle are laid out over the gray wool that I'll be using for this book. The pva will be trimmed off once the tulle sheets are sewn to the wool. Although in a few spots I got the pva awfully close to the image. I think it will be ok.



We tried a new restaurant today, a tapas place on Alberta call Lolo. A large group from Mike's office. There were a few excellent dishes and a few that were so-so. The flan was excellent.

Experimental gocco print, day 4

Another day, another bowl of strawberries. And another big pile of chard. Next year, I'll probably plant 1/4 of the chard that I planted this year. As it is, the freezer is full of packages of frozen chard already. And prepping the chard took all morning. Spent a couple of hours catching up on project related emails before I was able to get started printing.

I was surprised to find what I printed yesterday in the light blue is still not dry to the touch today. I went ahead and printed the next layer, also in the same light blue. I printed it a couple of times to get the blue to show (when layered over other colors, the colors don't print true without at least a couple of layers). Then I decided I wanted the dots to be lighter.

So here I've just scraped off the light blue and re-inked in white. (This screen has been used and cleaned 8 times for this print as of today. It was used and cleaned at least that many times to print Fatherland. It's still holding up well, but looks pretty beat up alright.)



And the dots over printed with the white. So the dots have been printed 3 times -- twice in the light blue and then once in white.



I've been storing my inks in empty altoid tins, and they've worked really well. But I'm starting to run out of them. Desperation is the mother invention, or something like that, and I now wonder why I didn't think of this before -- saran wrap and THEN altoid tins. You can see the colors of the inks saved, and you cram them in there. (Just the saran wrap does not keep the ink nearly as well; the ink will start to dry out.)



So here's the mock-up at this point. I'm still proceeding with my original plan at this point. I'm letting it dry over night before I continue.



This way of printing is much more like painting and less like printing. Unlike etching where you pull one print and decide what to do next; and once you like what you've got, then you edition. With this method, I'm editioning as I go (I have to, as the plate is 'gone' after each layer), and as I figure out what to do next. It's sort of like reduction woodcut, where the plate is destroyed after you print each layer.

The movie tonight was Dessert at Pix! Actually, there was no movie, and Pix was a dessert place that I've been meaning to try but keep forgetting. Thanks to the Scarlet Letters, I was reminded of it today. And since there were only 2 movies in the Random Movie Selection hopper tonight (No End in Sight and Becoming Jane), I decided to throw Pix in just for the extra sport, and it won!

I won't be able to work on the print tomorrow, I'll be dealing with the post office insurance, dropping off artwork for exhibit, volunteering at the library, and going to a talk in the evening. Just as well, I bet the light blue will need the extra day to dry.

A not so great day

Even though some great things did happen today. First, the worst thing -- I found out that a good friend died last night, totally unexpected. And I'm not supposed to talk about it for the time being. I was glad we saw each other several times recently, after not seeing each other for a while.

I tried very hard to not be distracted, as I had several errands to run, a couple of meetings, and the Sense & Sensuality artist's reception in the evening at 23 Sandy. Lots of freeway driving time, and I kept repeating 'be mindful' to myself.

Things got better as the day went on. The reception at 23 Sandy was quite wonderful, lots of people came, including Rick (whom I hadn't seen in months) and was totally not expecting to see him. (But of course, he had to come up to pick up someone at the airport, so I guess he had no excuse to not come.) Got to chat with Mr. & Mrs. 5000 (Mrs. was in the show); and Gretchin came, too.

Also, my jubilation at selling the violin piece was slightly premature. Turns out, they're still thinking it over, but it is hanging in their place while they're thinking it over, so everyone -- keep your fingers crossed!

I also tried a new restaurant today, Pambiche, a Cuban place and it was wonderful. I first met Margaret there in the afternoon right before the reception, and had an early dinner. Then when Rick and sister-i-l showed up, we ended up back there for their dinner an hour later. The wait staff were all "oh, so great to have you back again!" and shaking my hand. I felt like I had gotten past the proverbial velvet rope, or something.

One earwig is just a bug...

But hundreds of them make a horror movie! But we'll come back to that later.

Visited Sara Swinks ceramic studio this morning. She's having a show at Guardino this month and I wanted to do a piece on her for the Portland Open Studios blog. Spent the afternoon writing. It's amazing how long it takes to write a short little 3-4 paragraph thing on someone else's exhibit or creative process. Her work is gorgeous. Looks like 3 more people with shows in July, so more writing coming up. I haven't put in my own little blurb for the Rake show yet, but since I'll be in 2 more shows in July, I thought I might wait.

And we tried yet another new restaurant tonight, 2 in a week, how can we stand it? Pho Nguyen's, a Vietnamese noodle place, obviously. It was decent, fairly similar to most pho places, but not as exciting as Pho Van's, still the best place around town.

Back to those earwigs -- I went out last night with a flashlight, and found that the veggie starts were covered, I mean COVERED, in earwigs. Earwigs everywhere, on the leaves, on top of each other. It was a truly disgusting scene. I went to the Oregon extension services web site, and they didn't even list earwigs as a common vegetable garden pest. But if you look up earwigs, you do find that they can be a pest in the veggie garden. Suggestions for control? Put out pipe segments to collect them, I guess they like to crawl into dark places, and then dunking them in hot water. I put out pipe segments, but now I think other bugs might go in there too, so I probably won't use this method. Same with the rolled up newspaper. Other suggestion -- catching them and drowning in water; although the person suggested this said it took days for them to drown.

So I'm opting for squishing them, probably the most humane way to kill them. So that was what I did tonight. I'll probably have to do this every night for a while. There were lots of other bugs crawling around, but I didn't see them eating the veggies, so they're probably ok.

So here's a photo of my bug eaten bok choy. This and the rest of the photos were actually taken last night, after 9pm, with my cell phone camera.

The poor little bok choy. This actually reminds me of a famous (fictional?) Chinese woman from around the turn of the last century. Her nickname was Xiao Bai Cai, which means Little Bok Choy (bok choy is the Cantonese pronunciation of bai cai, meaning cabbage). It sounds much more endearing in Chinese, really. I can't remember why she was famous now, but she was probably a beautiful orphan sold to some family, and she probably fell in love with the wrong guy, and had a tragic life. Chinese stories involving women tend to be that way. But seeing how a baby cabbage is rather vulnerable, maybe the name had some symbolic meaning that I hadn't realized before. Who knows, maybe I'll be painting bok choys and earwigs next...



Here's my little 10" tall mountain laurel, Red Bud.



My climber, Coronation, leaning into the weeping blue atlas cedar...I think that's what it is; when I'm not working in the garden very much, I tend to forget the names of the plants. But they all come back once I'm back in the garden again.



I got this garden bench in 2004, brand new, for $19. That's right, less than $20. I thought it was a great deal. But now that it's been sitting out in the elements for a few years, the wood looks quite worn, and I'm afraid to sit on it, I think it's going to break.

Please go away, little bugs

Wow, almost all the bok choys are gone now, just 2 and 1/2 days after planting. I guess I'll have to go out at night with a flashlight to see what's eating them; I sure don't see anything during the day.

Margaret came over and we went over what will probably be the last set of changes. And I actually have nothing scheduled tomorrow until the evening, so hopefully, lots will get done on her web site. I just remembered today that I haven't done the paypal thing for her yet either.

Spent the afternoon contacting potential artists for the exhibit at the G&V next year and working on my grant assignment, and of course the class was tonight. We met at the Central Library this evening. There's a whole section of nonprofit resources. Who knew?

The movie tonight was Ocean's 13. Very boring. Ultra boring. Actually wanted to see Away From Her, but timing didn't work out. That's a very unlucky movie -- it's been on the movie list for weeks now, but never gets chosen. Oh yeah, tried a new restaurant tonight. (You know how you settle down with the set of restaurants that you go to and you hardly ever check out anything new? Well, that's us!) This was probably the first new place we've tried in 6 months -- Pinocchio, and I have to say that almost everything was too salty, which is too bad. The soup was tasty, but too salty. The antipasti platter was tasty, but many of the vegetables were too salty. The dessert was good though, my panna cotta was not too big and not too sweet.

Someone sent this link to Chris Jordan's exhibit about consumption. It is very cool. And Alex sent me information about this artist, Hung Liu, a very wonderful painter. And here's a short video of her working.