Sundae on Monday

Sundae Brooch by Q. Cassetti, 2013 available on EtsyIts been a while. A busy while, nonetheless… Let me think about the news, the new ideas, the state of the state. The Federation of Farmers Market meeting was very nice and homespun. I liked meeting and seeing the range of people, their engagement, and the vitality in the room.  It wasn’t a huge group, but lots of interest in all that was said. I had the pleasure of meeting the Executive Director of the Niagara Frontier Growers Market and the President of the Board of the Ithaca Farmers Market. The takeaway from that experience as that we should absolutely embrace the dynamics of a small market and truly own it, build into it…and keep it the personal experience that it is today. Bigger is okay, but not for our little community. What we can do for our community is provide a gathering space around food, eating and locally made objects.. We can provide a platform for local music, local performers, local arts. We can provide a neighborhood approach to “why not” type of entertainment and gathering from dish to pass suppers, to fundraising auctions, to the craziness of my friend Deb’s Soap Box Derby. We can revel in Local, Locavore, and in each other. We can use the farmers market to create new bonds beyond the church, the schools, and the community groups. We can continue to weave those ribbons of connection between people…to build and support each other. This is something we do well here in our little Village…and if we are deliberate about this activity, think of the strength we ill all have in each other.

I was prodded to join the Chamber of Commerce. Kicking and complaining…saying no…no…no…and then, surprisingly, I attended and am enchanted. It was such a bright group of action oriented people that being at the table to represent the Farmers Market was a pleasure. The Chamber and the Market both have literature distribution issues, so we are going to create a job and share the expenses etc. There you go! Reason one to go to the Chamber, share the wealth and get stuff done. So, more on that.

We had a very engaging Farmers Market meeting last week. The librarian at the Middle School attended and spoke about partnering with us to do some programming with him around a Middle School “read” to a community read…The book is SeedFolks…and it is about the power of planting to help draw people and communities together. Of course, we are on it…and interestingly, after an email to a variety of community groups, we have traction with them. So, we are going to meet this week to get this thing rolling. The day one of this activity is April 26 to roll through a month, so there is not a ton of time, but it should be fun to see what can happen. It was very rewarding to make a few calls and write an email or two and see the energy that is being put towards this thing. Not much more than that, but should be very cool to see what happens. I am feeling this.

Off topic entirely, Squarespace (the entity I author this blog with) has a site for visual people to create more visually inspired pages (Squarespace 6) along with a way to post retail pages /create a store which is linked to Stripe (a company that can do the financial transactions). Lets just put it this way, my mind is a whirl on this.

Kitty is home for Spring Break. It is great to have time with her. I taught her how to needlepoint yesterday and gave her a kit which I must admit, given how she is absolutely voracious…it will be done before the week is out. This is a great thing as with all the bus travelling she does, this will keep her hands busy during that down time. She had a group over last night to eat snack food and celebrate the Saint who chased snakes out of Ireland….I wonder if he wore green loafers much like the pope?

Mental tryptophan

Vector Sketch, Q. Cassetti, 2011, Adobe Illustrator CS5Working on a portrait. Fun. Tough going with the eyes. I find that recently, I need to construct more of the eyes than what is in the picture which is a bit of a puzzle, but when I focus on them, it really snaps the image up. My guy has a cape and a high necked, dark shirt. Very dashing…with a very goth hairdo.

More little projects on the desk to correct, to add to, to develop, to change. I met with my new farmers today. They took me on the most lyrical and philosophical walks over their property to see the elegant black chickens, their groomed, snuffling and happy pigs (searching for apples) filled in with their thinking on planting, on cycling crops and livestock, on teaching, on food and then on their beautiful barn (complete with a slate roof) and the architectural plans around this. The property spans the most glorious gorge…with a lovely stream and the trees sheer perfection and tall, reaching up to the sky. No hanging branches, no need to limb up or change anything. With the sparking leaves…it was breathtaking. We shared maroon apples from a tree by their driveway and talked about planting in hexagons with plants that complement each other for their seasons, for the creatures they attract or repell….Just take a gander at their poetic blog. Love reading it: Tree Gate Farm>>

Nice meeting with the Distillery. We are on a direction that is great…and beginning to refine an approach to the labels, the logotype, the color palette. Next step, comping the range of products they are going to lead with, think about the secondary packaging, and the marketing materials…and how the spirit and language go with it. As this operation is on the wine trail, the need to drive the location as a destination is key to their success. How to do that? What are the key vehicles? How to position this operation as part of your Cayuga Lake tour etc. Plenty to think about during winter days.

Have started thinking about Thanksgiving and the food around that. I so loved cooking much of the feast in advance so that Thanksgiving day was about setting the table, and cooking the bird and any last minute stuff (icing cakes, potatoes etc). Making stock in advance is the first place to go, so, I will need to get some turkey parts to make the stock to make the stuffing, gravy, and all else that is stock derived. I found a wonderful italian cake I would like to make this year along with a pear ginger claflouti (King Arthur Flour Cookbook). The cake I can make and freeze, but the claflouti is a now thing…so that will happen on the 25th. Right now we have around 17 coming. I project those numbers will be growing. Our big table can seat 12-14…so we are probably looking at 11 at the big table and 6 at a satellite table. Placecards will be in order…hmmm. (such good sleep inducing thinking versus my wanting to bury a hatchet somewhere)….Mental trytophan.

I am still not sleeping well. Coulda shoulda woulda. Then, the brick wall of can’t, won’t, maybe, shouldn’t. They are making me mad. Unfortunately, they do not know that when I am mad, I get feisty…and this will not be the placid, nice me that they think they know. I click into lists, confirmations, dating, reports, verbatim quotes (dated.time) and then finding out my rights and referencing their responsibilities. The land of carbon copied lawyers, and everyone else and their mother is just about to begin. The boil is slow…and as this bear was poked this morning…the heat is building.

Three's the charm

Angel, Q. Cassetti, 2010, digitalI wrote two entries yesterday. I lost two entries yesterday…so I am trying again and hoping that this entry will not get lost or go down the digital black hole that yesterday’s efforts so happily did. Sorry for the grousing.

Sunday’s trip to Cheryl Shaefer’s yarn sale was better than I could have even anticipated. It was totally in the Central New York experience of fruit stands and vegetable tables in the front yard. The garage and a side bay of the garage were open on Cheryl’s property, with a little “canning room” sized niche starting the grand tour of skeins upon skeins of colored, hand dyed fibers suspended from nails, and often 6-8 skeins deep. There was every gleaming color—some brights, some drabs—painted in gradients and blends, some complementary colors, some not—all the promise of scarves and jackets, socks and baby sweaters. There were two bays of all these fibers, all this future. Kitty and I frolicked in the wool, in the color, in the wonderful hand of the silk mixes, the mohair, the lovely washable superwash merino—trying to pick the skeins we wanted to do projects with. Kitty quickly settled on a bright bundle which when knit (as its almost halfway done) becomes a red fabric with colored flecks. I picked a range of sock wools (which is a wonderful thing I love) and a hank of “Elaine” in olive and khaki for a scarf that I may stripe with another, cooler green. When we went to check out, Cheryl, her husband and her design director were there with happy patter and editorial on the colors and skeins we had selected. There was a little basket filled with little folded pieces of paper. We were instructed to take one…which we did, unveiling our discount (55%) which made the shopping even more exciting. A younger member of the Schaefer clan was selling lemonade and brownies which the boys happily bought and devoured while we girls frittered away the time.

There is a possibility of doing a little branding work with Schaefer (which is something I have been thinking about for quite some time) as a trade, which could be very cool. I am meeting with them Thursday to see what happens. Interesting how things just sort of happen.

The hosta here at the lake are huge and full and fragrant. We have the front of the house planted (original plantings) solid with these yellow green plants which around this time of the year, pop open these enormous flowers, white easter lily sized blooms, which emit the most glorious, waxy scent in the spirit of lilies and gardenias. At dinner, in the cool humidity of the day, we are gifted this lovely smell, which only comes at this time, in this place for which I am always delighted and amazed. It is that time of the season.

Alex has started Cross Country training. He is all over it and able, this year, to articulate why it is he loves this. It is the running against oneself, but also it is the comraderie of his teammates…the spirit of individual by himself and individual as part of the larger group. Kitty is winding down. We get her to Hampshire by the first of September. She just got her classes and dorm assignments—so we will call with questions today to see if we are missing anything. Kitty is interestingly putting a lot of her people issues to rest in anticipation of the new future. I do not know if this is conscious, but it is fascinating to see her preparing for the next chapter in such a mature way. She is resolving old conflicts, talking to folks that have made her nuts, and setting her old relationships on new paths for the future. Now, (this is her mother speaking) if only she could focus on packing. But she will…just not much in advance of the move.

I am working as Alexander Girard these days. I made an angel yesterday in the spirit of the Nativity poster—but it became mine as I gave it a fraktur face and changed the hands/body a bit. I am fascinated with his approach and how he is very decorative but deliberate in his placement of frivolity. He lives in the world of negative and positive which is comfortable for me too…so I really need to let that go a bit. Girard also worked in a “making icons” way of work where each image was more of a single “potato” and not so much a storytelling process. It is more “here’s an angel, here’s a series of sunfaces, here’s aheart” driven by his love of type and folk art. Interestingly, his three dimensional work (his people, his nativity) is more narrative, but personally, I think he treated each figure the same iconic way—but allowing for the viewer/owner of these figures to make narratives by the placement and use of these forms. Girard got down to the basic design elements of color, type, form. He revelled in them that the simplest use was often his final resolution (ie the colored planes for Braniff). And in that pure use of these design elements, the sheer confidence in saying that it was okay for a plane to be lavender, it was an entirely appropriate and successful solution. So Girard’s charge to me today, is to go forth, be simple and bold, and love what you do and what you depict.  And so it goes.

Today is clean up and make plans. Alex works. Kitty doesnt. Radio the Ape, a band comprised of Kitty and Alex’s friends play at the Rongo as a farewell concert. Rob has a village board meeting. And I have time for me….I think Alexander Girard and I have a date.

First day of Summer, 2010

Summer Bounty, Q. Cassetti, 2010Not much to say. It was redding up last night and a load of laundry this morning. Shady went out with me to check on the efficacy of the Irish Spring treatment on our apple trees (its working) this morning. She managed to get herself tangled up in velcro weed and ended up covered in thorny, green pods which wasnt the end. She found a delicious patch of something that she started rolling in…ending up sticky, and appropriately stinky. Then, she shared the wealth with me. Cut to the chase, a bath before nine….for Ms. Shady Grove along with a lot of brushing.

Kitty is finishing her adirondack chair this morning. Hopefully we can engage her in class selections and take her picture for Hampshire. Long and drawn out.

I discovered my illustration work was being posted, “blogged” and “reblogged” on Tumblr.com There are posts by people talking about reusing my artwork ( I know, I know, that this is wrong…but how do you stop it). I am fine if they want to use it, its more the sheer courtesy, yes manners, of asking before taking. But, I am showing my old age and fussy upbringing in even saying this. Erich is always reminding me that things have changed despite the laws, and that once things are  posted, they are public and out of my control. Tumblr is microblogging, in a sense like twitter, but a way to share ideas, images, photographs etc. How would you address this…? Yes, its like Twitter and Facebook but feels somewhat more random for me. Here is what I found on Tumblr re: me, me and did I say, me? 

Starting a new sweet picture in the Lubok spirit….same topic, new style (or changed style)… More later. These take a bit longer.