Mashup

Tiny Banana Split Brooch, Q. Cassetti, 2013 (live link to Etsy)Snowing some more. It was a wet winter wonderland last night when we were out…and it continued over the course of the evening. But there were honking geese in the sky this morning, and the starling were hunting around on the rooftop for a nice little spot in the gutter or under the roofline to make a little grassy nest for the new family on the way. The starlings are agressively family minded…so there is something in that as it relates to a promise of Spring though we certainly do not see it. We saw snowdrops in Ithaca on Sunday, again…another check that change is at hand…but I will not believe it until the white stuff is DONE.

It is very left foot right foot with my design work these days. Move ahead one step, back another and then change the palette sixteen different ways to sunday “Just because”. Very prescriptive and not really getting to visual problemsolving. Hairpullers for yours truly.

As you can see from the Banana Split brooch posted today, I am putting some new stuff on Esty, and am making duplicates to provide for fundraising auctions for Great Camp Sagamore and for MANY/Museumwise. I have a box of about a dozen different ones for both charities (and with these babies fetching around $ 25. a pop…there is a little bit of potential profit along with the gliclees I will be sending along with them). Nice that this might equal a scholarship for one and some supplies for the other.

The community read is raising money even before we have started the programming. Exciting that there is such a wide amount of support around this project.  Meeting tomorrow at 6 p.m. to see where we can take this and who else we can engage in the process.

I am buying Hawkeye and Redmon vintage picnic baskets and will be selling them through Sundrees soon. Diane and I thought it would be fun to have them as part of the mix and as part of the Farmgirl/ Tburg Bride styling that she is working on. So, I have some beautiful things coming my way to sell for dish to pass chic…and ready to be tricked out with your favorite tablecloth and vintage melamine (or some of the really cute plates they have at Target for poolside or lake side endeavors).

Must go. Time’s a wasting.

dream state

Hairhopper, Q. Cassetti, 2011, pen and inkIt snowed and snowed. We now have white stuff…and it feels like January, finally! I just finished whomping up a torta kind of thing from all the leftovers and orphans in the fridge so Alex has something to eat for lunch and supper tonight. I need to confirgure the vegetable stock I made the other day into something else we can eat. That is all exciting as the dregs go directly into the compost (not a bit of fat) and secondarily, I have room for more roots and tubers this week from Sweet Land CSA.

Rob left at 4 a.m. to drive to Elmira to catch a plane to Miami. He is going to do some work down there and be in West Palm Beach for the Norton Museum opening of the Hot Glass Road Show which will be paired with Beth Lipman’s installation. The Hot Glass Road show is staffed by a team of master glassmakers, and do demonstrations in hot glass not only to educate but given how skilled these guys are, show off a bit of their chops. I am always impressed, exhilerated and never bored by these demonstrations (and I have been seeing them since they were prototyped over about 20 years ago). I cannot even begin to imagine the response in West Palm Beach. What a treat for the Norton visitors. What a treat for the glassmakers to be in such a divine place for a few months. Should be delightful and fun for Rob. The extra bonbon is that he is staying at the Standard in Miami with it’s eternity pool and oceanfront mud baths.

I plan to read and draw today. Take a vacation, a bit of the holiday vacation today to just do what I want to do. No work…just my stuff. I am working with lines and am thinking about pictures and lines…so something has engaged. We will see where the work goes. Speaking of minds, I love the book I am reading, Haruki Murakami’s Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. He paints these visceral, dreamy landscapes and speaks about mind and memory that articulates my thinking on that, on life, and on what this all means. Plus, he stirs in wonderful characters, compelling parallel stories and always leaves me in a state of wonder, questioning where I am, where I am going and what will be next in this magical book.

I am stunned by Random House’s Murakami site. Check it out. He is an amazing artist beyond the writer artist he is.

Gotta go. The torta beckons.

Gourds

Glass Farmers Market at the Corning Museum of Glass, 10/08/2011, Q. CassettiPicture perfect day. Alex was up early to get on a gorgeous bus to take him to Ohio to ride the roller coasters, “enjoy” the buffet breakfasts, and hang with the bros. He had a nice evening with friends back from college—a catch up with the new freshmen and all they are experiencing, missing, confounded by. Great to hear it a year or so in advance.

Rob and I tootled down to the Corning Museum of Glass’ Columbus Day spectacular, the Glass Farmers Market. It was a gorgeous drive with the color finally beginning to pop. There was grape in the air…in the warm, humid air that made it even more sweet. A lovely drive with pumpkins, yard sales,and produce..the last of the tomatoes and the beginnings of beets, potatoes and carrots.

Yes, The Corning Museum had all sorts of gourds and pumpkins in glass available to take home (and they do not stink, mold or rot). I bought a few for friends and a tortoise shell one for me. I have a little collection of them…and its fun to add to the grouping. Many of mine are clear (from the Studio Sale) but I have some orange ones, a green one…and now brown. I love this one so much, I could see doing tortoise shell ones entirely. I fess up, I LOOOVE tortoise shell. I cannot say why, but the aesthetic is one; the history of how we have tortoise shell is two, and just how it works…for me. It was fun mixing it up with my museum friends, seeing the enormous numbers of asian and indian tourists (and how smoothly the whole thing was)—An amazing hat trick that these lovely people seem to do with great humor and aplomb. They had great wooden boxes filled with apples (as a give away) inspired by the Tully Cross Country event we attend every year and how the great treat are the free apples. The crowd loved it (Tully and today).

On the way back, we stopped at the Seneca Lake microbrewery, Two Goats and were impressed by the packed deck, the piles of cool people and the tasty brew offered. We ran into some old Corning chums full of good energy having come back from helping with a grape harvest for a friend.

And now, lakeside…the cats scamper. There is manure thick on the air….but the rosy sun is setting on the lake and its not quite 7. And the year rolls by.

Blessings.

We had the Farmers Market event yesterday afternoon. It pointed up to me, the significant contribution of volunteers from the fundraising for the building, to the teams of makers, builders, laborers, detaillers, designers, architects, village employees and more. The reason we have this market is sheer will and effort of people who truly WANT a Farmers Market. People who put their energies behind what they believe in. There wouldnt be the wonderful park we have without this common belief and effort of our fellow Tburgers. We are all beneficiaries of this common belief and effort behind doing things right.  I think very few of us understand that this expression of community at our Farmers Market and how very, very special this is. We are indeed blessed.

Now the challenge is to harness this marvelous mechanism to create wonderful things for community to spin more community and then some. This is what I will be leaning into.

I had a great conversation on Friday with Kevin from the Hanford Mills Museum. Have I mentioned this museum to you before? Hanford Mills describes their mission here:

“Hanford Mills Museum’s mission is to be a leading interpreter of the evolution of power generation and technology and how it contributed to the unsettling of rural America. The Museum is dedicated to:

• preserving and presenting the mill site
• understanding how the Hanford and Pizza families adapted their business operations to respond to changes in technology, markets, and transportation
• illustrating how these activities affected the community

Hanford Mills has a mill and a millpond that they actively use to create products and show how vital a mill, waterpower etc. to yesteryear and also, I think to demonstrate the viability today. In  February every year, they induce people to leave their warm houses to go out and cut ice for their icehouse during their Ice Harvest Festival. There is soup, hot cider and all sorts of fun with a 1922 gas powered ice saw to help folks to “embrace winter” and to “harvest one of the winter’s most abundant crops”. I love this event, so Kevin and I are going to create some images and branding around this fun…to drive more recognition and maybe sell some gear to drive more revenue for this wonderful little museum outside of Oneonta NY. You Tube has a little happy clip on it>>

Another announcement is that instead of donating time and illustration to the Hangar Theatre next year, I am going to provide pro bono logos and illustration to  local producers and farmers  to move the image of their products ahead. I feel that this is the place that I can be truly more effective for the time put in and the emotional payout that comes back to me.

The week is busy. Alex has a ton of afterschool stuff. Rob has a ton of afterwork stuff. We have Wednesday in Rochester for more testing. Friday is the beginning of the Columbus Day Holiday for Alex…with the weekend senior trip to Cedar Point amusement park in Ohio. I hope this week can be as productive as it feels like it could be.

Onward.