New Starts in the Studio and Kitchen

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I did a bit of printing on cloth and tea bags today while a friend is in the studio working on small dry point etchings. As soon as there were a few prints hanging up to dry my daughter asked what I was planning to do with them. I told her I was just collecting materials to start something new.

Here is the beginning. Lots of bits arranged on a sheet of rusted paper to be looked at and rearranged….and then later glued and stitched and tied down. It felt good to just “play” with the papers, cloth and sticks and prints.

Here is a very special gift my friend, Marla made for me.

It only stands about five inches high and on the glass she etched a story about how much like a rock I am in keeping it together here as Lee slowly slips further away. Note the small book of my hands and the kantha stitched cloth like my dementia shawl. There is a tiny wooden wine glass to represent Lee’s bowl turning that he used to do and the need to relax and have a drink. This is just such a little treasure.

Our daughter, Amy, helped me make ginger marmalade yesterday. What a process! The fumes watered our eyes and made us cough. The exhaust fan on the range got an extra workout during the almost two hours it took to cook the chunks of ginger to the soft stage.

Here is the process in pictures.

About four cups of chopped ginger cooking up in water.

Two hours later being turned into marmalade.

The ugly greenish water poured off needed food coloring to look edible because this slime green just was not what would make an attractive jelly with the gingery water.

I forgot how much sugar it takes to make jelly!

And here is the color adjusted jelly cooking down.

And here it is in jars. One small problem is that it is slow to set up. We know we used the right amount of pectin but the ginger seems a bit stubborn. The jelly is setting up better and I may not redo it, but that marmalade needs to go back in and get cooked with additional pectin.

And the taste of it might just take the top of your head off. Maybe longer cooking on the front end with more water changes would be the answer.

All I know is that if you make a nice seedy french toast, butter it, add a large dollop of plain yogurt and top off with this gingery marmalade, you have one lovely breakfast.

We are waiting until after Christmas to decide how much needs to be cooked again.

Have a lovely Christmas.

Til later.

Second Best Malted Cookie I Ever Ate

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Finally! Here it is….the last word on malted cookies.

Recipe for The Second Best Malted Cookie I Ever Ate

Set oven to 350 F

 

2 ½ C. all purpose flour

1 ½ t. baking soda

1 ½ t. ground ginger

½ t. salt

Sift all of the above together on a parchment sheet of paper that has been cut to fit cookie sheet.

 

¾ C. softened butter

1 C. packed brown sugar

1/3 C.  each golden syrup and malt extract

1 egg

Cream above together and then add dry ingredients until all is moistened.

 

Shape into walnut size balls and roll in white granulated sugar to coat.

Place on parchment lined cookies sheets about 2-3 inches apart.

Bake 9 minutes, remove from oven and slam down on stove to increase cracks.

Return to oven for 6 more minutes,  cool slightly on sheet and then remove to cooling racks.

Wishing you well-spent Holidays!

Quiet Time in the Studio

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Today I finished five loads of wash and put it all away, wrapped some Christmas gifts, made chili for lunch, saw a bit of news and had my 10,000 steps in by 9:30 this morning.  When I finish here and turn off Lyle Lovett, I will head back upstairs, check on Lee, finish a beer I started for lunch and make tomato basil soup for dinner. It is a very cold day here in North Carolina. A day for things cooked in pots over flames. But earlier this week……..

I finished the right hand of new responsibilities….the things Lee can no longer do or remember to do. Now I have another outline of the left hand again to start to fill that one in…next week maybe I will do some drawing into it.

I also finished the cane toad spine small journal.

It took a lot of fussing to get the hide to adhere to the already waxed covers, but I like how it feels in the hand. It is about 3.5″ x 5″ x 1″. It is a good fit in the hand. The inside end papers are a paper I “marbled” using the soils from home.

I made a thick pool of corn starch paste to float the pigments that had been mixed with linseed oil and then thinned with mineral spirits to be flicked onto the paste surface with turkey feathers. I did not mix the colors very much before draping the paper over the top and pulling it off to dry. The smell stayed for a while but eventually disappeared. I like how the paper looks and it seems more relevant to my work than fancier marbled papers. Those papers always look like the end papers to something by Shakespeare or a blank journal that will likely never be used.

Then I got back to the shawl that is a very tactile representation of dementia. It is so soft to work on.

I am almost through covering the piece with these embroidery thread kantha stitches. Just six more inches on one end. Then I am going to use a finer thread and go into the patches of silks and contact printed light weight wools.

The green earth pigment I used on the linen shawl ate right through to give me some lovely holes to work with. After placing the silk and wool scraps to fill the holes, I backed it with another linen shawl the same size.

Here it is from many months ago.

It was at the point where most people would have just thrown it out. But something about it holding parts of the land Lee and I invested in and the unexpected turns that happen in art making and life was simply too appealing. So now when I have some time, I take it out, put on my glasses to see the thread and eye of the needle come together in not too many attempts, pull it through and tie a knot at one end that looks more like a snarl of loops, pick a direction and try to keep the stitching somewhat straight.

All sounds rather pitiful when I read that paragraph over but I do like doing it.

Til next time.

Changing It Up A Bit

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Earlier this summer we changed the bedroom around to accommodate this new king size bed. We both sleep much better now with a bit of distance. And the last of a series on how man affects the environment paintings fit just right over the bed with an Australian aboriginal basket hanging between them.

To make the living room more “conversational” I found the perfect ottomans that actually have storage inside them. They are just what I wanted for sitting in front of the coffee table and facing the couch.

A bit of mud cloth over the back of the couch fits with other mud cloths in the room.

It takes the input of friends who have known me for years to help with making subtle changes that make everything look better.  Just what we needed, friends helping out at the right time. Thanks Moe and Marla. We feel spruced up for the holidays.

Speaking of which I printed my Christmas cards and have them ready to go in the mail. Very small hand pulled etchings.

A little tree that is on its last needles.

All mounted and paired with their envelopes.

And a perfect message printed inside the card.

Our gift to Marla for watching over Lee while I taught my last class for John C Campbell Folk School was a printmaking class. Her tiny work got me inspired to make the little tree etching which was very easy to print on my XCut XPress machine.

I will pick up more of the small mylar-like etching plates when I go to Melbourne again this coming March. And this time will get a good supply of them. They are quite inexpensive and very easy to work on. Being transparent it is easy to place them over my sketch, tape them down and etch away.

And speaking of changing things up a bit. I gave this four foot square painting to the new Louisiana food themed restaurant in Hayesville, NC. It is now the first thing you see when you walk in the door to Carlotta’s. It felt good to see it in new surroundings and out of the studio. I still have two more this size to think about.

From now on I will keep my work small and easier to dispose of.

That is about it for now…..til later. Enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday.