Harvest Home

Many posts written but never posted. The busyness of the harvest season, summer turning to winter, processing many vegetables, raking many leaves, new jobs new schedules, ever encroaching darkness.

Our harvest was unbelievable this year- mounds of tomatoes still cover the table, concord grapes filling our bellies and the fridge, there might still be some raspberries on the vines, pumpkins big and small, beans beans and more beans! Flowers everywhere. And of course mints and morning glories gone wild- taking over everthing in thier charming way.

Apples and elderberries.

Equinox with full balance, shining summer-like as we shared our garden’s bounty. Now All Hallows Eve – having made costumes and carved pumpkins- everything's a blaze of orange. Full dark mornings and eating dinner in the post twilight blue. Hard frost has now emptied the garden (except for the ever present kale), crazy winds knocked down braches (kindling for the woodstove), and we've had our first dustings of snow.

Frost in the dawn air
Crystalline grass shining white
Lone crow surveys all.

Quickly the frost kills
All the tender herbs, flowers;
But not the strong Kale.

Bright autumn sunlight
Warms through our sweater layers.
We’re grateful for it.

Orange as far as
The eye can see: pumpkins, leaves,
Carrots, fire, sun.

The root harvest in-
Nothing left in the garden
Except you and me.

bowls

I will feed my family from my bowls.

fungii

These Catskill Mountains'
cool August thunderstorms make
mushrooms abundant.

Yoga in the Rain

We have a great yoga class here most Saturday mornings and today dawned nice and cool and with perhaps a hint of rain. But we had coffee and cleared the deck and with the humidity the bugs came and as the class progressed the sweat started down my face in Warrior 1 pose in which I am reminded the strength of the warrior and that I am strong and can hold this pose and as we rested finally on the mat the rain starts very lightly, almost indistinguishable from the sweat but nicer and cooler and fresh and we each get inside what can’t get wet while we also struggle with bow pose (”lift yourself a little higher”) and then realize that we can move to under the tree and not get wet at all. And of course during Savasana the low rumble of thunder let us know that the storm would come, which it did soon after our closing om. What an amazing class.

More Art- Bigger Kids

Working at High Meadow Arts Camp with 10-13 year olds- a whole nother ballgame.
The first week, though I had set to make art cards (which we did) the boyz had other plans (which we discussed a/k/a argued about at great length.) They wanted to make props for their Zombie film although it wasn't really about zombies (who are- as we all know -the brain sucking living dead) but really nuclear blast- mutated humans just trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world. It was all about the props though, specifically the flame thrower which was not a gun but more of a chemical blaster used for protection by the only non-mutated human left. And also some other props – the story line however kept changing as did the need for supplies and though I am the Queen of Materials it was hard to keep up with these guys.
My second week was more on schedule making masks from cardboard, paper plates, leather and whatever else I could get my hands on. Much thanks to the resourcefulness of Roberta! – she is really the Queen of Materials, I am just in awe of her bins of goodies. I had two lovely girls to balance out the boys and the conversation and music were of a decidedly different tone. But we made some really cool stuff and I hope found an appreciation for materials, adhesives and the right tools – like the perfect scissors or a good xacto knife. And as always duct tape. If anyone comes out of an art class with an appreciation of the variety of uses for duct tape, they have learned a lot.
Can’t wait to see the zombie dvd-

Garden Part One

The garden is a song of color

The flower garden is now mostly yellow with all sizes of sunflower and black eyed Susans and calendulas in bloom. Some pink roses are budding again and there is still much bee balm- pink purple and red.

Did a heavy weeding in there today - pulled up the cilantro and the arugula , long past flower, spent daisys and clover, wayward grasses, overzealous morning glories and mallow gone to seed.

upcoming schedule

And besides the open studios, we have a Nature Studies workshop this Saturday 7/19 from 11am-4pm - open to basically all ages. Drawing and painting plein d'air, flora and fauna identification and illustration and nature crafts. And then a ceramics intensive the following 2 Saturdays, also from 11am-4pm. I believe that we will add another class or two in August.

Thanks again everyone for all the support and great feedback. We made tons of art, learned stuff, and got lots of new ideas for the future.

Carnage

We left out our rod puppets (aka paper mache heads on a stick) and someone thought they were tasty! Probably a racoon critic/artist. But it sure looks macabre.

It's been a week since Masks and Puppets; I hear that some kids are walking around with their masks on, some are staying in character, and some have set up the mask display. Cool.

We are in the process of figuring out what we didn't get to, what we will do again, what we'll try and if we can do another class in August.

I also am hearing good feedback from Clay, Daisys, Rocks - thanks! and everyone your ceramics are ready to be glazed so come any Friday or Saturday afternoons. I am adding Fridays from 2-6pm as more ceramics studio time. Yay me. I've got a glaze kiln cooling now and am excited to spend my day between the ceramics studio and the garden.

"I've survived! Not for long..."

The week is over

We worked hard and made good stuff

And, I hope, had fun.

Last day, wrap it up day, finish and yet bunches of new ideas come tumbling out.

Each person had to describe the attitude and name and voice of their head before it became a rod puppet (which in retrospect resembles a club - I am sorry parents) - voices came out, grunty or hissy or no voice at all. They had many eyes or "dead" eyes or eyes that were blotchy and needed to be redone.
We painted our ceramics, with palettes of primary colors and black and white for hues and shades and got the names of the colors down - not just blue but Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White, Mars Black. I rarely think of painting as hard work; I could paint for days, but sometimes you just need a large brush to get it done.

Hudson gave us the beat and the silly walks manifested. Sun or rain the masks marched.

I wish that the performance of choice wasn't usually fighting or eating each other, but hey they're young boys - I prefered the silly jokes, pizza and chicken butt banter, and audience Q&A that was in the rehearsals - but perhaps my tastes are more refined than the average kid.

And even though we didn't get enough into it, the act of putting on masks is part of a whole shamanic experience; maybe we should do more ritual and history lessons. There are a bunch more stories to read to really show the importance of these art forms. Because masks are larger than life and puppets makes us laugh or act up our act out as if we were someone or something else; we stretch ourselves beyond ourselves to an alternate character. I would like to spend more time playing these roles. I want to add some movement activities to help characters dance and perhaps we should make each child bring a daily joke . But I am really impressed with all the masks and puppets and characters that the boys created. There was a lot of art and color and energy and shapes and learning and sometimes rebellion.

Thanks to all the kids and their folks who drove daily to the boonies. Thanks for coming.

And just because this week is over doesn't mean all the creativity stops. The Urth Arts non-walls stay up all the time.

One at A Time - day 3 week 2

we paraded and
performed stage and audience
etiquette.Bang Crash!













Finishing Masks - choose
an instrument and get your
Silly Walk focused.











We made our T-Shirts and got our sticks from the woods and read many stories and made our puppets interact. Mostly the puppets fought, sometimes they ordered pizza, sometimes they loved each other. We all laughed alot.

Painted what will be heads, we'll see if characters come forth.



















It's a great disservice to a kid to teach them that performance is about applause. With Masks and Puppets we are dealing with a medium that is thousands of years old while blogging is less than 10 years old.

punch and judy, masks and SOCK puppets

is there anything a bunch of boys love more than things hitting each other. So Bryan's Punch and Judy were a big hit. "Punch him again Judy!" "That's what they are supposed to do - hit each other"
But really the day went quite well, with the thunder rumbling in the distance and the kds getting into their characters of Ghoul or Alien or who knows what but a good guy.
I spent my afternoon making paper mache heads becuase I fear letting these boys loose with too much goo and also we need them to dry by tomorrow.
Their sketches are wonderful and we need more drums.

Scan PUP

Masks and Puppets day one -

loads of energy
lots of art and silliness
faces gone wild.

5 boys and us trying on characters - trying to TRANSFORM
expression and eyebrows
"is there anything more serious than a popsicle stick puppet"

Bryan wants to get the kids to make art and be thoughful about 3-D work, building up shapes, textures, layers. They are having too much fun to think.