Dinner!

Tonight I made soup with the last of the tomatoes for the year, some basil, chard and beans.  I received some Tokyo Bekana and Lettuce in my CSA share today and made a salad with them and added beets that I pickled.

This summer I was dedicated to eating as locally as possible and it has been very rewarding.  I waited all summer for tomatoes and peppers and when August finally rolled around I was happier than ever before to eat a pepper and a tomato!  Spinach comes around in the spring and again in the fall (tasting extra sweet from the frost!).  I am excited to have spinach again.  Sometimes it is nice not having everything I want when I want it.

By next summer I hope to be a master canner and receive a full CSA share instead of the 1/2 CSA share I had this year.  I would receive twice as much veggies and I would can and freeze the other half so that all winter I would have my summer veggies.  This has been a great summer of learning about eating locally and farming!

Farmers Market Bounty!

Today at the Glenwood Sunday Market I went all out.  I have a lot of vegetables I plan to cook!  Half of it is my beautiful CSA share from Midnight Sun Farm.

About 3 years ago I started cooking more seriously.  Now I am starting to feel like I have got the hang of it.  It took a lot of work to get here and I definitely still make not so tasty food...but at least it is always edible.  I learn more about food with each meal I make!

Tomatoes!

I officially stopped purchasing tomatoes at the grocery store about two years ago after tasting local and in season tomatoes from the farmers market.  Once you have one you know there is no reason to buy a red bubble full of water in the winter.

I received this beauty in my CSA share this week.  I want to pull out all the colors I am seeing and make a collage of them.

Once I have done enough paintings I can cook him with some okra and peppers!

I have been making tons of bruschetta with all the tomatoes and basil in my CSA.  Last week I received purple basil.

This week I made some with a variety of different cherry tomatoes, including some sungolds!  

Working on the Midnight Sun Farm

I work at Midnight Sun Farm every other Friday and in return I receive a box of fresh, organic vegetables every Sunday.  This is called a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).  In the beginning of the season a CSA member can purchase a 1/2 share or a full share.  That money allows farmers to buy equipment they will need to start the growing season.  But this year I am doing a work share, so instead I work for my 1/2 share.  It has been a lot of fun helping out on the farm with Nick and Becky.

Midnight Sun Farm leases 5 acres of land from Prairie Crossing Farm.  It is a 100 acre organic farm in Grayslake, Illinois that helps beginning farmers get started.  "The Incubator program works by providing land, farm infrastructure, and a positive learning environment that helps beginning farmers develop the entrepreneurial skills, farming knowledge and market networks needed to become successful professional farmers." -Prairie Crossing Farm

Prairie Crossing is awesome because their are so many different farmers, farming in their own way and learning from one another.  The animals in these pictures are not Midnight Sun Farm animals except for the hot baby turkeys!

Thistle is so beautiful....yet so painful.  

It is nice to have some chickens around me where ever I go!

Hot baby turkeys!

5 Plushies Down, 2 to Go!

I have finished 5 out of the 7 heirloom plushies for Chicago's 12 at the Garfield Park Conservatory.  The Ruby Red Chard and Blue Hopi Corn are almost done as well.  The plushies are a Zapotec Pleated Tomato, Moon and Stars Watermelon, Purple Cape Cauliflower, Make the Daughter-In-Law Cry Potato and a Parisian Carrot!

Now on to the next piece!  I have bought all the scrap wood I could need and tomorrow I will start building with help from my Dad.  

Special thanks to Andy for giving me this base that he found in the alley a while back!

I made Arugula Pesto with Summer Squash!  Super yummy and raw!  All the veggies are from my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) work share.  I work on Nick and Becky's Farm, Midnight Sun Farm, every other Friday and in return I get a 1/2 share of fresh, organic veggies each Sunday!

Blackberry and Strawberry Jam!

I have finally canned something for the first time - Blackberry and Strawberry Jam!  It was super easy once I figured out all the steps needed.  I couldn't let all those black caps that we picked in Wisconsin go bad.  I received some strawberries in my CSA share from Midnight Sun Farm as well, so I added them to the jam.  

All I needed was blackberries, strawberries, lemon juice, honey and pectin.  And now they can sit on my shelf for a year or so and I can enjoy the blackberries in the winter.  I am going to can EVERYTHING!

On my last day in Reedsburg, I went to town and bought this bright yellow yarn.  My goal is to use the entire thing up on egg yolk related work.  This is a work in progress.

Goodbye Wormfarm - For Now

I finished my time as a resident artist at The Wormfarm Institute on June 21st.  I had a wonderful time and have grown as an artist and as a person.  The Wormfarm opened up a lot of possibilities for me and I am thankful for the experience.

The Wormfarm is part of a collaborative CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) called Wisconsin Home Harvest.  Before I left, I wrote a few paragraphs about my time spent at The Wormfarm for the Wisconsin Home Harvest newsletter that would be sent out to all the members of the CSA.  A photo of Honey and I was included as well!  Here is what I wrote:

I have been an artist in residence here at The Wormfarm Institute since May 20^th and will be leaving in a few days.  I was born and raised in Chicago and therefore have always been surrounded by concrete and dirty pigeons with missing toes.  Reedsburg, Wisconsin offered me something more natural and a chance to be connected to the animals and land surrounding me. 

The chickens were the highlight of my stay.  All those beautiful, feathery, plump ladies running to me all at once in hopes that I had something good for them to eat.   Much of my time here was spent watching them and learning their habits.  I admired the way they bathed in the sun.  They would lie down, sprawl out their wings and legs, close their eyes and tilt their heads towards the sun, taking every ray in.   Food is their main obsession.  They roam The Wormfarm searching for bugs and greenery to snack on throughout the day.  Their wide variety of nourishment is the cause for the most golden yolks I have ever seen in an egg.  These ladies are living the life and their eggs are the proof of that!

Relish, Honey, and Heneral Lee are the names I have given my three favorite hens.  They stood out from all the rest and were the inspiration for much of the artwork I created while here.  It breaks my heart to say goodbye, but I know I will be back.

Tomatoes at Their Peak

After setting Diversity of the Tomato up at the school for the BFA show (opening reception, Thursday, September 15th, 5-8pm) I noticed that the piece looked very sparse. I have this annoying ability to make everything exactly the same. So most of the tomatoes are medium or small. Nothing in between and nothing bigger. And every time I would tell myself to make a big one it ended up being a medium guy. I am afraid of making things BIG. But I have been making tomatoes that I will add to the piece and most of them are BIG!

This is what the piece looks like now...not as bad in photo but in person it lacks variety in shape and size...and that is the whole point of the piece!

This guy is 6 inches wide! First I sculpt them with self-hardening clay and after a day of the top drying, I carve out the inside (very fun!). Once they are fully dry I will paint them with white oil paint and linseed oil. Then I will secretly sneak into the gallery and add my tomatoes to the piece...

I added him for a bit more variety in shape, not so much size since he is only 3 inches wide.

5 inches!

5 1/2 inches!

A tiny lady for variety in shape. She is only 2 1/2 inches wide and an inch tall. I am in the process of making at least four more tomatoes with the last bit of clay I have.

And these are not sculptures but real tomatoes from my CSA this week! Very beautiful and a great example of the many colors a tomato can be which is seen in the quilt of Diversity of the Tomato.

One last thing to mention. I was out of clay to sculpt these guys, so I needed to go to Blicks. I would usually take the red line 2 stops to the end then wait 15 minutes for the purple line. And on the way back, waiting for the purple line can be 25 minutes sometimes. So I rode my bike with Jacob instead! 8 miles in all. It felt so wonderful to take myself somewhere instead of waiting for Mama L to bring me there on her own watch. I'm still afraid to ride on my own but I think I will get there.