No One

A new piece titled, No One, 14 x 17 inches, watercolor on drawing paper, cardboard, garlic, 2014. I had not painted in an entire year. It felt really good and I plan to do more.

Craft Your Heart Out 4!

Craft night is going strong. I hosted my 4th one yesterday. I shared delicata squash, cider, cinnamon sugar apples, and pumpkin cookies with everyone while we crafted and conversed. It was wonderful! 

Thiel, Kim, Annie, Naomi and Hope!

Hope made a chicken!

Kim made hand puppets!

Sarah and Desmond made art with tape, markers and chickens!

I finally made a chicken card for the first time in 6 weeks after being to busy with the show at Delicious. 

-Cocorosie

Fall is here and summer was lovely!

Interactive Art Piece

I have been invited by curator, Anni Holm, to create an interactive piece for her show Earth to Table at the West Chicago City Museum.  I have had a lot of interest lately in making artwork that viewers can be involved in.  This was the first idea I have come up with.

The statement and question would be placed on the wall, "Each fruit and vegetable has a season when they grow in the Midwest and when they taste their best.  What vegetables and fruits do you like to eat during each season?"

There are 4 plates for each season and surrounding each plate are plushie vegetables and fruits grown during that season.  They are velcroed to the wall and attached to the wall with jute so that the viewer can't put a tomato on the winter plate.  There is also velcro on the plate.  

I want to create a piece that is educational, fun, and touchable.  Children really like my work and I'd like to pay more attention to that in the future.  

More Fabric Cards

I have decided these fabric cards will be a regular thing for me. I enjoy making them because they are a relief from conceptualizing...and I still feel productive.

Fall Foods!

mmm mmm fall!

This is an heirloom variety of an acorn squash. It is a Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Acorn Squash. Winter squash is amazing. There are many odd looking varieties. I cut this winter squash in half, took out the seeds, placed the cut side down on a pan with some water and put in the oven for 15-30 minutes at 350 degrees until I could put a fork through it. I like to fill the hole with butter. Some people do brown sugar and butter.

Look at these many different varieties of apples! 7 different kinds actually. Can't remember any of the names only the gala. I wanted to try a gala that wasn't from New Zealand and I swear it was crisper and sweeter because it was local. These apples were all so different and yummy. I got these from the market in front of the Contemporary Art Museum. It is open from 7am to 3pm on Tuesdays. They had about 20 varieties of apple to choose from, each with a tag to describe the taste. It is hard to choose.

Carnival Acorn Squash and green tomatoes! I never tried green tomatoes until I got them in my CSA a couple of weeks ago. They are so tasty when fried! I sliced them 1/4 inch thick, dipped them in a mixture of flour, paprika, salt, onion powder, and pepper, then dipped em in soymilk, then in a mixture of bread crumbs and panko bread crumbs and fried em up. Get yourself some green tomatoes.

Kale! I made "cheezy" kale chips. I discarded the stems and cut the leaves into bite size pieces then tossed them with some canola oil, salt, and nutritional yeast (has a cheesy flavor and very nutritious, hence the name) and put them in the oven for 15 minutes at 375 degrees, flipping them around every 5 minutes until they were crunchy. They are really good.

Looks like I will be volunteering at the Glenwood Sunday Winter Market this year! I am really excited to be more involved with the market. Now I must get back to sewing.

Vanishing of the Bees

A couple of weeks ago I stopped by Ruby Garden to see what was growing. Many vegetables are done for the season so gardeners have planted a lot of flowers in place of the veggies. There were so many butterflies and bumble bees. I use to never pay attention to a butterfly or a bee. I thought the butterfly was boring and a bee would sting me. But having spent some of my summer on a farm, I started to really understand how beautiful every living thing is and how we all affect one another. A friend of mine just got back from a sustainable farm in Hawaii and he told me that he looks at plants in a different way now and he can identify them. I feel like I am beginning to understand the natural world more and appreciate everything about it. When only a few months ago a bee was an enemy, the sun was too hot, the wind was too windy and if I'd seen one tree, I'd seen em all. To not feel so detached from the world around me is an amazing feeling. My days are much more peaceful and inspiring. So much is beautiful and exciting to me now.

I had heard about bees dying or vanishing but had never taken the time to learn about it. But a couple nights ago I finally decided I should learn. I watched this documentary called"Vanishing Of The Bees" to get some information and I was horribly surprised. Bees are actually vanishing and people aren't too sure why. One week a colony of bees will be flourishing and two weeks later the farmer finds a bunch dead and the rest gone. This is called Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. Many of the farmers believe it may be due to the pesticides in plants. When they go to collect the nectar the pesticide gets in their system and disorients them so that they aren't as sure of what to do and possibly how to get back home. This also makes them more susceptible to disease. It is yet again another example of how mass production and pesticides is ruining the order of the natural world.

Right now you can watch the documentary on Netflix in the instant section.

Butterflies let you get very close...I had about 20 pictures to choose from. They were all over the garden! And two weeks ago, when I was on the farm, there were a ton of caterpillars...so it must be butterfly season. I even found a fluffy brown caterpillar on Rachel's hat.

And the hard working Bee.

'The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others." -Saint John Chrysostom