Eating Art

The Drum Cakes Bomb

2011-03-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

However the drumming rehearsal went very well.

I don't think people liked the drum cakes, although the chocolate was ver good on top. The pecan cookies were the big hit and the fruit.

I was pleased with my playing and energy, and I stayed focused. I made several mistakes, but of course no one but me would know.

Equinox

2011-03-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

I rehearsed twice today, and between the morning and evening rehearsal we drove over to see Corrine and pick up a load to store in attic. She's moving to her new job at a Rehab center. She will be a councilor and resident manager of one of the houses. She'll have from 1 to 3 people living in her house at any one time. It sounds really good for her because there are extensive grounds and they make their own maple products and many other things that they sell to make money and support this institution. It began almost ninety years ago. It sounds like Corrine will be able to work on other areas of the campus as well.

Emily popped home for the weekend and took off now.....that story is much too big for this blog.

So back to drumming. I'm excited, I can't help it. Only a few close family members have heard only parts of my program, so tomorrow night will be the first official rehearsal in front of a small audience. I wanted from ten to twelve and I have thirteen. I have some people who will make the second rehearsal in April. By that time I'm hoping to at least have one new rhythm and poem to add.

It'll be a totally new experience for me with these rhythms. I've played some of them now for over two years, it's easy to concentrate when I rehearse on my own. This will mostly be a great practice on staying focused and in the moment.

My method of playing this performance is to attack the drums and then make love to the drums. Caress the drums to get the most out of them.

Drumming

2011-03-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

I set a date and put up a notice in the Jay News and now I have 12 people who are going to watch my first rehearsal of "Into the Adirondacks", a Percussive Art Performance Piece.

I'm limiting it to 12 because I don't want a lot of audience and I only have 12 chairs, otherwise I'll have to scramble for more. If I get more than 12 I'll see if I can get enough to have another rehearsal of the performance in several weeks, which is what I want to do anyway.

I want to hone my performance until this summer when I will perform it at an opening in the gallery along with new art, pottery and books.

This performance piece really means a lot to me, it's as important as any of my art works or books. First off, its current. Its a current work, its where I am at the moment. It speaks of who I am, and how I perceive the world. Although I've had 8 years or so of drum performances under my belt, 6 years with Mountain Drum, its always been within a group. This is totally on my own, my own rhythms, ideas and words. "Into the Adirondacks", is or course Adirondack inspired, from just living and hiking in the mountains. Two of the current pieces have poems with them, when I write some new pieces after this performance, I will have more with poems in them.

When Mountain Drum broke up, I was practicing the tunes we used to play, but I was playing some of the other parts that I wasn't playing. Being in a band like that, you pretty much just play your part in each tune, so it was like learning and discovering totally new rhythms.

One day I was playing on the deck when I just got into a groove while looking at the apple blossoms on my tree, the sky was blue, spring colors were moving up the mountains, the bees were humming around the tree and just found a groove and it turned into my first rhythm, "I Just Love Fruit". It was written for all fruit, but inspired by my apple tree.

Unfortunately I make no income from the drumming, its just a hobby. But one never knows.

Finished a painting......"Whiteface from Coperas Pond".

I'm still working with my colored pencils and ink and hope to have a beginning drawing finished soon.

Sue is making production pottery and doing work for Adirondack Life Magazine. She's presently making a master for their Photography contest trophies, which are bowls of her's with the Adirondack Life logo on them......

Here is Sue working under a magnifier on the master. From this she will create a plaster mold in which she can impress clay to attach to the bowls. This master has really presented some problems and this is her third cast, so we're keeping our fingers crossed on this one. For some reason some of the plaster was staying in the mold.

Learning to Blog

2011-03-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

What a day. Can't complain. I was in my head, because I had chores to do and had to check on my Mom and that took longer than usual because she was very tired and her back was out. So I was with her for quite awhile till she felt better.

I didn't leave the house until 1pm because I was glued to CNN and the quake and tsunami. I also didn't want to venture out onto my slippery driveway which was a coat of ice from the rain.

I just took care of a little web work and am anxious to experiment more with my colored pencils and ink ideas......I'm including a view of my sketchpad.....here.

I wouldn't say this idea has been torturing me for plus three years now, but it's sure been on my mind and I haven't quite known what to do with it. It deals with trees, without leaves. It deals with personalities and the transient nature of everything. I want to be able to print the images that I make with this idea. Be it either individually or in a book with poems. We'll see.

I see that Sue has made two wonderful oval platters, that are sitting on the slab roller. I'm sure she must have thrown the forms and then altered them. They look really nice.

I'm glad I'm able to put up images again. I don't know if it was the blog program or the way I'm program, however I checked it out and it was working so I snapped a couple of photos. It's so effortless to this when it works rightly.

I'm going to devote this weekend to recording my new rhythms and getting them onto my website...... AdirondackDrummer.com I have a couple up there presently, but I'm recording much better now and I've refined the rhythms since I posted those tunes.

I would like to perform what I've prepared. I have nine original Adirondack Inspired rhythms, two that have accompanying poems and I've added a tenth tune, an old Mountain Drum tune that I've arranged for a solo player. It's a thirty minute program. My goal is to write another nine and arrange one more old tune and make an hour long program and take it on the road.

I'm thinking next Saturday night, I'm going to advertise in the Jay news for an audience and I'll limit it to about 10 or 12. I want to practice in front of people and get use to it again.

Coming from the IPad

2011-03-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

I tried blogging on my computer, but it wouldn't work for me. I could upload pictures but I couldn't type. So this is cool just sitting back in the gallery and pecking away on the pad.

Minus degrees this morning and I had to take Mom for a doctors appointment. Everything went well, it was her first trip out of the house in about four months or so.

I spent the rest of the day painting, cooking and catching up on some T-Vo. I re-painted "View of Hurricane from Owl's Head". I don't like this either. However, I was just looking at it again and in the cliffs I could imagine a hiker, a climber in stone, seeming to be just a rock formation, but yet a sculpture of a rock climber.

I've decided that it will be my next pencil drawing. I was beginning to wonder when the next pencil drawing was going to come along.

I did complete two oils in February, I'll try to upload them here.

I guess I won't know if it worked until I publish. I'll have to get better at this blogging.

One painting is of Avalanche Lake looking south, and the other is Copperas Pond looking at Whiteface.

Sue fired two kilns this week, the gallery is flush with pottery. The gallery just had it's two worst months in a row in probably the 28 years that we've been in business. Even my web business is very slow and clients are taking longer to pay. It's probably the first time in three or four years that I don't have a site to build on a regular basis. My last one was for a painter in Florida and since I didn't have anything else to do, I gave him a lot more and he's told me he's going to talk me up down there. Aafinearts.com if your interested.

Things are picking up for Sue, Adirondack Life is commissioning a new pendant design and there's some other work "in the works" with them. Most recently she got some nice pottery orders. Next week she'll be working at the Keene school on the mural project.

I've decided to make the leap to Social Security. It'll help the income. We believe that things will be getting worse before they get better. Sue and I have been real survivors. We've always stayed true to ourselves, we've lived on fumes many times. This time everything just feels different, government really is not concerned about the little guy anymore. They've totally forgotten where this country came from. Their only concern is making the other side look bad, scoring political points at the expense of a country.

It feels like you could be flicked aside, stepped on and forgotten. Rather disheartening after 28 years in business together, 7 additional years for me before that, make that 35 business years for me. Also being a combat vet and having the feeling that your helpless to make a change in this great country.

We sure hope we're wrong on this.

Where Do We Go From Here?

2011-02-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering about the future of eating art and thinking perhaps it's time to move it to a blog or facebook kind of thing.

That's why I'M here tonight writing this, after neglecting my blog for year.

I could still post photos, I could have stories.....

I'm trying to convince myself.

It's working.

Eating Art Newsletter began mostly as an excersize in writing and communicating incognito with other artists, although it became quickly apparent to quite a few, who was writing.

The actual website was begun to showcase the work we were creating and family times. The two are pretty much the same in my mind, even the house is another part of studios, and there were always projects the girls were working on when they were growing up. Or Sue might have a project on the kitchen table and have to move it for dinner.

It'S still going on, Sue has a mural project right now and the kitchen table has been active for several weeks, now that it's the two of us we sit and watch our favorites shows we've taped. It 's a different dynamic, that's for sure.

Major changes all over the world, why not at Eating Art as well. I'm certainly going through major changes myself, or probably I should say that all around me family is going through changes and therefore that affects me, in a major way.

I made three paintings on small canvases last month, 12x16". I'm loosening up to paint some larger canvas. I've been sketching out trees that I will eventually draw a series of on pastel paper, I'm really having fun with this idea now that I can see the direction and colors I want to use.

Getting Things in Order

2010-03-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

I need to organize my time very carefully, it's probably a good thing my dsl has slowed down to dial up speed, it keeps me away from you tube and google earth.....

I need to have large chunks of time for the paintings I want to do. Finished up the bookwork for the accountant today, good thing too......I meet with her tommorow.

It was perhaps the weirdest business year in the 27 years we've been in business. A combination of Sue's work on the mural, the web business, the lack of gallery business and weather. You have to take the weather into account because last spring was terrible, it lasted almost the whole month of July. All in all we turned out the same figures as the year before.

It's this summer we are worried about. Right now things are good, but so much really depends on tourism with the Gallery. I'd like to approach this whole gallery thing different now anyway. We just had our lowest inventory year of wholesale craft work. We are not planning on buying too much work, mostly jewelry, but we are planning on really stocking the gallery with the work that we do.

We really want to close a couple of days a week during the summer, summer business has changed so much in this part of the Adirondacks. For one thing the Iron Man race just kills business. The longer this thing goes on the worse July becomes. Of course we have to close on the day of the race, but even the day before is continuously getting worse and worse every year and even the week leading up to the race. They have giant signs everywhere, warning drivers of delays, thousands of bikers on these dangerous roads and probably every B&B and hotel room in the area is taken up during their training. The Iron Man Organization gives back grant money to towns.....but I bet it's nothing compared to what the small businesses in town lose because of it.

There are other reasons for sure. The point is business has changed in the summer, I'm glad we were there for the better business summers. Now we have changed our income sources and I'm planning on having the gallery take on a different role for us.

Still Drummin' and Drawin'

2010-02-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Finished my drawing today. Have a painting to work on next and some new book designs that I'm excited about.....

So let it snow. I've also decided to prepare at least four more drawings. All of a sudden I'm on fire for drawing again, and it is nice.

Sue's very busy working on orders, but she has decided to take on no more orders until she can do a couple of sculptures.

We are planning a gallery show of new work this summer and we are planning on advertising in the paper about it. We are planning on advertising all summer long actually, once a week in the weekly paper.

We will have the art opening, and a studio tour, I will have some drum recitals and we're coming up with some other ideas as well to advertise the gallery to Lake Placid Region second home owners.

Drummin' and Drawin'

2010-02-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

Just finished the third drum circle, there were seven of us, three new from Plattsburgh. It went well, there were about four or five long rhythms and we sampled all the different drums and toys.

I'm putting together a workshop package. Instead of offering the workshop here over the course of six weeks, I'm going to be offering a 2 - 3 hour workshop, including the score and a cd with practice parts on it at three different tempos. This will enable the participants to remember what they learned from the workshop.

Unfortunately my hands are sore, I let them get dried out and I developed some cuts, I really should take a break for a couple of days. The problem is, I am drawing in the gallery these days. I sit in the recliner, by the window, have my pencils and everything right on the table, it's very comfortable. When I finish a session (there not as long as they use to be, my eyes really need to look away quite often) boom....the drums are there. Calling me.

So I'm working on, "Bather and Tree on John's Brook". One day while hiking I was crossing the John's Brook trail on my way up to Bushnell Falls and there she was. I love the contrast of the rough wilderness forest and the rounded rocks and female form. I'm doing alot with trees right now, so I put that big ole tree in there.
I've learned alot of pencil drawing tricks over the years, I go from an H to a 6B usually. I love paper with a little tooth because I can manipulate it better than smooth. I love making the illusion and knowing that eyes will see what is really not there. For some reason I'm back into pencil drawing big time, that and drumming is all I think about creatively these days. I think it's because it's one of those disciplines where you can totally disappear into it. I quite often write little notes on the border of a drawing and sometimes these notes turn into poems or other drawings......sometimes not.

Here's another drawing I just finished. That's me making the "Discovery" of a pitfired object, while a tree looks on under a waning moon.

I think after the bather I'm going to do a couple of paintings and try working on a couple of clay objects at the same time. I've got some challenging ideas I want to pursue with the painting and this might be the right time.

Oh, and I really need to make some time for several pastel drawings I want to do. Martha S. gave me as a gift for my birthday last year three sheets of wonderful toothy colored pastel paper. I want to draw trees on all of them, as a matter of fact I want to buy more of this paper, I just know I'm going to love it.
The only way this can happen is if I don't get too busy with the web business, which I don't think is going to happen anyway. So this is a very good time to eat some art and play some drums.

It's a back view

2010-02-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

Wow, I've worked two solid days on my recording machine. I learned alot, because I made many mistakes.

I made a cd of Mozambique broken down into it's parts, played on three different metronome settings. The three drum parts, the bell and the timba. The timba is only played on the high metronome setting because I can't seem to play it slowly.

With that and the score a serious person who wants to learn the rhythm should be able to, with perhaps just one lesson. I know that's all it would take for me to learn.

I'm thinking of doing it for other rhythms, now that I can do it much quicker. I learned how to flawlessly loop, so I only have to play the rhythm cycle about three or four times and loop it for four minutes.

Today we are closed, and people are coming by the gallery anyway, but I am going to attempt to make some decent recordings for my Adirondack Drummer website. I have seven tunes finished but only four up on the site.

In between breaks I will draw on my new work, "Bather and Tree on John's Brook". I've wanted to make this drawing for some time, don't know why it took so long. I love the contrast of the round and softness of the rocks and female bather (it's a back view) and the woods beyond the brook and the scraggly tree, seemlingly taking it all in.

Emily is off this week from school and she is with Abdulah, first in NY City and then over to Rochester for the week. Sue and I are planning on a couple of day trips this week, the weather is so mild we want to take advantage of it. Perhaps a trip to Montreal.

New Blog

2010-02-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

       This is going to take the place of the What's New entries into our Eating Art Website. With this blog we can update the website with what we are doing in the studio or otherwise.

       When I'm not doing my web business I'm drumming. That's taken up my creative time, although lately I've been pencil drawing and working on other 2D pieces. I've written a page about my drumming project in this winter 09-10 issue of Eating Art, and I built a website here: AdirondackDrummer.

       Sue and I are working towards a gallery show in our gallery for next summer. So I want to have some new pencil drawings, paintings and books to show. Just having the goal for something like is inspiration enough to always have a project or two going towards that end in the studio.        I'm really late with the Winter issue of Eating Art, I've been busy but there also hasn't been a whole lot to write about. Sue is cranking out pottery orders, almost every kiln is orders, that is a good thing in this economy. She has begun to work on some sculptures and I sure hope she finds the time to do more over this winter.