Today - Boxes!

The other day at work I found a copy of Books, Boxes, and Portfolios, which I've been searching for FOREVER (well, at a discounted price that is...). Anne used to bring this book into class when I TA'd for her and I would constantly be photocopying pages from it - it's got some of the clearest, most concise directions I've ever used.

I haven't done any work in a while but I felt like doing something fun and easy today just to get my hands busy, and so I decided to make the 3d shapes from the book. I scored some great books about bears too, and I cut them up and used some of the full bleed photos for the folding paper.

Apple Pie

So, I've got pie fever. Ever since I made the pie for our 4th party, all I can think about is making more pies. I haven't had a chance to do so until today, and so that's what I did today! I decided it'd be fun to do a step by step post about it:

Started off with apples (fuji and pink lady, my two favorites) as well as the nectarines, frozen mango and strawberries for the reduction.

I peeled and sliced 6 of the apples and put them in a large sauce pan


i then added cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla and honey to the apples,
and started to cook them over med-low heat


this time i ended up making my own crust because i forgot to buy some
i made it with butter, flour, salt and water, and it may suck, but this is it



next i popped the three nectarines into some boiling water to loosen the skins


then under cold water to peel


then chopped up the nectarines



and put them in a pot with the frozen strawberries and mangoes
(which had been defrosting)

i added a little vanilla to the fruit and covered the pot,
letting it cook down and eventually simmer



because i was having a hard time getting all the fruit mashed,
i poured it through a strainer and finished the sauce that way


meanwhile, the apples have been cooking on low heat


and i've rolled out the top crust and cut it into strips



then i filled the pie with the apples and some of the sauce


and then i covered it with the strips


and then painted some sauce on top and sprinkled a bit of cinnamon


baked it too high at 425 for 20 min, then 325 for 20ish
et, voila



Next up, banana bread!

Good Morning, Spider

Review Board Review, Months Late

So, in the spirit of updating this thing until it bursts, here's post #2 of the day. Months ago - May 7th or so - I had my review board. You'll remember, of course, when I posted the pre-review board lineup, and so here I am, months later, showing y'all what it really looked like. I made a cherry torte and fruit salad to munch on (I am a huge fan of food bribery!!!) and brought some lemonade and seltzer to drink. It took me about an hour to hang (all the time I had) and it ended up lasting about 2.5 hours. Because I didn't have the time, I was only able to take pictures after the board was over and had been gone through, so it's a little disheveled in these pics. But here they are!

anne pelikan, my favorite teacher ever, by the about mixtapes installation

i tried to hang all the doodles i'd done that year, and/or
during my time away from smfa

this is an installation i'll detail in another post, but
i had just finished it a few days before my board - i really
loved how it came out

a table with calligraphy, my icon, and some odds and ends

some of these little transparency guys i made a while ago

some photobooth shots from a year+ ago, pinned
to a prototype i made years ago

the cherry torte aftermath - it was sooo delish!

wall of calligraphy

one of my favorite text pieces

sample sheets

It was an amazing board, probably the best one I've ever had. Old loops came full circle, my eyes were opened, and I walked away from it feeling proud, accomplished, encouraged, and excited. I hadn't realized just how much I had made until the whole thing was hung - and I'll tell you that we didn't even get to look at all of it. My mentor and total inspiration, Anne Pelikan, was one of the faculty, and Kurt Ralske was the other. There were three student reviewers and they were all talkative and awesome - two of them really got my work and it was really wonderful to hear how they felt about the work and the inside the had to share. By the end of the board I started thinking about how much I love making work, and how important it is to me - and feeling encouraged enough to sort of maybe a teeny bit entertain the idea that maybe, maybe, maybe, it wouldn't be so bad to put myself out there more, to try and imagine going forward with art making, in a serious way, after graduating from smfa. We'll see what happens, but i'll tell you that it really made me think...