Fiddle Dee Dee

Ah the rights of Spring !fiddlehead-primavera

And the time honored traditions of the favorite meal of my “salad days” back in Watertown…Mussels and Fiddlehead Ferns…celebrated now in my dotage…

fiddle

I’m still lifting a glass of the bottom shelf chardonnay in toast to the delicacy…
But nowadays I am using my organically home grown onions and garlic from the studio gardens…

Progress

Supporting the troops…Vineyard style

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I’m looking forward to watching this tonight.

The island fisherman have brought wounded vets to the MV Derby and it’s a good old American Throw Down. I’ve got my money on the Tomahawk piloted by my pal Buddy Vanderhoop…but the waters are deep out there.

Here’s a link to the trailer… Click Here

Happy Memorial Day to all !

 

The God of Spoons

Spoon Carvers Tea

I went searching on my website for the pic of this painting to use in today’s blog post and discovered that it had never been added to my portfolio. So I guess I was meant to read Peter’s Blog today, as I do most days actually. I need to be painting…NEED to be painting…but I wanted to quickly let you all know of a kickstarter campaign that he mentioned on his blog and it’s all about… Spoons !

Peter learned spooncarving from Wille, I learned spooncarving from Peter, and carving spoons is just about the most fun a person can have. So they want to make a movie about Wille, who is a national treasure in his home country of Sweden. And they need some money to do this and do this now as Wille is getting on in years. Basically you are pre-ordering the dvd and, as with all kickstarter campaigns, you don’t get charged unless they make their goal.

Here’s a pic for his AAC Feb 2011 magazine article which John O’Hern took of me carving a spoon on the studio porch…

spooncarving72

And one of Peter a few years back carving a spoon on the log cabin porch…spoon-carver

So for all my woodworking pals out there…

Since it looks like Peter’s day is as chock full as mine I stole the following right off of his site rather than put it in my own words so you can read below…

and, even though I’m going to have to fight the overwhelming temptation to pick up a chunk of cherry and a knife… now I’ll get back to the easel.

From Peter…

There is now a kickstarter fundraising site set up to help get the film about Wille Sundqvist underway. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/761142325/the-spoon-the-bowl-and-the-knife-craftsman-wille-s?ref=recently_launched

 

 

I’m in a rush right now (clean up shavings in the kitchen from last night’s spoons, help get the kids off to school, me to work, etc) – so I will write at length about this later. But let’s get it together to raise this money pronto. Shouldn’t be hard. When you get to watch this video, you will be amazed. Here’s a snippet from the kickstarter blurb

“The biggest risk this project is that Wille Sundqvist is 87 years old. He is getting tired of age but still he is working with craft everyday. Last week when I talked to Wille he said he was in good shape and that he was eager to start with recording the film in June. He told me he is refusing all orders just to make bowls and spoons for the most generous donors. This tells us how he looks upon his own status. But of course everything can happen with a man at his age.”

If you are leery of using kickstarter, you can send a check to Drew Langsner.

Make it out to:

Country Workshops – Sundqvist video project

990 Black Pine Ridge Road

Marshall, NC 28753

Deep Spring

island-souls-eve

 

It’s this kind of a morning here in the studio yard…although this is a painting of the bluff in Chilmark and those spider webs are over a decade old.

Our spider webs, here in the hollers of Strinestown, are brand new and based on the jungle of gossamer threads that I am pulling out of my face and hair…I have yet to learn this spring’s prime locations.

The experts keep saying our flora are three or more weeks behind this growing season but that is based on the last few years of climate change which has now become the new norm. These long weeks of cool days and cool nights are what I remember as being the springtime of my youth. Slowly warming temperatures and gentle rains gave the gardeners time to ease into the toolshed and let the winter weak muscles wake up gradually.

We did have an early zap of three or four days of 90 degree days and my thriving spinach began to bolt…but almost a month later in which temps stayed 20-30 degrees cooler…it has settled back down and I have been able to test several spinach artichoke dip recipes.

Neighbor Sue and I have noted that this is the craziest grass growing season ever. She can’t keep up with it and she is one who lives to mow.

The peas, radishes, beets and carrots I planted back on St. Patrick’s day are sooooooooo slow to climb up outta the dirt. But the lilacs…oh the lilacs…they are loving this weather and,  when I leave the studio late in the evening, their fragrance fills the valley and soothes my tired soul.

So, while the world outside might be three weeks behind and dragging its arboreal heels…inside the studio this artist is racing the clock and hopping.

The countdown is on for the Granary Gallery show this summer…July 21 is the opening date…and I’ve taken on a major challenge which I’ll be telling you about soon. For now I can tell you that the brushes, mostly the tiny ones, are flying from early morning until late and later… and later… each night.

There’s a very large panel on the easel right now and and it makes a hilarious contrast to the tiny brushes that I am using. The detail is electric and the concentration required keeps me so focused that only the thing which has been able to break it is the nuclear bolt of lightening that lifted me off the chair last night.

So…here’s to a real old fashioned spring…
and a face full of spider webs…
and a rich green carpet of grass…
and a studio full of flying brushes.

Enjoy !