taggin' pies

a pie shop recently asked me to create flags for a wedding they were catering. they were baking delicious, seasonal fruit pies using local ingredients from area farmers markets. the flags were used to label each pie so guests could differentiate between them. i ended up making a whole slew of each of the three kinds of flags but here is an example of each one. they were incredibly fun to make and ended up looking beautiful stuck in the pies.

another special commission

oh my how i love special commissions. and i've been getting quite a few of them lately--invitations to parties, a three-section wall art series (in the works), and especially birthday cards. my latest birthday card commission was loads of fun as i got to get super meticulous and calculated with my paper and scissors. i was so proud of it i almost didn't want to give it away.
the lucky birthday recipient is a professional musician and also happens to be my lovely friend jojo's dad. he's a big time guitar player. word on the street is shark week payed for her wedding. he has a particular fondness for the gretch and stratocaster persuasion. that was enough information to get me going. i proceeded to carefully dissect the body of a stratocaster image that i found online, painstakingly creating each tiny piece down to the whammy bar. what a treat! hours of fun in the studio that day.
....and apparently dad loved it! yes! another satisfied customer.

it's that time of year again

people are getting married and having babies. and they need cards to prepare, to announce, to inform, to gather.
i really love the enduring nature of paper cards. through all of the technological changes that we have made throughout the years i'm astonished (and really happy) that people still send cards for the really important things (and even the not so important things). i mean, who doesn't like getting stuff in the mail that isn't a bill or someone wanting you to buy something?
here is my latest special commission. a set of twenty bachelorette party invitations. i wanted to make them cute and simple. the first thing that came to mind when i heard invitation was party invitations that you would get in the mail as a child for your classmate's birthday party. one-sided, fill-in-the-blank. just the facts. i think they turned out great.
happy celebrating!

what happened?

i realized while riding the blue beast the other morning that my last blog post was about daylight savings time. we sprung forward a few weekends ago. my last post was about falling back. how appropriate that i write this post in a new time. a new spring. longer days. shorter nights.
my life has drastically shifted since last we spoke, dear reader. i was betrayed by one of my best friends. i was physically homeless but felt more at home than ever before with the love of close friends and family. a spare room here. a warm couch there. extra blankets, pillows and puppies to curl up with. it was a cold winter. days were short. nights were long. loads were heavy. my frame light. one would think those would be the best times for creative productivity and enlightenment. for me, it was a notebook full of one-liners, witty quips, evil ideas and rotten schemes, many of which i am unable to decipher months later staring at the scratches. and i'm disappointed in myself. but i realize it isn't the first time and it won't be the last.
i work now. i have a job. i have employers. i work hard. but apparently not hard enough. i have good days and bad days. my mind often wanders and wonders. i listen to the music of others while chopping, stirring, mixing and mashing and long to put down the knife and spoon and pick up the uke and tambo. music feeds me.
during the thick of it all back in november an old friend said to me, "it is a gift to feel." it's something that's stuck with me throughout my long winter of discontent. i realize no matter how bad it gets, no matter how many nights i wake and want to scream or cry or laugh maniacally at the madness of it all that it's better than not wanting to. for the first time in years i've felt. really felt. felt until it hurts. emotions that were years dormant surfaced. the hurt, the joy, the jealousy, the rage, the sadness, the hope. i continue to impress myself with my fortitude to take it all in.
last week at the chiropractor he said to me, "you're pretty tough, you know?" if only he knew, if only he knew.
here's to making art again, to making music again, to dancing again in those extra precious seconds of daylight.

attempting to transition gracefully

it's daylight savings time again. i am still confused as to why we are all forced to set our clocks back an hour in the fall. seems to me like we should be setting them forward, no? here in portland it gets dark now by 5:00 in the evening. early evening. for the last week i have thought that it was 2:00 in the morning when it was only 9:00. i've been going to bed by 10:30 every night. my ninety-three year old grandmother stays up later than this to watch the eleven o'clock news. something has gone terribly awry. the time has come to conduct a sleep study in my own home. enough is enough.
cleasby did some research on the subject of daylight savings as of late and came up with the following excuse for depressing the hell out of people during the already bleak late fall and winter months. "modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson, whose shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and made him aware of the value of after-hours daylight." what?!?! we have to walk around in darkness for months because some dude wanted to collect bugs. that blows.
i've been trying to stay productive during the daylight hours. i went on a long walk today to the post office to mail off some music to friends and a card to a new customer. it brings me such joy to check my email and see that someone new has purchased something that i made. a stranger. a person i have never met. a person out there in internet land. i like to imagine what the person is like, where they live, what they might do with the card once they get it. it's fun.
i've been coming up with some great holiday card ideas lately. too many to count really. most of them are crass with foul language and not really the kind of thing that you would send to your family members. well, maybe. it depends. i hope to get some of them up for sale by the end of the week. baby steps. baby steps.
i'm including a view from my front door. it was taken last year about this time. sunsets here can be pretty great--i just wish they were happening a little later in the day. xoxox, corn

belated haunts

this year's hunt for a pumpkin proved to be much more difficult than previous years. usually, in the past when i have wanted a pumpkin to carve i've gone out and gotten the perfect one. i've had so many to choose from that i usually ended up lining them up and doing a rating system until i finally had to just go with my gut and pick one. but this year.....totally different story. headed to the huge box down the street last friday night, sure to find one that was worth my time. no such luck. all sold out. what? sold out? so....called my brother the next day while he was shopping at another huge box and on his way to our apartment. asked him to just pick me up one that he thought looked good. preferably taller than wider i said. he showed up empty-handed. they were all sold out. huh? damnit. damnit. damnit.
i was told, "better luck next year" by my friends. i had simply waited too long this year. i let time slip away. and it's true. i usually get one earlier but for some reason i just thought that i could wait and be fine.
see, pumpkin carving is huge for me. it's a big event. i remember ever since i was a kid, before my mother would let me wield my own knife (these are pre-pumpkin carving kit days where you got a non-sharp-as-shit knife of your own to play with), i would plan out my intricate designs and draw them in pencil on the pumpkin's surface. my mother would then take my pumpkin and carve it for me. but she always messed it up. i was the discerning child screaming over her mother's shoulder screaming, "more to the right! no, the line goes the other way!" and, i would always hear that my design just didn't translate well to a gourd and i would be forced to just settle for something less intricate like flames instead of burning houses full of ghosts for the eyes. so when i was told "better luck next year" i couldn't stand for it. i went on a quest.
and.....it was fruitful! after another stop at another slightly smaller box down the street to come up empty-handed i landed in limbo, literally. and while they didn't have the large pumpkins that i was searching for, they had something that would have to do. it's the smallest pumpkin that i've ever carved which proved difficult for my original design that i had in mind (i will just have to wait for next year on that one). so i settled on jimmy stewart's silhouette from alfred hitchcock's vertigo and my friend made the suggestion to add the word HELL to the side to spice it up. i think it turned out pretty cool considering all of the last-minute running around. and the roasted pumpkin seeds were incredible! i'll just have to remember for next year to get out there early and find my perfect pumpkin. happy belated halloween! xoxox, alli

yummy comfort foods

it's that time of year again. the rainy season has made its way to the pacific northwest and the drizzle has begun. this is the time of the year when i settle in right over the stove and hover around the oven to keep warm. it's my favorite time as it gives me an excuse to stay indoors, curl up on the couch with my knitting, and check the oven every five minutes to see if my cookies, casserole, muffins, etc. are finished.
this week i haven't been able to stay out of the kitchen. i started off strong with an incredible potato salad with eggs, cabbage, onions and creamy coleslaw dressing. i accompanied that with my mom's favorite comfort food: vegetable pot pie. only i went above and beyond my mother this time and made my own pie crusts. yesterday i made another round of alton brown's macaroni and cheese because i crave it like none other when it's cold and rainy outside. this morning i woke up early to make a delicious pasta sauce for tonight's all you can eat spaghetti night (every thursday). and tonight i plan to bake some halloween sugar cookies to prepare for this weekend's halloween festivities. i also have a vegetable dumpling stew in the works for tomorrow night and who knows what else is going on for this weekend in preparation for football on sunday. yes, we have officially entered the comfort food time of year and i couldn't be happier.
this week in the kitchen has been a complete turn-around from my stretch as a rock and roll star last weekend. i was asked to play tambourine on a few songs in my friend froggy's band last saturday night so last week i was busy with a lot of last minute rehearsals and basement sessions. it turned out great--no mess-ups and now that he's decided to live in portland full-time it looks like there's going to be a lot more shows in the future. so now i can add tambourine player to my list of crafty achievements. it was the first time i had ever played music on stage and i must admit i was scared stiff when i got up there but once the music got going and i got into it, it was awesome.
oh, and on tomorrow's agenda is my annual pumpkin carving. this year i've got a pretty intricate design planned so i'm eager to see how it's going to turn out. look for pictures tomorrow night!