Molly Goatwax

But brighter to the eye

As the photo of my feet pulled up aside the miniature of the valentine album cover, I noticed how similar are the color schemes. Ummm..

Pushing all the buttons

In trying to find suitable materials for my workshop with 7 year olds, I was dismayed to find out how much mosiac glass cost and how hard it turns out to be to find small square ceramic tiles. Although I have collected quite a bit of crockery, happenstance has not provided me a full range of color and I fretted over the sharp points of broken shards in young hands. I was almost ready to resort to beans, lentils and macaroni shapes when it dawned on me. Clothes buttons. Cheap, hardy and suitable for the north side....wait. Cheap (a two dollar bag will cover a lot of space!), easy to handle and they come in all colors. They have the added benefit of being much lighter than tile and should be fairly permanent, being made mostly of hard plastic. Some of them also have amusing details, such as a heart or flower shape or designer's name. They also range in diameter from tiny to huge but have just about the same depth. And while the color red was a rare exception in ceramic tile, the buttons' problem color turns out to be green. Huh. Send me your buttons....

Because Miss E loves me

Oh, how festive! And cozy! They came in the mail from a blogging buddy with a third, which I believe is an old custom so that I can make them last longer by rotation. I think I'll move this pic to the self-portrait box up there to the side. Next thing you know, we'll be seeing the old clown feet on the BBC. Again. Aren't you jealous?

Azalias

They're cheap, hardy and will do well in the partial shade on the north side. Three of them a foot high each, with pea gravel islands in mulch, will make a respectable bed for now. They will bloom bright pink around Mothers' Day. In the fullness of time they will grow to be shrubs.

the chair club

Like patterns and multiples, I am attracted to recurring themes. In this instance we visit the prospect of found objects. When I read this morning that Miss Lis has picked up the habit of adopting chairs by the waysides, I had to signal my approval by messaging her a picture of a likely candidate I encountered during my morning walk.. But I have to issue this disclaimer. I do not embrace every unloved and cast off furnishing I happen across. I cite the example below as an artifact I let rest in the weeds;

Big big valley

I don't normally like wind chimes, but this set is made from beer bottle openers. It needs a stiff breeze to sound. (unlike the giant pipes on the neighbor's porch that WAKE ME UP in the middle of the night) Besides, the eleven year shot this photo with her cell phone camera, messaged it to mine, and I figured out how to download it to the laptop, then upload it to the blog. There is a certain charm about this unretouched picture, it's just the starting point for adapting to a new technology. Besides that, we're waking up to the theme of Big Valley on our alarms. We cool like that.

Gravitas

I made this address mosiac from pea gravel and blue marbles for the rose garden in back of my studio.

Thats a reference point for my friends and the hoodlums skulking down the alley. I have since surrounded it with more pea gravel. Next thing you know, I'll put in a mosiac birdbath, a chrome ball and a few plaster saints for a proper Remington grotto.

looking towards some progress

The pink phone went back to its maker. The back kept falling off and I didn't think I wanted to live with a taped up phone with compromised innards, anyway. And since the only thing I liked about it was the color, (it was too wide for my hand and I didn't like the buttons nor how hard it was to find the main menu.) a jazzier model with a better camera will come by delivery some time soon. I hope. I think the tot's wish is more urgent than mine, though. I put my chip in her phone for now and she's waiting for my replacement. As for my mosaic workshop, it may be a bit much to expect American 7 year olds to fit a bit of paper to a board one at a time and not over-lapping. Or maybe not. They seem a lot more excited about the concrete samples I've made than paper practice pieces. I would be, too. Although they have a city-wide show to represent what they've produced next month, I want them to create chunks of posterity to treasure and confound them fifty years from now when they are shopping for retirement condos. I don't know about you, but the last time we moved, I had to bubble wrap a plaster handprint Hubby made when he was three. It lurks behind some Limoges in the china cabinet.

The gardening and cooking blog

"Pea gravel gives the rose garden an air of formality, doesn't it?", I asked my studio roomate as she looked out at our 6'X12' patch by the alley. The older rose bush and the new one are now ringed with pale pebbles. "Oh, yes.", she confirmed. "They look quite deliberate." At eighteen dollars a ton, I could cover all my yards with pea gravel and be done with gardening forever. I only wanted a gallon or so to try cementing onto flowerpots but the least amount the lumberyard would sell me came in a 25 pound pizza dough sack (about three feet tall) that was loaded directly into the back of my van for me. It cost three dollars. Good thing I keep a hand truck in the van. And then after raking up around the dentistry, I went to get mulch and ran into Kate at the grocery store. "I always like to read about what you're cooking on your blog!", she told me in the vegetable department. "Leeks and potatos are on sale.", I said. Then I took them home and made a couple gallons of soup, sauteeing chopped mushrooms with the leek bits in olive oil before adding chicken stock, diced white taters, a sprig of dill and a smatter of pepper. Boil good, then simmer till the chunks fall apart. My mother made potato soup with milk, very thick like liquid mashed potatos, and I ate tankers of it. But! While I've adjusted the recipe to my more adult and less lactose tolerant tastes, I make enough to freeze in pints for cold and rainy afternoons, too. It's good with a multi-grain baguette sliced open, spread with garlic butter and browned in the broiler.

Grout is The New Black