Sun Seeds and Promises of Art to Come...

So, I roasted all the sunflower seeds that I harvested so far, and it turned out to be quite a bit.  I took some photos of the process from picking to final roasting.

This first photo is of all the seeds that I got out of the largest of all the flowers so far.

I then soaked the seeds in salt water (about 1/2 cup of salt to 1 quart of water) over night.

Here's a close up of the soaking seeds (because I know you guys like that sort of thing).

Then I laid them out on to a sheet pan and baked them in the oven at 350 f for about 30-45 minutes, shifting them around every once in a while to make sure that they toasted evenly.

Then they were toasted and it was time to enjoy the seeds of my labor.  They were quite tasty, and not as salty as the store bought variety, which I enjoyed.

On another more artistic note (I just realized that the last 5-6 post have been about food and not art, I hope to correct this in the near future) Keturah has pulled out her water colors and started a large painting.  I also made her the water color board that her painting is stapled to (that's kind of artistic, right??).
    I'm headed to the Fire House to finish up those large pots that I talked about in a previous post.  I just need to trim them and add some texture around the shoulders to give them a little more interest.  I will post some pictures of them tonight or tomorrow.  I also have some ideas for making some lidded vessels that I will be working on over the next two days (my "weekend").

It’s Alive….!!!

So we finally planted our seeds this past weekend (even with our garden unfilled/finished). We thought we would go ahead because if we waited until the garden was finished all of our plants would be way behind on the growing curve. Here is a list of plants that we are planning on growing in (and around) our garden:


Oregano
Basil
Cilantro
Sage
Tomato (heirloom)
Zucchini
Cucumber (heirloom)
Squash
Sweet Peas
Green Beans
Bell Pepper (heirloom)
Serrano
Cayenne
Jalapeño (heirloom)
Green Onions (heirloom)
Leek
Carrots (heirloom)
Butter Crunch Lettuce (heirloom)
Brussels Sprouts
Cauliflower
Pumpkin
Watermelon
Corn
Potato (Purple)
Spring Mix/Mesclun Mix
Sunflower
Sweet Onion
Garlic
Sweet Potato
Blue Berries
Black Berries
Raspberries
Strawberries
Grapes

The heirloom seeds we got for free from a man named Ray who does Youtube videos about gardening (go and check him out he's pretty amusing and informing).


Here are a couple of pictures of our seeds in their little seed flats,







as you can see some of them have all ready sprouted. I am not sure which ones sprouted (we have a diagram but I didn’t have it with me), but quite a few did. We are growing the seedlings at my mother –in-law’s house because we don’t have the space or the sunlight in our house. So she graciously allowed us to grow them there (which I appreciate a lot!).

So we are still having problems getting soil for our garden, but it is coming together slowly. We got some soil from my mother-in-law, and some from one of my sisters-in-law. We will also go and pick up some more manure from our friends farm (ranch?) so we are getting there it is just taking more time than I thought it would.

On another note we joined an Etsy “Team” called Baha’is on Etsy, you all should go check it out. There are a lot of talented people from all over the country in that group (team?).

Beanie for Your Thoughts

It’s been awhile since the last post. Having non art related jobs will do that to a couple of artists. Anyway Keturah has made me a beanie out of fishermen’s wool (this wool still has the natural oil in it, so it is water resistant). She also knitted a nine pointed star into the top. Here are a couple of photos, you can also see the beard I have been working on (it seems to be the only semi artistic thing I have been able to do). We also have plans to get an electric potters wheel so I can start making work again in my spare time.

Grave Treadle Wheel

I just wanted to give an update on the treadle wheel adventure we have been on. As you know we moved house (from Texas to Oklahoma). Because of this I had to disassemble the treadle wheel so that we could move it (it was rather bulky). A few days ago I decided to reassemble the wheel, and after an hour of confusion and silent curses (the wheel was not cooperating with me) I had the wheel reassembled. I now have the pleasure of reporting that the wheel is dead. Once it was put back together I realized that the fly wheel was no longer level, and no matter what I did I could not get it to level out. So we have decided to look for a kick wheel to buy for the time being. We plan on re-purposing the wood from the wheel to make another table. So if anyone sees a kick wheel (or a treadle wheel) for sale let us know.
Also my wife has finished (a long time ago, just haven’t mentioned it yet) the Greatest Name she was working on. So here’s a picture of it. It now hangs over the front door of her sister’s house.

Long Time, No Blog

It’s been a while since the last post. During the day I’ve been teaching little kids a little bit about pottery and sculpture at a local small town museum. Given that I do not have that much time to make anything new I don’t have much to blog about (hence the lack of blogging). We have finally been able to bisque-fire the work from the last two posts (although with a little difficulty). We first loaded in a car kiln (Elvira… two weeks ago) only to find out that one set of the pilot lights didn’t work. Irritated at this, we then unloaded it all a week later and reloaded it into the only other kiln that would hold that much work (we call this kiln Jezebel). This one is a front loading gas kiln (very nice, we hope to build a kiln similar to this one when we move). This past weekend I was finally able to babysit and fire the kiln, which we unloaded today, and stashed everything in my studio. Here is a picture of all the work we pulled out of the kiln, thankfully nothing broke.



Also, we finally got the original driveshaft for the treadle wheel finished. Unfortunately we realized the whole thing needs to be a couple of inches shorter for it to be comfortable. This means that the driveshaft will have to be cut down as well as all the posts on the treadle wheel.



Another project that has been in the works is getting close. This is a Baha’i Greatest Name the wife has been working on for her sister. It has a maple burl base and shell cast bronze calligraphy. It needs a bit of drilling on before it can be patina’d and attached. Almost done in time for her birthday!



After the both of us graduated this past May we’ve finally decided that we will move back to Oklahoma (where we lived before moving to Texas for graduate school) at the end of August to work towards our dream of being studio artists. Wish us luck!
…Well back to trying to relax before another day full of teaching the little ones about the arts.

Where the Red Table Grows...

I have roughed out the shape of the table (as you can see from the photo below), and my other half has cut out the place for the star and place the star in the table. It’s really starting to look like a table now, very exciting for us.



. I have also sanded and smoothed out the corners of the table, and stained the top of it, which you can see in this photo.



Only to realize after I stained it that I needed to fill in all of the big gaps that were left after my shoddy construction (not really, the two by fours were not all the same size, which I thought was weird). So I will now go back and fill in the gaps, and give the whole table a good sanding once again. I am hoping to get this table finished and put into use next week some time. I will post some pictures of it in our home when we get it finished.

A Star is Born

We’ve (I say we, I really mean me) have started on a new dining table. We’re building it out of reclaimed two by fours and will have a Baha’i star inlaid (using a piece burl wood we had laying around) in the center(ish) of the table. Here is a photo of the table after we (I) assembled it but before we placed the star into the table top.



You can see the star sitting on top of the table; it’s about eight inches across (the star not the table). The table is roughly fifty inches by thirty inches, and will be about seventeen inches tall when finished. We are planning on sitting on the floor with a zafu as a cushion, that’s why the table is so low. The table has sharp corners in this photo, but we are planning on curving the sides and rounding everything out before we are finished.