"A&J"

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-26T11:27:00.003-05:00

We have had a crazy fall and early winter with warm weather and lots of shows! It is the day after Christmas and now we a looking to hibernate and finish some projects before the spring arrives. When spring arrives we will have a new addition to our family. We are so excited! So much preparation and things to do to get ready for! Check out some of our fall and winter projects! We will continue to update everyone as things progress!

Here is our homemade minorah made from a recycled pine 2x2 with drilled holes that was a garden post.

(Our fancy one is packed away)

Here is our baby tree that we got from the alley way behind the house. We used a Coffee filter as our tree skirt. We put special ornaments on there including: A Peachpit monkey & Porcelain Kitty from Kim Boggs, Macaroni given to us by Freddie Farraro for our wedding, a Glass Walnut from Kristen Smith, Patrick Costello, and Vicki Long, a friendship bracelet from Cat Stack, a bracelet from Grandma Dorothy, a Jingle shell, SandDollar and a Starfish Star.

We also Harvested some Celery, Kale, and a Napa Cabbage for some good Holiday eats

Here are some of our fall adventures!

Homemade Owl Decoy

PVCC Faculty Show

Allyson and I both had works in the Galerie LJ Winter show... this is one of her new ones. We also sent three collaborative pieces!

Fricktoria's last shoulder photo opportunity before Momma M took her back to Wisconsin. Sadly, she was not as excited about Allyson's preggo belly as we are and had started to share her feelings pretty aggressively... we miss you Fricky!

Jeremy and I made this zine, "Lichen Ocean"to be released at Pictoplasma in NYC in November. It includes handdrawn, relief printed, silkscreened, and xeroxed pages and a silkscreened poster. Big props to J who pulled all of the prints since Ally couldn't do it with her belly! He pulled some 800 prints total!

You can find the zine here if you want to buy one:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/88447826/lichen-ocean-limited-edition-zine-with?ref=v1_other_2

Jeremy's rad piece for "Let There Be Light" at PVCC!!!

October Garden

Jeremy is helping our friend Brian build an art car that will be a little boat. Here it is in-progress!

COLORS OF SUMMER

2011-09-28T20:16:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone it is officially fall, and the rainy weather has kept us indoors more than we would like. But it is keeping us busy with dying fabric for a show in Gainsville in 2012. We turned over the summer garden last month to the fall garden. All of the fall plants were planted early enough, but we had a really bad hail storm which shredded up the plants and the cabbage worms are really bad this year. So we have been doing some extensive harvesting of all of our Japanese Indigo (Polygonum Tinctorium) and Marigold for dying. We also planted some cover crop which is always a joy for fall and winter. We are hoping first frost comes late this year so some plants can play catch up.

One of our big dying projects involved processing our Safflower that we harvested last summer. We had to buy some extra petals to supplement our small harvest. But it was truly a joy to see the fluorescent natural colors extracted from something that grew in your garden.

The Japanese Indigo we harvested was also very beautiful. You can see the electric range of blues we got. We had so much Indigo that we did not process all of it, but you can see the beautiful blue colors of the leaves as they dried.

We also have had the pleasure of seeing this volunteer gourd come to life. It came up on its own through the grass where we dumped our seeds last summer (when we made our anniversary gourd bird houses).

We found some a Polygonum variety of Japanese Indigo growing in the wild downtown through the cracks in the brick. We really believe that sustainable and non-toxic dying/artmaking are not exclusive to country dwellers.

BLUE MONDAY

2011-08-02T20:18:00.003-04:00

Happy August! So we harvested our first batch of polygonum tinctorium sometimes referred to as japanese indigo on Monday. We processed it today and ended up with some exciting results. The silk seemed to turn the most blue from the recipe we used. The cotton turned more of a green blue. We are working on an embroidery project for a show in 2012 in Gainesville, FL. All of the fabrics and embroidery floss will make its way into our new sewn pieces. The wonderful thing about indigo is that it is less fugitive than other plant pigments. We anticipate making a second batch where we ferment the leaves (for a month) like traditional japanese processing. This is supposed to give a brilliant and light fast blue. So todays experiments are only the tip of the iceburg in seeing what our plants can do. The polygonum has been a pleasure to grow. As you can see on our last blog post the flowers are so pretty and you can make a beautiful dye out of it. Also we will get a second round of the japanese indigo as we have a second crop and the plants we trimmed are growing back already. It is truly a weed. I am posting pics of an early sugar pumpkin and a honeydew that we crossed with a cantaloup (we call it "the honeydoo doo"). delicious! XO A&J

HOT SUMMER DAYS!!!

2011-07-23T22:55:00.000-04:00

This extreme heat is dictating our farming schedule. We wake up early to water and harvest and spray in the evenings. We feel like trapped indoors like winter. We have some plants and crop really starting to thrive and other things that are dying off. We love gardening because you see birth, death, growth, disease, insect habitats. It is like a mini ecosystem, and you can never predict what it is going to do. Here are some pics of our garden. You can see the garden, cabbage, kraut, cherries, baby komquats, pumkins, dyers indigo flowers, drying flax in the garage. We are so excited to harvest the flax! And a pic of Matokie in his chair! XOXO A&J

Something New!

2011-07-07T23:19:00.001-04:00

New sign!

One of many new bottles of ink with our brand new logo designed by Jeremy!

Tonight we are launching our new company "Belly of Flea Inks and Paints"! We have been really busy this summer making ink and watercolor pans at home in preparation for our shop opening up! We have had so much fun doing this and we hope you will go and check it out!

Our site: Information about the stuff we make and the materials we use.www.bellyofflea.tumblr.com

Etsy: Our lil' shoppe!

www.bellyofflea.etsy.com

Belly of Flea flickr: Pictures of our farm and pigment/ink/paint making in progress. (and the occasional cat picture...)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bellyofflea/

Here is the opening message from our etsy shop!

Hello and welcome to Belly of Flea Inks & Paints, a historical artist ink and watercolor supplier, est. 2002. We are committed to producing sustainable and non-toxic professional grade artist water media. We use organically home grown pigments. We also use organic plant, insect, and genuine earthen and mineral pigments to help fill in the gaps of what we cannot grow in the Belly of Flea mini-farm. We are dedicated to making safe art supplies that have little impact on the earth.

Marie Antoinette's favorite shade of reddish brown fabric was christened "Puce" the French word for flea. The name stuck and dyers soon offered hues called, "Belly of Flea", "Thigh of Flea", and "Blushing Flea". When we first started making inks, some of our very first colors were various browns including, oak gall, walnut, and pokeberry. The name seemed fitting. Belly of Flea is run by the husband and wife team, Jeremy Seth Taylor and Allyson Mellberg Taylor. We are working artists, gardeners, and teachers based in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Red Ochre, Lemon Yellow Ochre, Maya Indigo Blue, & Green Earth Handmade Watercolor Halfpans!

Jeremy's Awesome Logo & Package Design in action!

Lots of halfpans!

Shiny brand new watercolor cake drying!

June Garden Update

2011-06-26T12:52:00.000-04:00

I love this time of the year. Our garden starts to get really big, the flowers are starting to bloom, little green tomatoes are showing up, its exciting! We have some new things in our garden this year: flax, holy basil, tomatillos, etc. Here are some pics! Hope everyone is having an awesome summer. xo!

Flax plants only flower for part of a day before they fall apart and begin the process of growing the seedpods which we will harvest in a few weeks! They are so delicate and pretty.

This is the first year we have tried to grow tomatillos. The plants are really beautiful. And from what we can see now, very productive. I am going to be freezing some salsa verde!

Tulsi! Also known as Holy Basil, which will be harvested and dried for delicious herbal tea.

Echinacea!

Farm view late June. Sunflowers are about half grown now & the zinnias are blooming!

There is an old tree stump & root system in our yard that predates us living here, it is an amazing substrate for mushrooms (no we are not eating them!) but they are really beautiful and we have lots of different varieties after every rain. These popped up today.

Edible flowers! Aphrodisiac! Ooooh la la. Also good on salad.

Blue Green

2011-05-26T22:14:00.001-04:00

Its funny. When you realize you can make a pigment out of something that you don't have in your yard, and that is also not a weed (i.e. you can't just stop along the side of the road and pick it like pokeweed anywhere you like) it kind of makes you go crazy! When we read about Iris dye we started eyeing up everyone's iris plants in their yard... (for the record we have them, but ours are white and don't have any dye to give) "look at those!", "whoa, those are the darkest ones we have seen", "can we drive by at night and pick them?" "do you think they have cameras?!!" In the end I mustered up the guts and went in to the Charlottesville Veterinary Clinic, who had the biggest, darkest purple Irises and just told them what we wanted to do with them and sheepishly asked if I could pick some... people are so nice and so no sneaky flower stealing was necessary... whew. I am posting pics of what we got from that batch... we haven't made anything from the beautiful blue-green ink just yet, so there will have to be a follow up post soon to show what it looks like. In the meantime! Look at these beautiful flowers before we destroyed them!

Big Iris!

So we boiled the flowers until they lost their coloration (they turn sort of greyish pink) and then added alum to fix the color. At that point the ink turned from purple to dark blue-green. Then we added glycerin and vinegar to stabilize the liquid. More pics of it in action soon. Irises are done and we are grateful that someone let us pick some!

Here is our garden as of mid-May... its already much bigger now! One of my favorite new things we have growing is German Chamomile. Well its sort of new anyhow, last year Jeremy planted it and it never showed up. The seeds are tiny and herbs can sometimes be really hard to germinate... we were stoked and surprised to find four plants that had decided to come up this year instead! Volunteers! So we transplanted them together into their own little section and they are going wild! Everyday we get more and more flowers and the fresh chamomile tea is so delicate and wonderful.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the beginnings of summer. We will post more updates soon!

xo,

Allyson

SUMMER IS HERE

2011-05-26T21:25:00.000-04:00

It is May 26 and it was 95 degrees today. It has been a mild spring so far, but today was a glimpse of summer. We are hoping this summer is not a scorcher like the last. This week we got everything in the garden including our tomatoes, dyers knotweed sprouts, melons, and pumpkins. We seem to have an ant and aphid problem. They are buddies. Every year it is something else, but we are trying to keep our cool and do the best we can. One thing we have learned is that "you have to let go at some point". You cannot control a drought, you cannot control a groundhog burrowing under your fence, and you certainly cannot control extreme blight, or tornados breaking your cold frames. With gardening you have to let go. We are learning slowly but surely that "patience is a virtue". We have had some awesome harvests so far. Checkout the giant leek, the juneberries, raddishes, and the dyers weld drying in the garage.

"who plants a seed beneath the sod and waits to see believes in god" ~ anonymous

Open Letter to Congressman Hurt: Open Water Drilling in VA

2011-05-20T10:40:00.002-04:00

Dear Congressman Hurt,

I am a teacher at Piedmont Virginia Community College in Charlottesville Virginia and grew up in Virginia Beach, VA. I spent the majority of my childhood fishing, swimming, surfing, in the ocean. Even as a child I knew about the ship yards in Norfolk and the pollution that was being continually created. I have this vivid memory when I was 7 of waiting for the Ferry to go from Waterside to Portsmouth (near the shipyards) and seeing jellyfish swimming in the dark blackish water with pools of rainbow colored patches visible on top of the water. I certainly did not want to swim in that water near waterside. I certainly would not enjoy swimming near New Orleans or the gulf coast of FL due the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill and the risks of swimming in petroleum imbued water. I think drilling off of the coast of VA would open itself to another disaster like the Gulf Oil Spill. The first issue to recognize is that Virginia and North Carolina are hot spots for Hurricanes. These oil-rig platforms are floating structures and very unstable. Turbulent weather can lead to ensuing oil spills and further economic disaster. Virginia and Carolina coastal economies are strongly based on tourism and fishing. Any damage or spills (which are inevitable) will damage the local economy as we have seen in the gulf. Secondly drilling off the coast could pose greater risks to the National Wildlife Refuges off the coast of Virginia and NC. My mother lives next to Backbay Wildlife Refuge. This is the last bastion of untouched coastal nature with rare endangered bird species. These spaces are becoming smaller and more infringed upon with farm run off, litter, and our currently polluted bay waters. Drilling off Virginia’s coast will definitely disrupt these natural habitats. The third issue is the short sightedness of drilling off of the east coast. The amount of oil in these locations is finite and limited. The amount of money that local economies and car drivers will benefit from this drilling is minimal. The environmental damage from searching, drilling, and from the ensuing oil spills would far outweigh the benefits and would be devastating not only to local fishing and tourist economies, but our environment and the species that make this planet a place to live. You must remember we cannot live without food (animals and plants) and clean water. The more we violate these natural spaces the less clean food and water for us. In your speech to congress you said “we need to help our local economies”. Not drilling would help our local economies in Virginia. Another consideration is not supporting and continuing our dependence on 140 year old technology. I think as 21st century humans, we can supersede a gas powered combustion engine. It is time to change. It is time to find a cleaner, safer, and more technologically savvy ways to travel and transport goods. We should be learning from recent natural disasters of our time involving oceans like Katrina, the tsunami in Japan, and the tsunami in Indonesia. This is a sign that nature is much more powerful than humans. It is time to be cautious and change. I urge you Congressman Hurt to change your position on relieving the Drilling Moratorium as the risks of drilling outweigh the benefits. I am sure you will not read this and I will get a form letter back, but thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Taylor

relax!

2011-05-15T18:06:00.000-04:00

Gone Sugaring...

2011-05-08T22:46:00.000-04:00

You might have noticed if you looked at the Hairy Vetch bloom up close that there were aphids crawling on my hands... Some of our weeds, including Vetch and Henbit, harbor aphids. Our alleyway is full of Hairy Vetch and there were ants all over the place, and later we discovered aphids. Ants and Aphids have a weird mutualistic relationship see here: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1629/3127

We are organic gardeners, we don't use any chemicals or unnatural fertilizers. A lot of the times when we have a pest show up in our garden we hand-pick them off of our plants (which is upsetting and gross to be perfectly honest) but some pests, like aphids and fire ants, are too small for that to be practical. So we use neem, oil soap spray, or diatomaceous earth. Diatomaceous earth, also known as DE, is the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton. It looks like an off-white powder but it is actually hundreds of thousands of sharp little shards. These microscopic shards can't hurt humans or animals, but they can wreak havoc garden pests. DE is certified safe for organic gardening... which has its secret, brutal bug massacring points. Ugh.

Here is a picture of me applying the d.e. powder in an attempt to save our young tomato plants and our lettuce from the aphid infestation that has already begun. Pest control is my least favorite part of gardening!

Invasion of the Vetch Heads

2011-05-08T19:07:00.001-04:00

Allyson's semester is finally over! She is finishing up some grading and doing her annual report. We are really excited that she is finally getting a real summer break! YAY! We are looking ahead not behind for certain. We acknowledge that this year has had a few bumps in the road but we are using this summer to take time to recuperate, branch out, spend time with family and friends, spend time in nature, and finish a final draft of our long awaited book.

Today we noticed that "hairy vetch" a plant related to the pea is infiltrating our alleyway behind the fence. We noticed earlier that there were some plants seeded in the garden. Recently we read in a dye book that you could get a "yellow green" from the purple flowers of the vetch. So today we collected about 4oz of vetch and turned it into an ink. It is probably a highly fugative and not light stable ink. It is a pretty green color, different than most green inks we have seen in the vegetable realm. We both agree that the Nettles and Irises produces a nicer "plant based" green and they are a little more lightfast. We also planted most of our cover seed and flowers today. We are really excited about the end of spring and the beginning of summer! Again we have some awesome things happening in the garden and new projects with our book. Exciting Times!!! We will keep everyone updated as things start to grow and projects start to unfold.

XO A&J

BLUE BALLS

2011-04-18T00:38:00.001-04:00

Its Spring and it is really beautiful here in Charlottesville. There is some wild weather of upper eighties to upper fifties during the days and sixties to forties in the eves. The weather is seriously confusing our plants... and a lot of them have decided to bolt. We are keeping our kale at bay. Turnips are over. Our pigments are bolting too. So it prompted us to harvest our Woad (English Indigo) to prevent loss of pigment material from the plants. We had a couple of good plants that over wintered which are supposed to provide more indigo pigment. Since Allyson is finishing school and the week is busy with Jeremy's Birthday, Passover, Earth Day, Easter, etc... we decided to harvest the Woad and make some historical fermented woad balls for preservation. They can keep for a few years in the "ball form". Historically this woad ball was created to preserve the plant, increase pigment content, and to sell in markets. You can see in the pictures the laborious process of picking and slow grinding the leaves. You can see that as they ferment they kind of get a green bluish tinge. Also as a challenge this weekend we figured out how to make a gluten free matzo for passover. It contains potato, almond meal, salt, and a tablespoon of oil. It turned out great. Jeremy also made charoshet and tsimus minus the beef. So tomorrow is a real gluten free passover for us and we are really happy that it is spring and excited about summer and a new beginning for plants, animals, and us. We are really excited about some new pigment plants and oil seed this summer: Japanese Indigo (Dyers Knotweed), Nettle, Iris, Safflower, Flax and more. Exciting times! XO A&J

Spring Spring Spring!

2011-03-19T18:05:00.000-04:00

Hello! We are slowly coming out of our winter cocoon and have just begun to garden again. Lettuce, dark greens, and a few other things over-wintered and are really delicious. We also planted radishes and onions over the last few weeks. Today we had our first big salads for lunch from the garden!

Fricky has been needing some extra attention with her kitten counterpart being so cute and fun all of the time. She keeps wanting to get up on shoulders, and counters... places where Tokie can't jump yet.

wild onions and garlic in our yard can be seen in a few different ways: annoying weeds, wild edibles, or in today's case, part of breakfast!

Jeremy scattered these turnip green seeds in the left side of the garden as cover crop. It got cold so fast this fall they never really got too big. These last few warm days they have exploded! I am going to make a curry dish with some today and then once they bolt we will turn them under!

Jeremy also raked up the stalks from the soybean plants. We will either chop them up and incorporate them into the compost or plant directly into them... we are planning a big cover crop for the left side and more sunflowers... not so much work this year. Last summer was so hot and we did too much. Plus millet grass is a beautiful bright neon green!

Here it is as of now! We got the paths established, as many weeds removed as possible, radishes and onions planted, and greens uncovered! Time to watch stuff grow and eat!

Salad & stir fry ingredients batch one! The top part of the bowl has the heads of lacinato kale that was bolting (we picked them off in the hopes of tricking the plants into thinking they are not bolting just because its 80 degrees on March 18th in Virginia!), they tasted like little sweet broccoli/kale hybrids (super delicious) We also had austrian pea shoots and the first of the spinach... and of course the lettuce!

More updates soon, this is going to be a busy and intense month!

Further Adventures In Gluten Free & Dairy Free Baking...

2011-02-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

Our friend Albie inspired this one... It was a definite treat and pretty fun to make.

Here they are without the filling & glaze!

Here is the vegan chocolate buttercream filling for the inside!

This is what happens if you open the oven door to peek! Don't do it!

Yummm!

Valentines Day Dotties

2011-02-14T19:43:00.001-05:00

Hello there strangers! Sorry we have been distant from the blog recently. Allyson is busy getting ready for her show the Lotus Eaters at Gallerie LJ in Paris and Pictoplasma in Berlin coming up in April. By the way did I mention Allyson is a warrior...FYI. I have been laying low and making new work and spending sometime healing. Allyson and I recently finished a handful of Dotties, Papercuts, and Brooches just in time for Valentines Day! These are all up on the Etsy shop ready for the swiping. We have both have also decided to take the plunge and make a website. allysonandjeremy.org. It is in its early stages and needs some fine tuning so bear with us. The website also includes our tumblrs of new work we are doing and what is inspiring us in the studio. We will still be using this blog to update people on what we are doing and continue to post about the garden, our crazy projects and journeys. The garden currently is in a dormant state. Although we still have many alive plants under our cold frames and garden cloth. Including: Lacinato Kale, Siberian Kale, Chard, Spinach, Cilantro, Leeks, Weld, Woad. We also have some areas of cover crop including some Turnip Greens and Austrian Winter Peas. We are hoping for an early spring as we are ready to let these dormant dudes bloom. It was 68 today so we opened the cold frames to give the plant some sun and air and fertilized these suckers so that they will take off in a month! We are also working on the book...and once Allyson's shows are mailed off we are devoting our time to finish this sucker. Matokie our new kitten is slowly becoming a sweet cat and we LOVE him so much! Do not worry everyone Fricky is not taking the back seat but she has some healthy competition! Much Love -Jeremy
allysonandjeremy.org
jeremysethtaylor.tumblr.com
allysonmellberg.tumblr.com
allysonmellberg.etsy.com

Hey There Strangers!

2010-12-12T12:30:00.000-05:00

Hi everybody! It has been a while since we posted... Life has been a little crazy! We have some garden pictures to share and a few other things. Its already really cold here! (okay so maybe its only 36 but after a summer of 100+ weather all of the time we are not adjusting well!) (My inner Wisconsin-ite is currently making fun of me and calling me a wimp!) Despite the cold our garden is still doing pretty well. We have Jeremy's beautiful cold frames to thank for that! Right now we have chard, two kinds of kale, turnip greens, cabbages, rosemary, winter peas, spinach, and cauliflower growing. We just harvested the last of our radishes, lettuces, dill, fennel, mint, lemon-balm, and onions. We are trying to eat as much of our own food as possible. I made a really good pea-shoot salad the other day and we have been enjoying lots of greens. Food has been a hot topic at our house recently... Our household is now gluten & dairy free in light of Jeremy's recent Celiac disease diagnosis. Its been a rough few months of J being really sick so feel free to send him a message with some good vibes in it. He is a fucking trooper to say the least.

Now is a good time to discuss an elephant in the room... well, actually its more of a fluffy kitten. Thats right, Fricktoria is no longer single, she has a little boyfriend. Total cougar! Matokie was rescued from the Norfolk SPCA and is a ragdoll mix. He is really cuddly and sweet most of the time. The other parts of the time he is running laps and getting schooled by Fricky.

We are also in two pop-up shops in Virginia this year, the Bizarre Market in Richmond at Chop Suey and the Great Gifts shop at the Bridge in Charlottesville. I am going to post more when finals are done, but in the meantime... here are some pictures! Hope everyone is having a nice, stress-free holiday season.

xoxo,

Allyson

Sorry if stuff is a little out of order, I am still getting used to posting this many photos! The above image is from us printing and getting ready for the two pop-up shops! Jeremy's snowman cards are super awesome. Below: We made a new zine for Cinders' booth at the NY Bookfair called "Spirit Moves"

Part of getting the garden ready for the cold season is making sure all pests are gone. These worms were hiding out together. They blend in so well.

I made some larger dotties for this years Bizarre Market.

Kitten!!!! This is Matokie. He is already much bigger than this!

Fennel from our garden!

Jeremy's beautiful peace bird print for the markets!

Our Woad came back! We have to harvest it asap so we can try for another batch...hopefully one where the blue doesn't run out in the waste-water!!!

Our Egyptian walking onions walked themselves right out of the garden and onto the driveway... I may have helped them a little.

Our Weld also made a comeback...

The fall garden a few weeks ago!

First GF Thanksgiving.... gluten free stuffing and chard from the garden!

Leaves from our daily walking spot!

Some of the last strawberries, at the end of November. They lasted forever.

Happy Jack by Jeremy, Sad Jack by Allyson

Moffles! aka Mochi waffles. Part of our gluten free expedition to foods unknown.

I don't really need to say anything about this. Ridiculous.

Everything changed after they slept together.

Hot Beans

2010-09-24T16:21:00.000-04:00

Oh man it is still hot. Its nearly October and we have had a string of 95+ degree days. If you are in Alaska or somewhere cold I apologize for complaining, but seriously... enough already! The garden is a little confused... we have volunteer tomato & sunflower seedlings all over the place ready to go for a whole new season. We both keep wondering how long this weather will keep up... we could have sunflowers all over again! Anyhow, first batch of my favorite, Christmas Lima Beans courtesy of our sweet neighbors. I was SO excited. Ours are still on the vine and probably have another week or two before I can pick them. X-mas Limas are an old heirloom of giant lima bean. They are really delicious in soups and a real garden treat in the dead of winter. (not that we are actually having winter this year... :) ) I will post the pics of ours when they are dry but in the meantime, check these pretties out:

Also, I have been meaning to write a little bit about my trip to NYC for my show, but haven't had much time. A lot has been going on here & getting caught up at school has been occupying a lot of my time! But soon! I will post more. Until then J & I were just interviewed by our friend STO of Cinders (www.cindersgallery.com) for the ReadyMade blog:

http://www.readymade.com/blog/craft/2010/09/24/painting_naturally#comments

Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of fall. More soon!

rippers

2010-09-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

What a bummer. We are sad to report that a company known for buying handmade from Etsy and reproducing cheap versions of the work without artist permission has struck our little Etsy store. Anybody know a good copyright lawyer in Virginia? If you see one of these little guys in Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, or World of Mirth, please let us know.

HOPI DYE & STITCHES

2010-08-21T15:20:00.002-04:00

Well today was an eventful day at our house! Jeremy and I harvested some of our sunflowers (the ones that have dark, non-stripey seeds) for a beautiful dye that he made. The seed dye is a traditional Hopi Native American dye. It yields a beautiful purple that was used to dye baskets and fibers. We are not huge purple fans but this color is really pretty. And its really funny to watch someone boil an entire

sunflower head... very dramatic!

Meanwhile, I sat on the back porch working on my wood sculptures for my upcoming show at Cinders. This summer I have been trying to teach myself how to carve wood, which has been really awesome, but I guess, statistically speaking, I was up for an injury! I pushed my knife gouge right through one of the little dude's noses and straight into my thumb. J took me to the emergency room and two stitches and a tetanus shot later I am ready to finish carving and fix that nose!

SUMMER PROJECTS

2010-08-19T17:48:00.005-04:00

Summer is not over yet...but some projects that we have been working on this summer have come to a halt. This summer I have made two paipo body boards, a new non-traditional alaia, some body surfing paddles. I was fortunate enough to find some pre-joined paulownia at Redbrook Lumber in Cville for relatively cheap. It was really a pleasure to work with the sustainable yet invasive paulownia and it is really light and easy to carve with the hand tools. I cannot wait to see how these things ride.

We also spent a long time growing and cultivating the small harvest of safflower plants for dye and oil seed. We realized through this experiment that it is necesary to grow a larger crop to increase the pigment & oil yeild. We grew about 40 plants and we only got a Quarter to an Eighth oz. of each. It would be worth much more if it was weed. It will make us a small batch of oil and pigment. Although we both feel that the labor in both growing and hand cultivating the thorny safflower plants may not be worth all of the hard work considering the seed and petals are cheap on the market. Although it has to get flown in from canada or india and that is not very ecological on our behalf... but I guess it is better than supporting petroleum based dyes.

Another project Allyson had going on was her margiold dying frenzy. We got so stoked on that dye this summer. She decided to dye these cheap canvas shoes. What a beautiful canary yellow!

Last but not least our molting horn worm...so beautiful that we relocated it instead of killing it. Man organic gardening can be brutal with the killing of insects:( I do not feel vegetarian friendly at times. After we released it we wished we had kept him inside and fed him tomato leaves till he molted into the infamous hawk moth...they are so beautiful. Hopefully some more stuff on the way! Stay tuned! ~j

Lovey Dovey

2010-08-07T17:37:00.001-04:00

We just went to a rummage sale to pick up a $5 parts bike for J and saw some very sad birds. The little old lady who lived there had an entire bedroom with wall to wall birdcages and wall to wall poo. One white dove was particularly emaciated... so we bought her for $5. :( We can't have birds in our house so she is in a large cage on our back porch. Does anybody want a dove, or know of some one who might, or a rescue? This was too sad to pass up. Its a very tame beautiful bird, you can pick it up and feed it by hand.

I also want to add that the bird rescues within driving distance are not for doves, the SPCA and wildlife refuge will not take pet birds. Unfortunately people hunt doves in Virginia... so I have not been able to find a dove rescue. Anyhow, if you are interested or know someone who might be, send me a message! Here are some photos of her majesty:

She is very, very tame!

Maybe too tame... she made herself right at home while I cleaned up her cage a bit.

Mostly she just hung out on my knee and watched me.

Somebody adopt her!!! We need to get her a home ASAP!

Purple Martin Gourds

2010-08-03T00:56:00.000-04:00

Here are the gourd birdhouses I mentioned. We made them so that hopefully Purple Martins or Swallows will come play in our garden! We have a lot of little buddies who eat our sunflower seeds, so hopefully thats like advertising for birds... Anyhow, here they are, we each decorated one.

I almost forgot to mention: It is tomato time!!!

xoxox & happy anniversary again! :)

Something to celebrate

2010-08-03T00:31:00.000-04:00

Last week Jeremy and I celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. We decided to do some projects together to celebrate. The first one involved our Marigolds. We used them to dye some scarves we made and then we silkscreened them! The second one involved making gourd birdhouses for our garden!

Here are pictures from the scarves first!

So this is about 2lbs of marigold from our garden, picked when they are just showing signs of wilting and/or wilting.

If you don't like the smell of marigolds, you should do this outside. Actually, I do like the smell of marigolds and I still recommend doing this outside... it produces a big old smell cloud! Add enough water to cover (about half of the pot) and boil!

Here we are adding our cotton to the boiling bath!

Right before adding the fabric we added our alum and thats when you can really see the yellow developing and becoming more opaque. This needs to cook for at least an hour for the dye to really set in.

The smell finally got to us! Here it is outside all cooked and ready for rinsing. That white band on the top is some underwear we tried to experimentally dye. (it worked and is adorable)

We were stoked! Wow its yellow! Even brighter than we thought it would be!

Here is the finished product:

Inside the circles drawn by Jeremy it says, "J L A" Jeremy Loves Allyson or vice-versa for our 7 year anniversary! I feel so lucky that I found this man in the world and I get to share everything with him.

I also printed a stars screen on the back of mine! :)

p.s.

Is your cat a jerk? We should start a support group! This is fricky "helping" us cut the fabric for our project. She is lucky she is so cute.

Okay, birdhouses are next! As you may have noticed, we tried to stretch our anniversary celebration as far as possible. The week before our anniversary someone asked us if we were newly-weds and it was such a huge compliment that we seemed so! More soon, Allyson

Greenest Greens

2010-07-15T12:42:00.000-04:00

a view of our row-crops, soy beans, green beans, and millet which is about to get cut down for a late summer planting!

hiding/pruning the tomato plants

sunflowers!

Safflower being grown for pigment! (also known as 'bastard saffron'. It is valuable as a dye, mock spice, healthy oil, and important element in chinese medicine.

I am posting this one for my Mom, who wanted to see our 3ft tall giant marigolds. I thing we gave them too much organic fertilizer! They are a fragrant variety so its really rad to have them around, they smell really good to me and really bad to bugs. They also produce a yellow dye for fibers.

Wood!

2010-07-14T09:46:00.000-04:00

We have been spending lots of time working at the JMU woodshop and at home on our various wood projects, including Jeremy's chambered paulownia fish surfboard and my new wood sculptures. They are both long winded but rewarding projects. Here is a little peek at the dust we have been kicking up!

This is the board half-glued. The strips of paulownia have to be glued on one by one. Its going to be rad!

Bass wood. Half-way done!

Woad & Weld

2010-07-11T22:58:00.004-04:00

This year we have been growing Woad & Weld for pigments. Last week we made our first attempt at processing pigment from a plant to moderate success. I am going to post some pictures from our Woad processing. Woad is also known as "Isatis Tinctoria" or "Dyers Woad". The dye chemical in Woad is the same chemical that makes the blue color in true indigo, but in a smaller concentration. Woad is in the same plant family as cabbage and mustard greens and grows much better here in Virginia than true indigo, a tropical plant, would.

Here is our pigment plot pre harvesting. The Woad plant we harvested is on the bottom left.

Cutting the leaves, much in the same way we harvest kale or other greens. We needed a plastic grocery bag full and we had exactly that.

The Woad needed to be washed well, first in the sink and then dipped in a bucket to make sure that as much dirt/sediment was removed as possible (so it would not be confused with the pigment sediment later).

You can see the blue in the leaves before processing! Now we just have to get that stuff out of there!

Sparing all of the details for this post, the woad has to be brought up to a specific temperature (see the candy thermometer in there?!) and kept there for 10 minutes. After that it must be iced in a bath to cool it down quickly (about 50 degrees in 5 minutes!). Once you reach the correct temperature the soda ash is added and the blue is created. If you add the soda ash when it is too hot you will destroy your blue. After this we got to aerate the bath with a mixer for ten minutes and watch it foam up bright green and then blue and back to green again. This was pretty exciting.

Once you have your liquid you pour it in jars and let the sediment settle down. Then every two hours or so you syphon out as much water as possible without disturbing the sediment on the bottom until you end up with one combined jar. Then you syphon some more! Then you add clear water and guess what... you syphon more again... until you have clear water over blue sediment. This is the pigment.

This is a brief description, the actual directions are much more technical. The directions we got said not to be discouraged if the first go was more of a grey blue, which is what our is. It probably means our plants need more nitrogen so we will fertilize more and hopefully the fall batch will be "blue-er". One curious thing is that our waste bath where we put everything we syphoned off had a bright blue streak in it when I poured it out! To be honest, we were kind of "blue" about that. (Sorry couldn't resist!) But seriously, where did that blue come from??!! Research research. We will post more serious directions once we have this thing down pat. Until then, behold our sediment...

After many hours of syphoning liquid with a turkey baster this was disproportionately exciting.

We also harvested our Weld, which yields a historical yellow pigment. Here is the plant in all of its glory:

It was all sprawly and attracted bees and flea beetles....

and then we cut it down! In this hot weather it dried to a crisp in less than two days. We will post more on this one once we process the pigment.

Oh Jeremy

2010-07-11T22:16:00.001-04:00

So I got one of my birthday/anniversary presents early this year because J knew I would need it as I get ready for my Cinders show. I have coveted this big beautiful sketchbook for nearly a year & here it is:

Its hard to tell from the picture, but this thing is almost two inches thick, kind of like an old textbook. I love it!!! And its just in time for me finishing up the beautiful sketchbook he made me (still my fave).

I am working diligently on "An Unearthly Child" which opens at Cinders in September... Heres a few previews...

"Eventually You Get Used To It"

"Parasite Planet"

Hot Hot Hot & Pickles Too!

2010-07-11T19:09:00.003-04:00

Well, if you live in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA you already know that it has been ridiculously hot here for the last two weeks. We have had to water the garden up to 3 times a day just to keep things from scorching to dust! Alas, it is July and good good things are happening in the garden like cucumbers, sunflowers, peppers, our first eggplant, strawberries, and TOMATOES! I don't think we are going to have a huge yield of tomatoes this year because the heat has stunted them so, they are usually twice as tall as they are by now, but the SunGold & Eva Purple Ball varieties that we grew this year are really tasty! We have eaten only a few but there are a lot of blushing fruits out there and I cannot wait until we can eat them all up! Here is a photo of those little buddies first:

The lighter colored cherry tomatoes are the SunGold variety, the smaller ones are Matt's Wild Cherry which are just okay, and the big one is Eva Purple Ball which is fantastic.

Cucumbers are always too productive for our household so we end up sharing a lot of them. This year all of our neighbors ALSO have lots of cukes so I started looking for pickle recipes. We don't have the full canning set up or the $$ to get it so I looked into making refrigerator pickles. Wow, there are a lot of folks who are super into this stuff and lots of different recipes to try. I chose one that had coriander and dill in it since both are also growing in our garden. These pickles sit in the fridge for a week and then you can eat them - after that they are good for about 2 months. And you have to shake them everyday which is kind of like a herby-snowglobe.

I still have a few more days to wait ! I will report on their delicious or "non" delicious status soon.

For the last few years we have grown our large garden with the intent of feeding ourselves, and sharing, but also for sharing with people that are outside of immediate friends & neighbors. Our local food hub has a program where you can plant a row for the hungry, or just drop off donations for local shelters & soup kitchens. This is not something we really talk about a lot on here but I thought it might be good to point out to all of you gardeners out there that you can make donations, even one time donations, that will feed a lot of people and make sure that your extra food does not go to waste. Here is a picture of our last donation:

This is approximately. 9.75lbs of green beans!

A few more garden things:

Look at this guy! We love our red cabbages! Here they are all cleaned up and shiny:

As you can see, while our cabbage is doing alright, the grass is dying.

Hope everyone is having fun outside, drinking plenty of water, and eating lots of fun stuff from their gardens, or from their neighbor's gardens!

More soon!

xo,

Allyson

Oh yeah...

2010-06-27T13:11:00.000-04:00

I said I was going to post an ocean picture too...

Here is J with his Alaia that he made. He is working on a chambered paulownia surfboard this summer which will be super amazing. I am confident that J can build anything once he decides to. Constant radness.

J's new handmade shaping station with another alaia in progress.

In NC with the beach house longboard & a giant towel looking like the ocean wizard that he is.

The water was cold but crystal clear.

While we are on the topic of the ocean... even if you are far away and it doesn't effect your personal day-to-day, don't forget about this...

Its still gushing. :(

Hello Summer!

2010-06-26T22:49:00.000-04:00

I cannot believe it is almost July! We have been enjoying summer, time off, art making, gardening, and the ocean. Just this week it finally feels like we can let our shoulders down and really relax and enjoy some time off at home together & it is awesome! I am posting some pics from our garden, the beach, and such! More can be seen on my flickr. More updates soon!

Our garden from L to R, sunflowers, flowers, pigment plants, soybeans, greenbeans, millet grass, lima beans, squash, strawberries, chocolate mint, eggplant, echinacea, collard greens, woad, weld, tomatoes, marigolds, various peppers, brussels, cucumbers, onions, chard, kale, fennel, rosemary, peppermint, and cilantro!

Jeremy is a sweetie-pie! Look at this beautiful birdhouse he made me!

Jeremy and I donated drawings to a benefit for the Gulf Coast Oil Spill that Meighan from My love for you is a stampede of horses is organizing! Go check it out, get a great deal and support a very important cause very dear to J & I.

http://www.myloveforyou.typepad.com/

More soon! Hope everyone is enjoying summer!

Happy Birthday Fricktoriabee

2010-05-03T16:01:00.001-04:00

When I was 18 I adopted a tiny tiny kitten... very much against the wishes of my roommates. From the beginning Fricky was trouble, she bit, scratched, mewed, and tried to eat, everything! But man was she cute! I think it was, and still is, her main form of survival mechanism. She caused her share of relationship problems due to her antics, even caused a house fire (in hindsight I think she was wrongfully accused! :) )... but I loved her anyhow. I still do! And when I met Jeremy he loved her too, the way that I do, in spite of her obvious personality issues... which made me only love him even more. Because, basically, my cat is kind of an asshole... A really cute, affectionate Dr. Fricky & Mrs. Hyde. She is either a doll or a devil. She does have her charms though, if you are sick or upset she will sit with you and watch over you very quietly until you stop. She is very sweet and really just wants to hang out with us all of the time. And she is a pretty lady. Fricktoria turns 14 today! I can see signs of her aging now, she has arthritis, she sort of squeaks when you pick her up... but she still runs laps around the house in the middle of the night, climbs on our shoulders, plays with her superball, and begs to go outside. I love this cat, she has been one of my best friends these 14 years.

Sweet kitty needs a good home!

2010-04-18T13:31:00.000-04:00

This little guy is a miracle! When we first met B.B. last fall, he just showed up in front of the garage one night. He was very friendly, but starved & bony as all get out. We started feeding him and he started hanging out with us in the garden every morning and evening. When we got hit with a huge blizzard in December, we brought B.B. in to our mudroom. (It took us a while to find him) He had frostbite on the tips of his ears and seemed pretty sick. We got him set up with a bed & heating pad, food, water, litterbox (which he used right away without problems, further proving our theory that he was an abandoned housecat, and not feral) and he stayed with us from x-mas to new years day. On new years day we realized he was really sick beyond our care, and probably contagious. (We have a 14year old cat of our own to worry about) so we brought him to the SPCA in Charlottesville, a no-kill shelter. At that point we called once a week or so to check on him. He received treatment for an upper respiratory infection, eye infection, ear mites, fleas, worms, the whole deal. In February, they called us to tell us we could come and adopt him if we would like, but Fricktoria, our cat, was not in good health, so we could not risk bringing him home. This was really sad! So we kept calling and checking on him until recently we saw him on the channel 12 news as the SPCA’s animal of the week. It broke our hearts that he had not been adopted yet! He was healthy and happy again! We decided to adopt him & get him out of the shelter. He came home much fatter, and happier than the last time we saw him. His ears completely recovered from the frostbite too! The only sign that he was ever sick is a few cloudy spots in his eyes (which the vet said will go away and have been disappearing in the last two weeks already)

So, now you are probably wondering why we are looking for a new home for him… Well. Our house is small (about 800 square feet) and to be blunt Fricktoria hates him and it is making her miserable. Its really adorable in a way because B.B. tries really hard to befriend her & play with her but she is SO not into it. Fricktoria is old, and in such a small place, this is too much for her.

B.B. is 2 years old, he is good with other cats & dogs. He is super sweet, and playful. (As I am writing this he is laying next to me on the couch purring away!) As far as we have seen, he is not interested in scratching anything.(Fricktoria could learn from him on this one!) He is litter box trained, (you probably want to get a large covered litterbox for him… he is not a small cat, we got him a small one and he barely fit into it) B.B. can go outside or be a completely indoor cat. Since he came from the SPCA & we took him in for a check up he is neutered and completely up to date on all vaccines until next year.

LUMP: TEXT AS IMAGE 2010

2010-03-31T14:19:00.001-04:00

Allyson and I will be in a show at Lump Gallery in Raleigh, NC called "Text as Image". Text as Image explores language, text, and words as an image making strategy. The exhibition will include drawing, painting, video, installation, printmaking, sculpture, and photography. Text as Image: Joshua Abelow (NY), Cary Leibowitz (NY), Barry McGee (CA), Ray Johnson (RIP), Bill Thelen (NC), Laura Sharp Wilson (UT), Kirsten Stoltmann (CA), Rich McIsaac (NC), Amy White (NC), Hope Hilton (GA), Leah Bailis (PA), Cammi Climaco (NY), Megan Sullivan & Rob Allen (NC), Harrison Haynes (NC), Jason Polan (NY), Michael Salter (OR), Richard C (IL), James Johnson (PA), Allyson Mellberg (VA), Jeremy Taylor (VA), Casey Cook (NC), Michael Klauke (NC).

www.teamlump.org

BEACH

2010-03-14T11:41:00.000-04:00

We are half way through the semester and we are itching for summer. We started digging in the garden and now have onions in the ground. We have some greens, cabbage, and pigments to plant this up coming week. Allyson and I are really stoked about the warm weather, future gardening plans, and getting to the beach as frequently as we can. Unfortunately this year our spring breaks did not line up. So in attempt to get away for a little while we went to the beach for a few days. The weather predicted that it was going to rain the whole time, luckily we had a couple of days of sun and got to enjoy the beach. Only if we could stay here next to the ocean. We had planned to work on our book while we were here....but we both realized after an exhausting week of school we would get some r&r. We are working on some drawings for our new zine that is in colloration with Patrick Costello and other artists called the Olympic Drawing Club. Working on Vol. 2. I have also been planing out building a chambered paulownia surfboard that I will be attempting to build in the next couple of weeks. Check out our pics of the beach and some drawings. Enjoy!

Needle In The Hay

2010-02-10T19:48:00.002-05:00

Our long dry spell at the thrift store was happily ended by a sweet find last week. While looking for frames we spotted a cute little woodcut of a girl with some birds in a nice frame. It was not priced so when we went to inquire the lady said “Um, I don’t know, $1.50!”. Around here when things are not priced they usually won’t sell it to you but Focus Flea is especially nice! She was not counting the art (which she obviously thought was junk) and just the frame. (plus I think she was just being nice because we were the only ones in there) So we bought it. The back of the frame had a little piece of paper from the 60’s that told a bit about the artist and the print. Turns out our little print was by Kaoru Kawano, a very famous modern Japanese woodblock artist, and the print should have cost around a $250 (it is unsigned, but an actual impression from his block) The monetary worth doesn’t really matter, since we love it, but it was exciting to find out about this really great Japanese artist via a thrifting trip. I also got a nice dress and a skirt. All of the profits from this thrift store benefit our local Focus women’s resource center. Score!

Kaoru Kawano was born in Otaru, Hokkaido in 1916, and studied at Kawabata art school in 1934. Because his earlier works showed such great promise, they were displayed at the Nihon Hanga Kyokai Exhibition (Japan Print Society) in 1944. He interrupted his print-making activities to join the army, but later was unfortunate to become a prisoner of war in Siberia. In 1949 he resumed exhibiting with Nihon Hanga Kyokai, and subsequently with Kokugakai in 1952. He moved to Tokyo in 1958, and participated in international competitions and solo exhibitions in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and elsewhere. His works are characterised by highly textured abstract representations of children.

biographical information taken from this collector's great website on Kawano: http://www.ohmigallery.com/Gallery/Kawano/Kawano.html

cabin fever!!!

2010-02-09T18:05:00.000-05:00

As I write this more snow is falling in Virginia. It's the mean spirited kind, icy and prone to starting and stopping but never quite going away. Supposedly we will have this until late tonight and then more fluffy snow. I am ready for sun and spring gardening! We made our garden plan these last few days and we are excited to start planting. Jeremy made a beautiful map of what the spring and summer plantings will look like. I will look forward to posting pics of that in the coming months. We are going to try to grow some new tomatoes this year, ones that are still organic/heirloom but also disease resistant. (aka we learned our lesson last year with rare heirlooms & hours of disease management!) Over the weekend our next door neighbor's 60 year old willow tree came down... it was sad but also amazing, the thing had no roots and must have been dormant for a long time, its underside looked like the roots of a large houseplant. Pretty crazy. Jeremy took this picture with me in it for scale.

Last night, after a rather unexpected snow day, I embarked on making a 'scannermation' I am posting the first and last drawings and will hopefully post the whole thing once I figure out a bunch of computer technicalities! I was feeling a tinge of artist block and I figured doing something that I don't normally do (animation) and just generally messing around would be good... I think it helped. I have also been procrastination baking and cleaning... chocolate walnut banana bread and newly washed wood floors anyone?!!! I also did ALL of the laundry.

Lastly, I was super happy and honored to be asked to do a process/inspiration post at My Love For You Is A Stampede Of Horses blog. I showed some of the new stuff I am working on for Cinders in the fall, some in-progress stuff, and inspirational things like... Fricky! and the ocean! I really admire Meighan and her blog and highly recommend checking it out on a daily basis if you don't already! Its awesome! Here's the link to my little bit: http://myloveforyou.typepad.com/my_love_for_you/2010/02/processinspiration-allyson-mellbrrgtaylor.html

wherever you are, I hope you are warm and safe!

xo,
Allyson

As soon as the ground is workable...

2010-02-03T07:04:00.003-05:00

Hi all! Happy New Year! We have been really horrible about posting on our blog! For some reason the middle of winter always puts both of us in a weird way. I guess its just cabin fever, but with the recent bouts of snow in Virginia it feels like winter will never end! This is good for indoor projects like recording music, sewing, drawing (of course), alphabetizing the sock drawer... etc! But we Taylor's like to be outside and running around unhindered by winter apparel. 20 more inches of snow are predicted for VA this weekend, so I guess we had better brace ourselves! On the upside it is really pretty and winter-wonderland-y here and I have been able to show off my fancy WI native snow driving skills.
In the meantime, here are some highlights from the first month of 2010. Jeremy and I got snowed in right before Christmas by 24 inches of snow! we were stuck for 3 days. We ate every bit of food in our house! Then in January, J did some ghost writing/recording with our friend Thomas's band (very awesome!), we managed to get some good writing time in on our book (hopefully more of that soon) and I started work on a new sketchbook (made by Jeremy - best sketchbook ever!) and some new large drawings as I prepare for my next show at Cinders in the fall. This time of the year one thing that really keeps me optimistic about the weather is garden planning... phrases from the seed catalog like, "as soon as the ground is workable", and "will thrive after over-wintering" remind me how early gardening can start and its that wonderful, defiant, growing stuff in cold weather that really makes me feel happy amongst all of this grayness! After the 24 inches in December we thought our garden was toast. When it finally melted like a week ago we went to look under the garden cloth and cold-frames and were met with very happy spinach and lettuce! What a treat! Here are some pics from the winter...

Blue Blue Everywhere.

2009-11-30T23:43:00.000-05:00

Oh it was so nice to have a week off for Thanksgiving! Jeremy and I stayed home and were able to make an entire suite of screenprints for the craft fair we are doing this weekend in Charlottesville, the one next weekend in Chapel Hill, and our Etsy store! We also picked up an old thread from Jeremy's research and combined it with some of our new discoveries.

Back in 2001 when J first started experimenting with natural, and non-toxic pigments he did a lot of tests with things like tea, onion skin, purple cabbage, beets, turmeric, and walnut (which we both still use extensively). These experiments filled sketchbooks and were tested out on large drawings, prints, and paintings (and some love notes!) but some of them were fugitive and faded a bit. Recently, Jeremy found some Katagame (traditional kimono stencil printing process) information from a master printer in Hawaii and we had become interested in pursuing a rice base to replace the acrylic polymer typically used in silkscreen ink. In Katagame the rice base that is used is fairly labor intensive to make and involves a real steamer, which we don't currently have. I did some research on other ways to make a rice base and found a nori paste recipe that seemed viable. This weekend we mixed the base with some pigment concentrations that Jeremy made, one was pokeberry, paprika, and beets (red!) and the other was purple cabbage and japanese seaweed (blue!). We also mixed in an alum to help fix the color. The cabbage still looked purple when it was wet and we were worried that it was not going to come out blue but after sticking some paper testers in the mix and letting them sit we realized that they dry blue! Its a beautiful rich blue and the alum should help it to last a little bit longer.

Jeremy made these beautiful 2-color process prints with those inks. I am so proud of him because for years he has been trying to figure out a way to make completely biodegradable, natural silkscreen ink AND use it to make process prints. As we get this figured out a little better we are hoping to get all the plastic out of our art. Pretty cool J.

In other blue news... On my way to work today 4 hours from the ocean, in the mountains, I saw a big great blue heron. My first though was "oh shit I am totally asleep and dreaming at the wheel" followed by the following revelation... Me and that bird were both far away from where we belong at the ocean and should try our best to get back. We have barely been to the beach this fall because of being extra busy and the weather being colder than normal. I hope to remedy this over the holiday break!

Last but not least, Jeremy and I are VERY stoked because we are looking at studios tomorrow! A studio outside of our house has been a dream of ours since we got out of graduate school, but has been hard to find in Charlottesville because there aren't a lot of industrial spaces here that might be used for that kind of stuff. Wish us luck... we are super stoked to have a cat hair free art making space. More on that soon. Oh my goodness!

Circle of Plenty (a little later!)

2009-10-18T17:19:00.007-04:00

Jeremy and I were in this great show at Cinders last month and have been so busy with our other shows and work that we haven't had time to share any work on our blog. Here are a few images : we got the chance to make some collaborative images which is always fun. Midterms are over here now and I can feel my brain settling down. Jeremy has some workshops he is giving this week but AFTER that we should really have some quality studio time! And I just bought the vegan yum yum cookbook after wanting it and reading her blog all the time! Renaissance lecture tomorrow... always fun. Lastly, I just ate a vegan chicken sandwich for lunch, I am going to go reclaim some silkscreens, and I am ready to party!

TESTERS

2009-07-23T12:01:00.003-04:00

While Allyson and I were at the beach I gave those homemade alaia surfboards/bodyboards a test drive. The one that seemed to work the best is the beloved "Whale" that Allyson helped me design. You could only ride it prone like a bodyboard, but it hauls ass. (see pics) The "Ironing Board" had trouble floating and was an overall doozy. "Mutsy" is good for riding prone and was the best for surfing. Although surfing "Mutsy" is a very difficult task due to its lack of buoyancy, but my friend Brian was better at it than I... and caught a couple of rides. I think that I will make one more alaia board before the end of summer...this time it will be made out of paulownia instead of pine so that the board has more buoyancy. I also think making the board thicker and slightly longer (like 6"2) will give it the length for better east coast surfing. During our visit at the beach Allyson did a drawing of a bearded lady on my fishboard. It is beautiful. I now call it my "Bearded Lady". I think it rides better with the drawing on it...for real!
xo
j

Oh Garden Woe...

2009-07-22T09:07:00.004-04:00

Oh my! Well Jeremy and I returned from the beach we found our garden ravaged by thunderstorms and rain once again! Ahhhhh! This is the third or fourth time this summer. Our weather here in Charlottesville has been unusually cool and wet for a Virginia summer and the garden has paid for it. The first time this happened we got 5 inches of rain in a little under one week. This caused early tomato blight which we had to treat with a natural fungicide and pruning. Its conservative to say that we freaked out... we were both pretty bummed. If you don't have a garden, tomatoes like sun and heat and watering in moderation. Then it happened again!!! Four more inches of rain in a short period of time!!! We were equally bummed, on both instances we spent two full days in the garden working really hard to re-stake the toppled plants, prune the affected leaves, and clean up the situation. All of this was advanced by the fact that we had put down straw earlier in the summer (thinking it would not rain or be so cool) and that held in the moisture and encouraged the moldy blight. Geez! So we finally had a spell of hot weather, things started to dry up and ripen, and look better. We went to the beach last week... and guess what happened!!! You got it. (we had an awesome time at the beach!) Our plants were toppled, black and blighted, things were straight up rotting on the ground. (insert cuss words here) But there was one difference this morning as we surveyed the damage...We sort of gave up resistance. This is part of being a gardener... the unpredictable, rewarding, frustrating, amazing process of trying to grow food. We have been so lucky in the past years with our gardens here and in Virgina Beach that we sort of forgot that sometimes stuff gets messed up and theres nothing you can do about it but pick up the things that DID ripen and eat them with a grain of salt... literally! So this morning while checking things out we did harvest some amazing things, including: two dead sunflower heads which we are drying for seeds, a bunch of green beans (also reserving some for seeds for next year), some chioggia beets, green peppers, jalepeno peppers, and a variety of heirloom tomatoes (green zebra, mr. stripey, cherokee purple, garden peach, yellow pear, etc.) We also discovered amongst the wreckage that our cantaloupe and newer young tomato plants were doing very well. And our cover crop, german millet, was doing great and is nearly a foot tall now. This whole experience, our summer garden, has been hard and at times really stressful but we have learned a lot about gardening and our particular plot of soil. Our garden soil is very heavy clay - its bright orange! It can get super hard, to the point that when we grow things like radishes and onions they push so hard against the soil that when they get bigger they literally pick themselves! Also, the drainage in certain areas of the plot is not so good. For our fall garden plan we have decided to experiment with some raised beds on top of our garden plot so that we can do things our garden soil would not accomodate, like growing leeks! Our garden at Jeremy's Mom's house is a raised bed and it is doing much better this wet weird summer, mostly because the drainage is good and we worked really hard to make the soil rich. Hopefully this means that we will have a little more control over the fall garden... not accounting for the weather! (nervous laugh here)
Shortly after the second blight episode, we read the news headline about blight messing up farms and gardens all over our country (we posted this link a couple posts back if you want to read it) and felt a sense of solidarity with other east coast gardeners... At least we are lucky enough to live in a temperate area where there is more than one gardening season. So if you have a garden this summer and have had some of the same troubles... keep your heads up!

SUMMER OF THE SNAKE

2009-07-19T01:53:00.004-04:00

Even though 2009 is not the year of the snake, this is the summer of the snake. We have encountered several snakes in our outdoor adventures including:

Copperhead (Sugar Hollow, VA)

Black Racer Snake (Sugar Hollow, VA)

Brown Water Snake (Pungo, VA)

Black Rat Snake (Monticello, VA) Collecting Wine Berries

Unknown Black Snake (Pungo, VA)

Most of our encounters were uneventful, but identifying the venomous copperhead was certainly sketchy. Now we are a little more aware of these creatures in our adventures.

PS. Mr Cottonmouth or Mr Timber Rattler stay in your hole.

Potato famine disease striking home gardens in U.S.

2009-07-11T09:47:00.002-04:00

Potato Blight has been killing our tomatoes this season. It is not just affecting us... but most of Charlottesville. It is also affecting most of the east coast. Check out this article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090710/us_nm/us_blight_usa
The massive amounts of rain and humid spring like weather has contributed to this mold. It is pretty devastating to lose most of our plants... but you cannot control the weather.

BEACH GARDEN HARVEST

2009-07-09T21:35:00.003-04:00

The beach garden is thriving even with all of the rain. Tons of squash and cucumbers. We even found this hidden magical plum tree at the beach with the best tasting plums! Unfortunately our garden in Cville is suffering blight from the rain summer. On a positive note... we had tons of onions (check it out), chard, green beans from the Cville garden and we will still have tons of tomatoes... enough to share with neighbors, friends, and the local shelters. Check out the recent harvest. XO A&J

NATURING

2009-07-09T21:31:00.002-04:00

We love nature and the ocean!

BOARD MAKING

2009-07-08T14:49:00.007-04:00

I have been investing a little bit of time this summer to building an Alaia surfboard and a couple of smaller Alaias with Allyson's assistance. While working on the surfboards I worked on some skateboards. One is made from a maple log from my moms backyard. I milled it, joined it, and its my "Log"! it rides great. I got some Sector 9 wheels and it is a smooth ride. More to report how the Alaias ride when the linseed finishes drying. XO J

Love IS Like Magic

2009-06-26T14:19:00.003-04:00

Hey All. Our gallery dudes in Brooklyn, Cinders, are having a benefit silent auction & anniversary party this Sunday. We have worked with Cinders since 2003 and as a gallery and as our friends they have been really supportive and awesome. Show them some love if you are in Brooklyn and have a few extra bucks to give to a great space!!! Jeremy and I donated the pieces above: His is called "Southern Comfort" and mine is called "The Shadow Proclamation" (if you know where that comes from, hello fellow nerd! :) )Here's the details from their website, you can also follow the link above to check them out yourself. ,

This Sunday we are having a silent auction benefit for the gallery! We asked a bunch of artists who've shown here over the past 5 years to donate some work and have been humbled with everyone's overwhelming radness. It will be a fun and diverse show that will also help us ring in our 5 year anniversary! With a BBQ on the sidewalk, surprise guest DJs, and spiked lemonade to celebrate summertime(finally), gay pride, great art and 5 more years- lets party!

Love is Like Magic
Sunday June 28th 3-9pm
A Special One Day Silent Auction!

Featuring Richard Colman, Brendan Monroe, Thomas Campbell, A.J. Fosik, Matthew Feyld, Allyson Mellberg, Jeremy Taylor, Ali Aschman, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Diane Barcelowsky, Brian Chippendale, Maya Hayuk, Travis Millard, Jason Mclean, Mike Pare, Josh Slater, Jessie Rose Vala, Noel Friebert, Mel Kadel, Kelie Bowman, Sto, Nick Kuszyk, Mindy Abovitz, Ryan Jacob smith, Suzanne Sattler, Sam McPheeters, Molly Colleen O Connell, and lots more!

Beach Visit

2009-06-13T21:47:00.002-04:00

So every year we plant a garden for Jeremy's Mom and this year things are starting out very well. We planted heirloom tomato plants, yellow squash, cilantro, swiss chard, and cucumbers. We will post an "after" picture soon as things have grown tremendously just in the last two weeks! During our visit we are also harvesting bamboo from the forest to make stakes for our tomato plants. This year we have to put up a fence around Mom's garden because they got a puppy (see photos below) her name is Lily, she is very cute, but currently a bit of a monster. Hopefully, she will grow out of it! We also got to see our kitty friends Penelope (its hard to tell but in the pic one of her feet is swollen to twice the size of the other - she is fine but we think she was playing with a bee or snake... she also likes to dig crawfish out of the creek so who knows!) , and of course we are always happy to see our big orange kitty friend, the Fridge. Its so beautiful and magical here, we always see great stuff but we don't always have our cameras with us. We hope you enjoy these little bits of our surroundings, we will try to post more pics of the ocean too! Went for a swim tonight in the first warm water of the season. Absolutely wonderful.

Pungo Animals

2009-06-13T21:42:00.005-04:00

Hello Summer!

2009-06-08T21:38:00.004-04:00

Well after a few weeks of decompression from the semester it finally feels like summer. We are currently enjoying some beach & family time with Mom. In order to be able to do that Jeremy and I had to do a major overhaul in our garden. We looked up several ways to block out weeds organically (especially the crab grass that has been slowly creeping in) and settled on using hay to define the rows and block out sun from the unwanted plants. Two long days of work later and we are ready to walk away for a few days and let the darn thing grow! Also, check out the beautiful fence that Jeremy built completely from recycled wood. Amongst our few early harvests we got some delicious spinach and spring onions and also some not so delicious but neat wild garlic. Thanks to our friends Alp and Ingrid we also learned that the pretty tree outside of our studio window has edible berries on it. It is a Juneberry or Saskatoon bush. The berries are similar to blueberries in appearance and have a apple-ish flavor with almond flavored seeds. We harvested a ton of them and froze them for later! They had many creeeepy crawlies on them so we had to soak them in grandma's old milk glass bowl, which is where Jeremy got this pretty picture.

More from the beach...

NEW BEGINNINGS

2009-05-12T14:22:00.005-04:00

Hey everyone! Sorry we were gone for so long. We have been super swamped this past month with finals and school finishing up... but school is over and it is time to celebrate spring and summer! This is the time in our lives when we can escape the institutional aesthetic of teaching at a state university. No more fluorescent lights, vinyl tiles, and cinder block walls for 3 months. YAY! It is truly a time of rejuvenation and an existence free from 60 hour work weeks. No answering student emails at midnight, no commuting, no grumpy/demanding students, no committee meetings, no show deadlines. This is a time when we garden, draw, travel, spend time at the beach and nature in general. Nature is the best drug for Allyson and Jeremy. Not to mention there is nothing better than eating food from your own garden. It always tastes better than anything from the farmers market or the grocery store... plus it saves us lots of moolah. Everyone should grow a garden if they have time and space..."it is the way of the future dude". Anyhow we harvested our first of spring planting. Tomatoes are in the ground...but we are hoping the rain spaces out more evenly so we can avoid rotting plants. We are posting our first picks from the garden. Stay well all...and we promise to post more of our adventures.
XO
A&J

Common Swell at Together Gallery in Portland!

2009-04-09T10:18:00.003-04:00

Hello everybody! Happy April! We have a show in Portland Oregon coming up at Together Gallery at the end of the month. They are moving into their new space so it will be a sort of grand opening for them! It features some really awesome artists including two of my favorite ladies from way back in Milwaukee Catherine Stack and Betsy Walton. Jeremy and I sent a bunch of drawings and egg tempera pieces for this show, if you are in the area go and check it out!

Meet Claus!

2009-04-05T00:06:00.002-04:00

A week ago today Jeremy and I adopted a little grey kitty from the Charlottesville SPCA. His name is Claus and he is 9 months old. We are in the process of acclimating he and Fricky (she is being pretty good except for one altercation this evening) We are hopeful that they will be living amicably soon! He is such a sweet kitty, very talkative and affectionate! He plays a lot but is gentle and does not use his claws a lot. Come visit him!

SNOW ANGELS

2009-03-02T16:13:00.003-05:00

We are having a happy snow day off of work including long walks, wet feet, hot tea, snow angel, and a day off of work. Allyson and I did tons of planning for lectures that we were suppose to give today. We worked all day Sunday until 2AM. But then weather happened! Yay! Hope others in from NC to NY had fun with the snow!

SALUS CLOSING

2009-02-23T22:15:00.007-05:00

Hey all "Salus" is closing this Friday 5-7:30 at the Garage across from Lee Park! Please stop by to see this installation before it comes down. I am also posting a review written by Laura Parsons in the Hook. It was a flattering review but she seemed bummed about the cat hairball paintings, but its cool. I like them. I know fricky does!

www.readthehook.com/art/index.php/pretty-gory-taylor-turns-green-in-the-garage

Hope to see you out this Friday!

SALUS

2009-02-08T20:43:00.008-05:00

I am posting pics from "Salus" an installation of paintings, drawings, and objects at the Garage... a small intimate space in Charlottesville.

http://thegarage-cville.com/category/blog

I usually do not show my work in Cville as I feel that there is a small audience for what I do here...but I am trying to be better about getting more involved in the local art community. If some of you were not able to come to the opening I hope that some people can come to the closing on Feb. 27th! Cheers!

Ocean Holiday

2008-12-28T21:12:00.003-05:00

Allyson and I have been enjoying the warm weather in Va Beach and Nags Head with family. It has been crazy with weather in the 60s and 70s. Spending time getting some R&R after a tough semester. 2 weeks left of this break and we are going to enjoy these days off. Happy New Year to all!

yo carrots yo break!

2008-12-15T20:08:00.003-05:00

Its winter break! We are done grading and are happy to be off. Now what? Well we picked the last carrots from our garden, I went to the dentist and had my first ever cavities filled, and I really like watching Dr. Who.

Heres a pic of our carrots (check out the two-legged one!), the cat trying to kill me and a new drawing from a show I am in in Berlin.

Time to hibernate for a while!

xo,
Allyson

Thankful for...

2008-11-27T23:02:00.002-05:00

Hello All. Its Thanksgiving day. Tonight we go to bed in Charlottesville, but we woke up in Virginia Beach! Our thanksgiving day consisted of waking up, going on a little walk, petting kittens, going to the beach, Jeremy surfing, Allyson taking pictures with a mini camera (think keychain), going home, eating cheese and crackers, feeding all the cats we were house-sitting for at Mom's, going back to the beach, driving Home home, and then at 8:30pm watching Jeremy whip up Thanksgiving dinner in 20 minutes. I am not kidding. You can tell that he had some years in as a short order cook. And it was not a slouchy TDay dinner either... Here's our menu: Baked Rockfish with ginger, cooked Cauliflower (from our garden!), japanese sweet potato, homemade stuffing (he made stuffing in 10 minutes), hot spiced apple cider, and I made apple crisp while he was doing that. Seriously the man is a cooking machine. I couldn't believe it. He also unloaded the dishwasher while he was doing all of this. If I wasn't already married to him I would totally marry him.

What else... well this week we welcomed some time off. Next week is the last week of classes so it was a good chance to regroup before the craziness. Of course, we didn't totally relax until a few days in. We had a shipping deadline for Cinders who is taking work of ours to Art Aqua in Miami. So I was away from home and trying to finish art and get it shipped while also trying to vacation. Jeremy was also making work with me, which is nothing new except for the fact that he had a huge wound on his head! Earlier that day while surfing, his board came back and clocked him in the eye. He came out of the water and like a trooper got some ice and just kept on doing stuff. I was worried, I thought I might have to cut him like Rocky. Whew. We also went to Nag's Head for a couple days this week. That was nice, but VA Beach was nicer! It was just so warm everywhere, its hard to believe that we live in the same state, its at least 20 degrees colder in Cville & Hburg.

Surfing was good this week. Jeremy got to surf 3 days in a row at VA Beach. Winter is the best time for bigger waves here and he had some nice bigger waves and some sweet knee-high peelers. It was so clear and blue and nice. I got in on the first day and dorked around in my wetsuit. It feels like such a luxury to be able to get into the water when its cold. I had fun. We saw dolphins...the usual ocean magic stuff. I didn't get in the other two days because I have a wounded knee and getting into my wetsuit was hard! Its so pathetic. We were on a dune in Nags Head looking at the ocean and I was crouched down searching for shells. I leaned over the wrong way on the dune and my knee made three distinct popping noises, then I cussed a whole lot. This is probably not good...

Anyhow. here is a list of things we are thankful for this Thanksgiving 2008:
eachother, our home, our garden, our cat, our families, our friends, the ocean, our jobs & health insurance,and some other things I can't think of off of the top of my head right now.

Hope everyone is safe, warm, and full of good food!

xo,

Allyson

HALLOWEEN BOO O O O J!

2008-11-01T00:11:00.002-04:00

Hey it is Halloween and I have to say this was a pretty good evening. Usually Halloween is kind of weird at times. Like you are having fun and something alway fucked up happens. Anyhow Allyson and I dressed up like lion tamers to hand out candy. This served a dual purpose: to keep the cat from escaping when the door opens and shuts and the whip/cat toy to entertain her and to have a half-assed costume for Halloween. I made this make shift Jack-o-lantern out of a vase that I drew on with a sharpie and stuck a flash light underneath. This was slightly lame, but served us to allow the trick or treaters to know we are home. Once we were pretty much out of candy we (Me, Allyson, and TD) went next door to our neighbor's house where they were having a neighborhood party. It was crazy! Our neighbor, Pat goes all out on Halloween with amazing creepy moving statues, food that looks like body parts, and a small graveyard in the front yard. They are so cool. I feel like a lot of their friends thought we were weird... but our neighbors were totally sweet to us as usual. (It may have been Allyson's fake moustache!) After that we went to Chipotle. Anyone wearing a costume (or part of a costume) made out of tin foil got a free burrito. So people were passing out their extra bits and handing them out to people in line once they got their food. We were able to get our veggie burritos for Free! I made a beret, Allyson made another moustache propped up with a straw, and TD had a tiara. We also met a really nice lady in line. We gave her some of our tin foil so everyone ate for free! Once we were done eating Allyson gave TD a haircut and put in her one last bid to get him to go & early vote! Pretty nice Halloween. Especially compared to other years, like when we were in graduate school in Chapel Hill and we were getting ready for an art show so we couldn't go out like everyone else. While we were driving from the art building to the art lab (about one mile) somebody bombarded our car with a paintball gun and scared the living shit out of us, almost causing us to crash our car. Yeah... this was better.

Other than our eventful Friday, this is our first real weekend off together in a while and it is a welcome change from our busy month of October. Our garden is slowly closing down and we are in the composting and harvesting mode. We turned our beans and tomato greens into the soil, ripped out the dead squash plants and planted a few low-maintenance winter plants. It is getting too cold to spend a lot of time out there and its getting REALLY cold at night so only certain tough plants can survive. We currently have radishes, carrots, cabbage, beet sprouts, spinach, chard, cauliflower, lettuce, and brussel sprouts going. But this is the time of year where you have to throw your hands up and just say, "whatever grows, grows". Everything slows down- but many of those plants like cold weather so we will just have to see what we get. We have turned our attention indoors to organizing the house, growing a few things inside as an experiment, and most importantly paying attention to each other. That garden was a harsh mistress! I am posting some pictures of our first radishes and carrot. They are not quite ready but one of the Taylor's is impatient (Can you guess who she is?)

Anyhow... Happy Halloween! And don't forget to vote!!! (for Obama)

New Prints!

2008-10-29T21:27:00.003-04:00

Hey everybody! Jeremy has just finished two awesome new prints. (He has a third on the way!) The first one, "Pnoom" is silkscreen with a hand-stained background (Japanese Seaweed) and the second piece"Brujeria" is all silkscreen. If you want one of your very own, these pieces can be found at Cinders in Brooklyn and Thanky in Richmond. I love them! Hope everybody is doing well.
xo,
Allyson

Grow Local

2008-10-17T10:18:00.003-04:00

Hi all. It is the middle of October, Midterms are over, the show in NY is up. I had the flu really badly most of the time I was in NYC, so I don't exactly remember the whole trip. I am proud of the show but glad that it us up and done. And now I am starting to feel some relief from stress!

One major source of stress relief has been our garden. I am posting some updated pics and you can see that things have grown a lot! We currently have a lot of things growing in our garden: radishes, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, chives, beets, broccoli, carrots, squash, potatoes, and Swiss chard. (there is still the occasional tomato...but the first frost we expect this weekend will put a stop to that.) This garden has been a surprise hit. when we first planted it we were not sure if it would work out okay... the soil is hard and predominately clay and we had a hot drought followed by flooding rain... not exactly friendly conditions for seedlings... but it turned itself around and we have been having fun eating and sharing our food.

I have found in the last few years that gardening is one of the things that makes me the most happy in this world. There is something so great about going out the garden with Jeremy (and sometimes Fricky) and planting, or tending to the growing plants, or harvesting (the most fun part). I am so happy that all of this art show/midterm craziness is over with for the fall. I have been neglecting some important things in a blind effort to get work done. Things like: my health, my husband, my cat, exercising, sleeping well... It is time to harvest the garden and get some priorities straight. It is safe to say that I will be taking a much needed studio break and seeking out some fun and relaxation.

hope everyone is enjoying fall and hugging someone near.

xo,
Allyson

Do Little

2008-09-29T13:58:00.002-04:00

Hey All,

My new show at Cinders opens on October 10th. It is called "Do Little". I am uploading the postcard images and will post some in-progress studio images and the press release as soon as I can. If you are in NYC come by and say hello. The show runs until November 9th.

Got one!

2008-09-25T22:44:00.003-04:00

Well, we finally caught a ground hog... not sure if this little buddy was the destroyer or not but he sure was cute! We relocated him to a woodland wonderland that is not our yard and he immediately started digging a new hole. Jeremy fed him apples and pears and he just ate and ate. It is impossible to stay mad at these dudes. I am not sure we will try to catch one again, it was sort of traumatic. The groundhog was fine, but while he was in the cage he was so upset and it felt really bad to be responsible for his misery... it was very temporary though.

Update!!!

2008-09-22T14:13:00.002-04:00

Well, first things first. It is booger season. As a first hand victim of this tragic seasonal epidemic I will tell you that our students all have colds and flus and what evers and they are contagious. So wash your hands and keep your boogers to yourself. I know I am. :)

And now for an update on Mr. Groundhog: We seem to have deterred him from eating all of our stuff for now. The last victim was the green beans. I was furious. He mowed off the top 8 inches of foliage from each plant. Luckily he didn't seem interested in the actual beans themselves! So after that, Jeremy and I got a floppy fence (they supposedly will not climb anything unstable... not big risk-takers apparently.) and we put out a nasty mixture of cloves,cayenne, cinnamon, and mint castile soap to make him unhappy with our smell. We also put out a jar of pee and a bunch of hair from Jeremy's newest haircut. Our veggies are just starting to come out and our neighbors told us horror stories about their squash being eaten down to nubs... so we are trying anything we can to keep him away. So far so good. (I am getting bruises on my knuckles from knocking on wood...) We are going to have green beans and baby squash from the garden for dinner tonight!

We also went to sugar hollow and made drawings on rocks with charcoal that we found from a fire!

Last but certainly not least, we have a new family member to tell you about. This weekend we adopted a kitten from Jeremy's Mom. His name is Edwin Batman Taylor. He is the best. Since we started going back to work, Fricky has been really lonely so I am glad she will have a friend! He has to get neutered (ouch!) and will come home October 17th. We are super excited!

Oh and after tending all 4 vines, we managed to have one surviving watermelon! Cantaloupe were much, much easier to grow.

Allyson

GARDEN FALL 08

2008-09-13T00:29:00.005-04:00

Oh Boy this garden is like a wicked stepsister, but she is pulling through, and we can still bro down as long as the groundhogs stay away and the rain stops for little while. I never thought I would say this after the summer months of drought, but I guess Fall is really here. So today our lovely garden was getting chomped on by our local ground hog who lives under our neighbors shed. We did not see him but saw the evidence. We found three of our healthy cauliflower plants gnawed almost to the stump. So we decided to grab some of our landlords old tomato cages which have pretty small holes around all of the cabbage and cauliflower (and thought this would deter the furry dudes). we thought the squash leaves would be spikey and less appetizing. Anyhow I come out later in the afternoon to bust this gigantic ground hog gnawing on the same cauliflower plants INSIDE of the tomato cage. I was amazed he could fit through the small holes, but low an behold they can. So I yelled "you get out of my garden" ...and then the groundhog scurried away, but he was trapped in this cage...so he knocked it over and did a hamster wheel maneuver and then ran out of the cage. It was hilarious and sad. This garden has had a lot of problems from things like stray cats shitting in the garden to aphids eating our tomatoes... not to mention the drought in mid summer that killed a batch of seedings and the fall rain which is finally blighting our late tomatoes. With the cold weather we will be lucky if these half dead tomato plants ,that have lots of tomatoes, will have the opportunity to ripen. We are also getting accustomed to the mountainous clay soil that dries out fast when dry and stays really wet when wet. No in between. We are also combating dead soil in our landlords garden space. This space is probably imbued with all types of weird chemicals (from years past) to resist pests and weeds. So trying to grow without chemicals and to reverse the environment is tough. On a lighter note we found some of our supposed "dead seedlings" finally came up and we have some late blooming carrots that are showing up and are growing in between our almost matured squash. We are hoping they can grow in harmony...hopefully there will be no survival of the fittest and we will harvest the carrots and squash together in peace.

PS. We harvested some green beans, a tomato, and some chives. They became part of a rulin' soup we had for dinner.

Ol Blue Eye

2008-09-05T11:02:00.003-04:00

Studio Sale & Installation

2008-09-05T10:55:00.003-04:00

Here are some photos from our recent studio sale at The Bridge. It was a super fun time and we are so grateful for our friends in the Charlottesville community for coming out! We also had a special guest stray dog show up who will be up for adoption at the Charlottesville SPCA starting next Wednesday! He has one blue eye! Thanks everybody and happy fall.

xo,

A&J

Harvest Time Already

2008-08-16T09:18:00.002-04:00

School starts on the 25th and my new job orientation starts this week. I guess summer is over?! Not really... considering how much we go to the beach on weekends in September so Jeremy can throw himself into some hurricane waves and enjoy the off-season goodness. That being said, yesterday we saw some leaves turning, TURNING! in Charlottesville. Bummer. I started to freak out, it was only 70 yesterday, the leaves are turning, I swear I could smell fall. Don't get me wrong, I love fall. Even in Wisconsin fall was probably my favorite season. But we are in Virginia! Its still August. Anyhow, it IS the wonderful time of the late summer where our garden in VA Beach is very productive and I am posting some pictures of the literal 'fruits' of our labor (yes, i am a dork). So now, all two of you who may read this, go out and enjoy the summer while it is still rocking.
xo,Allyson

Summer Vortex!

2008-07-16T23:37:00.002-04:00

Hi everybody! I am sorry postings have been so scarce these days! This summer has certainly been crazy. Between moving out of our house in Harrisonburg (!!!), into my new office, out of our storage, and into our new house (I'll let you add that up) we feel as though we have been moving for weeks! (oh, wait, we have. oh shit.) Bruises and soreness aside, Jeremy and I both feel relieved and happy to be in our new place in Charlottesville. It really feels like a homecoming. Our new place has a huge HUGE garden plot and is a small house in a good way vs. our last place with the very small garden and the way too huge house. In terms of energy conservation, this place is much more our style... all electric utilities and just enough space for two people. Nice!

So in the midst of all of this moving stuff we have been away from computers, and don't tell my blog this, but it has been so nice. I guess when school starts we will both be glued to this thing so its really important to get out and enjoy an unplugged and truly 'wireless' life until then! In other super progressive and futuristic technology news, Jeremy and I put our cell phone in the glove box of the car (for emergencies) and got a land line. Uh huh. Call us... maybe we will answer and maybe not... We are totally living in the future. I am stoked.

This summer we have been doing a lot of planning, thinking, and talking about our garden and about becoming more self-sufficient. we had put a lot of serious thought into buying a house but after looking and talking some more, we came to the conclusion that we should save our pennies and build our own house - the way we want it. This may take a while... We were very inspired by the idea of making something truly sustainable and by the new wave of people who are trying to live off the grid without being total hermits.

Along with this realization came a new found annoyance with the fact that eco-friendly and "green" have become such empty buzzwords. This was made very clear to me while watching t.v. at Mom's house... We saw a show called "Red, Hot, and Green". Holy crap. Okay. To their credit, they did use FSC certified lumber in their construction. But they did not talk about paint (chemicals, pollution, safer, healthier alternatives) or really do anything else in the episode that we watched that could be considered, eco-friendly , "green" (except for some actual green colored paint), sustainable, ecologically responsible, or aesthetically pleasing. Maybe I am too sensitive, or being too critical, but its upsetting because these ideas are very meaningful to a lot of people. I also have to fairly point out that it is a double edged sword because I DO like that people are talking & thinking about ecologically friendly options in their homes & lives more because it is so trendy. The bottom line for me is that being responsible and taking care of the earth is something we NEED to do. It is not fashionable...its practical, it is survival. Nobody is a perfect activist (least of all myself) but I really love to see genuine effort, not just buzz. Anyhow, it has made both Jeremy and I continue to consider ways that we can recycle, consume less, and make things ourselves with safe and responsible materials.

Well, that is enough for today, I will try to be better about posting! We will be in Richmond this Saturday for the Handmake craft fair outside of Quirk Gallery, so if you are around come and say hi. We will also be having a studio sale in August - but more details on that later!

Hope everyone is well!!!

xo,
Allyson

p.s. One more thing, we have also had a lot of fun finding free food lately. If you are in VA, or probably the east coast in general, this is a great time to pick blueberries and raspberries! We picked a whole quart of blueberries in the national forest the other day and there were a million more there. Very nice indeed.

Oak Galls!

2008-05-19T23:38:00.007-04:00

This weekend Jeremy and I visited his Mom's house at the beach. We visit there a lot and even had a garden there last year which was producing food until late September. I couldn't eat a tomato all winter because ours were so good, nothing could measure up! On Saturday we decided to plant another garden there, just for fun. We planted tomato, watermelon, cantaloupe, and squash. So now whether we are at home or visiting their house we have something to tend to! We only spent $10 total! Basically we just bought the plants at the nursery up the road. We went out into the woods to collect bamboo for the tomato supports, and we collected pine straw from underneath one of the trees for mulching the space next to the garden. A very large wolf spider jumped on me and I shrieked like a little girl. It was fun. Gardening always makes me feel really good.

While in the yard we found an oak gall. Oak galls, like walnuts, have been used in ink recipes for centuries. They typically produce a blue-blackish ink. This ink can be highly corrosive, eating through paper (which looks really lacy and amazing but is an conservator's nightmare) and metal nibs. Jeremy and I made some of this ink in graduate school, and it was beautiful. Unlike walnuts (which you pretty much just boil the heck out of and strain), galls need to be soaked for a few days and they need some sort of iron oxide to further the color. We used rusty scraps of metal to get ours going. Walnut ink is definitely more accessible & easier to make. But its really interesting to research old inks and understand how they were made. Many of these old inks have unique recipes that sound a lot like making beer or moonshine where the ink would sit for months and 'brew' until it was the proper color. So... go look outside, you might have an oak tree or a walnut tree in your backyard - free art supplies waiting to be made! I know we need to make a new batch of our own walnut ink soon!

xo,
Allyson

p.s. If you are wondering how Galls are made:

Galls are irregular plant growths which are stimulated by the reaction between plant hormones and powerful growth regulating chemicals produced by some insects or mites. Galls may occur on leaves, bark, flowers, buds, acorns, or roots. Leaf and twig galls are most noticeable. The inhabitant gains its nutrients from the inner gall tissue. Galls also provide some protection from natural enemies and insecticide sprays. Important details of the life cycles of many gall-makers are not known so specific recommendations to time control measures most effectively are not available.

Gall makers must attack at a particular time in the year to be successful. Otherwise, they may not be able to stimulate the plant to produce the tissue which forms the gall. Generally, initiation of leaf galls occurs around "bud break" or as new leaves begin to unfold in the spring. (from the University of Kentucky Entomology website)

Who's Your New Professor?

2008-05-13T22:16:00.003-04:00

Please congratulate Allyson when you get the chance... she is now an Assistant Professor of Art at James Madison University. This is a big deal. She is now on a tenure track and has some job security, health insurance, an office, and a real computer! It is a really great job and she got this job in a really tough economy and in a very competitive field. Give her the thumbs up and tell her to take a bow.
Love, Jeremy

ORGANIC MOBILE GARDEN

2008-05-13T21:31:00.002-04:00

Today seems to be the first day of spring. We were psyched out in April with a stint of 80 degree days. The past 3 days have been in the 40's/50's during the day and 30's/40's in the evening. It has felt more like the tail end of winter, and it has definitely been a tricky time to start a garden. We have wanted to start an organic garden like last summer but with our current living situation we will be moving at the beginning of July. On Monday we built some small wooden boxes to house our new mobile/moveable garden. Today we painted the boxes with Zero VOC wall paint and planted our new organic garden. We are growing Tomatoes (Mr. Stripey, Cherokee Purple, Black Prince), Broccoli, Cabbage, Squash, and Zucchini. Right now we only have 2 tomato plants, 4 broccoli stalks, 4 cabbage heads started and in boxes. We plan on building one more box tomorrow with recycled wooden palettes for the squash and zucchini. We are trying to make this garden pay off. Currently we have invested $20 in lumber, $10 on plants (purchase from local growers), and $15 on dirt. I hope this garden will be productive enough to cover our expenses. The time is pleasure for us as we are bored out of our minds in Harrisonburg. This town is pretty boring if you are not a mennonite or a person who enjoys the smell of dog food and likes shopping at walmart (or shopping at all). The town goes through somewhat of a transformation after school gets out... about 14000 people leave the city, traffic gets better... but it is so beat. We are trying to find a cure for our boredom and stay positive as long as we are in H-burg proper. We are looking forward to finding a place to live in Charlottesville (or surrounding areas) and lay down some roots (ours and our garden's). It will be extra nice next year because although we will be commuting a little ways to JMU, we will feel like we are in a community at work and where we live (instead of just at work).

Hierarchy of Plants

2008-04-27T19:06:00.006-04:00

Allyson and I weeded the flower beds today. I am feeling bad about killing all of these plants which seem to more useful and beneficial properties than the holly bushes and hostas in our front yard which seem to only have a primary function of decoration. Since this is our landlord's house and weeds do kill other plants... we decided to remove them. The first species which I regret killing were the scallions (I killed about 200 of these things today). Scallions are a highly nutritous food plant. One cup of scallions contain, 30 % of our daily intake of vitamin C, 20% of vitamin A, 7% of our calcium, 8% of iron, 200% of vitamin K ( a vitamin that alot of Americans are difficient in), 16% of folic acid, and 2g of protein. It also contains micronutrients like important amino acids and small amounts of B vitamins and vitamin E. One of the most overlooked aspects of scallions are the anti-inflammatory properties of the food. Scallions contain quercetin a potent anti-inflammatory and vitamin C also an immune builder. In combination they act to reduce inflammation related to allergies, asthma, and arthritis. I do not think that it is a coincidence that these "weeds" or should I say important foods grow in the spring. When allergies, moisture, and flu are most prominent scallions have a tendency to grow. The second species I killed today were premature garlic bulbs. As we may know garlic is an antimicrobial, antiviral, and good for healthy cholesterol. A half a cup contains 35 % of our daily intake of vitamin C, 13% of our calcium, 6% of iron, 84% of vitamin B6 and 4g of protein. It also contains micronutrients like important amino acids and minerals such as magnesium (100% RDI)), copper (20% RDI), manganese, selenium and phosphorus which we could not get from ritz crackers. The third species we weeded were our beloved Dandelions. (roots, greens, and flowers) I remember trying to eat the flowers as a child they were bitter. The greens on the other hand when cooked can be quite nutritious and tasty. I still probably would not have liked them as a child. But they pack a nutritious punch as well. One cup of cooked dandelion greens contain, 30 % of our daily intake of vitamin C, 140% of vitamin A, 15% of our calcium, 10% of iron, 749% of vitamin K ( a vitamin that alot of Americans are difficient in), 13% of vitamin E and 2g of protein. It also contains micronutrients like important amino acids and small amounts of B vitamins. Dandelions are also known as a liver and gallbladder cleanser. Again I do not think it is a coincidence that these grow in spring and summer as our residual winter lives require our bodies to cleanse of toxins. We also pulled up some spearmint that was intertwined in yellow clover. Spearmint is good for digestion. Overall it sounds like this would be a great springtime lunch. Cooked Dandelion greens with garlic, Miso soupwith scallions, and a cup of mint tea. Mmmm Refreshing. Iam sure you are wondering why we composted these nutritious plants? Well our land lord laid down this nasty mulch in the flower beds which was probably imbued in some sort of petroleum based pesticide. Not to mention our basement has an arsenal of paint and pesticides. So we are pretty certain the bed are laden with "Round Up". Whoever said that these plants were bad? Why do we kill them for aesthetic reasons? I will never figure this one out. An anal retentive invention from the suburban country club goers. UGHH I wanted to eat those tasty greens, scallions, and garlic:(
XO A&J

Awesomeness

2008-04-24T11:52:00.002-04:00

Jeremy made this video out of a flip-book that I drew while I was at UVA! He has the powers of greyskull. (or something else awesome like that where you hold up a sword and lightening comes out)

Happy Spring everybody!!!

SPRING IS HERE

2008-04-16T10:13:00.003-04:00

Spring is here and the semester is almost over. We both cannot express how glad we are that this semester is almost over. We always feel like summer is a cleansing period for us, as we spend a great deal of time working on personal projects that we want to get done and spend a great deal of time winding down from the relentless and busy work year. We also have big plans this summer to finish our book. The book was initially designed to be a smaller handbook and it is turning into a BOOK. Our goal is to have it printed before the SPXPO in the Fall. Allyson will be part of the Cinders Goffo Installation At the NEXT ART FAIR in Chicago. If you are in Chicago please go and see her new works. Jeremy is currently in a show at Lump Gallery called "Heroes" that runs till May. If you are in Raleigh please check out his work. He is also working on a new video for his solo show at Cerasoli Gallery in August. Other projects for the summer include one collaborative porcelain figurine, collaborative oversized drawings, and finding a permanent home.

We are looking forward to a summer of recuperation from the tumultuous winter of sickness and sadness! YAY SPRING! YAY SUMMER! YAY OCEAN!

Good Advice...

2008-03-11T01:02:00.006-04:00

Every week (at least once, sometimes twice) Jeremy and I go to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant here in town and get amazing food and pearls of wisdom from the awesome chef/owner. He always tells the best stories and has really strong opinions (I think he is usually right) about politics and people. Tonight he was in rare form. Sometimes his stories about his life are so amazing and inspiring and funny that we leave with our stomachs happy from food, but sore from laughing. I seriously think that he might be a genius. He also makes up really good jokes.

Anyhow we were talking about underdogs, as in: being the underdog, messing with the underdog, and underdog retribution (not the physical kind - more spiritual or psychological). We feel like underdogs a lot in our field. Especially as young professors who are told on a regular basis that we look or seem to young to be doing what we are doing (even though we have been doing it for a while now). So our friend, who has also felt like an underdog in the past, especially when he first moved here, told us a story. Here it is:

He was at a Community Meeting focusing on Diversity. Someone asked him how he reacts when someone puts an obstacle or "wall" in front of him. He replied, " I wait twenty years and then climb on top and pee on it". In other words, don't fuck with the underdog and don't underestimate people, you never know who they might become!

Amazing. It was inspiring and funny to hear his stories tonight about when he first got here and how he had to work a bunch of jobs he didn't really like before he could build the life that he really wanted to have. Especially since we are currently applying for ft jobs and trying to build the life that we want to have. I love that guy. Made our night.

In other news, we are working on our book and making progress. Viva Spring!

Allyson

NEW STUFF

2008-02-28T00:13:00.004-05:00

Just posting a new painting I sent to LA.

....in 2 stages

GIFTS & WINTER BLUES

2008-02-12T23:44:00.005-05:00

Hi, its Allyson. Today was a gray sleeting, snowing, raining all together yucky day in Harrisonburg, Virginia. It smelled like dog food and burnt stuff everywhere. The cold weather underscored how much me and J don't want to live here anymore. I cannot wait for spring. That being said we are trying to grin and bear it like champs so I thought I would post some pics and other stuff that has been gifted to me recently or that I am thankful for. Maybe this will make everyone feel thankful, or happy or well... hungry or something!

First of all I got a really awesome X-mas Present from Jeremy. I haven't oil painted in ages - years! I have been working in egg tempera and other forms of painting, but not oil. Not sure why, I really like it... Anyhow Jeremy made me 8 beautiful wood panels to paint on in different sizes and shapes! (8 of them!!!) They are wonderful. I don't like the texture of canvas so I was really stoked about this. I am posting a thumbnail of the first underpainting of my first oil painting in at least 6 years... maybe longer. I am still a bit rusty. But whatever. Its also exciting because I am not using any solvents or anything toxic as far as pigments go so it is not as stinky.

Second gift came this weekend in a sort of flurry of gifts from Jeremy... He brought home a beta fish in a little glass bowl. I am pretty much into any pets (besides dogs, unless they belong to someone else...) so this was sweet and exciting. His name is BetaMax and he is living in the studio away from evil cat murder plots. I love him. When I feed him I can hear him chewing. Cracks me up everytime. He has since graduated to a new dish with a live plant in it and glass pebbles.

Third gift, isnt really a gift so to speak... its just that since Jeremy and I got so sick from food we have been NOT eating out and have been happily reminded of how much we both like to cook. And how we tend to eat way better food at home than we do any where out in Hburg. One of my favorite things we have been eating is sweet potato soup... I guess I just sort of made it up, but heres the recipe:

2 Sweet Potatoes

2 Carrots

2 large branches of Kale

1/2 Sweet Onion

2 Cloves of Garlic

1 inch piece of fresh ginger

1 cup cut broccoli

1/2 cup peas

1 tbsp Tamari

1 tbsp Agave Nectar or Honey

Salt/Pepper to taste

Water

Instructions:

- Mince onions, garlic, ginger, kale, tamari, and agave, and put into a large soup/saute pan and start to cook with just enough water to cover. (1st picture)

- Add in chopped carrots and cook until soft and onions are clear ( you may have to add more water here and there)

- Add in sweet potatoes and enough water to cover, turn down heat a little and let cook until the sweet potatoes are very soft. (2nd picture)

- Once the sweet potatoes are cooked take about 1/2 of the soup mixture and put it in the blender/food processor (you can add a small amount of water but you don't want to water it down too much) Blend it until it is smooth and add it back into the rest of the soup along with 1 cup of water.

- You should have a creamy soup with chunks of sweet potatoes and carrots and stuff in it... and its usually pretty bright orange.

- Now add in the broccoli and peas ( I use frozen organics so they are already cooked a little) and let them get all soft and cooked through.

- You are done!!! Eat it!!! Let it cool down first! A few variations:

- you can add curry!

- if you don't have a sweet tooth like me skip the agave/honey

-skip the broccoli and peas if you want to only eat orange food.

- we always use everything organic, which is sort of an added bonus...

- Sorry I don't have a final product pic... it was too steamy when it was hot to take a good picture and then it got eaten!

- Last but not at all least, I am thankful for all the awesome people we know, near and far (from uplifting calls from Catherine and Jason to happy happy suprises like hearing from Carrie (Happy 1 month B-day Henry)!). I am so lucky to have such an awesome sweet partner in my Jeremy and I cannot wait until spring comes and we are back at the ocean where we belong! Winter blues be gone!!!

I hope everyone who reads this is doing well and let me know if you try to make that soup!!!

XO,

Allyson

p.s. Barack won Virginia!!! I am so excited!!! :)

p.p.s. Happy 2nd Lucas!!! Holy crap!

HIP EDGY COOL

2008-02-04T22:19:00.000-05:00

Just check this out (click above):
I was thinking that Allyson and I should model our new website and persona after this guy.
Cheers!

ROUGH SPOTS

2008-02-02T20:26:00.000-05:00

hey all...as you know Allyson & I like to keep the drama running high in our lives, jk. We always seem to have some sort of craziness going on. Since its a new year, we are hoping that we got it all out in January! As some of you may know our friend Travis Conner passed away at the beginning of the month. He was a good friend and his passing was tragic and too soon! He was an amazing artist and person. He was such a gentle sweet guy and I will dearly miss his friendship. I hope that his soul is now at peace.

Last weekend we ate at Taco Bell while traveling home late at night. The next morning we awoke to what we thought was food poisoning. We ended up getting more sick than we thought and by the end of the night we were in the ER at UVA. We thought we'd be out of there in a few hours but ended up getting kept overnight due to my high fever and both of our severe dehydration. Due to Allyson's severe dehydration she got a kidney infection from what we found out later was E-coli poisoning. We are just now starting to feel normal again. We were super sick all week and out of work. It was funny that we sort of emerged from our sickness on groundhogs day, we saw our shadows and are predicting an early spring.

Anyhow, we are glad its February now. January was rough and in lots of ways showed us how fragile life can be... We are really looking forward to spring. Ocean, waves, warm air, sun, birds, freckles, and gardens.

A NEW YEAR & A NEW BEGINNING

2007-12-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

With December coming to a close: Fall Semester is over, ART Aqua, Foodist Colony, and Group Hug are coming to an end...and as the new year begins Allyson and I are making some new plans. Our first goal is to get healthy! Over the past couple of years Allyson and I have put some miles on our hearts, souls, and bodies by placing too much of an emphasis on our jobs, exhibiting, and moving and have lost general sight of our well being. We will be making GREAT efforts to change this. We will not be showing this spring and we will be making time and space in our lives to make work and to find a permanent home. Please give us your blessings in our efforts in health and happiness. A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

PS. We are continuing efforts to jump start our book. We do our best to keep everyone updated on our progress.
PSS. We will also do our best to post images of some work that will be producing during winter/spring 08

Blog- tease

2007-11-07T19:55:00.000-05:00

I realize now that its probably a horrible idea to start a blog right before mid-term when you are a college professor. Too crazy. Anyhow, now thats all done with and we are back to the blog. Our good buddy travis said that we were blog-teases so I begin my return to the blog with a picture of Travis and Becca! It meant so much to have T&B here in Harrisonburg. They turned our grey skies blue!!!

another porcelain guy...

2007-09-25T00:08:00.001-04:00

Ecologically Responsible Painting

2007-09-24T23:43:00.000-04:00

BUYING ECO COLORS:
Allyson and I are dedicated to making work that is environmentally sound. We have to make many compromises as we live in an industrial society and certain things are expensive or maybe difficult to obtain or grow. For example Madder Roots produce a beautiful blood or ruby red but it takes 3 years to cultivate the color from their roots. Last year I grew a Madder plant. With much love the plant still died with in the year. Madder naturally grows in tropical/sub-tropical climates. Madder needs a lot of room to grow and I was growing it indoors. To make a long story short, my 7-month cultivation of the roots produced no color. So, at times we may need to depend on a particular climate or alternate source of an environmentally sound material. An important thing to know is that in the 1800’s Alizarin Crimson was invented using coal tar to re-create the chemical composition of madder. In 2007, Alizarin Crimson and most other synthetic pigments are still made with coal tar. The best way to avoid this is to actively buy products that do not support coal/chemical industries. We purchase our Madder from Kremer pigments in NY and Windsor & Newton. We are submitting a small list of our favorite watercolor paints and pigments that can be purchased at local art stores or online vendors.

MADDER RED= Genuine Rose Madder Watercolor: Windsor & Newton

TERRE VERTE GREEN= Terre Verte Watercolor: Windsor & Newton

YELLOW OCHRE= Yellow Ochre Watercolor: www.naturalpigments.com

LAPIS BLUE= Genuine Lapis Blue Watercolor: www.danielsmith.com

List of Companies:
Kremer Pigments: They have a range of Earthen Pigments & Vegetable Pigments (some of the historical pigments are eco-friendly too)

Old Holland: Look for the Earthen Pigments (ochre, sienna, charcoal black, etc.)

Natural Pigments: www.naturalpigments.com Most colors are amazing! Watch out for the toxic pigments that are natural!

Daniel Smith: They have a line of natural mineral pigments. Watch out for the copper based pigments like Malachite, Azurite, and Turquoise. Copper based pigments are soluble in water and can be harmful to humans, animals, and water systems.

Bioshield: www.bioshieldpaint.com They make Zero VOC all natural wall paints (Make great gessoes)

AFM Safecoat: They make Zero VOC paints that are made from polymer (Makes a good wall paint)

REMEMBER: “Natural” does not always mean safe! Lead is natural! Also remember that non-toxic does not always mean good for the environment. Polymer is not good for our water systems. Titanium is safe for humans, but is processed or bleached in a way that is bad for the environment.

*** Remember that the information shared in this excerpt is not intellectual property, but information that should be shared with the world. Eco-painting should be done for the earth and future generations not for individual prestige.

*** Both images above are made using homemade walnut ink, rose madder, titanium white, and egg tempera. (Reign In Blood And Puss) (Puddin: Owner Of A Lonely Heart)

Collaboration...

2007-09-20T08:27:00.000-04:00

Part of the fun of having this blog is being able to focus on our collaborative works. Jeremy and I both have our own bodies of work (drawings, paintings, prints,etc.) but then somewhere between all of that there is this body of sculptures that we have made together over the last few years. What I like the best about the whole process is that we really emphasize each other's strengths and learn from each other. My pattern making skills have definitely gotten better from this experience and J has definitely gotten really good at sewing.
I am going to post some of these pieces over the next few days. Hope you like them.

Some Images of our ceramic pieces from cinders

2007-09-19T18:58:00.000-04:00

Welcome to our new blog!

2007-09-17T19:09:00.001-04:00

Welcome to our blog. Jeremy and I are in the midst of gathering all of our energy to create websites of our own... until then we thought we would try having a blog. This also gives us a chance to share some of our non-toxic recipes, ideas, and concerns. We are working on a book on that very topic and this will be good practice for us! We are looking forward to sharing and hearing from friends old and new. Hooray!

The image above is from our most recent show at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn. If you can't go there in person go to their website, www.cindersgallery.com they rule!

more soon!

a&j