Celebratory Weekend

This last weekend marked the end of the school semester for me and a celebration of my friend Kelley's birthday so to celebrate we went to Seaside, OR and stayed in a cottage. It was really lovely and relaxing after an intense semester and demanding roommates.

But first I will share the end of the semester projects. This is my final piece for my advanced studio thesis class. Sleep Pod #4 to be exact.




I used only raw wool and silk organza. I felted the wool into sheets and then needle felted the sheets together to form the structure (you can this employed in actuality later in this post).

This piece is a documentation of my radishes (there are 30 of varying types and sizes). This was for my Homeland class in which we were instructed to be involved in a 4 x 4' plot of space or to do a community piece. I initially wanted to scatter wild flower seeds along my bike route between my house and school, but I was kindly reminded by my professor that things grow awfully slowly in the Pacific Northwest, due to the long cold spring. So I just watched my already planted radishes and transcribed their process onto paper with ink. Each individual drawing represents a radish in my garden and it shows the progress of each with a series of enlarged lines.



And these are some of the radishes I pulled the next day.





And this is another piece I did for that class. It was in response to reading Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion. In that one of the characters describes the PNW as being suffocatingly green all the time, everywhere you look, which I completely resonate with. I did a hand-pulled linoleum print with green water-soluble ink and underneath the print I hand wrote out each season. This could potentially be a much bigger piece with several more prints made, further pushing the idea of always green.




On to the coast! We got to the cottage in the afternoon on friday and it suited us all pretty well I'd say. Here is Grandma Kelley and Grandpa Brady.



And a happy picture of Joel.



Clara and I then walked to the beach. Here's what the walk looked like.

We started at the house. Its the little one in the middle.



Then this is two houses away, and the entrance to the beach is in between the two houses on the horizon.



Then you walk between those houses and see lovely little sand path in the dune grass.



As you crest the dune you can see the ocean and the beach.




The sand was really warm and the wind made it turn into ripples on the beach.



As I was saying before, Clara and I went to the beach and I installed my Sleep Pod #4. I found three driftwood logs and made holes to sink the poles into. Clara was the lovely documentarian for the majority of these photos.



Photo courtesy of Clara Lee.



I'm thinking of becoming the next Andy Goldsworthy.







This is my version of Rivers and Tides.







I must say I am thoroughly satisfied with how this turned out. Clara was a good sport in helping me carry the heavier log poles and documenting the whole thing.

After we got back we hung around and had dinner. Nick G. barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs (try the housemade all-beef Whole Foods hot dogs -- my and Joel's first since not being vegetarians, delicious!). Most of the weekend was centered around eating, drinking and being merry (or beating Larry if you prefer, or perhaps not). Excuse the poor lighting and white balance...



Clara modeled for us some Grajamas (Grandma + Pajamas = Grajamas) which we all thoroughly enjoyed.






The next morning for breakfast Joel and I made breakfast casserole for everyone.






Then as a team we all walked to the downtown main drag via the beach which was about a mile, not bad at all.



Clara and I walked ahead of everyone so while we waited Clara buried me in the sand, then Kelley came and made me fins and collaboratively, I believe, they made me a very large dick. Which I can't say wasn't thoroughly amusing.



And this is probably the single most embarrassing picture I've ever taken in my entire life. Ecstasy, pain? Who's to know?




Anyways, moving right along. We went into town and found a candy store that had bins and bins of bulk candy and wonderful bottled drinks. I got birch beer which is very similar to root beer but even more delicious. We played the role of tourists very well.

Me, Nick G. and Brady coming out of the candy store.




Then we walked back to the cottage along the beach.



And then sat in the warm grassy sand dunes.







After this Clara, Kelley and I got mats and blankets (even though the sand is warm, the wind is not) and went back out to lie on the beach and nap. In the mean time Brady's friends came to the cottage and started cooking dinner which was truly amazing: thick vegetarian lasagne, barbecued chicken and steak and a salad from their garden (lettuce, water cress and mizuna).

It was just what we needed. Relaxing, no responsibilities, no phones, no computers, and 100% rejuvenating.

Finals & Garden Life

I am almost done with school, just four more days left! I have finished a couple finals. This is the one that I did with the bread and butter. I made everyone sit down and discuss their favourite food related experience, whether it was farming or eating or cooking. This is considered social practice art, I am not much of a believer in social practice art but it was a good response to the reading we had done. And it was received well too! Here's the documentation of the event.




And this is the documented form of another sleep pod that I've made. I may rephotograph them but I'm not sure.







The Garden!

Our chickens are doing well. The australorp has become broody which means she thinks she's incubating eggs.



She has shed all her stomach and some chest feathers in order to transfer the most heat to her eggs, however we've taken all the eggs from under her but she still stays on her nest. She doesn't realize that she's not actually doing anything. I'm hoping that she'll quit sometime soon cause she's not eating or drinking much and I can't help but worry. At the same time though this is a natural process so I'm not too worried.



I also found out that the chickens had been laying underneath the coop because there wasn't enough bedding in the coop. So I remedied that and added more straw.




I thought I might be able to catch the faverolles laying an egg but I think she was getting stage fright. So I just got a photo of her fluffy behind.



And this is just the ladies eating. Notice that the australorp isn't there. This is because she's heating her non-existent eggs.



Our potatoes have finally broken ground!




And our radishes are getting beautiful.



The apple tree has more pollinated apples this year than it did last (which totaled around six measly apples), so many that I had to stop counting because there were so many. I hope that they actually stay on the branches and make it to maturity.



And our onions and garlic just look astounding. They looked good for a while but now they look really fantastic.



And this is the salmon faverolles poking around the radishes.



There was one radish that was big enough that I felt okay to pick it. And I also picked a bunch of arugula too.



That's about it for the garden and me. Its all so much easier to see the goodness when it is sunny outside as it has been today and yesterday. To all the mothers out there, happy mother's day. And to the students, good luck with finals! I'm really looking forward to this upcoming weekend and being free of school!

Hannah You're So Domestic

Someone once said to me, "Hannah, you're so domestic!" and I almost puked all over her. The last thing in the world that I wanted to be was a sedated housewife barefoot and preggers. And that was what "domestic" meant to me at the time. I'm starting to learn that it doesn't have to be a conservative domesticity, but technically, yes I am domestic. But I'm also a very capable bad ass when it comes to a shovel. Or a blender.

For a school project I made two loaves of bread. And butter. Bread is no problem for me and I used to make it on a more regular basis. But butter is something that I've only made a couple times. One of those times was tonight. I started making it the way I had before, by shaking it in a glass jar with dice for agitation. I shook and I shook but I could not turn that whipping cream into butter. Here it is as whipping cream and the rising dough.





Then after I started shaking the whipping cream again after taking a break Kevin came in and said, "You could always do it with a blender. That might ruin the spirit of the thing. One time I whipped my cream too long and it turned into butter." After wrestling with the idea for a long time I decided that was the only way I was going to be getting butter in time for class. And butter I did make! I was nervous I was going to run the blender to death but I did it!



The liquid in the bottom was the indicator that I had made butter. It started splashing everywhere so I turned off the blender and found out it was indeed butter. I had to squeeze out a lot of excess milk water but it finally yielded beautiful soft and fatty butter. I will post most glamorous photos when they are in class.

As for the garden, it is coming along nicely. We had our first arugula harvest a couple days ago and had a delicious salad with it.



The arugula is all disorganized and I am blaming either the cat or chickens for rooting around in the beds while the arugula were just seeds.

The radishes on the other hand are nicely organized and are also doing well. Look at this lovely!




The onions and garlic are also doing fabulously. Not time to pull them yet but I can't wait!




And here are our tomato starts. They're still really small because its so cold here.





And thats all for now. I'll be posting again later with the turnout of my project. A shout out to all you mothers, happy mothers day! Its a little early but I wanted to say thank you for all your encouragement and prayers. We wish we were anywhere near our mothers on Mother's Day but so it goes. And I love everyone else who's not a mother too.

Almost done with school. I will be victorious!

Cutting the Muster

I passed my thesis proposal! I had a really great panel that had by ad large good questions. I still have a lot of my own questions but they are something I can work with. I didn't get any photos of myself giving the presentation but it was really dark and they wouldn't have come out well. In general I did well, it wasn't very smooth but such is life when you're nervous. I wish I had practiced it a little more. I hadn't actually looked at my presentation for about a week and thought about what I was going to say and that showed. Other than that it was pretty straight forward.

This morning Clara moved out of her room and our new roommate Brian (or BHT) is currently moving in as I write this. I'm hoping that this is going to be a good fit, he seems like he'll work well for our house so I'm excited. I haven't a whole lot to write but wanted to let you all know that I've passed my proposal. I still have quite a lot of school work left to do but I have one paper down which is nice. And now I must go and work on another paper.