Knitting for Buddhists

January has been a quiet month. Lots of time at home. Maybe a little too much time at home, if you know what I mean.

Three knitting projects have flown off my needles this past week, wrapping up unfinished warm woollies that have been lying around for months. Idle hands may be the Devil's workshop, but man, oh man. Sit down with some mindless knitting and your little brain can crank away in the most sinful directions. Idle hands my ass. It's an idle mind that will really get you in trouble.

Sunday I decided to set down the damned needles and get out that divine camera. Looking at things. Really closely. Will bring you right back to the here and now. Somehow the mundane realities of a snowless winter in upstate New York with lunch boxes to pack and bills to pay is looking a whole lot better.

Note to self: Take more photographs. Really.

Pretty Ribbons

When I was a wee one, at Christmas my great grandmother Alice filled her glass candy dish with ribbon candy and set it out on the end table in the living room. Nana had cheeks soft as a ripe peach and the kindest disposition of any woman ever born into my family (self humbly included).

I loved picking up the heavy lid of that candy dish and smelling the weird comingling of mint, fruit, cinnamon and Pepto-Bismol that those sugary ribbons gave off. Never really cared to eat it, but I knew Santa was circling the neighborhood when the ribbon candy made its annual appearance.

Baked

I am intrigued by one of Toby Hancock's Polaroid out-takes from the exhibition  "Outside the Lines" at The Impossible Project's NYC Space (through the end of January).

His other-worldly image of a Frank Gehry building in L.A. is rapturous (if you Flickr, you can see it here).

His technique, which he kindly shared, inspired me to crank up the heat on my prints. In the oven. Two hours in a low oven and the little chemistry lab between the layers of this instant film goes a bit bonkers.

Before baking, this was just a failed attempt to capture my friends' old pump house and the garden cart that's been leaning against it as long as I can remember.  After baking, it is something entirely different. Not sure that I love it, but it is entirely different.

Creamy

I don't usually see it when I begin. And not when I am knee deep. But when I'm wrapping up, with instant film drying and gracefully aging all over my work table, I begin to take notice.

Photographs like to set themselves up in series. I'm thinking of this week's little grouping as "Creamy."

Good film. Good light. Oh, and not incidentally, a really good new studio which lacks for nothing. Dedicated space. Glorious space. And orderliness. A real catalyst.

Polaroid Week 2011. Monday

It's Polaroid Week 2011 over on Flickr. Five days. Two shots a day. Fresh work. No dredging through the archives. How could you not?

Yesterday I rolled up my sleeves and gave it a go. Three types of film. Three cameras. No re-takes. 

(sometimes a little homework assignment is just the thing)

Peas in a Pod

Back in March, the peas went in to the garden. It seemed impossibly cold and forbidding, but up they came as peas will do.

Last week (bigger peas than these) matured, and we had one little side dish of our own peas with a drizzle of sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.

But, not before I got them under the lens of the old Polaroid camera (as you might have expected).

Summer Time

With the Independence Day weekend approaching, we're doing just what we otta be doing.

Sleeping late. Diving into the pool before breakfast. Fighting the squirrels, chipmunks, robins, cardinals, deer and that *&%!# woodchuck for the mulberries. Eating them with vanilla ice cream. And generally enjoying summer, while the ivy grows a foot a week up the side of our little corner of heaven.

Half Full

It is rainy and a little bitter outside today, but the glass is half full. The sweet pea seeds are planted in the cold frame. Radishes, mizuna and shell pea seeds are tucked under a blanket of composted manure in the garden. And, the forsythia along the road are just about to open. (Of course, the vintage Land Camera collection is arranged neatly on the shelf awaiting an afternoon of shooting bloom.)

Tuesdays in Thailand

Oh, how I miss my local market in Chiang Mai. These tiny little Thai eggplants are essential in a good green curry. Though I've searched in the best markets here, none are to be found in my part of the Hudson Valley. This year I'll find some seed and plant them in the garden. Authentic green curry by August!

Perfect Masons

Mason jars, especially older ones, remind me of my grandmother Rosalie. She is a fearless canner. As a child, I watched her put up hundreds of jars of green beans, green tomato pickle and mincemeat. Hot hot jars and red red fingers. My own canning tends toward marinara from our home-grown San Marzanos, but my method is all Grammie.

Orphaned Urchin

From a stony beach littered with sea urchins in a little cove where almost no one ever goes. Heaven.

Feeling Heartsy

Enjoy the long Valentine's weekend, and go ahead, make it sweet and even a little mushy.