Hot Texas Garden

Sam Marzano tomato seeds from Seeds From Italy

102. Yes, that's the predicted temperature for this afternoon. It's been a hot, dry, windy June, and it's not even summer yet. We have been watering a lot, and even so the eggplant and peppers look wilted in the middle of the afternoon. Today I planted seeds for San Marzano Redorta, an Italian plum tomato that is great for sauce as well as for fresh eating. It is a big, wild, sprawling plant that should do great in the hot weather and give us a jungle of tomatoes all over the garden into late fall.

One of our few grape clusters, but a really big one

This is a grapevine growing in our side yard. I'm pretty sure the variety is Flame. I don't know how vineyards go out and harvest all of one variety of grapes in the field at one time. We picked our first cluster of grapes over a week ago, a couple more have ripened just now.

And speaking of vineyards, this was one of our stops last Saturday during our Dr Pepper 120th birthday trip.

Looking from the deck of the Bluff Dale Winery
across the vineyard, near Granbury

Wood and Glass - Getting Ready for Arts Goggle Show

Wood panels ready to be primed

I have been busy for the last week or two getting ready to show my art and jewelry at Arts Goggle, a fun one day event in Fort Worth's near southside neighborhood that is like Gallery Night and a street fair and art festival combined. This is such a lovely area, centered around Magnolia, where the old buildings are being renovated and great new restaurants and other businesses have moved in. The twice a year art festival includes local artists and musicians almost exclusively and has a very nice neighborhood feel.

I cut and sanded the squares of wood in the top picture last week, and several of them became canvases for small mixed media works.

Also last week, I was very happy to (finally!) get the replacement top (the main part with all the elements) for my kiln. I have been on a cutting, stacking and cooking glass spree ever since. I'm going to have to tear myself away from the kiln and get all my pricing, tagging and packing done!

Fused glass pendants, mostly with dichroic glass - the small teardrops on the right were my first experiments with fusing in a mold. It's been a bit trial and error and most of the ones I like needed a 2nd firing with some glass and glass frit added.

Arts Goggle is Saturday May 14 4-10 pm. I will be at 209 South Main in the back room (it has a separate back entrance) of the Robert Kelly Architect building.

Finding Cool Art at Main Street

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Fort Worth Main Street Arts Festival. Actually, I went twice. Blocks and blocks of downtown Fort Worth are shut down for the weekend for "(t)he Southwest's largest, four-day visual arts and entertainment festival, four days of fine art, food, fun and festivities! Rated as the Number 1 Arts Festival in Texas and the 3rd largest Arts Festival in the country as rated by the Harris List and the Art Fair SourceBook."


An amazing variety of works were represented, but of course, a few artists stood out.





2011 Commemorative Poster
by artist Richard Curtner


I was really taken by the serene beauty of Molly Barnes' blown glass vessels. In fact there were a couple I really wanted to take home with me, one in particular that I recalled with longing and regret on Sunday evening.

Ms. Barnes chatted with us for a while, explaining her glass blowing process, in particular the way she creates the ribbons of translucent color with streamers of molten glass.










Chuck Kaiser's mixed media works are both intricate and intriguing and definitely deserving of a closer look. He works with wax in a batik like process, as well as with paints, ink and pieces of text, often on surfaces like newspaper.

This artist was also kind enough to take the time to discuss and explain his work.












As we went past the lovely silver and gemstone jewelry display of Ashka Dymel , I asked Edward if he saw anything that looked familiar. For Valentine's this year, he had given me a pair of labradorite and garnet earrings by this designer, purchased at Uncommon Angles in Montgomery Plaza in Fort Worth.

(I recognized her work immediately, but I'm afraid Edward had to be reminded ... He does have excellent taste though.)







At the end of the day on Sunday, we
discovered this Arlington, Texas artist in the Emerging Artist area. Anne Cubbage carves books. I had never seen anything like it, and I wish you could get a better sense of the depth and detail from the pictures here.

The old books that she uses, as well as the illustrations and the bits of text that are highlighted all connect and have special meaning, sometimes decipherable by the viewer and sometimes just to the artist.



This is obviously just a taste of the art on display this year, but through the link at the top to the Main Street Arts page, you can see a few works by each of the participating artists.

Next year's festival is April 19-22. I'm going to put it on my calendar right now.

Wine Glass Painting Experiment #1

Instead of just settling for dinner and a video for our weekly girls' night, when Edward is off at band practice, last night my youngest daughter and I decided to try our hands at glass painting.

Pebeo Vitrea brand supplies from Michaels

My glass, done almost completely with the markers

They were a little too transparent for the clear glass, in my opinion. The paint was also slightly transparent unless applied thickly. Note to myself for next time: It might turn out better if I have a design in mind before sitting down with a brush in my hand.

R's glass, in progress

My daughter worked very diligently on her glass with the white paint and a small brush. At the end she added a couple of green dots with a marker, but requested that I get some of the metallic gold highlighting paint. It comes in a tube, kind of like gel icing; I assume it comes out thicker and is more opaque than the markers.

After my glass, I painted a white ceramic mug. The Vitreo markers showed up well on the white.

I like the little dots best.

This evening after my Italian class, we will heat set the glass and mug by placing them in a cool oven, heating to 325 for 40 minutes, then turning off and letting set a while longer while the oven cools. After that they will be good to wash and, most importantly, drink out of.

There is a lot of information about painting wineglasses on the internet, including several videos on youtube. Today I did some research, and we will be trying this again with some enamel craft paints for glass. I read somewhere that you should never mix the different brands of glass paints, but I saw a blog post about a wine glass painting party for a bridal shower (great idea!), and they used 3 different paints, evidently with no problem. I would love to be able to paint with the opaque paints, then use the markers for embellishments and lettering.

Texas Fall Garden and Thanksgiving Food

Thanksgiving harvest

Here it is, the day before Thanksgiving, a little windy, a little balmy, and 81 degrees. I am harvesting more veggies from my garden. I love fall gardening in Texas! In the picture above, the rectangular platter is full of what I picked from my garden this afternoon, 15 tomatoes, a dozen peppers and some okra. In the bowl, are tomatoes and okra from the last few days. I am picking a few tomatoes a little early, because, in the mercurial nature of Texas weather, we are going to go from Indian summer to 28 degrees tomorrow night. I have so many more green tomatoes and peppers to pick or cover up before the cold front.

Most of the green tomatoes can be cut off on the branches and hung up in a dark closet, where they will ripen slowly, and give us ripe tomatoes for Christmas.

Fall flowers, pansies and chrysanthemums

In the spirit of the season, that is...FOOD...here is one of the dishes I will be bringing to my mother's for Thanksgiving tomorrow, Wild rice mix with butternut squash and green apples.

Unfortunately, I won't be using the butternut squash from my garden, my biggest squash is the size of a squat zucchini. I guess I'll be covering it during the cold snap and hoping for the best.

New Fairy Tale Poetry Anthology

Well, I am taking the plunge again!

My good friend and wonderful poet Christopher Soden and I have just launched Rainbow Crow Press.






Fairy Tale Poetry Anthology

Call for submissions


Rainbow Crow Press is currently seeking finely crafted, imaginative poems for an anthology of poetry based on traditional fairy tales. Submit up to 6 poems to RainbowCrowPress@gmail.com with Submission (poet’s last name) as the subject. We will ask for selected poems to be sent to us in an RTF attachment, but we will not be opening attachments during the selection process.
Deadline January 1, 2011.



I was very excited to get our call for submissions listed on Duotrope this morning, and have sent requests for listing to New Pages and Poetry Kit as well. Hopefully, wonderful poetry will be rolling into our inbox soon!

I have always had a strong attachment to fairy tales. I think they speak to something very elemental in us. Over the years I have written 13 or so fairy tale based poems. It seems that quite a few of these turn out to be coming of age poems.





Here is a sample poem, by me...

Red

All day I am enchanted.

Newly nubile,

clothed in red—

a secret I did not yet

let my mother in on.

Sent on my errand,

guarding the cakes, my goodies,

I am not to speak to strangers.

I am not to speak.

Body held clean and warm

and safe, swaddled in red.

Red for fullness, life—

secrets whispered for a maid,

a woman’s promise.

The forest floor is soft

with leaves, crimson and brown,

year after year of brittle autumn

cradling new life, bed of ferns

uncoiling, tender green.

I must keep my eyes straight—

mustn’t stray, look into the eyes

of hungry wolves in the shadow—

guard my sweetness.

Crunch and give, as I step off the path,

the forest floor is soft.

I have walked this far.

When my fingers find his tangled hair,

there is no cake, no thought

for Grandma.

He says, Red.

Suddenly, I am ravenous.

-Anita M. Barnard

published in Illya's Honey

nominated for 2008 Pushcart Prize

Arts Goggle Fort Worth 2010

On October 2nd I took part in the Fort Worth Arts Goggle, an event that is equal parts Gallery Night, Art Festival and Street Fair. I had a wonderful gallery/room to myself in an historic building in the Kelly Architecture office.



It was a beautiful night, the weather was perfect, lots of friends, family and art lovers came out. It was great to be able to display so much of my art: paintings, collage, mosaic and also jewelry.



R put herself in charge of the jewelry display and spent a lot of time arranging everything just so.


Damon and Edward settled in to hang out with me for the evening, in the the mosaic corner.




Ian was offering to take off his shirt to attract more customers, but, as generous as that was, I took a pass...

Arts Goggle happens in FW's Southside neighborhood twice a year. If you are local, make plans to check it out in the spring.