Gallery Walk is tonight!

We're hosting an open studio/ spring cleaning sale at Foam City this evening. There will be a lot of generously discounted paintings, prints on paper, and older pieces of pottery that you can shop from, and also stencil paintings that Zach will spray on the spot for you for $10. If you come between the hours of 6-9pm, you can also watch Zach re-paint the mural on his garage door! Need more reasons to come? Well, it's Friday and what better way to start the weekend then with the first Gallery Walk of the season! There are also many other new shows and exhibits downtown that you'll want to see and talented artists you'll want to meet! We hope to see you even if it rains! I promise you won't melt! :)

p.s. if you are not within driving distance of Lafayette, we are also having a sale over in our Etsy shop. Use coupon code "SPRINGCLEAN2013" for 15% off everything in the shop. Coupon good through Sunday!

Mini May Garden Update

The weather in NW Indiana is finally pepper friendly! Which means we have to clear out our raised bed to get it ready for pepper plants. Yesterday I harvested baby greens and transplanted whatever I could save. The salad greens and the kale were just starting to grow real lush and it traumatized me to have to pick them already. But the peppers have to go in the ground this week ...

And besides, we did get a really great salad out of the baby greens so it wasn't a total loss.

The Chinese vegetables were definitely feeling the heat. Most of them started growing really tall and flowering. I tried to pick whatever I could for a simple mixed greens stir-fry, and I managed to save a little tray of the Hong Kong baby cabbage.

8 pepper plants have taken the place of the greens in the raised bed. We bought 5 of them, and 3 are our very own seedlings! Our garden is growing at an amazing rate. I can't wait to give a full garden update at the end of the month!

Open Studio/ Spring Cleaning Sale/ Live Action Mural

tomorrow evening is gallery walk here in lafayette.  i've been cleaning up the studio all week, and it is still a disaster.  it'll get there though.  it's the first gallery walk of the summer, and i'm hosting an open studio and painting performance at my studio at foam city.

i've been at foam for a little over a year now, and i've made a ton of stuff, and now it's time to clear some space so i can make a ton more stuff.  i'm also hoping to convert my studio into a clay space so i can get back to doing ceramics.  but to do that i've got to clear some space.  so i'm putting everything in the studio on 'get it for way cheap' sale.  now is the time to pick up that over-priced piece of art for MUCH less, and in the process you can help me purge some stuff from my work space.  

i'm also going to be painting a new mural on my garage door.  last year around this time i did the TV/robot mural, but it's time for a change.  i'll be using the 'stained glass' stencils and other patterns to create a new piece.  i'm going to start it this afternoon, then tomorrow i'll be painting through gallery walk.  should be fun to watch.  you can see my process in progress, filled with drips, drops, splashes, splotches, stencils and spray cans.

it should be a fun night.  there will be old prints and recent prints on paper.  there are assemblage paintings.  there are large pieces and small pieces.  there is some ceramics.  there will be stencils on cardboard created while you wait for $10.  and you can check out some of my in-progress pieces, like the new recycled village i've been working on.  

come join the experience.

the tale of one strawberry

If you have been keeping up with me on Instagram, you're already familiar with how obsessed I've been with that one particular strawberry we are growing. It is the first one, so it's gotten all my attention. I've documented it since the very beginning, from when the flower first bloomed. I caught a picture of the bee who helped pollinate it, and I captured the little berry in all its different growth stages. Today, little strawberry joyfully reached the end of its growing journey. When we woke up this morning, we saw it fully red and glistening in the daylight. And Zach wasted no time in eating it. Ahhhhhhhhhhh. Yummmmmmm. So glad we beat the birds!

Recipe of the Week: No Cook Tomato Sauce

It is currently a springy 81°F and Zach has decided that it is too warm to turn on the stove in the house. We ate a grilled chicken salad last night, and tonight we are grilling some Jamaican Jerk chicken wings on the patio. If you feel the same way as Zach about turning on the stove for extended periods on a hot day, today's recipe is just for you! This no-cook tomato pasta sauce is simple, flavorful, and makes use of the freshest ingredients. The only time you need to turn on your stove, is to cook your pasta for 7-9 minutes!

(recipe adapted from chow.com)
Ingredients

1lb cherry tomatoes, quartered (buy organic! cherry tomatoes are on the "Dirty 15" list)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced finely
2 tbsp Italian flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh oregano, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
ground black pepper
3/4 cup feta cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1lb pasta

Directions
In a large glass bowl, combine tomatoes, oil, garlic, parsley, oregano, salt and pepper.
Let sit at room temperature to allow the flavors to meld, 30 mins to 1 hour.
Cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of cooking water, then drain.
Add hot pasta to the tomato sauce mixture, then add reserved pasta water, feta cheese, parmesan, and toss until evenly combined.
Serve immediately or at room temperature.

* your leftovers will keep getting tastier!

p.s. next week we'll share a recipe for delicious sun-dried tomato turkey meatballs that will go great with this! stay tuned!

from the studio: 5.13

i've been in a bit of a depressive funk lately.  perhaps it's just one of those 'block' periods where everything seems confusing and disconnected, or perhaps i'm just depressed.  either way, while i've been making only little pointless things and elements of incomplete ideas, i've not made anything of any significance in a while.  but that hasn't stopped mindy.  she has found her stride in the studio, printing up a storm over the weekend.  she's intent on learning how to use our new sewing machine, and she seems to have fabric on the brain.  but she needs a bit of help learning the machine, so in the meantime she's been printing on blank pieces we've picked up from the mall.

she started last week with some cute owl prints on a color block dress.  then she asked for a couple of new smaller robots that she could pattern with.  i carved up a couple of small blocks and she got busy making new patterns with them.  i went and spent some time with a friend, and when i got home she had created this super cute robot/gear tshirt for herself, and i was jealous.  thankfully i know the producer of said garment, so now we have matchy-matchy robot shirts.  a bit lame.  ok, real lame, but we promise not to wear them at the same time.  and how could i resist.

block print robot shirt

block print robot dress

a while back, mindy asked for an abstract cat head print, with the intent of making a dress ala the etsy lady that makes the cute cat head dress.  even though my image is very different from hers, randomly placed repeating images of a cat head around any dress looks like a rip off of hers.  so we've struggled a bit with how to use them.  yesterday morning though, mindy woke up with a great idea of how to use our little cat head print.  i blocked in a large abstracted cat head shape with masking tape and then she filled it in with the repeating print.  it's such a fun icon.  it looks like a cross between a heart, superman, and a cat head.  a great logo, filled with kitties and paw prints and a great way to utilize the cat head print in a wholly new way.

so while i've been dragging, mindy has really picked up my slack and been producing.  now we just have to get these thing out there for sale.  but the ink has to dry first.

How to re-grow your romaine lettuce

In an effort to try something new, I stuck a romaine lettuce stub in a cup of water.
This is it after 3 days:

And this is it after a week of growing:

All you have to remember to do is change out the water daily, and you'll have another crop of new lettuce in a couple of weeks. And as if we don't already have a variety of loose leaf lettuces growing in our garden, I have 3 of these growing in our kitchen, each a couple of days behind the other!

Other vegetables you can try growing this way include celery, green onions, and lemongrass.