This past Friday, Kim and I headed over to the farm to work and happened upon the first official Pasture Pie night!  The pizza oven was fired up and CSA customers were invited over to share in the fun.  They went into the garden and picked their own fresh basil to add to the farm made cheeses.  The also made a lovely raspberry, mint, and honey iced tea.  It was a really beautiful night to enjoy fresh food and great company.

I went back to the farm on the 4th to see the progress of the clay pizza oven...it's coming right along!! Fully modeled and the opening has been carved out with some wooden supports to keep the shape while it completely dries.  It looks as though they've lit a few small fires in it to dry the inside at the same rate as the outside.  I can almost taste the pizza!!

Pizza Oven I, Acrylic & Ink on Instant Film, 3x3"

Apex, Acrylic & Ink on Instant Film, 3x3"

Continued with another painted instant film image of the barn.  After a great artist's meeting at the Harlow tonight, I've been inspired to attempt some larger versions of these pieces.  I love the intimate size of these current ones but think it would be nice to work in a slightly larger size, as well.

Kabobs

Also wanted to share these images of some of the meat I've been enjoying from Wholesome Holmstead.  I picked up a package of kabob meat and we had more than enough for 4 people.  SO tasty!!  We put onions and red peppers on for 3 of us and, for mine, I put granny smith apples and broccoli.  YUM!!

We've been barbecueing every night with meat and chicken from the farm (and the bacon...OH THE BACON!!)

I returned to the Wholesome Holmstead farm last Saturday to observe the clay oven workshop.  The plan was to have an open invitation for people to come and help them build a small clay pizza oven.  They had put the word out to their friends, family, and customers, and community...and what a jovial bunch showed up!  All ready to get their hands dirty and spirits lifted.

They gathered around a mound of clay and sat on buckets and dug right in.  The 'bricks' they were making started as palm-sized balls.  "Are you making cannon balls?" I said with a laugh as I walked up to this scene of pyramids of round clay stacked high.  I guess it was an arsenal of sorts, but not for hurling at enemies.  Rather, it was for throwing at the mound of sand that was the form for the oven that is going to be the center of many a fine gathering of friends and neighbors.



About a week before they had a mason come in to pour a cement base.  And today, before I arrived, they had laid fire bricks over the base and created a mound of sand on top of it.  This was to be the form of the oven-- a dome (one of the finest structures in the world, if you ask my husband--I tend to agree!)  We arrived in time to watch them make a bunch of bricks and then start compacting them against the sand form.  Once they had all the bricks arranged and troweled for shape, they were going to cut the hole of the oven's opening and dig out all of the sand, leaving behind a hollow form, ready to dry out and become their oven.


I plan on going back this week and seeing the finished product. I'll definitely report back on that and also let you know when the first firing and pizza party is!  They're going to make pizza with their fresh veggies and meat-- I can't wait to try some! 

Kim's painting of the WH sign

Kim and I had planned on going back to the farm on June 23rd to help them build their pizza oven...but nature had other plans! Heavy rain was in the forecast so the farm rescheduled for the following week.  But we figured we would get a few hours in before the droplets started so we packed the car and headed to a shady spot in the grass.   It turned out to be very hot before the rain started but we stuck it out for a couple hours to paint.

Kim wanted to paint the Wholesome Holmstead sign that sits at the opening to the driveway at the farm stand.  This is the first piece she made- mixed media on paper, 9x12"

Just Like Home,  Acrylic & Casein, 10" x 10"

I'm still fascinated with all the structures on the land.  This time I focused on the silhouette of the house.  The structure and layout of this building is really similar to my house, which used to be a farm back in the day.  I think that's why I'm so drawn to it.  This is a smaller painting (10x10") that I had started in the studio for a different purpose but it just wasn't jiving.  So I decided to take it along and paint on top of it.  This piece ties in my painting with the monotype imagery I've been working on.

To take a break from the paint and explore the farm some more, I walked towards the area where the pizza oven was going to be.  Behind it, I found one of the red barns that I love so much and leaning up against it was a beautiful wooden apple ladder.  It appears to be old and I imagine it's been used on the farm for decades...maybe just my imagination but I like to think that!  I had some old Polaroid cameras with me but the experimental film inside of them just wasn't capturing what I was seeing through the lens.  TTV was the next best thing so I made an intricate set up of a milk crate and cameras stacked on top of each other to steady the image.

When I got back to the studio I monkeyed around with the instant film images that were not developed correctly.  Some were too light to be anything or had thick blue lines through them or patches of undeveloped film.  (I've been using Impossible Film and some are breathtaking in the experimentation yet others are frustrating.)  Taking some ink and acrylic to the film, I recaptured the images and, in some cases, re-imagined what was there.