Zach. End of Summer Studios

Zach spent a month at the MassArt Summer Studios this year. It's a great program for high school students interested in studio art (or fashion or jewelry or graphic arts). Everyone has to take a "2d and 3d fundamentals" course and "Issues and Images" class, then you can specialize in various disciplines. Zach took ceramics and photography.

They visited a lot of museums in the area like the MFA, Gardner, ICA, and the Harvard Sackler, and discussed the work there and what it meant, etc. During drawing, they got to work with live models for the first time. At one point, each student brought in their work for a critique, which Zach enjoyed alot! He said he got great feedback and ideas. It seems like they got a lot done in a short amount of time and it convinced him to continue to pursue the arts. I'm not sure I would have predicted this when he was 2 yrs. old, but it makes sense now!

Each class had a final project due at the end, which was included in the student show last Saturday. Above is his photo essay, which had to do with smiles. Yes, we had to pose one night about 11 or 12 for this one. (In fact, working late at night, sometimes w/ assistance, might have been a theme, too!)

The ceramics final project was quite interesting, since it was more conceptual than the work we had seen before. It has to do with opening up....to me, it looks very organic and has a lot of movement in it. A lot of people at the show seemed to be impressed by it. I think Zach wanted the glaze to be a bit different than it turned out. We're trying it out in our garden now. :)

For the 2D/3D classs, he did a wire sculpture - actually 4 of them, with 2 figures each. It's showing a sequence of a kick...i.e. someone kicking someone else and falling. Here it is at the show. (His teacher suggested a larger figure, so the last one is bigger, but he used it for effect to show the other one being dominated.)

I won't post all the comments from the instructors, but I will say that he did well there and is looking to attend next year! Hopefully he can get the application done early and we'll be done with it.

I'll post more later or on his secret website, which is sitting there doing nothing so far...

Chris

Butterfly

The butterfly bush actually attracts butterflies! This isn't the usual monarch that we see around here, but it's pretty cool looking (and big). We saw this outside the front window and I ran out to take a bunch of photos.

Chris

New to Me Music

Here are a few recent discoveries in the collection:

Carrie Rodriguez - saw her on Austin City Limits and had to check it out further. Sounds modern and traditional at the same time. Interesting songs.

The Be Good Tanya's - I think they came up in an amazon.com list after looking at the Wailin' Jennys. Who knows? but they're good! They seem to be on leave at the moment.

Red Molly - We saw them at Club Passim in Cambridge recently and they are very entertaining and great musicians. They are still on tour.

Sara Watkins - Solo album. She of Nickel Creek, I enjoyed this one, too.

Bill Frisell - Disfarmer - new CD from Frisell written to accompany a photo exhibit by Arkansas portrait photographer Michael Disfarmer. You can hear it on NPR if you want. Another mix of new and old sounding music. Some of the stuff sounds like Phillip Glass and other like Hank Williams.

Marc Ribot - After reading an article in my favorite mag - Fretboard Journal - decided I needed to explore his music. Hard to pin down, depending on the setting, but I like the Cuban inspired band Los Cubanos Postizos and his solo guitar work, like on the Masada Guitars album, which also has Frisell on it. He's also worked with Tom Waits, Albert Ayler, and the Raising Sand album with Robert Plant and Alison Kraus.

Oldies but Goodies Dept.

Picked up some blasts from the past - Little Feat, Old and in the Way, It's a Beautiful Day, Pentangle, Mingus, Wes, Grisman, and Piazzola! Too many to mention and go into detail on, but a good mix to add to the collection.

I will mention one name, however, and that is Cal Collins, who I saw in Cincinnati quite a bit when I was there and is the most awesome jazz guitarist you never heard of. I had all his records and the digital versions are hard to come by. Luckily discovered some online, because they are not all available on CD or mp3.

That's it for now, check out this music now.

Chris

Vacation Tidbits

A few random thoughts while on vacation...

We've had lobster twice so far. We usually buy it (cooked) from O'Reilly's Coop in Cape Porpoise. This year prices are about the same as last year - $11 for each 1.5 lb. lobster. Yummy. This is the only time I eat lobster. I guess I'm spoiled.

Before we came to Maine, I picked up an old Kent aluminum banjo from some coot in Roslindale. He said he hadn't played it in 30 years. I took it off his hands for $50 and got a bridge and strings from Buckdancer's in Portland (a great music store). The neck is straight and it plays good. Also picked up a book to learn the frailing (aka clawhammer) technique. It's easy to get started, but hard to perfect. Let's just say that I can make sounds now and I serenade the kids when it's time for them to get up, usually past noon. It's loud and effective at that. :)

Yesterday I took a walk out to the rocks in front of our cottage while everyone else went to see the new Harry Potter movie (not my thing). When the tide goes out, it's about a quarter mile out and you can walk to them. They are a lot bigger than you think just looking from afar and being mostly covered up during high tide. Here I am out on the ocean side of the rocks (self-timed photo, of course!).

This is kind of a weird one - lobster traps and ropes getting taken over by beach grass. I guess at this point, no one is bothering to clean it up.

The weather has been spectacular after the first couple of days of rain. I was kind of hoping that the averages would start to work in our favor after such a rainy June. We've been able to take a few long bike rides. Once over to Kennebunkport to have lunch at Arundel Wharf, per tradition. Another good one is to Hills Beach and lunch in Biddeford Pool (always good to have that lunch goal in front of you). I played golf once (so far) with an IBM colleague who also vacations up here. We had a visit from Bob, Alyssa, and baby Milo (1 yr) - cute, but a boatload of work keeping up with the baby now that he's walking. Then there was the hurricane force winds to contend with!

I read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, which happened to be on the bookshelf in the cottage. It certainly makes sense to me. He spends a good 2/3 of the book explaining how the food conversation has changed over time from "food as food" to food as a breakdown of nutrients that we consume in order to be healthy. It's a big indictment of the food industry and nutrition science, although they are not necessarily to blame - we have more food products than ever, and it's cheap, too. But all the processing of the component parts (wheat, soy, corn, meat, dairy) has a price too - to our health...high obesity rates, heart disease, and diabetes. It was an easy read, despite a lot of nerdy food and nutrition research. At the end he offers some simple "rules" for eating better. A couple of my favorites (summarized): 1) If a product claims to be healthy, run away! 2) If a product has more than 5 or so ingredients, be suspicious; especially if you can't pronounce them. 3) Buy from local sources. 4) Eat mostly plants. Stay away from refined anything, esp. high fructose corn syrup. I think that the closest diet fad I've seen that matches to the eating well philosophy is the South Beach Diet. Anyway, good book, good reminders.

Speaking of food, Lucas and Giulia made some awesome clam chowder the other night! They are quite the cooks. It even got the Zach seal of approval. I see more of this recipe in my future. Lucas awesome grilled up some bratwurst he was having a craving for. They made a fire that night and the police even came by to check for the fire permit, which I never heard of them doing before. Luckily this was right before Giulia came out with the wine. Reportedly, Seth (friend of Lucas) said to the police as they were approaching and he didn't know it was them, "Do you approach bearing booze?" in his best Shakespearian voice. Later, they ended up killing the wine plus another 6-pack or so of beer. Kids!

that's it for now - off to enjoy the day.

Chris

Beach Grass

I took a ride to the end of the beach last night at sunset and got a couple of good pics.
I really like the one above - good light and angular, sharp focus. Sunsets themselves are hard to capture...must search for techniques on google. :) Below is my attempt at capturing the sunset.


Greetings from Maine.


Chris

Vermont Instruments New Site

Vermont Instruments, run by George Morris and Adam Buchwald, where I took my sabbatical and began the luthier journey (is it ever over?) has put up a new web site. Our class picture (Fall 2008) is on the home page, taken on the last day before we went our separate ways. My guitar was still in pieces after I put in the inlay on the headstock, so I held one of the tenor guitars that was hanging around (literally) the shop and Adam had just strung up.

They've also put up a testimonials page, in which yours truly is pictured WITH my freshly-strung guitar, and a link to my chronicles on this blog. (See sidebar links.) A recognize a couple of my photos mixed in there, too. :) If you are interested in taking the class, head on over there. Adam is also teaching a repair class, which sounds good, too.

I'm happy that they have added an alumni section, where presumably a forum will appear where we can ask questions and trade tips. So far, no login info yet, but it's coming.

respectfully,

Chris

Flowers at the Arnold Arboretum

Went for a walk in the Arboretum yesterday before the Lilac Sunday/Mother's Day crowd descends on JP today. Spectacular flowering trees and lilacs!! I posted a few of the best photos on picasa - click the image above to go there and see the full versions. You can almost smell the lilacs from these. Lots of happy birds were tweeting, too.
Chris