Art is Everywhere...

"Sam's Art For Sale...$5"

 It's been a busy Fall. The window frames inside Blam! and the trees outside are strung with lines to hang all sorts of artwork, marbled papers, paste papers... Students have been busy learning all sorts of book arts...

Romanesque Binding books...

Nag Hammadi Books...

Carousel Books...

Stiff Leaf books...with windows and pockets..

Coptic Books...and Belgian Binding books..

Books with weaving warps in the pages...

One page.. what should I weave in it???

Traditional Cord-bound and Sewn on Tapes books...

Marbling...Marbling... Marbling!

     At home, the family came together from near and far on a warm sunny day in mid October. As we cooked a Brunswick Stew in a big black iron pot over an open fire in the backyard we played flag football, roasted oysters on the extra coals, played dolls in the treehouse, sat in the fall sunshine and reminisced of the old folks who started the tradition 70 years ago... Here is an excerpt from the 'zine' I wrote that includes that story...and the recipe my mom gave me in 1977 for our family's version of Brunswick Stew.

The Brunswick Stew

Back in the 60’s my parents didn’t have a lot of extra money to entertain their many friends, so Mom & Dad began making a yearly Brunswick stew using the free vegetables Mom got from her parents’ farm in Caswell County. Mom would spend days doing the prep work for the stew: shelling butterbeans, steaming & pealing tomatoes, shucking and cutting corn off the cob, and precooking the beef & chicken. Then, in the early hours of the day of the party, Dad would start a fire in the backyard to have hot coals for cooking the stew. He’d dig a pit beside the wood fire and build a simple brick structure to set the big black iron pot and the charcoals he'd made in the big wood fire. As the day passed, he’d take turns feeding the charcoal fire under the pot with small sticks while stirring the stew simmering in the big black pot. This would take about 5 or 6 hours. Below is the recipe that Mom wrote for me in 1977. It has been changed over the years to reflect the tastes of the eaters or the availability of ingredients... as it also was done was during those early years. For me, this thick, tasty stew is full of the love of family and friends...

Bob Carver’s Brunswick Stew

Precook Meat: Boil, and skin, debone, & discard fat and gristle. 5-6 pounds chuck roast
5-6 pounds chicken
Vegetables:

15 pounds white potatoes: pealed (or not) and cubed 1 1/2 bushel butter beans (or 14 pounds): shelled
18-24 ears corn, cut off ear (or 4 qt. cans)
5 pounds onions, chopped

1/2 bushel tomatoes, chopped (or ten 32 oz cans)
5 pods hot pepper (remove before eating)
1 can pork & beans; 1 pound okra (optional)
*Add corn in the last hour. Use 3 parts tomatoes/potatoes to 1 part corn,butter beans,

Seasoning: 1 cup sugar
3/4 cup salt (too salty! reduce to 1/2 cup)

black pepper to taste (Taste for additional)

Cook in 10-12 gallon iron pot on charcoals until thick and done. Will take 4-6 hours cooking on VERY LOW fire with CONSTANT watching and stirring. Cool before eating (or not!)

Sammy stirs the stew.. almost done!

Lily says, "No Georgia, no oysters for you"

At Blam! Studio... 

Headlines: Artist Studio Explodes! Lost Paint Set and Precious Earrings Found! For Sale: Artistic Masterpieces, $5 each!

A tornado passed through Raleigh today! It only hit this table...

...

It's Labor Day at Blam! studio. This book artist was busy working on an order of 10 handmade boxes for the Raleigh Arts Commission... After the first 10 boxes were finished last week, it was discovered that the measurements were one inch too small... A week later, Set Two is almost complete. The work table at Blam! at mid-day today was a jumble of papers, boxes, tools, and a few unfinished books from earlier days. Actually, though it looks like a tornado went through, many artists create this way.. in all the chaos there is an order.. but step too far away and it all becomes a shifting mass of black holes in which all sorts of things get lost.  

The For Sale corner

Beside the work table are a series of book shelves, cupboards, and cobbled-together shelves where this book artist displays many of the artist books, boxes, letterpress editions, and assorted ephemera that are FOR SALE.  Though many guests are immediately drawn to this corner of the workspace.. not that many works are sold actually... oh well. When taking the photographs for this blog, the artist suddenly saw her long missing round portable watercolor paint kit! There it was!.. right beside the tiny tea set and apothecary bottles and the snow-globe (made last summer when the grandkids came to the studio for a Blam!-Camp day). Can you see it? There are also a pair of missing pearl earrings.. What was the book artist thinking that day?... leaving that stuff around like that... Anyway, it's a relief they're found.

What doesn't belong here????

Across the studio there is a window of drawings by the young grandson of this book artist. On that day, earlier in the summer, while spending the day with his grandma, the 8-year-old finished his third drawing and on hearing they were 'very wonderful!' he asked if he could sell them. The answer was "Sure...?" The next question was, "How much will they pay?" A price was decided and a bunch more drawings were quickly completed. They are now hanging in the window awaiting an avid collector. 

Artwork for Sale: by artists Sam and Lily, $5 each

The young man's Aunt Rachel has already purchased one to hang in her new house. It's a pair of cheetahs.

Cheetahs in a Red Desert, by Sam 2022

Carousel

It's 2022 now. Hello! Where did the time go??? 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 have rung out, and the past years have spun out like a colorful carousel whirling around.  But remembering back to the past 4+ years, the perception was more of a colossal elephant lumbering across the sandlot, filling the space with its majesty and stature, heavy and full of...something significant. It was a time of conflict, for sure, and the unprecedented, but also of common, ordinary things that in the moment felt like blessings. It's been a time of drama, sadness, challenges, a lot of change. As life always is, though maybe not so pointedly. For this book artist, the time has been recorded in creations of books and boxes, and life. Since the book-a-week activity on this blog was postponed many years ago, here are some photos of the bookish events of the past few years...

Jan. 4, 2018: Carving a linoleum block

'Peace Flags' (yellow flag): letterpress poem, block print, atlas page, vintage stamps, bandaids, mica, gold & linen thread

Papermaking Workshop at Blam! studio; June, 2018

Gutenberg press at Plantin-Morteus Museum, Antwerp; Aug. 2018

Panel set 'Pavillion' carousel book and
inspiration postcard (1920's Angers, FR) 

inside 'Pavillion' carousel book
for TRAC (Toe River Arts Council) show 2019

'Pavillion' carousel book in etui (drop sides) box
with paste paper board cover paper; July 2019

Bubblewrap prints of plexiglass
covers for 'Fun House' in 
"The Library" box; Penland Auction 2019

Letterpress illustrations 'The Tale of the Blueberries' for 
"The Library" box; Penland Auction 2019

"The Library" 4 original books in a box,
letterpress, print, paste papers, marbled papers;
edition of 10; 2019

Blam! Studio Print class; Collograph prints;
March, 2020

Blam! Studio Print class; Polyester plate lithographs of 
1800's French Natural History book; March, 2020

Masks; April, 2020

Paper; April, 2020

Watercolor illustration for "A Day in the Life of Corey & Zack",
letterpress edition of 10; April, 2021

Box order for City of Raleigh Arts Commission Awards;
May, 2021

Installation for 'A Book is a Space' show at 
Pullen Arts Center; July-Sept. 2021

Halloween haunted house pop-up cards event
at Pullen Arts Center, Oct. 2021

Paste paper holiday wrapping; Dec. 2021

Postcard exchange with Bookarts group;
January card; 2022

Word Table for Pop-up book class; Feb. 2022

Marbled paper; 2022

Paste paper class at Blam! studio; June, 2022

Derive' poem books, based on Fluxus concept;
6th session Penland Sch. of Craft; 2022
(found mica, kozo, file folders, Penland clay as paint)

Inside a Derive' poem book;
imagery painted with Penland clay; Aug. 2022
Fluxus criteria: non-traditional materials, muted color, abstract; frantic

Mail art from Penland: Sam's Day 3;
August, 2022

Mail Art from Penland:
Lily's Day 2; 2022

Mail art from Penland: Day 6;
2 letters a day for 10 days; 2022