Today's postings

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Postings made on [Baren] members' blogs
over the past 24 hours ...

Subject: An Hour Here, An Hour There
Posted by: Annie B

Leafy

Argh, I feel like I can't get anything done! I have such a backlog of prints I want to make and the day job is keeping me in front of the computer too much for my liking. I know, I'm going to like the income in a couple of months, but meanwhile I've been feeling frustrated.

So I've gone back to a habit I developed the last time I had a lot of commercial work, and that is to set aside a non-negotiable hour or two every day for studio work. That way I don't lose my momentum. Losing momentum is just about the scariest thing I experience as an artist. It feels dangerous, like if too long a time goes by I'll just never pick it up again.

So off I go, for today's hour and a half of carving.

Oh, and lots of commenters from my last post talked about the meditative quality of carving, especially compared to the intensity of printing. I completely agree. Even in little one-hour chunks, carving is deeply satisfying and relaxing and the time flies by.
Copyright Woodblock Dreams blog

This item is taken from the blog Woodblock Dreams.
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Subject: Moka Genie
Posted by: Andrew Stone


My minor obsession with coffee has a lot to do with having spent the last 10 years living in Italy. Being but a thinly-veiled socialist society they long ago realized that certain staples; gas, bread, chianti, and espresso prices need to be artificially controlled to maintain social order. So, in almost all the bars in Tuscany an espresso will cost .90 cents (euro) as long as you drink it standing up at the bar. (Much more if you sit down at a table where a different "tourist" price list kicks in.)
So while I was living there, I'd drop the kids off at school and head to the bar on the corner, Bar Petrarca, just outside Porta Romana in Florence and have my morning cappuccino and a brioche. Then again, picking them up at 4pm stop in at the Bar Il Poggio for an espresso. I could have made coffee at home, but the ritual of standing at the bar, chatting with the barista and quickly reading the newspaper coupled with a 15 minute break from the house chores and farmwork was important.
So, Imagine my horror to find on my yearly return to the US that a cappuccino costs $3.00-$3.50 here and an espresso--often badly made and served in a paper cup the size of a medium popcorn at the theater often $2. So, while I loved taking coffee socially in Italy, I retreated to the kitchen and the stovetop moka or french press to make coffee that I could afford and brood about the vagaries of fate.
Fortunately, Santa Cruz has some really good coffee bars and while they are still expensive at least the quality is good. And on one foggy morning as I stopped in to the local coffee place and stared at my little espresso cup with the little spoon and sugar cube wondering about my life and life's choices out of the crema and steam rose this little genie who asked me about the ebbs and tides of my life and then (this being California and a surf capital) about the current surf conditions. Then after a bit of hemming and hawing, chatting about the weather and local politics he finally got to the . . .
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This item is taken from the blog Lacrime di Rospo.
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