Happy Father’s Day! I’m feeling extra thankful for our little family today. It has been a tough week with Charlie being home from daycare most of the week while we both had to work (all three of us were frustrated and no one had a good time or got enough work/play in), but it has been a nice weekend and I’m looking forward to the family outing we have planned this afternoon.
Three times this week when Charlie is flopping around and having trouble getting comfortable at bedtime, he has crawled into my arms and fallen asleep. It melts my heart every time.
Charlie has started to sing to himself recently, and gets excited when we recognize the song and join in. The past couple days it has been Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Also on the music front, he has been playing music with Amanda on a small music set he has. He stays in beat on the drum while Amanda plays Wheels on the Bus on the xylophone! Thank goodness he got her musical abilities instead of mine. I can’t even keep a beat.
Charlie has also started to address us directly by saying “Momma” or “Dada” or “Mommy” or “Daddy” and then what he wanted to say. That is new in the last week or so.
He’s requested going on a walk every day (sometimes multiple), which we are more than happy to oblige. We follow his lead, which usually means going to the end of the street and into the woods, where he likes to pick up and throw rocks. We saw a rabbit on Tuesday and he has stopped every day since at the same spot to look for it again. He brought his first rock home on Saturday. That has to be a little boy milestone, right? I know I had a rock collection. Still do.
The garden is looking good! Potatoes on the left and tomatoes/tomatillos on the right. No photos of the other garden bed this week, but plenty of peas and kale to pick.
I went to an art show here in Peekskill on Saturday at the new Center for Machine Arts, started by Bre Pettis. The focus is creating art with machines, and the majority used pen plotters, though one artist used a metal CNC.
I was most interested in the generative landscapes that Leo McElroy made (I made some generative art last year as well, so I enjoyed chatting with him about his process) and some studies of natural leaf patterns by Jenn Karson, who I think did a great job showing her process and some of her experiments along the way. She also showed some of the same pieces in different mediums, and sometimes inverted (milling the lines vs empty space on aluminum).
I chatted with Jenn about what it might take to do some of the same work on wood from the same tree species as the leaves, and if done on greenwood what kind of interesting elements the natural drying process would add to the piece.
Check out Jenn Karson’s Damaged Leaf Dataset, it is pretty cool.
There is another show on July 22 with a slightly different cohort.
Going to the show made me start thinking about how I can create art again. One idea I had is to make an ongoing series of bookmarks for places I visit. I love picking up bookmarks from local bookstores, so why not make some of my own? I’ll need to cut some cardstock and leave it in my backpack with some pens.
Also, perhaps I can start by making some for Peekskill. Perhaps an outline of this section of the Hudson River (I bet I can turn the GIS data from naturalearthdata.com into an SVG that is plottable or cuttable), or maybe a sketch of the view from the waterfront.
WordCamp Europe happened last weekend and I got a bunch of photos from friends who attended, letting me know that one of my pieces from the Museum of Block Art was included as a postcard for the attendees. Each person got a pack of all of the same kind and was encouraged to trade with others to get a full set. I love that.
Two meals that turned out better than expected this week:
- Whole grilled chicken. I spatchcocked it, then grilled it over direct heat on each side for a little bit, moved it to indirect heat, and finished over direct heat again. We ate it with sauteed chard with garlic and lemon, and orzo rice. Again, I’m pleased with the grill we got last month. The spatchcocked chickens I tried on the old one got burnt to a char from all the flareups and it was too small to set up two zones (direct and indirect heat).
- Rigatoni with sausage and kale. The tomato paste/wine/onion/garlic/fennel seed/cream sauce was quick and easy to make. We all loved it. One to remember.
It is strawberry season. We’ve been getting fruit every week from local farms (as well as our regular veggie CSA), so we’ve been eating a lot of strawberries the last two weeks. some made it into this quick cobbler.
Off to try pizza at Hudson & Packard and walk across the Hudson with Amanda and Charlie 👋
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