“Facebook Pay it Forward 2011: I promise to send something handmade to the first 5 people who leave a comment. They must in turn post this and send something they made to the first 5 people who comment on their status. The rules are that it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 5 people sometime in 2011. (What a great way to start 2011.)”

This was my cousin Karen’s Facebook status one day in January. HOW COOL! Right up my alley. It feels really good to give with out the expectation of recieving.  By the time I saw it 5 people had already responded. Luckily my friend Terry joined the pay it forward game and I was able to be one of her 5 people. That means I posted the same status and 5 people responded. Here is what I made:

Eddy Line for Micah

Stern Squirt for Nate

Earrings for Cyndi

Beginnings for Janet

A pillow for Kim

Just today I shipped the last of the pay it forward presents – this post might spoil the surprise for a few.  It took longer than I expected, but it was really fun and a bit challenging. Especially for Kim who has several pieces of my art already.

By giving unconditionally with no expectation of repayment we are letting go of control, having faith in our fellow man and ultimately doing far more good deeds than any one person could individually accomplish. A very worth while endeavor.

Home

Is it where you sleep?

Where mom is?

The town where you were born?

A place you love to be?

A place you left as soon as possible?

A place you feel safe?

Can it be defined by words?

Is it something you  just have to feel?

Is it where you are going?

Or where you have been?

“You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.” – Maya Angelou

Home

An exhibit of handmade paper artowrk by

Annie Morris Simcoe

Garrett County Arts Council Gallery, Oakland MD

May 1st - June 10th

Artist reception May 20th 5-7pm

If you can’t tell, Mother Nature has me quite frustrated.  I have veggies and flowers started under lights on my sun portch. I am getting very anxious to get their permanent home ready outside. If the ground ever drys out! Here is what I am planning:

The existing veggie garden I inherited is too small so it will be expanded.  I will also be starting a paper making garden, a willow garden, and a rose garden. Jeff is having panic attacks that I wont be able to keep up with it all and that I wont plant things in rows (who me? Plant my garden with no rhyme or reason with no discernible boundaries?) and that the yard will be a mess.

The papermaking garden will be as big a plantation of rye grass as I can fit. Rye grass is a fantastically strong fiber and makes a very crisp smooth paper and is very easy to process. Due to the fact that I process my fibers with a blender and not a Hollander beater (someday i’ll have a Hollander) most plant fibers are too short to form a strong sheet of paper with out the addition of a binder fiber like abaca.  Rye grass will actually make a strong sheet of paper with out the addition of abaca, though the paper is very brittle.  I have hopes that once I am able to get a Hollander type beater, which pounds the fibers instead of cutting the fibers, I will be able to use rye grass as the base of most of my papers instead of abaca.

I am also planning a plot of ramps, yes ramps!  I know they are smelly but they make really pretty paper and I think they will grow well near the spring house in the shade of a small patch of mature trees. Eventually I would like to have a large enough ramp patch to have a ramp paper party in the spring!

Iris leaves and daffodil leaves also make really great paper, both are bulbs and need to be planted in the fall.  This year I will make do with the daffodils sprouting up all over the yard despite the weather. In the fall I will plant daffodils around the veggie garden with the hope that they will do double duty as deer deterrent and papermaking plant.

That might not sound like a lot, but there will be a lot of other papermaking plants in the vegetable garden, such as: corn Husks, leeks, onion peels, onion tops, corn husks . . . . . .

Other things on my to do list include; wildflowers along the road, a meditation garden next to the studio (the studio is in the north side of the garage), rambling roses along the fence, and willow from Dunbar Gardens for sculptures and baskets. Maybe Jeff  is right to be nervous.

Keep your fingers crossed that one of these days Mother Nature will wake up and it will be spring, but for now I will keep planning and dreaming.

My friend Caileigh is ten and a half years old and has been finding sleep difficult. Being no stranger to bad dreams and lost sleep myself, I wanted to help. Thus the Security Blanket Project was born. We started on a frigid day in February (the studio was only just not freezing – Caileigh was a real trooper!). In three hours Cailiegh had cut all of the squares laid out the quilt pattern and started sewing.

The quilter at work.

Of course LZ had to supervise.

At the beginning of day one, Caileigh had never used a sewing machine. After much reassurance that there was nothing she could do that would hurt the sewing machine any worse than I had already and that any mistakes were fixable, Caileigh jumped right in. She’s a natural! After a few rows she was sewing completely on her own.

On day two, in a marathon sewing session Caileigh sewed all the squares together while I ironed all the seams flat. I gave  her two options for finishing the quilt. The first would be to put ties in the blanket holding the top sheet, batting and back together. This would be something that I would help with but Caileigh would more or less do herself. Or I could machine quilt the layers together. For the quilting pattern I would use symbols of protection from different cultures around the world to make it a true “security blanket”. Caileigh chose option two. Before I show you what I designed, let me say that I am SO impressed with Caileigh. She did an amazing job designing, cutting, and sewing. It was truly a joy to work with her. Okay, back to the quilt. This is the layout for the quilting.

In the center there is a Hand of Fatima (or Miriam) to protect against the evil eye.  Around the Hand of Fatima is a medicine wheel with arrows pointing to the left and right for protection. In the corners I planned to sew Celtic shield knots, until I realized that by the time I learned to draw a Celtic shield knot Caileigh would probably have graduated from highschool. So I settled on a Celtic trinity symbol. Many cultures have the trinity as part of their symbology.  For ancient Celts the trinity was a symbol for the maiden, mother and crone while for current christians the trinity represents the father, son and holy ghost. In the fingers and palm of the Hand of Fatima are lightning bolts and rain drops to represent the power Caileigh has to protect herself (Caileigh Rain was born during a series of very intense thunderstorms, thus the middle name Rain). Be GONE you monsters in the night!

Here is how it turned out:

I told Caileigh about how I had horrible night terrors as a kid and struggled to sleep. I was constantly afraid to go to sleep. On the worst nights I would lie in bed and say sweet dreams over and over again, imagining the words stacking on top of each other. I thought that if they reached all the way to heaven someone would hear me and give me a peaceful night.  Occasionally I still have crazy dreams, sometimes bad enough that Jeff has to wake me up, I still say “sweet dreams” over and over when I have trouble falling asleep. Caileigh asked Jeff if he found my chanting annoying while he was trying to sleep. I guess I forgot to mention the part about saying it silently in my head. Kids, So literal! I suppose one of these days I should get around to  my own “security blanket project”. Until then, sweet dreams zzzzzzzzzzz.

PS – Caileigh’s mom reports many nights of restful sleep with her new quilt. See, quilts really are magic.

The garage floor is sloped to a drain, so making the wall level was quite an undertaking, but we got it done.

Then we put the top on.

During those three days we also manage to run a water line from the other side of the garage to a sink inside the studio.  Since then I painted the floor…

And when my Dad came back we closed in the wall separating the studio from the garage and installed baseboard heat.  With the help of a carpenter friend, I took the old garage door out and replaced it with a french door.

It has been an amazing amount of progress in a very short time.  I am so excited to be finished and moved in.  It’s my first dedicated work space.  I don’t have to make paper in my kitchen any more! Stay tuned for more pics as the studio progresses.

*Not possible.

I’m going to come right out and say it… I love cream sauces!  I love all types of cream sauces and I love making them as much as I love eating them.  I love pouring heavy cream into a pot of anything and watching the milky fireworks that follow.  And I also love not caring that heavy cream might not be the healthiest ingredient.  I don’t care!  Why?  Because it’s delicious!  And once in a while, it’s so totally worth it to care only about taste and not about jiggling thighs.  Enjoy that mental image for the rest of the day.

Anyway, I love a lot of cream sauces, but the classic alfredo sauce might be my fave, and boy do I have a doozy (people still say that, right?) of an alfredo recipe.  The Parmesan cheese and butter give this sauce amazing flavor, but the unsung hero of this dish is the shallot.  What a great ingredient!  I like to add shrimp, spinach, mushrooms and penne pasta to mine, but you could add whatever combination of protein/veggies/pasta you like.  I’ll bet grilled chicken with peas and bow tie pasta would be pretty good… Get creative!

ALFREDO SAUCE

Ingredients:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 small shallot, minced
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• Cooked pasta

Directions:

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add shallots and sauté until tender.  Add heavy cream and bring to a boil.  Cook until the sauce has reduced slightly, about 7 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Pour the sauce over cooked pasta, add the Parmesan cheese, and toss to combine thoroughly.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add any bonus ingredients (protein/veggies) and serve with some crusty bread and a bottle of Chardonnay.  This recipe makes enough sauce for one pound of pasta.

Here’s what mine looks like (sorry for the lame cell phone pic):

Enjoy!

Well check out where I live now!

After a ridiculous amount of false starts and failed attempts, we finally bought a house.  It’s an old farm house with almost as much character as projects needing done.  The garage is enormous and will soon house my first real studio.  There is a garden left by the previous owners, an apple tree, and a grape arbor.  My LZ Girl seems to think the tomato patch is her personal snack bar (seriously, she’s eating tomatoes, but only the ripe ones, of course).

In other words, it’s perfect!

Stern Squirt

I began making paper while I was a geology student at WVU.  My subsequent work as a research hydrologist required me to spend a lot of time outdoors.  I was, and still am, constantly amazed by the natural landscape of this region.  During the 14 years I’ve lived here, a lot of my time has been spent hiking, cross-country skiing, and exploring the area’s rivers.  From these experiences and activities, I’m able to draw inspiration, as well as obtain many raw materials, for my art works.

Beginnings 1, Beginnings 2, Sunflowers

Leaving West Virginia is bittersweet.  I’m moving to a place I have dreamed of living for almost 20 years.  It’s a new beginning and the next step in the journey.  But I can’t leave without a great deal of sadness. You can see my tribute to this great state and its people at the Zen Clay gallery in Morgantown until September 30.  The artist reception is August 14th from 6:30pm-8:30pm. Hope to see you there!

Jack Frost

When I was in college at WVU studying geology (yes geology, no I have never taken an art course), I would spend four hours per day, five to six days per week working in a recreational ceramics studio in one of the dorms.  One year they offered paper making for a few months.  I wanted to make paper to make my own Christmas cards and things snowballed from there.  It was a medium that would allow me to work at home and get started with out a large financial investment.  It would also allow me the freedom of using every color I could imagine.

But as I was reciting the much practiced monologue, I realized that I was answering the question “How did you learn to make paper?” not “How did you get started doing this?”  There is a subtle but important difference between the two questions, and perhaps he was looking for the answer to the first question.  It got me thinking, how did I get started doing this?  Not just making paper, but - in a broader sense - creating all the things I make.  The answer is: I don’t think I could not do this.  I absolutely cannot imagine my life without making things.  I have wanted to make pottery since my parents built their house and I found a clay seam in the back yard.  I have wanted to do art fairs and gallery shows since the first time I met artists who made their living that way.

That being said, it’s not too surprising that I LOVE and collect tree art and that trees have become a major part of the art I create.

I make tree journals,

tree quilts…

tree lamps,

trees,

trees,

and more trees.

My wedding invitation even had a tree on it.

So in the spirit of tree hugging, I’m ordering you to go outside and climb a tree!  Or enjoy a glass of iced tea under a tree.  Or appreciate the magnificence of the huge tree in the park the next time you drive by.