Studiology

New Orleans

So many things to do in New Orleans. Days and nights are very busy. Spent today shopping on Royal Street, going into vintage/junk stores. Items were surprisingly inexpensive, especially at Greg's Antiques on Decatur Street. Dinner at Coops Place twice so far, need I say more.  I'm in good company with Katherine Engen, Michael DeMeng and Andrea Matus. 

New Orleans Bound

I'm heading to a Michael DeMeng workshop in New Orleans. Michael specializes in assemblage art, transformations as he calls it. Through out the year, but especially prior to a workshop, I purchase junky items from antique stores, collectors homes and E-Bay. This year the workshop is making a ghost house, a place for offerings to apease un-happy ghosts. With that in mind, I recently picked up an old radio. Numerous postal receipts were inside (in numerical order), all dated 1909, from a post office in Laneville, West Virginia. This set me on a quest to see if the radio actually was from 1909. Thanks to the internet, I was not only able to determine the year the radio was made, but how much it sold for.

This radio is a 1933 Crosley model #148, the "Fiver" Cathedral. It sold for $59.95. Now (I ask), what was the status of television in 1933? Here's a little time line:

1936  about 200 television sets are in use world wide

1937  CBS begins TV development

1939  The Worlds Fair and Roosevelt's first presidential speech is broadcast, some had to couple that with their radio if they wanted to hear sound.

1941  The FCC releases the NTSC (National Television System Committee) standard for black and white TV

1950  FCC approves the first color television standard

Bottom line, this radio was certainly someones primary source of entertainment. Look at the wear around the old knobs. It may not look the best, but I am able to glean many internal parts, pictured are only a few.

My plans - cut it in half and make two backs for assemblage work. Taking these old American made objects apart reveals incredible workmanship. There is also an advertisement inside, apparently the radio was fixed (at least once). Imagine that, fixing something instead of buying new. As for plastic contents, only 1, the radio dial (only AM). So that's at least part of the story about the little radio that went from Laneville, West Virginia to New Orleans. Stay tuned.

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Four-County Master Gardeners Seminar

On Saturday, February 25th there will be a seminar titled "Sparking Creativity in Your Garden". Hosted by the Four-County Master Gardeners, it will be held at Germanna Community College in Culpeper, VA. I will be giving two presentations, "Garden Flow" and "Photography and the Garden". Dr. Holly Scoggins of Virginia Tech will be the other speaker, lecturing on native and tropical plants, "the perfect antidote to winter"!   General admission is $40. and active Master Gardeners pay only $35. A real bargain for an entire day of lectures and lunch. Registrations must be received by February 4th, so there's no time to dwadle. 

 

I love the two lectures I am presenting, the first titled  "Garden Flow", has been an interest of mine for many years, it's the perceived urge to venture futher into a garden, the whys and wherefores, what drives the feet to keep moving. The second lecture is a creative one, I will encourage everyone to elevate their garden photographs with some compositional rules, but also to have fun and try some different techniques.

 

Go to www.fourcountymastergardener.org/ for more information. 

 

 

Thank-you

The reception at the American Horticultural Society was so wonderful. Holley and Linda brought great food (I brought 16 tasty brownies), lots of friends came and I met some awesome new people.  A special thanks to Laura and Regan for helping us set up and close. It really is a wonderful place. The show will hang until March 28th, by that time it will be full blown spring in Alexandria, VA., please visit, it's a great show.

 

Next adventure, New Orleans with Michael DeMeng...

 

 

 

 

Help the Bees

 

Any day with temperatures over 55 degrees brings out the honey bees. The infrequent Helleborus foetidus or early flowering witch hazel will be loaded with pollen seekers, a winning strategy for both parties, one is pollinated (a sure bet), the other feeds. These social bees have been beneficial to mankind, in fact keeping honeybees dates back 9,000 years. Scenes painted on cave walls have verified our coexistence, ancient Chinese and Egyptian cultures kept honeybees in hives made of wicker.

The poor honey bee has been assailed by two parasitic mites, partly responsible for what is now referred to as colony collapse disorder or CCD. No single reason has been attributed to the unusually high occurrence of CCD, contributing factors include pesticides (even the mitecide used to treat the parasitic mites that attack them), starvation (not enough sources of pollen), and a lack of immune suppression, which just leads to more questions. Their numbers have dropped all over the world which is very scary. Imagine entire fruit fields that would need pollinated by hand. Imagine the cost of that hand pollinated fruit! 

The act of locating flowers by social bees, like honey bees is quite interesting. It's called a bee dance. The mapping or location of each flower is carried back to the hive where the information is passed along as a dance that indicates the location of the flower, relative to the sun. If the source of the food is particularly good, others will join in the dance, altering the dance as the sun moves. Studies have shown that their accuracy can be rated to within twenty degrees in direction and no more than fifteen percent for distance. Three miles from the hive is their working area which is amazing for such a small creature. On many occasions I have seen honeybees on a nocturnal flower prior to its opening. They will gather and force themselves into the flower while it's still tightly rolled, clearly a bee's dance provided the road map. Imagine having the ability to convey a map (so well) with little more than a dance? As a directionally challenged adult, I find it fascinating.

If you would like to do your part in helping with honey bees or pollination in general, plant native flowering plants, they survive better, flower more. Secondly, encourage orchard mason bees. These solitary bees breed via tubes, like open ends of bamboo or holes drilled in wood. Native bees, non-aggressive (like the honey-bee), they are blue-black in color, hard workers and no threat to honey-bees. Mason bee homes can be found at many nurseries and garden centers. Every little bit helps and best of all, your garden will thank-you, maybe even your neighbor's garden. 

 

Hanging at the American Horticultural Society

No small feat, the hanging of the AHS show only took 6 hours. Sixty-four pieces in total, spread over many rooms in a beautiful historical house. Holley revealed her new mixed media pieces, combinations of fabric, rice paper and printing. Linda Carlson always brings gorgeous works of art which included several individual monoprints showing her incredible talent. I have a few wood transfers, collages and photographic pieces. The show will hang until March 28th and the reception is on January 14th from 3 to 5.