It Started With Some Pods

The pods that I finally saw

     One of the great things about being an artist (and often disconcerting to those that aren't) is that you see the world in a different way. Not different as in strange, just different. You can go all day and while you note the things around you, suddenly, something will catch your eye! A door, a mailbox, the light against a building or the way the sun reflects off beach sand. Today, more than ever you can capture that moment, as many do, with their cell phones. To the tune of about one billion a year.

     For my latest painting frenzy that trigger was tree pods.

     Now you have to understand we have one tree in our condo common area that has a dark cluster of pods that will start falling around this time of year. About two weeks ago, I noted that they were falling again and looking a bunch that fell together in one cluster suddenly had a kind of artistic epiphany. Now you have to understand I have walked past this tree for 365 days, give or take a few, two and a half years, about 3 to 5 times a day as I walked my dog on what I call our WPP (walk, pee and poop) run. But

Pods in tree

on that day, I look at them, picked them up, cleaned them and grabbing a birdhouse began to consider how I could use them. It was that simple and that hard. You can see them, or any scene and walk right past ignoring them. The hardest part is coming up with a way to use their almost sexy, sensuous form.

     When I was in college I can remember a photography class project. We were not to leave town, we could only go a few miles away from the campus and we had to find things to photograph. So many artists and photographers think only foreign or exotic places are worthy of a photograph. Ansel Adams was one of photographers we discussed. Ignoring the majestic views and mechanizations of Adams, he wanted us to see the beauty, complexity in our own "hood."

     Oklahoma State University had a lovely campus. Most buildings, after the initial few, were designed in the gracious red brick English Georgian style so that even new classrooms and dorms used the red brick and simple lines of that period. The gardens and pond were used for many wedding shots taken by students getting married during and even after graduation. We even had our own 19,000 acre lake! They were off limits. However, it was this exercise that made me very aware that there are many good "shots" around us if we would stop and take the time to look. I got an A for a dramatic cemetery statue shot against the sun.

The project that started it all -
a tree pod birdhouse

     Grabbing a birdhouse I played with my cluster deciding where I could glue pods on. I had four sides and decided that each side of the roof would get some as well. I used one here, two there and finally settling on what went where laid them out and using them as a kind of template drew around each one. Then I added more and more lines until I reached each side's edge. That was the easy part.

     Then noting that deep brown of the shell and the golden seeds that remained in some of them, painted the inside outline gold, that was where the pods would be glued. Radiating from the gold I added a deep brown layer to match the pods, some burnt sienna, pottery red, a very thin line of turquoise, a harvest gold and finally a buttermilk edge to give it depth. Each pod was designed this way and I added painted pods as well.

     It might be a bit too busy though. I added feet to the free standing birdhouse, and bronze colored shiny beads to empty pods to give it a bit of color and bling. It goes against all my previous birdhouses yet I am very proud of it. I feel that I have combined the ordinary products of man with the creations of nature creating, if nothing else, a decorative item that can provoke any number of discussions. I must admit Gaudi and his fantastic, Art Deco, naturalist designs were also an inspiration. I realized in the hours it took to paint this the TV show I had recently seen about his cathedral in Barcalona was an inspiration. Nature rarely uses straight lines so I tried to soften mine.

The next victim - the chest.
Round feet added later
give it a finished look

     Gathering more pods I happened to look at a small two drawer chest sitting on a shelf in my studio gathering dust. Again I could see another design using more pods. This time however, I wanted there to be exposed wood, the light natural look of pine against the dark pods and the colors surrounding them.

     Grabbing the chest I again laid out what pods I had (a friend taller than me grabbed some more off the tree for me) deciding that only the top, front and both sides would be graced with pods. I outlined and numbered each group and decided to use a metallic bronze color this time. I also used only five colors radiating out from the background bronze paint, where the pods wold be glued, allowing plenty of the natural wood to be exposed.

The painted back. Here you can see
the real pods and the painted ones.
It can now fit flush against a well.

     One of the hallmarks of my items, including just about everything I paint, is to finish all sides whether it might be seen or not. My mother-in-law made a comment about this when I first started out. She explained that seen or not, completing, painting all sides of something I did made it seem finished, considered. It showed that I didn't take the easy way out. She was right of course even though it adds much time to each project. Many items may never show the back but I realized maybe if they were they would be used and displayed in such a way that they were "finished."

     So it was in this vein I decided to paint the back of the chest but used only painted pods in case someone wanted it against a wall and didn't want to fuss with pods in the back.

The finished chest

     Again, I used five colors radiating out from the bronze back where the pods would be glued starting with deep brown, a sliver of Vermillion, then burnt umber, clay red, and harvest gold.

     Once you determine what you are going to do, its easy to do but it IS tedious and time consuming. I have listened to one audio book and started another with this project. However, to me, at least, it is a lovely chest and certainly one that nobody else would ever have. I realized that even if I were to do five, despite the use of the pods, the colors of paint, each one would have it's own feel, its own look. Combining the straight lines of man, with the variety of curves in nature is rewarding in itself.

     I hope that showing you my process, gathering things that might be around us, you too will find and use found items in such an artistic way, creating something unique and indisputably your own!

     

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

It Only Takes One ....

   

The Cranston fire begins and by nightfall reached 7,500 acres.

 

This past few days have been hot in Palm Springs, no, let me rephrase that, it's been HELL! Days of 118º, 119º and finally 120º with unusual humidity have pretty much sapped the energy of just about everybody leaving in its place a kind ennui that is hard to snap. I even have to rouse my poor dog to go out and do her duty!

     Walking my dog, this morning at 5 a.m., through the smoke and ash it was 88º, down from the 93º of the day before. After a certain point, hot is HOT! Barely able to see the mountains to the west because of the smoke, I began to reflect walking towards them the effect one person has on our lives.

      This fire had been started the day before by a single man who was seen and caught after throwing three incendiary devices from his car. Not even a resident of the community he was forcing to flee, his actions caused in it's wake the evacuation of thousands, houses being lost and untold damage to the forest in this mountain eerie that is often a refuge for those that live in the desert below.

All highways in and out of the mountains were closed.
All highways are two lane, twisty, winding roads.

   His actions made me reflect on the actions that one person can cause and the consequences they set in motion.

   One of the first person's that came to mind was Alexander the Great. Through his energy and force of character he conquered, in his time, most of the known world. With his actions, he set in motion a force needing thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands to make his actions take flight. What he started changed history, changed the world. It ALL started with just Alexander, one man.

     There are many historical figures that through their actions and energy have caused great movements in history. Julius Caesar, Christ, Mohammed, Genghis  Khan, Charlemagne, Napoleon, our own George Washington, Queen Victoria, Karl Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Winston Churchill, FDR, John F. Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh, Martin Luther King; historical personages that left their mark on the world changing it in ways barely imagined in their own time.

     In the world of business there are many figures that have probably eclipsed elected figures. The Medici, the Lords of England with their far-flung empires, The East India Company, the Astors and Vanderbilts, the Mellons, J.P. Morgans, Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegie, men that all changed the world of commerce and oftentimes the directions of their very nations. In our own times consider what people like Bill Gates, Bill Grove an immigrant that founded Intel, Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo, Wozniac and Jobs co-founders of Apple Computer, the world's most valuable company, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook,Stever Bezos, founder of Amazon and now the world's wealthiest person .... have created.

     All it takes is one, sometimes two.

    What is not understood though is that while one or two figures have a creation, a vision, a message, for it to succeed they need followers, believers. While the person that started this fire most likely acted alone, he has fellow fire-starters that think much the same way he did. A firemen in this county was recently convicted and sent to jail for doing the same thing. His reason? More fires meant more days of work. We may never know the why, but we need to be vigilant to reduce another such action.

     A great leader, a single person, can cause many to follow them and their vision. That vision can be for the benefit of all or harm many profiting only a few. History is filled with these figures. They can be so wonderful creating a form of admiration they are forever admired or so vile as to inspire continuing revulsion. The sad part, even these people, horrible as they may be, still are remembered. However, that is not all bad. They set the standard for what we as a people should never want or ever follow. They remain the signposts of what one person can do and show us the path that should never be followed.

     You may wonder how can such vile actions be considered art. They may not be art for most but these actions are definitely a form of design, just not one most people would ever consider. Make no doubt, every one of the actions required to start a fire were done with a very definite design. For a people, a country or a world to survive the impulses of the "one" at the expense of the many, we need to be vigilant. Vigilant for evil as well as for goodness, but even more vigilant to distinguish between the two.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Zentangling A Teapot Birdhouse

     Right now it's hot in Palm Springs. Friday it reached 118º and cooled down to, you ready? 93º. So to avoid the heat (even my dog will say no to a walk outside to pee) I paint.

     After an orgy of painting to get ready for Halloween a friend suggested I do an inventory and number all the items I had created. I did just that; an inventory of all the items I have completed in the storeroom. Then those painted were logged in and numbered in an Excel spreadsheet. It was creeping up to 300 items. In the last 6 - 7 weeks I have done more than 30 items.

     Tired of Halloween's black and orange and fresh off of inventorying all my items, I decided to clean out and arrange my studio yet again. I still couldn't find anything and in the process of putting books and paintings away, creating files for items I wanted to do, styles to study, I happened on a book of Zentangles, after finding page after page of them I had printed off the Internet and filed.

     Looking at that book and the birdhouses I had purchased at JoAnn's, two shaped like a bird, two as teapots, I thought, why not take the two dimensional Zentangle's and put them them on a birdhouse? While they are everywhere, I had never seen a Zentangle on a birdhouse and here I had two different designs that begged for for this treatment.

The blank teapot. Here it looks like a birdhouse.
Do I try to fool the birds?

     The challenge with any project we do is, what will we do with it? How can we design it to its best advantage? So I picked one up and started sketching on one of the teapots. Since I had already done two cutout bird shaped birdhouses, I wanted to get even more serious in converting a Zentangle. The first teapot was pretty good but I had bigger plans for #2.

     The first thing was trying to decide what designs I wanted and then where I would put them. I didn't mind that they were different just that they would work together. And that is not always easy to do.

     After discovering the black Sharpie pens would blur, and feather in the raw wood, I put a seal coat over everything and then sketched out the various designs. After trying several in each area with the trusty pink eraser nearby, I finally got what I thought would be attractive and create a co-hesive design. 

Here you can see the pencil marks on top of the seal coat
and the beginnings of the marking.

       The beauty of a Zentangle, no matter how complicated, is the contrast of black and white. I have however, also noticed the power and effectiveness of black, white (in this case light raw wood) and red. Playing with it as you can see to the left, this would create a strong yet attractive image.

     So with black Sharpie in hand, with an ultra-fine point, I began to fill in the pencil lines listening to a James Lee Burke murder mystery audio book.

     As the item progressed I added a few more lines and flourishes that brought the various parts, the spout, the handle, the body around the hole for birds more and more together.

    Nearly everything I do has a heart in it somewhere and so, it wasn't all that hard to add them to the handle and around the entry to the birdhouse opening. Yet it is not paper; now and then imperfections of the wood would cause a wavery stroke.

Here you see much of the ink has
covered the pencil outline.

     With the exception of the one red heart, all the black lines and fills were added first. Once I had a complete picture of the lines, the line weight and placement I felt that it would be easier to add another color, in this case red. It is a temptation to add more colors, alá adult coloring books but I felt a three-color palette was the way to go.

Color makes the difference

jewels add a bit of sparkle.

     I added the hearts around the bird entry first and left only the single red heart on the handle.

     The last problem was how to tie the lid and the base to the rest of the design. Since Zentangles are basically doodles, I played with the base using lines and arcs to echo the curves of the base and black and puffy paint red as lines on the lid echoed again on the base under the design above.

     I tried using a Sharpie for the red hearts but it just didn't cover like the black. So with a liner brush in hand, and DecoArts Traditions Naphtha Red paint, I painted inside the lines of each red heart.

     Art is alway an experiment. You get a blank surface and then try to fill it. Each time you paint or draw is an experiment even, as I saw in Shenzhen, where artists paint two, three or more paintings at the same time, of the same subject, you have one experiment even if there are multiples because we are human, no two are ever exactly the same!

The completed Zentangle Teapot Birdhouse

     It is this challenge that inspires the artist, the challenge to see what you can do, if you can create something that is both new and unique. 

     As a final touch I decided that some of the small "jewels" I had would both fit into the small holes near the entry and give it a bit of glitter. When it hangs there is a bit of sparkle that is just right ... not too much or too little.

     Am I a good Zentangle artist, probably not. But I am not bad at finding a raw, blank surface and seeing its possibilities.

     Finally you have the back. You can leave it plain but I felt that as this is a hanging birdhouse, the back had to have something, some color. I opted for a grey color so that it would not distract from the front ... the design, the color.

     When you walk the craft aisles, be aware of the possibilities. Take a chance as I did. You might be surprised at what you can do!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

The Age of Intolerance

     America, from its inception has always had its own form of intolerance. The Pilgrims so revered in our history were Puritans, the loathed English religious sect, that under Cromwell, ruled England after a civil war that beheaded the English king and practiced a form of religious intolerance that finally got them kicked out after yet another civil war that led to the restoration of the English monarchy. Hated at home they fled first to Holland and then finally arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620. Not an easy group to live with, bigoted, intolerant, they first befriended the local Indians, themselves in trouble because European diseases had decimated them then ultimately stole their lands and tried to rid New England of its indigenous peoples.

     Since the election of 2016, the levels of intolerance between just about every group in this country has reached heights not seen in 50 years, maybe even earlier. It is as if all the gains we've made as a nation had suddenly been wiped away. Watching the daily news we see it everywhere in this country. However, it was this image, seen on Facebook, that has caused me to finally address, as they say, "the elephant in the room:"

No matter who and what you are, in an X-ray you all look pretty much the same!

     When you X-ray anyone, be it at the doctor's office or the TSA checkpoint, our bones are pretty much the same. Some taller, some smaller, some wider and others narrow. What we may see on the surface as "different" is very little different inside, unless you're a pirate with a peg leg! It could also include: Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Muslim, Hebrew, Taoist, Hindu. Them bones are pretty much the same.

     Even more interesting are the recent DNA studies of modern Homo Sapiens and their relationship, genetically, with the previous humanoid, Neanderthals. Where we were taught, as kids in school, that we had "killed" them for domination of the earth, it has been discovered that modern humans contain up to 4% of Neanderthal DNA. My recent DNA test said that I had 3.3% Neanderthal markers, that I was 100% European primarily of Northern German / French blood with a quarter of English-Irish-Scottish blood. 

     Studies have shown that Asian groups even have a higher percentage of that old DNA. The real irony is that Africans have very little or none of that old DNA "stuff" at all! Humanoids have been originating in about the same place in Africa for millions of years. No one knows why.

     When Spencer Wells came out on the stage, at a speakers talk I attended, and said, "There really was an Adam," the room was as silent as a cave." Then he added, "...and he was black!" The oxygen was sucked out of the room.

     To be intolerant, to find another cultural group less than equal, you have to be taught. I can remember watching my children as they grew up with the multi-cultural, multi-racial cast of friends that were in our lives. A local Rotary president when my son was born, my wife would have missed all the activities so we just brought him along. He was always up anyway, he thrived with groups of people, and still does. One African-American in the club took to him as if he was his own son. A big, fit man, standing at least 6'5", my son's arms would fly out to be held by this man. My ex-wife has a Kenyon AFS (American Field Service) sister from Kenya that always visited us to help with the babies. We had Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, Black and Korean friends who we would see at our home, our work and our church.

     I just finished the book CHINESE AMERICA by Peter Kwong and Dušanka Miščevic. While this book talks about the treatment of Chinese in America, and it was pretty dismal, it also talks about all immigration to this country. They stated flatly that the United States of America was founded by white protestant men for white protestant men. One of George Washington's first acts as president was to sign restrictions on immigration.

     We've all heard about the Irish migrating to survive the potato famine there in 1847. What we don't talk about are all the other large immigrations that occurred and the way they were treated. Touring Ellis Island, a place my father and family went through in 1925-6, I was so surprised to see the posters, cartoons and newspaper articles of the 1910's and 20's decrying the massive immigration of Italians. Change the people and it could be Hispanics coming here to survive the oppressive regimes at home that the United Nations seems helpless to stop today.

     Our first massive immigration, a forced one, was the importation of Africans that were bought and sold as slaves. What many Americans don't realize was slavery was not outlawed in New York until 1795. Nearly every colony had slaves and indentured servants. The servants were freed after 7 years of labor. The slaves, until freed in 1865 after our own civil war, never were.

     In order to farm the land, vast lands unlike anything seen in the old world, you needed many hands. Since the Indians were killed through battles or more likely by disease, someone had to work. We all know the sordid tale of slavery and how it demeaned humans ... ultimately both slave and owner. Slavery in the new world was unlike anything ever seen in the old. That white men could say, as is written in our Constitution than anyone other than a white person was three-fifths of a person, well, it boggles the mind. Yet we did.

     Much has been written about race and culture and many other things about humans. What has not been written much about is that each one of us has the potential to change the world, to mate and create another human that come into this world unknowing but with the simplest needs to survive. Just like the old line about the church is wonderful but then you have to let in the people, ALL peoples of the earth have the potential to make a change, a difference and can mate and, as the Bible talks about in the Tower of Babel, differentiate. 

     When you look at that Hispanic fleeing to save the lives of their children, the Muslim praying, a man of color, any color, who appears different remember the image of those bones above. Inside we are far, FAR more similar than we are different. We need, as a people, as Democrats and Republicans, Christian and Muslim or Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant that there is more than binds us together than tears us apart. The tearing only succeeds when we let it.

     This is not to ignore the bullies of the world. There are many and even in my own lifetime we have lived through many. They must be confronted be it here at home or anywhere in the world. Yet, we have to opportunity to find what keeps us together as much as we do that tears us apart. My favorite line from the New Testament is when confronted by the adulterous wife and those who would stone her, Jesus utters, "He who is without guilt cast the first stone." One by one they disappeared and Jesus asks the woman to go and sin no more.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

     

Let's Hear It For The Red, White & Blue

How different they can be even if the main colors are the same!!!

After an orgy of Halloween items, 22 in fact, I needed a pause, a change. I wasn't really ready for the Green and Red of Christmas just yet so on a foray to Michael's to buy some small square blocks to use for feet on my birdhouses, I was greeted with THE FOURTH OF JULY! Everywhere the store was decorated and I realized that the two items I had done to pay homage to this holiday were, in fact, sold.

     Coming home I looked at the collection of small, unfinished, mini-birdhouses I had and picked three that I liked. I considered it a challenge to use the basic three colors, come up with different designs using the colors - designs that would go well with each one.

     And, here they are. Very, very different but in keeping with at least the colors of the holiday. Not sure if Betsy Ross liked the colors, the British surely did with their red, white and blue Union Jack. They are striking colors that stand out at any time of the year!

     I added feet to the round one and used golden stars for contrast that honor the stars and stripes. Several red lines wind around the piece in wavy lines. Golden stars added to the roof add emphasis to three stars on the front and back and one each on the sides.

     The star theme was easy to adapt to the middle birdhouse. It already had a metal star and metal roof on it's bare wood frame. Again, I added feet so it can stand or be hung. The silver wire hanger looks good hung or standing on a table top. The challenge was how to decorate the body already scored with horizontal lines. I alternated red and white on top and put a red and blue checkerboard motif below. A little silver glitter and silver feet complete the balance of colors.

     The last birdhouse retained the red, white and blue but hearts, one of my favorite "signatures" replace stars for the third birdhouse. The same colors were used but with a different emphasis of red and white curved lines with a blue roof and base. The jewel in the curve of each bottom red line on all four sides adds a bit of sparkle to the piece.

     As I have said many times before, we may all start with the same surface but oh how differently we make them turn out. I wanted to show here just how different they may begin but in using the same basic colors how they become siblings when shown together.

     This is a wonderful challenge. I urge you to do the same! Find two or three blanks ... be it canvas, a birdhouse or even a wooden box and in using the same colors come up with three different designs. You might be surprised at just how good they will turn out.

     These items and many more are available on my ETSY.com store. Check out:

KrugsStudio.etsy.com

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

The ""Art" of Gardening

   

I was stunned to find out that Plumeria's

love the desert. I joined the Plumeria

Society here and find it makes me a

better gardener in general!

      

I have had a garden since I was in grade school. My German father disliked yard work of any kind and my South Dakota born mother thought it was beneath her. This from a woman who made us read Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette - and tested us no less!

     I managed to eek out a few vegetables and flowers along the fringes of our house. I never forgave my father the year he painted the house and got paint drops all over my garden. Many of the vegetables became inedible. 

     We rented our house in Portland and the landlord provided us with a lawnmower to mow the yard. We were on a corner lot with our house on 67th, a large open space and a duplex on Glisan with a backyard as well. The beast was self propelled and dragged me every week around the yard much to my dad's delight. It meant that he didn't have to do it. Since it rains all the time the grass was green pretty much the whole year. Only a silver thaw or snow relieved me of my duties.

     I had a pretty good "green thumb" and no matter where I lived, there was a garden. When we re-did the entire back yard in our San Gabriel Valley home, I had them build me five 4' x 8' raised garden beds to replace the ground garden I already had. I got more than enough zucchini, other squashes, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and much more.

     They put in an irrigation system but it had to be turned on and off which was a drag if you were gone a few weeks in the summer.

This is typical of all first floor units in my complex.

     When I moved to Palm Springs in January of 2016 I had already become an orchid killer. No matter what I did, both in Alhambra and now Palm Springs, I would get lovely blooms from the plants I bought, they would finally fade away and then die. No matter what I did, I could never get one to survive the initial blooms. In disgust I finally both a plastic one at IKEA. Now and then it gets a bath in the shower.

      When the opportunity came to purchase a condo in the complex where I was renting, I decided to approach the seller and see his unit, behind mine. I was not prepared for the yard it offered. I have yet to see a condo with a yard like this. Even though we had the same inside layout, I had a long narrow concrete patio and he had a yard! Not including his patio, the yard measured about 25 ft. deep and 45 ft. wide. I did have a long narrow patio with a balcony above my bedroom door. There were many succulent and cactus type plants but it was apparent no one had a garden. It had a palm tree, a massive rather rare cactus and  an old, mature lemon tree. I had seen my neighbors back yard years ago but was surprised at how much more space I had. I later learned it was built for the original builders son who lived here for many years before selling it to the board member I purchased it from.

This was the original back yard as it was when I purchased my condo.

     I had two months on my lease left when I purchased my condo so we had to two months to gut and rebuild the kitchen, add fans in each room and for me to get everything painted. Then there was the moving. After that frenzy I had no stomach for what I knew would be another major project - creating a new garden complete with irrigation.

     I was, however, getting ready. UC Riverside has a campus in Palm Desert and offers some great gardening classes open to all. I attended several paying particular attention to growing in the desert. Your summer is our winter. Many plants cannot take the relentless heat. So we plant in October for a harvest in the spring. Weird, no? As I write this it was 111º yesterday, it will be 109º today!

     Since I had brought a plumeria branch with me, I heard about and started attending the local Plumeria Society meetings nearby. As you can see above, they thrive here in the desert. One member has one 20 ft. high. They appear to be just about everywhere. I now have five! They love the heat, hate wet feet and once established can put up with the heat. They love sandy soil and hope you ignore them rather than drown them. I learned much about planting, anything, from them.

     This year I decided the time had come for a garden complete with irrigation. Talking to our maintenance man here at the condo he made suggestions on what could be done and admitted that my unit had flooded. We came close last year when we got an inch of rain in an hour and water lapped at the dining and bedroom doors. The fake wood is cupped from flooding in the past.

     His first step was to put in a French drain so that will never happen again. However, it was done when I was on a trip so I returned to see a huge pile of sand in the yard. I guess the hole was big enough for coffins and then had to be filled with rocks and gravel. The sand came from the hole.

     I returned home to what looked like nothing had happened. However, he replaced the pavers and, I discovered, had also installed the irrigation system that was on a timer! I could just imagine myself watering three times a day out here when it gets up to 122º like it did four times last year. Now I could get 4 emitters to a line coming up through the soil or along the patio walls! I could put them in the pots that needed water and near plants in the garden knowing that now they would get three short waterings a day. I can adjust it of course but for now we will see how it works.

    One of the things I learned was that you could use concrete blocks for a raised bed garden. I liked the idea because it wouldn't rot, there were no bad chemicals to get into plants and it would be easy to move or change. A trip to Home Depot for costs also showed that you could get not only dead grey but pleasant tan blocks, not that different from the stucco at the condo.

   The only bad thing was that the only dirt we had was, well, sand, the same sand that came out of the new French drain. So reluctantly I had him put the sand in around the irrigation risers and then before I planted added amendments to the soil though I am sure it will not be enough.

     It would have to do for now as I knew that I was taking a chance planting a garden this late in the year. As you can see (right), the irrigation is in place, the sand filled in the raised portion of the wall and after adding amendments and putting the irrigation nozzles  in place felt I was ready to plant. This was in May.

   I bought corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, large and cherry, several squash and watermelon along with chili and sweet peppers at the nursery. From seed I tried green beans, pole and bush, corn, and several flowers but other than the corn and beans the others have struggled. Then something, who knows what began eating the pole beans. I have had some luck with soap, oil and water sprays but whatever they are, they are relentless. 

     As you can, the back yard seems well organized and things are growing. The corn is to the top of the wall. The corns seeds are not all that far behind.

   

     The last thing I wanted to do was to compost all my scraps. I have been amazed at how much green debris there is from cooking. I had another area to the right of my gate of dirt that I could also brick in and look for an easy way to compost. I found two plastic bins that are adjustable on Amazon and have started putting table and kitchen scraps in it. Looking online to see what you could compost I was startled to find newspapers, used paper towels, kleenix and other items were also suitable besides green items. They all needed to heat up and break down of course, but already the volume of what I throw out has decreased substantially. I am trying to get our maintenance man to put grass clippings in now and then. It sure makes it easier to get rid of leaves, weeds and other things you otherwise would have to drag over to the dumpster, that's for sure.

     What happens next? I really don't know. I am keeping a kind of mental record of this first try. Some things seem to be fine, others, mostly due to insects feasting, are struggling. I wanted to plant flowers to ward off some of these problems but can't find what I want and they are struggling growing from seed despite being planted first in seed pots.

     However, now that I have started this adventure I realize that gardening, just like painting or drawing or doing any of the other arts is an art that is every bit as intensive of our attention. As the weather heats up I will hide more and more in the A/C of the condo and nurse my new garden in the early morning and evening, avoiding the heat of the day!

     I will add updates as something more happens.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

It Only Cost Three Bucks, Why Charge $20 or More Dollars?

As I colored this, from raw, unfinished wood, I
thought WHAT should I charge for it?

The heat has descended on the desert. Keeping an eye on the calendar and my ETSY.com store, KrugsStudio.etsy.com, I am also well aware that with the four month timeline you get for 20¢ an item, that all of my Halloween stuff better be on sale soon. I have completed 10 new items already, am working on four and have about 20 stored from last season.

     You see, our summers are like your winters. The advice I was given when I moved here on a chilly but pleasant January day was, "when the heat hits, and it will, you close up your house, strip naked and watch all the shows you recorded on your DVR last winter." I didn't go that far but you get the idea. Even my dog waits to go pee when its 122º outside.

     In fact, as I was finishing the last four items today (trust me, I am SICK of orange and black) I reflected on one of the items I was painting. 

On SALE wood craft products start out
looking like this!

   The item probably cost me two or three dollars, on sale last year after Halloween of course, so as I painted I began running costs through my mind ... painting for pay if you will! There was the item of course, there were the things I was adding, "jewels," paint and the one factor you can never recover, time. So I thought as I watched it flash through it's LED repertoire, probably $20 - 25.00

     I can already hear the comments: "twenty dollars for something that you paid at most $3 for?

     Yes, I will. The reason? If you were to visit my studio you would see that it is much, MUCH more than bottles of acrylic paint, brushes and filled with things to paint, a place to paint. A LOT MORE!!!

    First the paint. Iwould guess, I don't want to count or I might faint if I did, I have between 200 - 300 bottles of acrylic paint. Most are the one ounce kind but there are a goodly number of larger bottles of popular colors I use as well. Folks, paint ain't cheap either. I have too many brushes, of course, but when you need that "certain" brush, its good to have. Then there are the add on's. Smaller pieces of beads, feet, cutouts, "jewels," varnish, extenders ... the list goes on and on. The inventory I have to draw on has probably cost me $1,000's but it is necessary when you want to make what you purchase different than what anyone else might buy and use.

Paint, paint and more paint!

     I call it, value adding. Sure you can all go to Michael's, Hobby Lobby or my new favorite here in the desert, Jo-Ann's, and buy exactly the same things I buy. I've noticed that out here in the desert even Target and Walmart are getting into the act. In fact, Walmart sells FolkArt paints in many colors for 50¢ a bottle. That my friends is a deal! FolkArt uses dense, opaque pigments that are a dream to use. We can both have the same item, an unfinished birdhouse, a box, a tray. But, and that's a big BUT, what we do with it will be very, very different.

   Here is the creative space. Here I can paint and 

   watch Netflix or Amazon Prime though I prefer 

   audio books checked out from the library. 

   Creating and keeping up on the latest fiction 

   and non-fiction.

     

   If you haven't, you should check out the ETSY.com store. I guess more than a million sellers are there. If you enjoy craft painting as a hobby, you should look and see what others have done. It is the vision of each crafter that makes the difference. Some are very  inexpensive, others are costlier and often with good reason, a lot of work went into their creation. Then, there is the rest of us in the middle that have a fun vision of how we decorate. My forte tends to be color. I use red a lot and it seems to draw far more sales than softer, more muted colors. 

   People I know who do similar crafting complain, like me, that they can't get their time and effort for their work. Truth be told, it is often easier to paint a plain white canvas than a six sided birdhouse. Why? Because a canvas is two-dimensional. You might slop paint on the sides if they are to be exposed frameless but consider; a birdhouse has four sides, a roof that might have a few more sides and a bottom. It will be viewed from all sides! Museums might not like you removing a Monet to check out the back. We have to show and finish ALL sides.

Some of the additions the spice up the raw surface.

    I do both, painting on canvas and craft painting. I can vouch for the amount of time it takes. Paintings are faster! Just one of my "crazy-quilt" items takes from 30 - 50 hours. Really. 

     First there is marking where the "painted" pieces of fabric will go. Next comes laying down the base color. Then, depending on how many colors you use, you must create a fabric design for each base color. If you limit it to five or six, that is easier. If you go into the rainbow effect I have tried lately it becomes mind boggling! After all the patterns are in place, you then "stitch" the painted fabrics together with gold, if you find it, nail polish, or using a very fine liner brush, gold paint. Yes, that's right: every piece of painted fabric is stitched together.

   It takes quite a collection before you can change

   the original raw surface.

     Next comes the "antiquing" that ages the items and mutes colors into a harmonious whole no matter what they looked like before. I will use jarring, too bright colors knowing the blending with a dark brown paint tones it all down.

     Finally, you varnish it. That takes several tries as remember, ALL sides are painted and thus all sides need varnish. One side has to dry before you can coat the other. It you are using an outdoor varnish, this takes several days.

     I am not complaining, I am explaining. I hope that the next time you see a beautiful, hand painted, one of a kind, original craft item you realize that while its beginning may have been humble, the time it took to create was far more demanding! 

   Where the Magic happens. From what 

   appears to be chaos amazing things 

   can happen!

      We can witness it here in Palm Springs at our weekly Village Fest. There, for a few brief hours every Thursday night, the main street in town is closed and like mushrooms, tents rise and artisans show and sell their wares on Palm Canyon Drive. Some are creating right on the street but many, if not most, are more than willing to create a custom piece for you!

     My dream, of course, is that crafters and what they create will start to have as much a following and value as what we call the "old" masters who painted on canvas. A few, a very few, have more exalted status but most do not. An "Antiques Roadshow" junkie I am heartened by the value of hand painted items of 100 - 300 years ago. Yet, a painting, even by an unknown will often have much more value. Hopefully my ancestors will discover a KrugsStudio item has value well beyond the price paid for it in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First century.

     Are you a crafter like me? While you play the summer away, know that I will be hunkered down doing the best I can to avoid the heat and, like Santa's elves, in my studio painting away as I follow to the latest book ... audio book of course!

  

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Adding Value To What You Buy!

     As a crafter, one of the things I am sadly aware of are my limitations around sharp objects. After several pulmonary embolisms, I am on the blood thinner Warfarin for life. For those that don't know, if you get cut, even the slightest scratch spews blood just about everywhere. So, as you can imagine, I carry bandaids with me always. This forces me to be creative since I can't build things.

We all start off with the same blank "surface." It's what we do 

with it that matters.

     I love painting and feel that I am pretty creative (take a look at KrugsStudio.etsy.com), few of the items I create with paint are very similar even those created during my three - at - a - time period. Because everything was hand drawn and then hand painted, nothing looked exactly alike.

     This week and in the weeks that follow until July, I am concentrating on Halloween crafts to sell in my store. I have a bunch of unpainted items!!! I figure by the end of June I will be sick of orange and then can launch into Christmas until September, where I can become sick of red and green! 

    It was during this orgy of painting and half listening to an audio book, a way to craft and keep up on the latest crime novel, that it hit me that anyone can buy the same things I buy at Michaels, JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and now even Walmart ... it's what you do with it that matters.

     No doubt you have, like me, seen the same "surface" in ETSY that you recognize from a purchase at one of the craft stores. What you also notice is how different their item is compared to yours or mine. That is not a bad thing. I look at it this way, there are many cars on the road, even though you are looking at say a 4-door sedan the variations and options even within one company, let alone the dozens out there, is staggering. Even the same car, in the same color could be very different from another one of the same model and color. If the world was all alike, it would be a very boring place.

Image a blank box - this is the colored one.

     So, it was this revelation that made me consider, HOW do I make what I do different from all the rest? Is it any different from a blank canvas? We already know it will appear very different if painted by DaVinci, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Monet or Warhol. Its the same blank canvas but oh how different it can become.

     In this case I'm considering a light box I painted. It was fun and I painted pumpkins from a ghost pumpkin to a deep orange one. It has flashing "'ghost" lights even. Nice enough. But, looking at all the little pieces I also had, I considered, what if I gave it something more? If I want to sell it in my store, I felt I had to offer just a bit more, make myself different from the rest!

The same box with a tree
added on top or a sign on
the bottom. They appear very
different.!

      I  believe it is this difference that makes one artist stand out from the rest. As a case in point, consider the artist Jackson Pollack. He started as an abstract artist. Nothing special in fact. He painted and painted and had a few followers. After he accidentally discovered his "splatter" paintings, he was re-discovered and became famous. And truth be told, until you are standing in front of one (or are in room full of them at the Guggenheim Museum in New York), you can't appreciate the kinetics of them. They appear to vibrate off the canvas.

Palm Springs birdhouse with local sand.

      Returning to the box above, look at how different they appear when you add say a tree or a "Happy Halloween" on top. This is what I want to show ... value added. Sometimes you need to differentiate yourself from the original surface. In doing so you then offer something unique that you can also charge more money for. Since it is risky for me to use a saw or a knife I in turn need to be creative with the things I can buy and then add on creating a new piece with a totally different look.

     You don't have to spend a lot either. Case in point is a small mini birdhouse I painted that is a sort of a scene I see every day walking my dog. Clouds in the sky are often dramatic here in Palm Springs. We have sand everywhere ... lots of "beach" in fact but very little water. In the creation of this birdhouse trying to create this scene I realized the final, finishing touch was adding sand. That is exactly what I did! It came from the field behind me.

     Sadly, however, what you can't get is the money that would equal the amount of time it takes to create your masterpiece! I found that a canvas painting often takes less time to paint than all the sides, including the top of even the smallest birdhouse. Depending on the size of the birdhouse, it can even be much more demanding. The birdhouse above took at least as much time as it did to paint three 6" x 6" cactus paintings I recently finished. So I can only charge for this one item, an item that cost a dollar to buy and $100-200 in time to paint. 

  The finished sign painted on 

  BOTH sides. Count the colors

   ... and REALLY count the 

  hours it took to paint!

     The final question, is it worth it? For me, yes. I am not in it for the money. I enjoy the challenge of playing with different color combinations. To me each piece is a challenge and at times I dream up a design I want to try and then adapt it to the things I have. Boy, do I have the "things." In fact, when I moved twice in a year in 2016, a friend that helped me make the move said as he left, NO MORE CRAFT STUFF! and he was right. I have enough for years! I had to buy three more shelves for my storage room; two for the unfinished items and the other for the items completed for sale. There are that many!

     The other challenge is using them up and resisting getting new things that strike my fancy. I am in a position now where I don't need more but where I need to learn how ... how to combine things that are different from the individual items that we buy. Ideas are everywhere and it doesn't have to be new or different craft items but looking at the world around you also offers ideas. 

   The birdhouse above is a case in point. I look at the same scene many mornings walking my dog. Finally, I realized that this could be painted and made an interesting piece.

     I just completed three small cactus paintings, again, cactus that I see many mornings walking my dog. It wasn't until I saw them in flower that I realized how dramatic a scene they made. Tall green cactus' with pale yellow flowers against the towering mountains behind them. What a scene!

     You don't have to be a seller to create. You do have to be willing though to try new things. I have found that it is well worth the time and effort. If you're a crafter, it will be for you too!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

How The History of the Silk Roads Effects Us Today

   

Views of history not taught to us in school

      Monday I received some literature, that I believe was approved by the City of Palm Springs and sent to every resident, regarding Proposition C. Proposition C is about restricting homes that can be listed as AirBNB residences. The city, as all governmental agencies, is bemoaning the issue that they say will create an unfriendly environment for tourists who might find other places to visit (read spend their money elsewhere). The owners of neighboring homes and those in condo complexes want even tougher restrictions because of the noise, congestion and turmoil short term rentals cause.

     It is a lose-lose proposition for both sides. Those that purchased, on the cheap, foreclosed houses during the Great Recession and are trying to turn a fast buck and those who purchased their homes as, well, homes, a place to quietly live, for many, their last years in retirement. 

     When I saw a TV ad the following night talking about what the city has done with stricter rules, closing down problem homes, the reduction of police calls ... you know the drill, I began to wonder. I considered my growing up and wondered when did a home become something that needed to be monetized? What was wrong with hotels and motels? And from the horror stories that are also related on the nightly news, newspapers and on the web about what happens in some of these AirBNB homes, who would ever rent to strangers?

     Cities, states, countries, governments can never resist the idea of gathering more money. Many are learning to play the game of scare tactics ... not unlike the leaders that are elected in them. Palm Springs has a long history of tourism as close reading of the Sunday Desert Sun will attest. For the city to blatantly say no one will come, well, there have been no statistics about the ratio of AirBNB visitors to those staying in hotels and motels. Palm Springs is filled with them and more are being built all over the Coachella Valley. Surely few of the 125,000 visitors coming to two three-day weekends of the Coachella Music Festival and 100,000 the following weekend for Stagecoach stayed in a home. The entire valley has at best 500,000 residents.

     In a country where nearly every entity is deeply in arrears regarding their pension plans, does a small city like Palm Springs need more employees that puts their pension plans deeper in debt? You might question that a city has to create a department to monitor short term rentals to begin with. A recent ½% sales tax was passed that, despite all the rhetoric, essentially tries to get those promises reasonably paid. This after years (read past newspapers) of deals the city made that have failed.

     Residents have recently been regaled with Spring Break events that culminated with it's demise after a riot in 1986. For several years the city made it more and more difficult for these antics to be repeated until by 1990 students went somewhere else. Did the city suffer that much? At all?

     I can remember being in Palm Springs for Village Fest, a weekly Thursday evening street fair crowded with residents and visitors long before AirBNB. Where did the tourists come from? Where did they stay?

     I'm reading an amazing book by Peter Frankopan. His THE SILK ROADS: A New History of the World recounts the history that we were never taught. I learned, for the first time, that the Roman Senate issued edicts on the excessive wearing of silk in around 5 A.D. For those not in the know, all silk until it was finally made in Europe in the 16th century, came from China. 

     What really caught my eye though was his recounting of the British East India Company and its problems in the 1700's. Due to rapid expansion, wars, bribes and such, the company found itself insolvent. The Brits, in their wisdom, felt the company was "too big to fail." Sound familiar? Their solution, as the solution of most governments is, was to tax, in this case tea. And guess whose tea was going to be taxed? You guessed it, the American colonies. They resisted saying that it was taxation without representation. We all know what followed.

     Frankopan's argument is that events in one part of the world have historically had effects in other parts. Winners write the history's we read and learn. His book shows over and over again how this was and is still, today, true. Yet, as Santana so wisely observed, "Those that forget history are condemned to relive it." I might add that it's hard to forget what you were never taught.

     The trade wars that followed the Great Depression are considered, by many, for being the cause of much that followed. To protect us from having to experience this again, laws were put in place that were followed until the late 90's. Alan Greenspan helped in their dismantling by saying these laws were never used, were not needed and restricted the flow of money. He also said that the whiz kids on Wall Street should be able to monitor their own behavior. We all know what happened next.

     Most of my friends hate history. I can see their eyes glaze over what I recount some fascinating, to me, book regarding things that happened and then relate how they are being repeated today. And yet, we are increasingly finding that we are reliving the past, yet again.

     In closing, I have not made my mind up about Proposition C. I can see both sides of this issue and wonder, how much are we willing to give up for the pursuit of money. Does everything we do and see need to be monetized? I moved to Palm Springs to get away from Los Angeles, San Francisco, even San Diego that were once sleepier and calmer. Does Palm Springs want to be yet another extension of the megalopolis that is Los Angeles? More importantly, will we allow many of those AirBNB homes, many owned by residents of other cities, be the tail that wagged the dog? I guess we will find out the night of June 5, 2018.