Newyorkamera.com

Last Monday I received a telephone call asking if I would be able to teach a paste paper class the next Saturday. I accepted the job even though I knew it was a lot of work getting all the materials together to get them to the new (for me ) space in time fore the class. Adi and Sabine were here, Sally and Quentin had asked if we would be able to visit Philadelphia while they were there,  a book was scheduled to be delivered on Friday for a rapid construction. And now, there was an opportunity to teach a one day workshop. Mindy, who owns the studio, was very helpful getting some of the supplies that I needed for the class, I had to gather other tools and materials from the Center for Book Arts and from my studio and kitchen. Colman and I went to Philadelphia (next story, next entry) returned late Thursday and saw clients and set up for the Saturday class on Friday, the book project was moved into the next week so I was able to rest a little Friday night.

I caught the 8 A.M. ferry to Manhattan, it was a beautiful day, so very welcome after the near constant rain of the past few weeks. As we were putting into the slip at South Ferry I saw this tug pushing two barges with mountains of gravel in them. They were beautiful in the morning light and unusual, tugs are usually pushing refueling barges toward or from freighters moored in the harbor. The gravel mountains look small until you realize that the red walls around them are  over 4 feet tall or you compare them to the doorways on the tug.

On the way to Mindy’s studio I walked through the farmer’s market  in Union Square,  it was nearly endless temptation.  Fresh baked goods, farmer cheeses (one of them a blue. . .), baskets of fresh picked raspberries and cherries,  potted plants and  handmade pretzels were  distracting me from my journey. I picked up  a couple of butterscotch oatmeal cookies and an apple turnover  and headed to Mindys studio ( Intima Press , Studio on the Square) on the east side of the square.

Everything went well and I enjoyed working with all of the students.  For lunch I was told about a falafel place in the block north of 16th street, it was really good with a salad bar of toppings for the fresh falafel.

Here’s the class photo,  Mindy is holding her dog Suki.

I took the following photos  from the ferry on the way back to Staten Island.  I like the lighting  when clouds are heavy and the sun is low. This is the Goldman Sachs building in New Jersey.

There was a perfect photo op  with a sailboat near the Statue of Liberty.

We were married in Connecticut on May 30th. Last weekend we held a reception for our New York neighbors, family and friends. The week long rain stopped and we had a temperate if damp day to celebrate our marriage. Adi and Sabine were here for the weekend helping set up for the expected 60 guests.  Colman and I had already driven to Ikea to get  enough champagne flutes and I spent  late Friday and part of Saturday  baking savory  hors d’oeuvres for the time before we intended to cut the cake.  Here’s a shot of  Adi, Sabine and Colman with early guests from Brooklyn and Connecticut.

Adi’s son Taybin and Kat, they will be married in August.

Here we are relaxing just before curtain time.

The sun came out for the first time in days, here are our neighbors, Ellen, Kevin, and Toni.

More guests arrived, and we started to serve the pink proseco.

It was time to bring out the cake,

The cake was a gift from  Ben and Sylvia Weinstock.

Adi took this movie as we were starting to cut the cake, I had a little trouble getting it started since I was un familiar with three tier cake architecture. There were wooden supports in it, everything went smoothly with Ellen’s help, after we removed the top tier. It was really good, a yellow cake filled with raspberries in raspberry cream. A lot of our guests remarked at how beautiful AND delicious it was.

Ellen just sent these photos of Keith helping me take off the top tier of the cake.

There were unexpected gifts, Henry takes notice.

Here are Gwen And Daphne with flowers from the cake.

And Juliette waving to the camera just before we cut the cake.   Many thanks to Adi, he took most of the photos in this entry, and I’m veryhappy to have the movie of us cutting the cake.

Saturday started with the arrival of a crushed box from Florida,  a plant I had ordered  online  was here in just about no time. Here’s the photo from the web.  There had been an email notice that it was on sale,  it was sort of like paying full price and getting free shipping.  The plant is more than 2 feet tall with wavy edged, arrow shaped, lax, very fleshy, succulent,  green leaves.  It’s in bud. . .  Traveling so fast did it some harm, but I think it should recover.  It’s name is Synandrospadix vermitoxicus,  does that mean it’s poisonous to mice?

This weekend was the first of two weekends that Art By the Ferry took place. It will run next weekend too. Colman and I got out early (for us), picked up our art works from the Staten Island Museum and found a parking place in the no-space-for-cars-land of St George. Walking toward the spaces where the art was being shown, we ran into so many people we knew that it was some time before we got to see any of the art. For those of you who don’t know what this event is, it’s a mass showing of hundreds of artworks and performances ( musical and words) by the artists, craftsmen, musicians and writers who live on this (larger than Manhattan ) island. It’s a great opportunity to see and hear a really wide range of works in a lot of different mediums. The art work is displayed in a number of buildings behind the Borough Hall on Stuyvesant Street all the way to a warehouse that we calla Fish’s Eddy (for the last tenant) toward Stapleton on Bay Street. I didn’t take many photos. Most of the people we knew were moving too fast that early in the morning.  Here is a photo of our friend Irma, who is known for her photography, (displayed in another space), she’s showing some of her jewelry here.

This is Denise with some of her work in the left background. 

The weather couldn’t have been better. It was nice to see a lot of our friends in person, in the open air, a lot of us are on FaceBook  so we have an idea of what we are doing but FB isn’t like actually seeing the work or as pleasant as being able to talk face to face.

As we were heading back to the car,  I noticed this hole in the sidewalk. it , at one time must have held a post of some sort.  A lot of alianthus seeds had germinated filling it with a bright green salad of leaves.  the photo is about life size. 

I spent most of today sewing books for a client, the telephone rang quite a bit too.  I took breaks to go outside to tend my  abutilon seedlings and see the the new flowers. This is a mid season azalea, Full Moon.  We bought it because  of the large white flowers and because the bush produces flowers in three  different  colors;  pure white, white broken with salmon (or solid salmon) and a picotee pink with a flare.  The leaves are a beautiful glossy green. 

This is the first day the martagon lilies opened.  We bought one bulb a long time ago, it’s the only martagon we have been able to keep. We don’t dare move it , once martagons are happy  in a place you let them stay there.  Last year there were two stems.  It’s martagon dalhansonii. 

This azalea is a seedling from one of my crosses done about 10 years ago,  it has a compact form and varied flowers. Most of my other seedlings are salmon colored late season plants. 

Henry is a constant shadow where ever we go. 

It’s been a busy few weeks leading up to last weekend. Colman and I went to Adi and Sabine’s home in Connecticut for a special event. Here’s a photo that  our friend Helen took on Saturday the 30th, the story will be in a later entry, for now, I will try to catch up a little.  

Sunday before Memorial Day  we went to a party at Kevin and Diana’s.  I didn’t take many photos except in their garden, on the way around the block  we were surprised by the fullness of our neighbors rhododendrons. Our next door neighbor Gary’s bush was at its peak, the chionanthus in his driveway was also in full bloom.

The Brown’s house next  to Gary’s is surrounded by very old plants, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many flowers on any rhododendron.

Around the side of the Brown’s there grows a pink flowered bush.

At Kevin and Diana’s the stand out was this clematis. There were roses, iris and other flowers all around the yard but these were special.

I went into the city today to pick up some printing for another large book. As I arrived in Manhattan and got off of the ferry I glanced back toward the harbor, a fire boat was near the terminal in full spray.  I’ve wanted to shoot this for a long time, couldn’t have asked for better lighting or a better vantage point.  Two photos and it was over, the water stopped, when I got back to the terminal the boat had moved on to another place. If you look into the sprays on the right, you can see a shadow of the Statue of Liberty through the mist.

I’ll close this short entry with a photo of Henry, for the past two weeks we have been letting him outside. He gets to be a cat in the wild and he keeps us company on our trips around the garden. It’s also reassuring that when he’s out of sight, he appears when we call him. If we go inside he sometimes waits for us on the deck.