Of jewels, beans and Poseidon

There was one of those neat features in the NYT today about finding materials to plant in the kitchen: those dried beans and various seeds and lentils and other things we think of as food but which can be planted.

Ever since I read a book years ago called something like The After Dinner Gardener, which was about planting the pits from your dessert orange and that kind of thing, I've been a pushover for planting whatever I find around me, but had unaccountably overlooked lentils and beans. Now, given that they might have been irradiated to exterminate various dread ailments, they may not sprout at all, but no harm in trying.

So I started pawing through the kitchen cabinets and found a bag of bean soup beans, many kinds, in the freezer. I hope freezing hasn't done them in, but I figured I may as well plant a few, so I put them in a bowl to soak for a day. And realized that the beef bones which, most unlike me, never do beef, in the freezer, are waiting to be processed into stock and united with this bean soup mix for a great family soup. So the bones are now roasting, the beans are now soaking for food purposes and a selection is soaking for planting.



They look exactly like little jewels, too good to eat. I'll keep you updated on their progress if they have any progress. I think I'll put them in the glass gardens, why not.

Other updates: years ago I made a lot of art together with another artist, Stefi Mandelbaum, under the monicker Unified Field. We did very well, as Unified, juried into some very respectable places, and even made sales, gads, as well as continuing our solo art adventures. It was great fun to keep our real identities concealed, and collect people's surmises. At one point we were thought to be a couple of young male bikers!!

Anyway, Stefi has now committed a blog, which you can find (I don't do hotlinks, since to me they are like call waiting, I'd rather not interrupt your reading in here) by googling on her name, going to her blog, then finding the page entitled Unified Field, where all will be revealed, how we arrived at the name, how we worked, and some of the works we created together.



Here's Poseidon, a mixed media piece, three image transfers from polaroids we took of our own earlier works, on a torn paper background. Please forgive the distortion -- it was the only way I could get a picture of a black piece under glass without having my own reflection front and center or a big glare from the flash.

But do mosey over to Stefi's blog and take a look at her art, too, while you're checking up on Unified Field. Good stuff there.