A Humane Turtle

I didn’t count how many leaves I made, but there are probably around 130 of them. I made them according to a simple crochet veined leaf pattern that I found on Ravelry. I made a bunch with the original pattern, then made a few with just half of the stem, and then I figured that it was easiest and prettiest just without the stem, so I went with that for most of the leaves.

In other news, the other plant that I took into my care liked – and still likes – it much better here. It even got two beautiful blossoms!

Yesterday, I invited people over to cook and eat together. It’s so easy to get into the habit of making the same food over and over again, and only for events like these do I look into my cookbooks. This time around I decided to give raw food a(nother) try; raw food as in: raw food that looks like cooked food.

I don’t exactly know what’s in the stuff we came up with, partly because we just made things up, and partly because I focused on making the sushi. But, here’s details about what I remember.

Smoothie

I actually have no idea what went into the smoothie. Bananas, and I don’t even know what berries. One of the frozen berry mixes maybe? All I can say is that it tasted awesome, and that I’m having the leftovers for breakfast right now.

Green Squash Pasta

The pasta was made by spiralizing green squash (the spiralizer looked much like the Lurch Spiral Slicer). You get REALLY LONG pasta that way, which I love.

The sauce was, as far as I know, not much more than orange juice, avocado, and pomegranate seeds. But I really don’t know…

Sushi

I love how the sushi turned out, even though none of us had ever tried to make raw sushi before. Turns out it’s not very hard to make. We concluded that it’s faster, tastier, and healthier than the cooked version

We made the “rice” out of one cauliflower head, around  1 1/2 cups of cashews that I had soaked for 2+ hours, and a little bit of lemon juice. I ground up the cashews into paste-like consistency, separately ground the cauliflower using a food processor, and then mixed them together in a bowl, with the added lemon juice. We didn’t use any salt. The filling consisted of: red peppers, cucumber, carrots, avocado (all cut into thin sticks), and sunflower sprouts.

Apple Pie with Banana (Ice) Cream

The apple pie was really something I was looking forward to trying. Fruit pies are my favorite kinds of cakes, so I was eager to have a somewhat healthy version of it.

The pie crust was made out of a mix of hazelnuts and almonds, a whole box of dates, and some added vanilla (I think).  The filling was made of ground apples, lemon juice and, of course, lots of cinnamon. The pie was topped with crushed hazelnuts. The pie was really good, though I wouldn’t consider it light food. We had the pie as our first course, and I was already pretty full before even getting to pasta and sushi.

The ice cream was a one ingredient ice cream as described here. The bananas weren’t completely frozen when we processed them, so the ice cream was on the very creamy side. But still very yummy!

Coconut!

We also had coconut. I’m not used to having coconuts, so the process of opening it, getting the coconut water and meat, was very exciting to watch. Especially when the only tool around is an old kitchen knife. The result was super-tasty nevertheless

All in All…

Our kitchen experiments were a big success, I’d say, and I’m looking forward to trying out more (raw) food soon!

I love books. I love reading books, experiencing the beauty that lies in the stories they tell. But I also love the mere availability of books, experiencing their visual and tactile presence. Yes, I am one of the people possibly cursed by bookstore owners because they like to sort their books by color or size (and yes, I did buy a few books just because I liked the cover).

So I’m always mesmerized when I see artists that use books as the base material for their sculptures. Here’s a list of book artists and cut/carved art works that I find especially beautiful. I found most of them via blog posts on My Modern Metropolis and Brain Pickings.

 

Nicholas Galanin: Faces

American artist Nicholas Galanin combines traditional and contemporary art in his work. With a Master’s degree in Indigenous Visual Arts from Massey University in New Zealand, he integrates indigenous culture into his work. The above works, he says, “retain the elegance of traditional masks, but their contemporary forms have an eeriness, a feeling of being there and not there – perhaps because of their pale color, their blurry, almost shrouded, features, and their seemingly sightless eyes. And, just as they seem to be materializing from the book’s pages, they also hover on the point of dissolution. There is an implication that they will never fully take form – resulting in a haunting sense of loss and longing.”

 

Wim Botha: The Human Condition

 

Wim Botha, a South-African artist, creates large-scale sculptural installations out of books, carved from dictionaries, bibles, encyclopedias, and also wood. He combines them with other everyday and symbolic objects, to create works with a whole new symbolic character. Very powerful artwork that I’d love to experience in person.

 

Kyle Kirkpatrick: Miniature People in Book Landscapes

On his profile, the UK-based artist Kyle Kirkpatrick states: “My practice is primarily concerned with the notion of the imagined landscape. I present man-made objects and natural materials simultaneously to form carefully and meticulously composed installation works. I capitalize on intrigue taking objects out of context reinventing their use, pushing the viewer to see beyond what I present before them.”

 

Guy Laramee: Book Landscapes

The artist from Montréal carves elaborate mountains out of big encyclopedias. He says: “Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS.”

 

Alexander Korzer-Robinson: Encyclopedic Storybook Art

I really like the approach that the British artist Alexander Korzer-Robinson has: he carefully cuts out parts of image-rich books like encyclopedias, so that what you see is a layered composition of the book’s illustration. A brilliant idea!

 

Brian Dettmer: Book Surgery

Having gushed about Korzer-Robinson, the Atlanta-based artist Brian Demetter uses a similar approach, but takes it to a whole new level. Images and words from within the book come to the fore; in addition, he shapes the whole book in such a way that it becomes a whole new entity. Simply stunning!

 

Su Blackwell: Scenic Storytelling

The London-based artist Su Blackwell creates incredibly beautiful artwork within the realm of fairy-tales and folklore. “For the cut-out illustrations,” she says, “I tend to lean towards young-girl characters, placing them in haunting, fragile settings, expressing the vulnerability of childhood, while also conveying a sense of childhood anxiety and wonder. There is a quiet melancholy in the work, depicted in the material used, and choice of subtle colour.”

 

Honorable Mention: Book Planters

Last, but not least, here’s an idea for a DIY book carving project: make planters out of books. There is a few tutorials around, for example at Green Wedding Shoes and Apartment Therapy. If you end up making some, let me know!