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I hope that I’ll be able to make this a regular affair. This past week I’ve been in my studio nearly every day. I’ve got almost 20 hours into this drawing. Any feedback would be appreciated. It’s a portrait of Julie holding our youngest (and largest) ferret, Ajax.

Paul was nice enough to come by this past week as well, so I’ve got a couple of nice photos of him to work with during the next couple of weeks. I’m really hoping to get one of these drawings done each week, at least in the near future. Julie gave me permission to order a new easel and some stretcher bars as well, so hopefully I’ll be able to find the time to break out the paints again.

- Jeremy

The past three days, instead of jogging after work, I’ve hit the studio to work on a new drawing.  It seems like that will be a viable solution to getting artwork done.  Unfortunately it did require me to give up jogging for a few days… I guess, now that I have a full-time job, something has to give.  A couple of people have suggested to me that I come up with a daily schedule…  that sounds like a good idea.

At any rate, this is a drawing of Gabby, one of my nieces.  Any feedback would be appreciated (especially if there are any Academy vets lurking out there).  Mostly it was just good to work on something more substantial than a sketch…
-Jeremy

I’ve been quite busy this week (and intermittently for the past several weeks) making an illumination for a friend of my mother’s. Because the poem I was given contains very strong oak tree imagery, I was immediately drawn to the idea of an insular-inspired knotwork illumination, the oak tree being important in Celtic mythology. After a little research, I settled on the Tree of Life (Crann Bethadh), an image that embodies the idea of connectivity between heaven and earth, life and death, and men and women. It is frequently depicted as a tree with roots and branches connecting into a circle via intricate knotwork.

As it’s been a while since I’ve done any Celtic interlacement, I pulled out the old tutorial and graph paper, and played around with designs for several weeks before being satisfied. I ended up choosing a central motif for the branches that reminded me of leaves, and embedded a lover’s knot in the root system (this is for an anniversary). I’m pretty pleased how the knotwork came out, especially once I got the overlaps and leafy/rooty embellishments in place.

I suppose that I should have posted this before now but, as of yesterday, I started a new job at Willamette University. I’m back with WITS (Willamette’s IT dept), and I’ll be working with the Administrative Computing Department: A little scary, but this means that I’ll be supporting the mission critical databases and business functions of the University. It’ll be nice to have a steady source of income again, and the more that I work with Databases the more I realize that being a DBA is a lot more fun than it sounds.

To be honest, however, I think some part of me was hoping that I wouldn’t be able to find a decent, paying job. I’ll just need to ensure that I find a way to make time for my art and don’t get too comfortable.

Earlier this summer, after some strong encouragement from a former faculty member, I attempted to get a teaching job at Willamette. I was just trying to talk them into letting me teach one figure drawing class. The Dean said there was money available for another class if I could convince the Art Deptartment. The chair of the Art Department (an Art Historian) said that the studio was free for an additional class if the Studio Arts faculty thought I would be a good fit. All of the Studio Art classes are currently overbooked, so I figured with money, space and demand, I had a good shot. However, as it turns out, the Studio Art Faculty at Willamette are “suspicious of my ‘conservative’ training and unsure if I would be willing or able to teach a variety of drawing techniques.” So close… but still not over the bar.

In other news: Julie and I just signed up for Dish Network and now have joined the world of time-shifting (a.k.a. DVR or Tivo—though Tivo is actually a brand name, like Kleenex). Having the ability to pause live television and (simply) to schedule the recording of programs that are on in the middle of the work day is amazing. We been using it for less than a week, but I’m already so spoiled that I can’t imagine going back to the way things were.

- Jeremy

A week ago, I was enjoying the excellent and talented Hugh Laurie in his inimitable role as Gregory House. It was the start of the third season, and it would seem that during the off-season House spent six weeks in rehab and had gone from needing a cane to perambulate, to jogging 8 miles. Now, of course, I understand that House is a fictional character, but this bothered me. Hugh Laurie is no doubt in great physical condition and it seemed quite plausible that he would be able to run 8 miles at a stretch. So what was wrong with me? I’ve been jogging pretty consistently for at least the past 8 weeks, and I had, at my best, only managed 7 miles.

Last Friday I decided that this would not stand. I was conscientious about keeping my heart rate down for the first 3 miles, and then continued a pace that allowed me to complete 8 miles. And just for good measure, I put in an extra mile and finished 9 miles in about 90 minutes. I was quick to point out to Julie that this was in fact the amount of time alloted to a regulation football match (i.e. real football, aka soccer). I have long wished that I had the body of professional footballer. However, just to make sure that my minor achievement didn’t go to my head, Julie was equally quick to point out that 90 minutes wouldn’t include any stoppage time or extra periods. Which immediately put me back in my place.

So, while I still look nothing like the average footballer, Hugh Laurie, at least, has got nothing on me. Well, except a brilliant prime-time show, an avid fan-base and devilishly good looks. Just to show it wasn’t a fluke, I ran 8 miles again this morning… starting to move into half-marathon territory. Stamina is continuing to improve, and now I just need to figure out how to improve my speed.

As a bit of a postscript, I had thought to post about my individual jogging session on this blog. I thought it would be a good way to track my progress and provide some encouragement to jog farther and faster. However, it sort of felt like too much naval-gazing (even for a blog). So I apologize to anyone who saw those trial posts last week.

- Jeremy

In his last post, Jeremy put the onus on me to update you about a few more things we’ve been up to in quiet Salem. I have a feeling he mostly meant for cooking updates, but I am going to sneak in a big ol’ knitting post too (heh heh!–oh wait, that wasn’t very surreptitious…).

We’re now the proud owners of two stainless steel All-Clad pans: a 10” fry pan and a 3.5 quart sauté pan/braiser with a domed lid. We started out with the fry pan, and have been very happy with it, but I think we will have to keep a non-stick skillet to make things like eggs and pan-fried chard-onion-gruyere panade. Then, over Labor Day weekend, we were at the mall to see a movie, and stopped in Meier and Frank (now Macy’s, but I don’t know if I can accept that just yet) to see what might be on sale. We found a beautiful 3.5 quart sauté pan with a domed lid for under $100 for some unknown reason (the 3 quart with a flat lid was $185); to make a short story shorter, it followed us home, along with a red silicone handle cover, for when I want to finish a dish off in the oven. I’ve only used it once so far, to sauté vegetables for the aforementioned panade, but it performed admirably. And for the sake of full disclosure, I must tell you that as soon payday rolled around, we ordered a rack from which to hang our lovely shiny new cookware, so that it won’t be sullied by too much close association with our other pots and pans in the drawer under the oven.

We have a few other new additions to the kitchen as well, such as a red Le Creuset stoneware gratin dish and a Lodge cast iron skillet, the latter of which I have been dutifully seasoning with platefuls of bacon and fried zucchini strips. But the real prize is the one that arrived last night, and which we have been looking forward to getting for the past year or so: a pasta-maker attachment for our stand mixer. Jeremy immediately tried it out with a batch of play-dough (just flour and water, to clean any residual grease or debris from the rollers), and then set about making our first real batch of fresh pasta, a simple egg fettuccine from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, which we just so happened to pick up from the library at lunch. While he gleefully slid the dough through the rollers and cutters, I made a quick batch of creamed chard ribs, a recipe we’ve enjoyed before, to sauce the noodles.

To conclude, between our new pasta-maker, Marcella, and Lidia Bastianich (whose book Lidia’s Family Table we have already renewed at the library once), there’s a heckuva lot of Italian food in our future. And since I picked up a bagful of gorgeous cranberry beans (or “French horticultural beans,” as they were labeled), I think we’ll start with some pasta e fagioli.

Next up, a knitting post if I ever remember to take photos, and Jeremy has some news to share as well.