Obsession of the week: Antique etched glassware

It's been slowly building into a full-blown love, my love of etched glassware. The above picture is of one of my first forays, a pair of 1930s etched star pattern brandy glasses. I gave them to Molly to celebrate Christmas and we ended the day sipping some bourbon from them on the sofa.
I fell in love with the glasses and hoped she would like them too. Something about the size (hard to tell from the picture, but they're adorably small) and the stars (that touches on another love of mine, star motifs in Victorian jewelry, but that's another post...), and wonderful texture and visual interest of the etching technique itself.

This week, I've been sifting through Etsy (sadly, one of my favorite downtime activities) and found some lovely etched antique glasses, alcohol-related and otherwise, I would love to add to the collection.

1. 1910s shot glass, advertising Old Continental Whiskey

2. 1920s crystal perfume bottle with botanicals

3. Assorted 1900s crystal glasses in Lily of the Valley pattern

Pumpkin, pumpkin everywhere!

1. Pumpkin bread as modern art

2. Molly fashions the pie crusts for pumpkin pies

Ever since I was a little girl, I've adored all things pumpkin, specifically pumpkin pie. So did my brother Andrew apparently, as any pie left unguarded was his to-go target. We served many a crustless pie, thanks to his pillaging, or ones dotted with fingerprint holes, in the style of a deranged modern artist. We quickly learned that the pies, the moment they emerged from the oven, needed to be squirreled away out of reach, for them to have any chance of making it to the dessert table unscathed. I became so paranoid of suffering casualties that I got in the habit of making three or four at once. Plus, I could have a whole pie to myself the day after. If you think eating a whole pie is a hard task, you haven't seen me with a pumpkin pie. I love it so the filling is nice and chilled, not too sweet but full of spices. I've tried it fancy but I'm happiest with the recipe off the Libby's pumpkin can. Simple, nostalgic, perfect.

SPICY MOLASSES PUMPKIN BREAD

My childhood Thanksgiving always had two breads, a orange cranberry loaf and a pumpkin bread.

This bread is easy to make, and a nice side for the Thanksgiving feast. I like the slightly darker taste the molasses imparts, and the crunch of the walnuts. The oil keeps things moist. But be careful not to overcook!

INGREDIENTS:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree 4 eggs 1 cup vegetable oil 2/3 cup water 1 3/4 cups white sugar 1 cup molasses 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/2  teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger 1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. Chop walnuts.
2.	In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water, molasses and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended, including most of the walnut bits. Pour into the prepared pans. Top with remaining walnuts.
3.	Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Thankful for...

This unseasonably mild November day and vibrant yellows of the ginkgo leaves outside our windows.

Painter of the day: Aaron Birnbaum

"If you are durable, your resistance can overcome a lot of trouble... It is not the strength you got, it is the durable you got that [helps] you overcome all your troubles." - Aaron Birnbaum (1885 - 1998)

One day Molly and I would like to travel to the bi-annual Slotin Folk Art Auction in Buford, Georgia, but until that day we content ourselves with the thick magazine that they send in the mail. While flipping though this term's offerings, I was drawn to the work of an artist previously unknown to me, the Ukranian-American Aaron Birnbaum.

A fellow Brooklynite, he would sit on his couch (or the stool next to it) in his studio apartment, surrounded by buckets of paint, to work. (I smiled when I read that, thinking of the havoc it wreaks on our tiny apartment when I take out my art supplies.) His apartment was literally crammed with his paintings, which often were painted on top found objects -- fruit crate tops, old mirrors, pieces of plywood, serving trays.

Born in the Ukraine, Birnbaum carried with him the memory of the beautiful countryside of his homeland. But his childhood was far from idyllic. He was taunted for being a Jew (one memory is of buttons being ripped from his new suit), and at age thirteen was pulled out of school to apprentice with a tailor, where he put in 17 hour days, 6 days a week. At age seventeen, he went to NYC to meet up with his father, who had emigrated earlier, and became a tailor and dressmaker himself. He did this his entire adult life. At 70, retired, and grieving the death of his wife to cancer, he decided to take up painting. He approached it much like dress-making, even making cardboard templates for some of his reoccurring images, such as birds and ships. While his pieces were featured in group shows, he only really achieved greater recognition in the art world at the age of 100, when he was given a one man show at the Museum of American Folk Art.

Birnbaum was called a "memory painter" because he painted all the scenes of his childhood from memory. In addition, he painted the world around him, his life in Brooklyn. 

I love the playfulness of his work, the composition, the flatness of objects, and their strong graphic bent. I love the way he renders birds. And I'm drawn to his personal story -- reinvention at 70 after great loss, fame at 100, death at 103. I often feel restless and antsy with respect to career aspect of my life, impatient that I haven't yet achieved nearly what I want and yearn to. Impatience (coupled with a slightly pessimistic streak) is one of my hugest character flaws. Yet, knock on wood, my life is still much longer, and there's a lot of time left provided I don't waste it.

The artist, with his giraffes.

Happy Halloween...

from the brownstone and Mary Poppins!

Since I was a kid, I have always loved Halloween. The whole gory mess of it. From scooping out the cold, gooey innards of a pumpkin with my fingers to a squirt of treacly drug-store "blood" running down my middle-school neck.

My parents were good sports in this. Throughout my childhood, they donned costumes as well, and accompanied me on my trick or treating until I was old enough to do it myself (also middle school, exciting times!). Somewhere along the way, it became a tradition for my mom, my little brother James, and me to make our own gravestones every year, complete with witty/morbid death poems detailing how the interred met their untimely end.

Halloween meshed well with our family, which put little stock in the saccharine and had (by perhaps by necessity and/or circumstance) a deep streak of dark humor. It was no surprise that my one repeat costume was a corpse-like Lizzie Borden, complete with a bloody axe, where I had painted the infamous poem.

Lizzie Borden took an axe,

gave her mother 40 whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

she gave her father forty-one!

Halloween tapped into all the theatrical and exhibitionist sides of my personality. It was free license to transform, to explore, to shock. To play with boundaries and skirt them.

Molly on the other hand, has always hated Halloween for reasons that she can't quite even articulate to this day. Something about the fear of looking stupid, and the fear of exposure. It was one small example of the larger theme of Molly's childhood... the struggle to feel free.

I understand all of this, and I love Molly, but at first her hatred of the holiday was something I struggled with. I alternately sighed with disappointment and tried to lead her to water. This did not go well. Our last Halloween was a depressing affair, with Molly sulking in the sheriff costume I gave her, as we got a lonely beer in our neighborhood dive bar.

I guess I've gotten spoiled from our general tendency as a couple to band together in our efforts and be stronger for it. But to use a cheesy metaphor, sometimes I have to learn to be my own wind behind the sails. So, that's what I tried to do this year. The week before Halloween, I put in an inordinate amount of time (considering the finished product that is) into making this:

What is it you say? Why, a brownstone of course! What better way to show my love of Brooklyn low-rise architecture? As you can see, we live on the floor above the parlor and wear our wedding gowns at all times. And some guy from a New Yorker cartoon lives above us and owns what looks like a Picasso painting. Naturally.

I'm not sure if I should place any particular significance on the fact that my first Halloween costume since turning thirty is also my first box costume (after years of favoring much more slinky/outlandish outfits) but there you go. 

For Molly, her happiness is key. I knew that she a) had to come up with the costume herself this year and it b) most definitely had to fit her sensibilities. As a child, Molly was Dorothy for many years, and she tends to favor prim, well put-together looks.  With a new blazer from Marshalls, a thirft-store hat, a glue gun, some white flowers, an umbrella, and an artfully placed cardinal, she became a beautiful Mary Poppins. She could even smile genuinely when I took this picture!:

After all my fretting about finding a plan for the night that was properly fun and grandiose, our Halloween ended up being a low-key affair. I made a pumpkin pie (the filling spilled and burnt the crusts, oops!) and we took it to our downstairs neighbor who was throwing a party. We had plans to leave for elsewhere, but we had a surprisingly good time just where we were, and if I was being honest with myself, I was exhausted from three nights of little sleep. As we said our good-byes a little before eleven, I contemplated the amazing luxury of walking sated and sleepy up two flights of stairs and into a comfortable bed. We ordered in pizza and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while the rain pelted on the windows.* It was a lovely evening and if that's what having an adult Halloween is like, I realize it's only a bad thing when it's not in accordance with your desires.

* It's crazy to think that this first aired in 1966. Not many things from that time have aged nearly so well.  I think it's something to do with the lack of sentimentality.  As a kid, I could absorb the general melancholy tenor of the Charlie Brown TV shows and I definitely liked them. But revisiting them as an adult makes me realize how much of it went over my head. The humor is sharp and adult, its outlook on life bittersweet and even at times a bit nihilistic. 

Halloween in Brooklyn

Some images from my walks around Brooklyn.

1. Thirteen pumpkins for good luck on St. Marks Place

2. The Berkeley St. Sphinx guards her pumpkin

3. Echoes of Rocky Horror in Carroll Gardens

4. Bert pumpkin in Brooklyn Heights (with broccoli hair!)

Preppin'

Less than a week to go!

Sweet dreams (?)

HAPPY OCTOBER!

I got a good laugh over this New Orleans guest bedroom. Nothing sets the tone better for night of peaceful slumber than a big hulking vulture guarding the bed! Enjoy away, oh hapless guest!

Seriously, though, something about this idea tickles me. And I dig their antique wood bed and coverlet (and the tiny bit of the pink rug I can see). If it ever comes to the day that we have a second bedroom, I could see going down this path (Molly says no).

I did a quick search for an ominous image of my own, and found this black cat (Catus Niger) by the Renaissance naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi.

I love the way his yellow eyes are the only discernible facial features. And that there is a poor mouse literally under his right paw. I would blow this sucker up and center it prominently over the bed. Keep everything else tasteful. And savor any reactions  I got when I showed our guests to their room... ;)

Mount Desert Island

I was so lucky to perform the opening recital of the Bar Harbor Music Festival this summer. It was, of course, lovely to program and perform a recital, as song recitals these days are unfortunately a dying art, mainly relegated to graduating conservatory students and the few lucky opera stars with the clout to sell well at Carnegie.  Not all opera singers enjoy performing song recitals, as they are innately somewhat minimalist affairs -- no grand orchestra, no costumes or props to hide behind. But something about the sparse, pure, intense aesthetic of this form greatly appeals to me. And even more, I love the repertoire that has been written for these recitals so, so much, so it was an honor to have the opportunity to sing it.

It was so lovely to get to travel for Maine for a week. For two summers as a middle-school aged person I went to a summer camp in inland Maine, but never developed a great love or appreciation for it. A bit later, in high school, my mom and I spent a few days with my piano teacher and her husband in their Maine island summer home. I remember chilly days of unrelenting fog, and a sweater-clad walk through reams of scraggly pine trees, which I found atmospheric, but for all the wrong reasons. "Pine trees are creepy," I privately declared. I kept waiting to stumble on a corpse or for a ghostly woman in white to emerge from the fog. In any case, I decided, for the record, that Maine was pretty, sure, but it was an alien beauty that didn't exactly warm my heart.

I don't know what's changed, but it must be me, because this time, for the first time, Maine hit me squarely in the heart. Sure, the first two days were glum and gray, but then the sun broke free, and I was struck by the beauty of it all... the bright blue skies, the rocky beaches, the clear, sparkling lake water, the heady scent of pine trees, the fields of wild flowers, the slight chill in the air at nights.

1. Somewhere in Somesville

2. White daisy fields forever

3. Hiking in the southwest

4. Sunrise on Somes Harbor

5. Acadia walk

6. Boats on Bass Harbor

Beautiful botanicals

The beautiful June roses have got me thinking about botanicals. Specifically antique prints. Botanicals have become pretty ubiquitous, I think with good reason. Most people like flowers. And a grouping of botanical prints is pretty and tasteful and pleasing.  Still, I think once you deviate from the pre-packaged fern reproductions form Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware, there is room to paint with a more individualistic, perhaps dramatic hand. And why buy a mass-produced reproduction when there are plenty of antique prints to choose from online? (try Etsy or Ebay for example, for inexpensive prints). I've been really drawn to the combination of pink and mauve and grey recently. Inspite of the little girl connotations of pink, something about this combination elevates it to a very elegant, serene realm. I especially like the botanicals I've been finding with grey backgrounds. Wouldn't this be a lovely grouping?

I love too, the boldness of the tropical flowers. Just look at the amazing plumage and spots of the orchids, the sun-burst architecture of the Passion Flower, and the dark, sensual petals of the Rhodochiton!

I didn't even work particularly hard to find these images; they are all from Antique Print Boutique, an Etsy shop based in Beallsville, MD.

Top row (1 to r):

1. Oncidium Cucullatum Orchid. 1876.  

2.  Passion flower, 1887.

3. Rhododendron, 1876.

Bottom row:

1. Rhodochiton Volubile, 1838.

2. Louise Odier Rose, 1940.

Stop and smell

On our way to a concert given by the Brooklyn Art Song Society, we stopped to admire these beautiful, fragrant roses.  An interesting counterpoint to the Wolf lieder we heard afterwards, which were quite dramatic and thorny. 

Grand Army Plaza in December

Beginning work on a calendar project this week.  Upper left-hand corner is the rough sketch. Now, to bring it to life! Am thinking it could double nicely as a Christmas card as well?

Real Estate Swoon: 505 17th St.

If only I had 1.9 million, I might plop it down on this place.  I love all its traditional brownstone trimmings -- heart of pine floors, tin ceilings, decorative arches, and graciously feminine fireplaces, but also the light and airy feeling, and the soothing, old-time-y, yet simple way they refinished the bathrooms and kitchen. Especially the kitchen. Drool. What not to love about the enormous double-wide farm sink and the creamy vintage stove? 

California Dreamin' - Part Two

For the bedroom of the (fantasy, sigh) bungalow, a palette of neutrals (white, black, and brown wood) and indigo makes my heart happy.

The centerpiece is an antique iron bed with a beautiful Mexican falsa blanket. A primitive folk chair, a midcentury desk,  white enamelware, and modern art round out the picture.

1. Vintage enamelware cup from EllasVintageFinds on Etsy.
2. Antique letterpress drawer, from 86Home on Etsy. I'd wall mount it and use as a jewelry holder.
3. Raoul Ubac, Les Fruits I, 1975
4. Antique primitive chair from 86Home.
5. Winterrain 2, watercolor by dearcatherina on Etsy.
6. Vintage Indigo Panel, probably of Hmong origin
7. Mexican falsa blanket from Urban Outfitters.
8. 19th c. Faux whale tooth roots, from ScrimshawMaterials on Etsy.
9. Hunter Century Oscillating Desk Fan from the 1930s
10. Rustic stool, also from 86Home.
11. Saltwater soap from Saipua Brooklyn. Love the packaging.
12. Jute charcoal-stripe hamper from DunlinHome. Too bad they're in Austrailia!
13. Azusa Cage pendant fixture with Edison single loop bulb from Schoolhouse Electric Supply.
14. Wide Thrown Bells from The Future Perfect.
15. 1960s Decorative Whale Figurine
16. Antique Iron Bed with original drop pin side rails, from eBay.
17. Blown-up photograph from our wedding day, gray-scaled.
18. Anthropometrie, Yves Klein, 1960.
19. Enamelware pitcher, 1950s.
20. Campaign Breakfast Table from Dunlin Home.
21. Vintage Mexican blanket from UptownHandyRanch on Etsy.

Today's Cat-Cam

California Dreamin'

Still in the throes of winter, I find myself craving bright yellows, oranges, and turquoises.  The arid California mountains looming over the sparkling coastline. Sea anemones. Fruit trees. And a Craftsman bungalow with a colorful kitchen.

The kitchen draws mostly on a yellow, turquoise, and mint palette, with a tiny bit of orange thrown into the mix. The decor is eclectic and geometric, with a definite push to mid-century -- the mint-green Smeg refrigerator, old-school radio, starburst juice glasses, Aladdin-style teapot and other Bauerware pottery. Bird artwork is by Edward Lear and outsider artist Justin McCarthy, with some 1940s toucan salt and pepper shakers for a hint of kitsch. Sage and white bentwood chairs, wicker lounger, yellow pendant light, and gray tile table complete the look.