July 2013 Newsletter

October 2011 Newsletter

Indigo Street Pottery Newsletter

Welcome to our monthly newsletter! It is part of our website indigostreetpottery.com , which you can browse from this page if you click on the subjects in the header. We write here about our studio, arts events, projects, studios of our friends, garden musings, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Hope you enjoy it!

August 13, 2011: 2011 Annual Art Auction, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass, Colorado www.andersonranch.org

May of 2012: Jeff Reich and Farraday Newsome, 2-person exhibition, Plinth Gallery, Denver, Colorado http://plinthgallery.com/

1 Indigo Street Pottery Calendar

email: indigostreetpottery@me.com

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email: indigostreetpottery@me.com

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July 2013 Newsletter

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Indigo Street Pottery Newsletter

In this Issue

1. Indigo Street Pottery Calendar

2. Gallery Five15 Exhibition Five 15 to the Fifth

3. Anderson Ranch 2013 Annual Art Auction

4. City of Phoenix Mayor’s Office Exhibition Phoenix: a Creative Oasis

5. Indigo Street Pottery Kitchen Garden

Welcome to our monthly newsletter! It is part of our website indigostreetpottery.com , which you can browse from this page if you click on the subjects in the header. We write here about our studio, arts events, projects, studios of our friends, garden musings, and whatever else strikes our fancy. Hope you enjoy it!

1 Indigo Street Pottery Calendar

5 Indigo Street Pottery Kitchen Garden

email: indigostreetpottery@me.com

April 15 - December 31, 2013, Phoenix: A Creative Oasis, group exhibition curated by Ted Decker for phICA (Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art), offices of Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton http://phica.org/oasis.php

April 27 - December 1, 2013: Same Difference, Phoenix Airport Museum Terminal 3, Level 1, Phoenix, Arizona http://skyharbor.com/museum/ExhibitionsTerminal3.html

June - July 2013: Gallery Invitational, Five15 Arts, Phoenix, Arizona http://www.515arts.com/

August 10, 2013: Anderson Ranch 33rd Annual Art Auction, Snowmass Village, Colorado www.andersonranch.org

May 2014: Jeff Reich, one-person exhibition, Nancy Dryfoos Gallery, Kean University Galleries, Kean University, Union, New Jersey http://www.kean.edu/~gallery/

March - April 2015: Farraday Newsome, one-person exhibition, Clay Art Center, Port Chester, New York

http://www.clayartcenter.org/default.asp

City of Phoenix Mayor’s Office Exhibition

Our

Jeff Reich, Interwoven, glazed stoneware, 8.25 x 11 x 9.5”, 2013

Farraday Newsome, Light Blue Teapot with Dogwood Flowers and Oranges, glazed terra cotta, 8.5 x 11.25 x 5.5”, 2008

This summer Jeff Reich and Farraday Newsome will be participants in the 33rd Annual Art Auction at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass, Colorado. The event will be held August 10, 2013. The 2013 Art Auction website, which will preview the amazing array of artwork featured in the live and silent auctions, will be available later this summer. http://www.andersonranch.org/events/index.php?page=auction

Each summer art lovers and community members support the Ranch by bidding on a wide range of artwork created by artists from throughout the valley and around the country. More than 200 artworks will be auctioned in live and silent auctions. Benefitting the educational programs of Anderson Ranch Arts Center. For more auction information visitAnderson Ranch is a learning community dedicated to creativity and growth through the making and understanding of the visual arts located on five scenic acres in Snowmass Village, near Aspen, Colorado. It promotes personal and professional development of artists of all levels of expertise through year-round workshops in ceramics, sculpture, photography, new media, painting and drawing, printmaking, woodworking, furniture design and more. Their artists residencies for emerging and established artists, summer internships, visiting artists and critics, community outreach, and public events offer a full spectrum of opportunities to creative people of all levels. The facilities feature fully-equipped art studios and galleries. Anderson Ranch programs and activities including art auctions and artist slide lectures, attract thousands of artists, art-lovers, students, faculty and patrons annually to this historic Rocky Mountain ranch dedicated to the fine art. To learn more about this beautiful art center visit http://www.andersonranch.org/ .

Shiso, also known as perilla or beafsteak plant (Perilla frutescens), is a an annual herb that does well here in the desert. This year’s crop volunteered from last year’s, so it readily reseeds. We use it fresh in salads, but it is fairly strong-flavored so I was glad to learn it can be dried. In fact, it is a main ingredient in a Japanese dry condiment called furikake that is meant to be sprinkled on rice.

Five15 Arts is once again hosting its annual gallery invitational exhibition Five 15 to the Fifth. Five15 Arts is a contemporary art space cooperative located on Roosevelt Row, a downtown Phoenix arts district. We were invited by gallery member artist Susan Risi, whose work can be seen in two of the photos below.

Another one of the invited artists in the show, Monica Aissa Martinez, recently wrote about the show in her blog. She was invited by gallery member artist Mary Shindell. Both Monica’s and Mary’s work can be seen below.

The show will run June - July, 2013. The gallery is located at 515 Roosevelt Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85004. http://www.515arts.com/currentShow.html

Five15 Arts Exhibition

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Photos above, left to right: The shiso is doing so well it is growing like a a ground-cover in parts of our summer garden. The leaves are about 2” across.

After picking and rinsing a good amount of shiso, we’ve bound the stem ends with a rubber band. It is hanging upside down in the kitchen to dry.

Farraday Newsome, Swallowtail Garden, lidded box, glazed terra cotta, 13.5 x 5.5 x 5.5”, 2012

Jeff Reich, Allthorn, glazed stoneware, 8.5 x 10 x 9.5”, 2013

Photo to left: Making vegan furikake (which traditionally includes ground fish, which we are forgoing) involved using our spice grinder to grind up some dried shiso, toasted sesame seeds, a chipotle, and some dried laver (the seaweed used to make sushi). It’s delicious!

Photo above: A small finished bowl of furikake.

Monica Aissa Martinez, Earth and Sky - (Sky) Tierra y Cielo (Cielo), casein on paper

Mary Shindell, Foliage 1 -Bougainvillea, digital print on plexiglas, LEDs, optical fiber, redwood frame

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Farraday Newsome and Jeff Reich will be among a group of artists participating in the exhibition Phoenix: a Creative Oasis. This show, which runs April15 - December 31, 2013, is located in the offices of City of Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton in City Hall. The show was curated by curated Ted G. Decker.

Ted Decker is the director of the Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art (phICA). The Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art (phICA) is a not-for-profit organization which compliments other regional cultural institutions while differentiating itself through collaboration and community partnerships and by offering new portals of entry for enjoying, understanding, and interpreting contemporary art. phICA was envisioned and is structured to be organic and efficient and is a non-collecting institution with a primary focus on exhibition projects, artist residencies, and arts incubation activities http://phica.org/about.htm

Jeff Reich, Desert Textures, glazed stoneware, 9 x 9 x 1”, 2012

Farraday Newsome, Dark Blue Bowl with Fruit, glazed terra cotta, 6.5 x 14 x 14”, 2012

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Odd as it may sound, it is apple season here in the low desert! We grow low chill apples (apples that don’t need many cold winter nights). The heavy branch above is our Anna’s Apple tree, a variety developed in Israel. Our Golden Dorsett Apple, developed in Jamaica, is similarly laden. Our Fuji and Gala apple trees, on the other hand, are slackers - not much fruit at all, but they are still young...!

Farraday Newsome, Night Garden Lidded Box, glazed terra cotta, 10 x 10 x 10”, 2011

Susan Risi, Ordered Chaos, ceramic, 30 x 10 x 10”, 2013

Photos above: The summer solstice has just passed, so monsoon season, with it’s heavy rains, will be here soon. It’s a good time to slather on a thick layer of compost so the rain can carry the nutrients down to the root zone. Farraday has pulled the 4” wood chip mulch layer over onto the trails in order to spread the compost at soil level. After the compost is watered in well, she’ll replace the wood chip mulch, whose job is to shade the soil and conserve soil moisture.

We are interested in the organic practice of no-till gardening, so we won’t dig this layer of compost into the soil. The idea is to not disturb the soil organisms - both large (like earthworms and ants) and small (like the fungal mycelium network that is so key in processing and delivering nutrients to plant roots), and thus enhance soil building. This style of gardening works best if you have good, fertile soil structure, which we have worked hard to develop for several years now.

If we lived in a moister climate we might just leave the wood chips in place and put the compost right on top for ongoing lasagna-style no-till gardening. As it is, we live in a mercilessly dry climate The top layer, whether it’s compost or mulch, stays too dry to decompose much. At this point in time, we’d rather have the nutrient-rich compost below decomposing where it is moister and leave the wood chips (slow to decompose even in the best of environments due to their high lignin content) high and dry on top. Also, the bacteria that decompose wood chips need nitrogen and will take it from the soil if undecomposed wood chips are buried. Since vegetable gardens need alot of available nitrogen, that’s another reason to leave the wood chips up on top.

Wood chips, when they do eventually and inevitably decompose, produce rich soil. It will always be the lowest/deepest layer of wood chips decomposing where there is some moisture to work with. The wood chip mulch surrounding our fruit trees is over 2 feet deep, so the deepest mulch stays moist and will slowly decompose to become very rich soil. See the April 2013 for photos of the mulch around our fruit trees.

Farraday’s box in foreground, Jeff’s sculpture mid-photo, Susan Risi (gallery member who invited us to participate), is mid-left with her piece to far mid-right.