Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Live Local Artists



New friends explained the importance of buying art from living artists: a very wealthy guy had two children. The artist daughter struggled, and the father gave her a hard time. She committed suicide in her twenties. The father suffered, and thought about all those years he spent a lot of money on art. He figured he should have supported the young, struggling artists, instead and set-up a foundation in his daughter's honor.

As the friends put it: "The trust fund babies do not need more money [ancestors of the dead artist]; living artists do." Plus, one can see if their money is going toward an artist with good energy.

Here is a list of some of our favorite living artists: (In no particular order) Marianne Hunter, James Scoppettone, Sola Sawyerr, Michael Floyd, Michelle Waters, Mei Yu Lo, Allen Moe, Eileen Goldberg, Uebeners (Mud Daubers), Santa Cruz Pottery, Marge Smith, Acoma potters, Julia Parker, etc. Find and support a living artist.


Tonight I came home to thawed pork ribs. I cut them up and added them to a pot of seasoned beer with a new batch of CSA potatoes. With ten minutes left on the fifty minute boil time, I added corn on the cob. A beautiful heirloom tomato sliced, and dinner was served.

A note about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): yes, in almost every weekly batch there is evidence of bugs/worms. The little creatures know where to locate the good stuff! It makes sense to balance the ick-factor of insects with the good-for-a-body lack of pesticides. Personally, I find it comforting to see the worm holes: I just eat around them, or cut them out.

Imagine my surprise when I took the husk off the corn tonight to find a very happy fat caterpillar! The little guy went outside with some of the corn cob.

If we are going to rid our underground water supply of pesticides, then we need to come to terms with evidence of and eye-to-eye with the bug-kind. Farmers and residents in the heartland deserve a cleaner water supply.

Let's stop poisoning ourselves and our environment. Long live bugs!