Why 2009 will surely go down as one of my favorites

Each year brings so many new and unexpected things. Some things hard and many things good. Often I am glad to see a hard year end and others years I look back and can't believe all the great things that came. This was one such year, perhaps my best...yet, and here are some reasons why.
1. One of my favorite people, Peter Washburn joined our family in January. What a little sweetheart! He surely improves everyones life!
2. I got engaged to a very sweet, very silly, very handsome man!
3. Among many fun trips, Clint and I visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water.
4. Graduated with my MFA, sold my first major piece and have had two shows since graduating.
5. Got to visit Utah on several occasions, and visit the beautiful mountains that I miss so dearly.
6. Had success planting my first real garden. Many more to come!
7. Got a lovely apartment in a lovely area in Columbus, fully equipped with backyard bunnies and squirrels.
8. Got married to that same cute silly darling boy who makes me happier every day.

9. Had many fun trips, parties and adventures including our fabulous honeymoon in Zions, going to Chicago to see art, driving all day and all night to see Sufjan and making these fun pinatas for our post wedding house warming party.10. Getting to spend time with my ever growing family, and joining a new family too.

And with this year, a decade comes to a close. I look back on the last ten years and can't believe how fast it has gone. During those years I have been able to graduate high school, college and grad school. I was lucky enough to go to Europe twice. I have grown so much as an artist and hopefully as a person as well. I have had the joy of becoming an aunt and a sister-in-law and of course now a wife.
One of the things I look back on most fondly is not so much the events of the last ten years, but the wonderful people who have come into my life in that time. Some for only a brief time and others will be part of my life forever, regardless, I am grateful for the journey and for those who help and enrich life along the way. Who knows what the next ten years will hold! Happy New Year!!!

Starting Traditions

With our first Christmas together as a married couple approaching, Clint and I decided to start setting some Allred family traditions. We are just about finished reading the Christmas Carol and on Saturday we had a little party with our good friends in Columbus and decorated Gingerbread houses. We made delicious bread bowls recipe found here and some tasty soup found here.

Here is the Allred collaboration. Clint came up with the christmas lights and the pink heart, which I think just make the house perfect! I came up with the log pile, tulips and freshly fallen snow. (And yes, I realize that tulips don't really fall into the winter/ christmas motif ...but in candy land, those rules don't apply.)Everyone was coming up with such creative and unique ideas, we all kind of tried to out-wit each other. Lawrence and Tiffany win for most adorable, chrsitmasy house, They even had little curtains in the windows!

And Lincoln and Mallory...well they win for most originial.
Take a look at the detail shot. If you can't tell, Its a black guy sitting near and ice pond with ice skates on. Who thinks of this stuff? It had us all laughing. And this keep in mind this idea came after a failed attempt at building a gingerbread Parthenon. I think these two have the potential to be gingerbread masters.



Another tradition we started was sending out handmade christmas cards. This year we made a bunch of one of a kind postcards. I had a lot of fun making them, and hopefully our family liked them too!
And of course there is always the tradition of giving handmade gifts. This year I made this quilt for my niece who is going to be born shortly after Christmas
Traditions are such a fun and important part of family! I can't wait to start more throughout the years, and continue many that my family had. Merry Christmas friends!!!

Hooray for Thanksgiving!

This year Clint and I had Thanksgiving with our friends Britney & Justin. Justin and Clint have been friends since their early years and both happened to come out to OSU for med school. They have a darling 3 year old son and a cute little baby girl. This pic was taken by their son, Traeden (hence the blurriness) He was cracking us up the whole day! Although we missed being with family, we had a great time and had some mighty tasty food. Hooray for thanksgiving!

What was clint doing while we were cooking in the kitchen? Maybe this next picture shows it more clearly....

He was watching the Dog Show, which apparently, is on every year after the parade. Who knew? ha ha. He was trying to predict the winners from each category. Sadly the Beagle lost and Clint pretty much gave up at that point.

One of the funniest moments of the night was when after dinner Justin decided it was a good idea to put on the movie Willow. ( We were both a little confused why anyone would think this a good idea....and after watching the movie felt even stronger on this.) Anyway...there is a part at the end when the witch spills blood all over and in attempts to make the move less scary to the 3 year old, we all started saying, "Ew! That lady spilled cranberry sauce!" Traeden looked at us and said, "No! Its blood!" Duh! what were we thinking.

we also had a familiar visitor stop by this holiday:
Our good old friend Felix!

Upcoming Show

I have a show Dec 30th-Jan 30th here in Columbus at the ROY G BIV gallery with a fellow classmate (Sara Barens, work on left) Opening on January 2nd. If you'd like an announcement mailed to you post me a comment!

Inspiration

Today I stumbled upon this lovely website, by my favorite store anthropologie. Lets just say I could spend all day on this site! Its basically all the ideas, inspiration, art, whatever that inspires the people at anthropologie.

I found this trailer for this documentary on 5 women artist, and now I am dying to see it! check out the trailer. I am half tempted to just buy the documentary, since I already looked at the libraries and its not there. boo. I love this stuff!




Other things that are inspiring me right now, The Wexner Center in Columbus has an awesome Luc Tuymans retrospective showing right now. If you are in Columbus check it out. I love art that makes you think, and I love how subtle and unassuming it is. And of course I love this one because its a bunny!

.What is inspiring you lately?

Football 101

Saturday Clint and I went to what will likely be our last Buckeye's football game. Clint LOVES football. I'm pretty sure he thinks about it all the time :) He loves football season like most normal people love Christmas season, in fact, he refers to it as Christmas Eve. Silly Clinton.

He has tried very diligently to convert me to the sport. We even had a Family Home Evening dedicated to teaching me about football. I'm trying to think what I remember from that... hmm.... I'm a lost cause!


You see, when you stick me in a stadium for four hours this is what I see: (oh and I was not coveting those nachos, more likely gagging at the sight of them and wondering why someone would chose to consume them. Being in a football stadium is kinda like being in another planet for me! everything is so foreign! he he he And yes, the second picture on the top is my viewpoint while everyone else was standing, I was comfortably sitting on the bleachers! Hey, 4 hours is a long time to stand. Dang student section.)

This is what clint sees! He sure gets into the games! And this game was a pretty close and exciting one. It went in to overtime and the bucks won! Hooray. I sure love my football loving husband. Maybe someday I will see the light and love football too.

Ice Cream Social

This weekend we had a fabulous ice cream social. A few of us with ice cream makers made some delicious and creative concoctions. Stephen was one of our distinguished taste testers, and as you can tell by the expression on his face, he was the most enthusiastic one as well. (Well actually I think that is probably the same expression he pulls in most pictures. Silly Stephen.)

We had Raspberry Pecan (My personal favorite, made by Bryce), Ricotta Almond (made by me) Lemon Blueberry FroYo (Top secret recipe from Jeni's!! Made by Kate yum!), Chocolate Chip Boca Pandan (Kira's award winning treat! made with young coconuts) and Fruity Fun (Bryce's mystery banana-y frozen fruitiness). Every flavor was pretty tasty. We are already planning a second spring event. Homemade ice cream is truly one of the most delectable goodies out there. Thanks friends for coming! We had a great time.

Cookin My Way to the Good Life

I come from a family of readers. My mom basically thrives off of reading, as do many of my brothers and sisters. I have often been scoffed at for reading a book half through and never finishing it. ( Including reading over 400 pages of david copperfield and then stopping) I just have never been a huge reader! However, I LOVE reading cook books! I will check them out from the library like crazy and just read through the recipes. I read recipes before I go to bed, in the morning over breakfast and pretty much all through the day. I don't even make the recipes all the time. I just like to read them!

Anyway, I came across this book, Jamie at Home and I think it might be my new favorite book. I wonder how many times I can renew it from the library? Hmm. Its just a lovely book, and mostly I love the idea of growing most of your own food organically and becoming more self sustaining. Someday I will have a huge garden and we can eat yummy home grown produce all year. Until then we can still have delicious seasonal meals with fabulous fresh ingredients such as this tasty one we had tonight: Squash soup, beet salad and apple pie!

My Halloween Hottie

Clint worked very hard on his costume. He worked on it literally non-stop for over a week! Here he is a few moments before the big unveiling. I think he looks pretty cute with a beard!
And the finished product: SCARY! Now you might not guess it, but Clint was planning on going as the Sundance Kid. He had been planning it for months and months, ever since we saw the classic film Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid this summer. However, we both kinda forgot about Robert Redfords sweeping blonde locks, and we also forgot to get a cowboy hat. The result: Clint looked a little more like a 1970's trailer park resident. He he. Sorry Honey, I thought about saying porn star, but I upgraded it a notch :) I didn't take a picture of him in his cowboy garb, which actually tied the costume together quite nicely. Isn't he cute?

Sew Fun!

Look at this cute little apron I made for my little niece! Thanks mom for providing me with hours of fun! Can't wait to make some more.

Mean Mr. Squirrel

The mean squirrel in the backyard apparently felt threatened by my squirrel pumpkin and so he attacked it! It was meant as a peace offering after our tumultuous relationship this past summer, but this act has solidified our relationship: enemies!

The funny thing is, Clint wanted to put it in the backyard to avoid the perils of rambunctious teenagers. He grossly underestimated the evilness of Mr. Squirrel.

Happy Halloween!

Hope you all have a fabulous Halloween this week! Go carve a pumpkin! Its fun!

So many reasons why I love Chicago!

Me and my honey took a short trip to Chicago this weekend. He had to take a test there and I hitched a ride, because really, who needs an excuse to go to Chicago?! Since we were really only there for a matter of hours, I had to prioritize my time...by spending all 7 hours of my trip at the Chicago Art Institute. Call me crazy, but do I really need to give any more reasons why this is where I would want to be?
Clint was able to spend a few hours at the museum with me and he loved it too. His favorite piece was Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. Can't say I blame him. Although its too hard for me to pick a favorite. One of the best things about being in Ohio is being a short 6 hour drive to Chicago!

Paper is so dreamy

wouldn't you love to have this dreamy cluster of paper hiding in a cozy corner in your house? I know I would (by tord boontje)

I fell in love again...All things go! All things go!

Last night Clint and I made a 4 hour trek to see my favorite musician, Sufjan Stevens! (Well the Beatles will always be my number 1, but you get the drift) And let me just tell you it was AMAZING! Hooray for Sufjan!!! First off I have to say Clint wins mega husband points for going on this trip. Sufjan is not your traditional musician, so he was exposed to a whole new type of music. And although he did manage to fall asleep for a short second, I think he liked it too. (Although he led me to believe he liked the movie Waitress too, later to find out he didn't...)

If you haven't heard of Sufjan, you may recognize his tunes from Little Miss Sunshine. If you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine, you really ought to. Its hilarious! Anyhow... There is music and then there is art, and what Sufjan does is truly the best of art. I listen to Sufjan nearly 80% of the time I am in the studio and I just love his music so much!

One of my favorite parts of the concert was when Sufjan said something like this, "When I was growing up my father told me to be a lawyer, because the law is forever. My stepmom told me to be a postal worker, because the government is forever, my mother told me to be an engineer, because that is forever too! But I became an artist, because art wins, Art is really what is forever!" Hooray for becoming an artist Sufjan! You motivate me to make better art.

So we drove to the concert and then drove back, getting back at 3:00am! But it was worth it. So I was figuring last night that between this, going to kirtland with clints parents this weekend, and driving to kentucky twice I have been driving about 26 hours, about the same distance from ohio to utah!

Kentucky Show

This weekend a classmate of mine and I drove down to Lexington Kentucky to install our exhibit, Interval. The show turned out really great and it was a lot of fun to put together. Both of us make pretty understated, quiet work, only she primarily works with Black and my work is almost alway pretty light. So together they complimented each other very well I think. I showed some post grad work as well as a few things I was working on for my thesis. The above piece is my most recently completed work, Remnants.

If you are around the area the closing reception is this friday. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend making a trip out to Kentucky. So far, I think it might be my least favorite state. Not very impressive. Ha ha.

Just My Luck

Today Clint and I had to give talks in our ward. And so of course about an hour before church I got this gigantic mosquito bite on my forehead! The little jerk was trying to keep me from giving my talk. I came upstairs to show Clint, who said, "its no big deal..." Oh PLEASE! I have a welt the size of a quarter on my forehead! He said, "I wish it happened to me instead of you, because it really wouldn't bother me." I disagreed. I think any self respecting person would be a little self conscious to have a third eye in the middle of their forehead, especially when having to stand in front of a large crowd of people. Well a moment later, Satan the mosquito was foiled when I remembered that I could part my hair on the opposite side. My bangs saved the day. The End.

Garden + Ice Cream Maker = True Love

my roommates gave me an ice cream maker for my wedding and ever since then I have been making ice cream non-stop. I lay in bed thinking of new ideas for flavor combinations and I get so excited! The first kind I made was using the fresh mint in our back yard and it was delicious! Mint is of course one of my favorite things. After the mint I decided to be more creative and I was inspired by my favorite ice cream shop, Jeni's ( They always have very creative, gourmet and absolutely delicious flavors) So I made Cucumber Coconut Sorbet and Butternut Squash ice cream with Caramel & candied pecans. And they were both a success! hooray!!!

Cucumber Coconut Sorbet
I love how cool and refreshing cucumber is. People don't give cucumber enough opportunities as a desert flavor, but I'm telling you this one is delish! Its light and tasty, with a smooth texture. Yum!

2 large Cucumber
1 Tablespoon Honey
1 can light coconut milk
Juice from 1 lime
3/4 cup simple syrup, Recipe below

Blend the cucumbers and honey together in a blender or food processor until cucumber is almost pureed, but still has some chunks. Refrigerate for 6-24 hours. The honey will draw out the moisture in the cucumbers. Then blend again until smooth, and pour into a fine strainer, pushing out juices and discarding pulp & peel.

Combine the juices with a can of coconut milk & lime juice & simple syrup
Freeze in Ice cream maker for 20-30 minutes or until thick and creamy. YUM!!!

simple syrup : Ingredients

1. 1/2 cup sugar
2. 1/4 cup light corn syrup
3. 1/4 cup water

Directions

1. In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup and water and bring to a boil. Cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Let stand until cool, 30 minutes.

Butter nut Squash
The squash has a richer flavor and is more decadent with the caramel and pecans. We has friends over for dinner last night and they were shocked that the secret ingredient was squash. Its taste a little like pumpkin pie only more mild.

Start by peeling and cubing one medium sized butternut squash. Boil for 5-10 minutes with a little vanilla in the water.
Use your favorite basic vanilla ice cream recipe, add 1 teaspoon cinnamon, some nutmeg a little brown sugar.
Add a cup of the cream mixture in a blender with the butternut squash and puree until smooth. Mix with remaining ice cream mixture. Pour into fine strainer to remove pulp. I would probably strain this twice. I only did it once and the texture was a little too grainy.

Then pour into ice cream machine! and freeze!
Yummy yummy yummy.


Next up, I'm thinking Basil Lime.... I love my garden!

Recent Activity

From the series, I Can See My House From Here, 8"x8"



Cabin, 30"x 30" Detail, Cabin

I thought I would post some of my recent, post thesis work. It has been a lot harder to make work then I expected, I have to be much more self disciplined. I have a show coming up in Kentucky later in September and I am applying for shows for the coming year, to keep me making art! Hope you like them.