Nicole's Art Club Visit & Artist Zine
Read about our recent visit to our local high school art club and about the artist zine we made for the students
When I was in high school I was very uninterested in academics. At some point I fell behind and I was not able to advocate or speak up for myself and my needs. So I leaned into the things I was good at - art. I would ditch my other classes to hide away in the art room. If I couldn’t get out of class I brought my art supplies to them, which was some times enjoyed but mostly seen as a distraction. I grew up in a small town (my class size was less than 90) and luckily, eventually I graduated. For me art has always been safety - a way to express myself and escape. It has been years since I was in high school but I can still recall how I felt during those years.
Over the summer of 2024 I acquired lots of old plaster slip casting molds, which I decided to give away. While we live in a capitalistic society and some of these molds have value I find it much more exciting to find other ways of distributing them like trading or donating. During that time I met a few of our local art teachers and started chatting about their classes. I was eventually asked to meet with our high school’s after school art club. The opportunity to speak with young artists was such an honor especially as I remembered my high school years. Knowing that are time was limited I put together a handout or zine to hopefully provide some inspiration or at least share some thoughts. I hope that regardless of if these students pursue an art career they will at least find something helpful along the way and know that I am rooting for them.
Since we’re sharing, below you can check out some of the pages I included in the zine. Feel free to leave a comment with something that has inspired or helped you along your creative path.
~ No Ai was used in the making of this. Please be conscious of the energy and environmental impacts that Ai has ~
Strawberry Picking + Oatmeal Bars
Fresh picked strawberries served on our brand new dinnerware
Our goal was to make homemade strawberry preserves, which is my home’s overall favorite jam. For those who are new to Preserves - they are a thick fruit spread made from fruit cooked with sugar, but in this case, large pieces of the fruit, or the whole fruit that are suspended in a firm jelly or less-gelled syrupy base. Read more here.
Anyway, with that in mind, we probably went a bit overboard with the amount of strawberries that we picked - 5 Quarts! With about 3.5 quarts went towards the jam we now needed to figure out what to do with the rest…
Lost Quarry and Wild Bower Ceramics <3
Hey Friends!
Have you ever tasted a perfectly ripe strawberry? Though, I’ll probably claim this for every in season fruit, I must say that freshly picked strawberries are pretty dang heavenly.
As you can probably tell, strawberry season is upon us in Upstate New York (mid to late June) and wow, is it magical! These beautiful little red fruits are abundant and ripe for picking so that’s exactly what we did.
Early one morning Lost Quarry and I set out for Saunders Kill Farm in Accord NY to pick our own.
This is where Strawberry Oatmeal bars comes in. Now, I’m not a baker or a chef so most of the recipes here will be linked back to other talented folks who actually create recipes.
These Oatmeal Bars from Well Plated are so easy to make and contain almost no processed white sugar.
Morning Coffee & a Rustic Cherry Tart for Breakfast
The best mornings have coffee and dessert. We make a rustic cherry tart served on our handmade ceramic serving platter for breakfast.
When we moved out to the Catskill Mountains, we dreamt of quiet moments in nature feasting on delicious treats like this Rustic Cherry Tart served on one of our White Swirl Speckled Serving Platters. They are match made in heaven.
The spring and summer out here produce some of the most amazing fruits and this week we dove into cherries. Have you ever had a fresh cherry?!? For me, it’s like a dream that transports me back to childhood. There is nothing like a perfect cherry, so we set out to bake something that elevated the sweet and delicious fruit.
My mom recently came out to spend the weekend with us and boy, was it fun to show her around and get some time to cook together. My mom has always been a wonderful cook and baker. Normally, we’re baking Christmas cookies but it’s not quite the season for that so we opted for fresh Cherries that we picked up from local Farm, Barthel’s in Ellenville, NY.
Check out the delicious recipe created by Sheila at Life Love and Good Food
We sipped our morning coffee out of our handmade Flare Mugs and ate the tart for breakfast. It was such bliss!
Once you’re out of coffee, use our ceramic Coffeepot to display all of your happy flowers (I’ve been watching a lot of Boss Ross). This flower arrangement came from local Florist, Little Pebble Flower Farm.
At The Table: A Fundraiser and Community Dinner
At the Table was created to raise funds for the Ellenville NAACP.
On August 26th, 2020, a wonderful group of humans gathered together to present At The Table: A Fundraiser and Community Dinner, which raised $3700 for our local NAACP chapter in Ellenville.
When community gathers to support one another magical things happen. We are so honored to have been able to organize this event for the community and floored to have had such an amazing turn out. Thank you to all of our organizers, donors, ticket purchasers both in person and out of town, and to special thanks to the Ellenville NAACP for doing such incredible work.
For updates & to stay in touch please follow Ellenville NAACP’s Facebook page.
For direct donations please mail a check to:
Ellenville NAACP
PO Box 229
Ellenville, NY 12428
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States. Learn more about the NAACP
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ORGANIZERS:
Katy Porte
Jay Merritt
Collaborators:
Food by: Baba Truck NY
Venue: The Glen Wilde
Live Music: Mark G Meadows
Live Music: Nicole Saphos
DJ: Z.H.O.N.E
Potters:
Raffle items provided by:
Madewell's Hometown Heroes Collective
Beyond excited to announce that in mid 2019 I was selected to be part of Madewell’s Hometown Heroes Collective. After months of secrecy and planning, today we went live!
Included in this class are:
Cooling Summer Meal Menu with Edouard Massih
I had the opportunity of working with the very talented chef, Edouard Massih on a bridal editorial shoot, which was published on Once Wed. After the shoot we decided to collaborate on a cooling summer meal menu. I wish that I could share with you the delicious flavors that Edouard put together for the weekday tahini rice noodle bowl to the left. Below you’ll find Labneh 2 ways, Summer squash salad, and Almost & cucumber Gazpacho. All of these delicious recipes will surly cool you off on a hot summer day. Enjoy!
