Miscellaneous: San Francisco City Hall Lit with the Colors of France (November 18)

I attended a San Francisco Symphony concert on November 18, at Davies Symphony Hall. Diagonally across the street from the concert hall, City Hall was lit with the colors of France in recognition of the attacks in Paris earlier in the week. The concert was a recital by Leif Ove Andsnes. He played music by Sibelius, Beethoven, Debussy, and Chopin.

Miscellaneous: Tricycle Sailors

The mistakes made by voice recognition software (which I sometimes use in my job as a translator) are mostly annoying. Once in a while, however, the software makes an intriguing substitution. Today I got "tricycle sailors." I like the image.

What I actually said was "triacetyl cellulose."

I did an image search on Google using the words "tricycle sailor." I found tricycle sailors. Little boys in sailor suits riding tricycles seems to have been a thing. Who knew?

Rain: 0.3 Inches Overnight on November 14

It rained last night here in the middle of the night. I didn't hear anything, but I had emptied the rain gauge and this morning there was evidence of rain and 0.3 inches of new precipitation in the rain gauge. That brings our total so far for the 2015-2016 rain year (calculated from October 1 2015 through September 30 2016) to 1.25 inches. That's something, but we're well behind the historical average for November 15, which is 4.05 inches.

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 119 (Santa Rosa)

Another new collage, this one using some of the newest monoprints I've made. The linear textures are the result of gently rubbing paper laid over a thin layer of paint with a high-tech baren. The paint is rolled out on a sheet of glass with a brayer. The traditional Japanese baren is a coil of hemp rope on a wood support overlaid with a bamboo leaf. My baren is two arrays of small ball bearings embedded in a pair of perforated plexiglass discs. Used just so, it transfers delicate parallel lines to the paper. I've used sheets with these line patterns to contrast texturally with sheets of more solid color, creating a dynamic counterpoint.

Untitled Collage No. 119 (Santa Rosa). November 11, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 18.8 x 19cm. Matted to 20 x 16 inches. Signed and dated on the reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Rain: A Little More Rain (November 9, 2015)

We had a little rain overnight and off and on in the morning today. We'd received about 0.3 inches by the end of the day, when things cleared up. That brings our total for the 2015-2016 rain year (October to September) to 0.95 inches so far, which is below the historical average. Waiting for El Niño...

Art I'm Making: New Collage (November 7, 2015)

I've just finished a new collage, drawing on a large group of new monoprinted sheets I've made, this time using a roller to roll out the paint onto my glass plate rather than spreading the paint with a brush. Using the roller creates a different kind of texture. I've used mostly Prussian blue and violet shades. This latest collage uses these new sheets but also some of the orange sheets I made last month during the Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event.

This is Untitled Collage No. 118 (Santa Rosa). November 7, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint on paper, graphite, collage. Image size 11.1 x 13cm. Matted to  11 x 14 inches. Signed and dated on the reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Rain: The 2015-2016 Rain Season--Drizzle, but It's a Start

We've finally had a little rain today. It's been a light drizzle, but it's continued much of the day. There was 0.05 inches in the rain gauge earlier. I'm hoping to find considerably more than that in the gauge tomorrow morning.

[Update: Yes, 0.65 inches in the rain gauge--the first real rain of the 2015-2016 rain year. That brings our total so far to 1.15 inches using a rain year from July 1, 2015 through June 30 2016--which has been traditional here for decades. It's just come to my attention, however, that official totals are shifting to a rain year that runs from October 1 through the following September 30. Using the new rain year, this would be the first rain of the 2015-2016 season, and our total would therefore be 0.65 inches.]

Books I'm Reading: Wood

Harvey Green's Wood: Craft, Culture, History (Penguin, 2006) is a detailed cultural history of wood that touches also on the biology of trees and the physics of wood, but mostly considers how wood has provided for mankind since ancient times. It dramatically demonstrates the pervasiveness and importance of wood in almost every sphere of human life until very recently, when plastics and other synthetic materials have replaced wood in many applications. At the same time, it demonstrates just how much wood the Earth has lost to human consumption, particularly for fuel, for the construction of dwellings, for ships, and for containers (most especially, barrels). Refreshingly wide-ranging, the book recognizes the importance of wood to cultures from around the world and the contributions of these cultures to woodworking and carpentry. Word geeks and Scrabble fans will enjoy it for the large number of obscure words for woodworking tools mentioned. Educational and entertaining.  

Art I'm Making: Two More Collages

These are the last of the collages I made during and just after the recent Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event using some new papers I've made in browns, oranges, and pinks. They are Untitled Collage No. 116 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 117 (Santa Rosa), both from the third week of October.

No. 116 (upper image) uses paper made by monoprinting off a sheet of glass that I deliberately left uncleaned from the print that preceded it. I like the map-like effect the overlap of colors created. October 22, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 17.1 x 17.6cm. Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed and dated on reverse. Signed on the mat.

No. 117 (lower image) is a very small piece, less than 2 x 3 inches, using some scraps of the new papers and bits and pieces from older work. October 23, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 6 x 7cm. Matted to 11 x 14 inches. Signed and dated on reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the images for larger views. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/.

Books I'm Reading: Gut Feelings

I picked up this slim volume used somewhere. I liked the cover, and my theory is that Penguin never publishes a bad book, so I bought it for a dollar or so. A short book and a quick read, but one that I enjoyed. Author Gerd Gigerenzer argues that sometimes heeding a gut feeling yields a better result than making a decision based on hard information. While that may feel right (we have gut feelings even about gut feelings), this book is interesting for its attempt to present evidence that supports his central thesis that too much information can lead to worse decisions than decisions made on instinct. Sometimes, he argues, it's better to rely on what he calls our "intelligent unconscious" to make quick decisions than it is to think things through. Recommended. Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, Penguin, 2008.

Art I'm Making: More Recent Work

Here's some more collage work using the brown, orange and pink papers I've made recently. This is Untitled Collage No. 115 (Santa Rosa). It uses a speckled orange sheet but also some old indigo paper and a remnant of the sheet of antique silver leaf a fellow artist recently gave me. I've allowed a flap of the blue at the bottom to ride on top of the paper underneath it to give an overlapping effect with a shadow.

Untitled Collage No. 115 (Santa Rosa). Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. October 20, 2015. Image size 6.8 x 9.8cm. Matted to 11 x 14 inches. Signed and dated on the reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site.

Books I'm Reading: Two Years Before the Mast

I can't remember when I picked up a used copy of Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast (Penguin Classics, 1981). I don't remember exactly why I bought it either, except that I've always enjoyed 19th century maritime literature. Dana's is a non-fictional account of two years working on American merchantmen in the 1830s--but close enough. It's been on my bookshelf for at least a few years. Recently I read it, and I'm glad I did.

The book paints a vivid picture of life on board ship in the early 1800s—specifically, life on board a vessel whose business it was to collect cowhides from the West Coast of the US and transport them around Cape Horn to the US East Coast (where they mostly became shoes). It paints a picture of pre-Gold Rush coastal California--when San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and other cities were tiny Mexican villages (Dana Point, near Los Angeles today, was named for the author). Unlike the protagonists in so much literature about life on the oceans, Dana is not running away from anything; he sees his time at sea as a temporary separation from civilization. Dana is very much focused on getting back to life in Boston and afraid that a delay in his return will cause him to be so deeply changed by life at sea that he'll become unable to go back. Interesting for both its historical value and the psychological self-portrait the author presents.  

Art I'm Making: More New Collage Work

During the 2015 Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event (always the middle two weekends in October) I created several demonstration sheets of paper using browns and oranges and pinks. These made it into the work I did during the event. This collage is very simple, but I like its quiet dignity.

Untitled Collage No. 114 (Santa Rosa). October 11, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size 16.3 x 17cm. Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed on reverse. Signed on the mat.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site.

Music I'm Listening To: Christian Tetzlaff with Susanna Mälkki Conducting the San Francisco Symphony

I attended the Friday, October 16 San Francsico Symphony performance at Davies Symphony Hall. On the program titled "Russian Masterpieces" were Mussorgsky (orch. Shostakovich)
Dawn on the Moscow River from Khovanshchina, Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5.  Guest conductor Susanna Mälkki led the orchestra. Christian Tezlaff was the soloist in the Shostakovich concerto. Mälkki was in control throughout, delivering a good, precise reading of the Prokofiev. I especially enjoyed the second movement. Tetzlaff was wonderful, going at the concerto with great energy. An excellent way to begin the 2015-2016 concert season.

Books I'm Reading: Stiff

Stiff, was a New York Times bestseller when it was new, but I found it at a used bookstore long after the fact. I remember hearing its author Mary Roach interviewed on the radio (probably Fresh Air or All Things Considered) and thinking the book sounded interesting, although I'd forgotten that when I bought it recently.

The subject is a somewhat creepy one, but Roach's approach is matter-of-fact and almost reverent--if at times laugh-out-loud funny. Educational and entertaining. I read it in one sitting. Recommended. I see Roach has published at least two other books--Bonk, which takes human sexuality as its subject, and Gulp, which looks at eating—probably both as entertaining as Stiff was.

Art I'm Making: New Collage

Still catching up with the collages I made during the recent Sonoma County Art Trails open studio event (always the middle two weekends in October), here is Untitled Collage No. 113 (Santa Rosa), which (unintentionally) has a rather Turner-esque feel to it, I think.

Untitled Collage No. 113 (Santa Rosa), October 11, 2015, Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image 20.2 x 27.7cm, matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed and dated on reverse, signed on the mat.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site.

Books I'm Reading: The Hare with the Amber Eyes

Edmund de Waal's The Hare with the Amber Eyes appears to have been a best-seller when it was new. I received it long ago as a gift but read it only recently. It's an extraordinary tale expertly told. I can see why it was popular. De Waal is the current custodian of a remarkable collection of more than 260 netsuke that has been in his family since his relative, one Charles Joachim Ephrussi, acquired it whole in Paris during the late 19th century, a time of intense interest in Japanese art there among the wealthy and knowledgeable. Charles and the Ephrussi family as a collection of people are as interesting as the netsuke and De Waal is expert at introducing them to the reader as he investigates his ancestors and traces the history of the collection he now owns.

The collection moves from Paris to Vienna, following the family fortunes--where it narrowly escapes confiscation by the Nazis--and then to Tokyo by the 1960s, in a kind of homecoming, owned by a great uncle of the author, who now houses the collection in England. The earliest section, about Paris, is especially interesting for the picture it paints of the artists and writers Charles Ephrussi associated with.

A first-rate story beautifully told. My only complaint is that the edition I read (Picador, 2010) frustratingly has no illustrations of the collection, or even of the several special netsuke the author repeatedly mentions--the hare with the amber eyes among them. I've heard, however, that there are fancier editions available that are better illustrated. Still, highly recommended.

Art I'm Making: New Collages

I finished only one collage in the weeks leading up to the Sonoma County Art Trails event in the middle of October, but I produced quite a number during the event. Here are Untitled Collage No. 111 (Santa Rosa) and Untitled Collage No. 112 (Santa Rosa). Both are collages made from acrylic monoprints. Number 111 (left) uses monoprint elements evocative of watercolor. Number 112 (below) uses some new papers I've made with a lot of browns and rusty oranges--as usual, incorporating scraps from papers made for earlier pieces.

Untitled Collage No. 111 (Santa Rosa), September 17, 2015, acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage, 12 x 11.4cm, signed and dated on reverse, signed on the mat. Matted to 11x14 inches.

Untitled Collage No. 112 (Santa Rosa), October 10, 2015, acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage, 10.5 x 12.1cm, signed and dated on reverse, signed on the mat. Matted to 11x14 inches.

Click on the image for a larger view. For more, visit my collage website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site.

Books I'm Reading: Two Books on Japanese Art

I've just finished reading two new publications from University of Hawaii Press, both about Japanese art. Hokusai's Great Wave: Biography of a Global Icon, by Christine M. E. Guth, examines the history of response to Hokusai's print Kanagawa Oki no Namihira [Beneath the Wave off Kanagawa], better known today as The Great Wave, from its 1831 publication as part of Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji to the present day, and then looks at how the image has been adopted and repurposed since then. The book's approach is mainly descriptive, aiming to show the breadth of the image’s influence. Guth doesn’t dwell too deeply on the question of why The Great Wave has become the most widely recognized non-Western work of art in the world and perhaps the most recognized work of art of any kind after Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.

The themes are diverse, and appropriately so, as the central truth that emerges from Guth’s writing is that The Great Wave has been extraordinarily adaptable, particularly in a commercial and artistic context, where it’s been used to add cachet to package design and advertising, to decorate everything from éclairs to wristwatches, and as a backdrop or pictorial element in both high art and parody. It’s been called upon to represent the power of natural forces generally and, the struggle between man and nature more specifically. It has been taken to symbolize a temporal dichotomy—with Mount Fuji in the background standing for timelessness, the wave for the ephemeral. It has been used as a stand-in for Japan and, by extension Asia, although Guth points out that the print’s use of European illusionism and the then-modern Prussian blue likely would have given it a foreign and exotic appeal to Japanese viewers at the time of its initial appearance.

While simply adding a dash of Japanese flavor is sometimes the goal of these commercial and other applications, just as often the aims of those adopting Hokusai’s wave image seem vague and hard to pin down. The Great Wave remains a symbol of Japan but at the same time a powerful and ambiguous icon easily divorced from its geographic origins, referenced as often as a signifier of abstract ideas as of anything specifically Japanese. Ultimately it is perhaps this elasticity of meaning that has allowed—and continues to allow—its many transformations.

Julie Nelson Davis’s Partners in Print: Artistic Collaboration and the Ukiyo-e Market is a more focused volume. Although it takes the form of close—almost archaeological—studies of four disparate publications and looks at their differing collaborative configurations, her carefully researched book uses each of the four studies to make the same point—that creation and consumption of artworks in the Ukiyo-e tradition were highly collaborative processes.

Davis examines a specially commissioned print featuring a work by painter Sekien, a teacher to both Utamaro and Sekichujo, to look at relationships between a teacher and his students. She examines a full-color printed guidebook to the Yoshiwara entertainment district in Edo, complete with reviews of the prostitutes and their establishments, focusing on relationships between painters, a publisher, the brothel operators, and tsu (those in the know—in this context, veteran frequenters of the pleasure quarters, the idealized assumed reader). She reveals the nuances of an erotic printed scroll, examining ties between the scroll’s designer and its publisher. Finally, she looks at a popular illustrated satire in book form, illuminating the interdependence of the book’s writer and its illustrator, at the same time shedding light on how publishers and government censors interacted in late eighteenth century Japan. She sees each of her examples as a “material record of dialog,” and she is expert at teasing out meaning from the smallest details of these works. Partners in Print is valuable not only for the convincing clarity of its central argument but also for the author’s masterful explication of each of the works she examines so closely. Partners in Print is likely to be of special interest to students of Japanese art history but of interest to any reader with more than a passing interest in Japan, art, and the sociology of art. 

Birds I'm Watching: Magnolia Warbler at Bodega Bay (10/21/2015)

A stray Magnolia Warbler has been hanging out at Diekmann's Bay Store, in Bodega Bay. Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia) is normally an Eastern species not found here. Once in a while a young bird will get lost west of the Rockies during its first migration south. I went to have a look and was lucky enough to get a good photograph of the bird. Warblers are such frantic foragers that I always feel lucky to capture one in focus (above).

A few days later I went again, but was unable to find the bird. I did, however, see a Nashville Warbler (Setophaga ruficapilla), also unusual here (although much less so). The birds can look similar in some plumages. Both have a complete white eyeing, a grayish head, and are otherwise greenish above and pale yellow below, but I knew this to be a Nashville because  of a number of differences--notably the lack of patterning in the wings, lack of a yellow rump, and the lack of the black and grey scalloping at the base of the tail present in the Magnolia Warbler (above). From underneath, it was all yellow except for a white patch at the base of the legs, which is typical of a Nashville (below).

For more about birds and birding in Sonoma County, see my Website: Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots. 

Wines I'm Making: 2015 Wines Pressed

I pressed our 2015 Cabernet and Sangiovese wines the other day. We ended up with only two gallons of Sangiovese, three gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc--the smallest harvest we've ever had. This appears to have been typical even at commercial wineries around the county--very low yield this year. The wines are now resting, ready for inoculation to initiate malolactic fermentation. I'm also in the middle of a hard cider fermentation and trying to make wine from the neglected Zinfandel grapes (mostly raisins) my neighbor gave me.

Art I'm Making: Sonoma County Art Trails 2015

Sonoma County Art Trails Open Studios 2015

Two weekends in October, every year, more than 160 artists open their studios (October 10–11 and October 17–18, 2015, 10:00AM to 5:00PM). This year, I'm studio no. 63, at 973 Stone Castle Lane, Santa Rosa, CA 95405.

In case you don't already know, I' m a self-taught artist active in a range of media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, and photography. I began making photographs at the age of eight and began drawing at an even younger age. In the realm of abstract art, I've recently focused on photography and on creating collages from monoprinted paper elements. This year at the Art Trails open studio event I'll be showing new collage work and new work from my "Museum Shadow Series" of photographs as well as older woodblock prints, etchings, and other photography, including nudes. My work is in private collections in the US and Japan and has been shown in galleries in cities around the world including San Francisco and Tokyo. I am the creator of Serendipitous Art, a blog that celebrates the unintended art all around us. Additionally, I curate shows on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi, in Cotati, CA. I spent much of my adult life in Tokyo, but I've lived and worked in Santa Rosa since the year 2000. If you visited my studio last year, please come again and see how busy I've been since you were here. If you've never visited, please come and have a look at how I work and at the art I make.

See more at my website (http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site/)
More than 50 new pieces since last year

Miscellaneous: The 2nd Amendment is the Problem

The idea that guns should be controlled seems so obvious and logical to me that I find it difficult even to weigh the issue (it seems already clear, not requiring much thought), but the recent massacre in Oregon and the reaction to it among gun rights advocates set me to thinking about logical arguments supporting gun control. The automobile analogy makes most sense to me. The idea surely isn’t novel, but why isn’t it persuasive to gun rights advocates?

Why do we register automobiles? Why do we require drivers to have a license to operate a motor vehicle? Why do we require drivers to have insurance against accidents and to carry proof of that insurance? Why do we require vehicles to display proof of registration and registration renewal prominently in the form of a license plate? Why do we require vehicle owners to keep their vehicles in good repair?

Have you ever asked yourself these questions? At first it all looks complicated. One question seems to lead to another and another. But one answer seems to apply to most of these questions: Cars can kill people, and, therefore, they should be regulated. All these arguments would seem to apply to guns. If we can regulate cars tightly, we should be able to regulate guns tightly.

Why isn’t that persuasive to gun rights advocates? Is my conclusion outrageous, outside the bounds of common sense?

We register autos because cars can kill people and we want to know who is responsible when a car is involved in causing property damage, an injury, or a fatality. We require a driver’s license so that people know the basics of operating a car safely—in the hope of avoiding property damage, injuries and fatalities—and to identify the operator. We require insurance because cars can kill people and we believe it just that victims of auto-related harm should be provided for and that victims of automobile fatalities and their families should be compensated. We require vehicles to be in good repair, because a poorly maintained vehicle can cause an accident and auto accidents kill people. We accept the risk, because cars are useful—for pleasure, for sport, for moving things and people from place to place—but we regulate cars tightly nevertheless. We require registration and insurance and we require these to be renewed annually. We require operator’s licenses that must be renewed periodically. We don’t give licenses to very young people or to people judged physically or mentally unable to handle an automobile. Because cars can kill people.

So why not guns—which are far more dangerous and, on the whole, much less useful?

Why not? Because, the gun lobby has persuaded too many people to believe that individual gun ownership is protected by the constitution. I believe that’s a mistaken interpretation, as many others do (and many deny, based on historically recent supreme court decisions that have destroyed the original intent of the Amendment). What’s clear is that the Amendment is confusingly worded. I think we need to amend the 2nd Amendment to say clearly what we believe it ought to say. The question is: What, as a nation, do we want it to say? If, as I believe, the Amendment’s intent was to limit federal interference in the maintenance of well-organized militias for local self defense (and only that), then the Amendment should say that. Guns in the hands of individuals in all other contexts then become like automobiles—just another potentially dangerous tool. If we can tightly regulate automobiles because automobiles can kill people, then surely we can do the same with guns. Let every gun operator be required to take training to obtain an operator’s license that must be renewed periodically. Let every gun in the nation be registered annually. Let every gun prominently display a unique identification plate. Let every gun owner carry insurance for each gun against its use in a criminal or accidental act that destroys property, maims, or takes a life. Let every gun owner be required to keep proof of adequate insurance with the gun at all times. Let all guns be required to undergo periodic safety inspections.

I would go further, arguing that some kinds of guns should be banned entirely, on the grounds that their potential danger far outweighs their potential utility. Just as most people don’t need potassium cyanide at home, most people don’t need an automatic assault weapon at home. If the 2nd Amendment is clarified, guns become easily controllable—like any other potentially dangerous tool. The NRA and its allies have been smart to focus on the supposed special constitutional protection of individual gun rights. The Amendment is the problem. We need to take back the 2nd Amendment by making it say unambiguously what it was originally meant to say—or, at the very least, to decide what, as a nation, we want it to say today.

And we hear about only the big ones--mass shootings, that is. Here's a link to a site that tracks mass shootings in the US (apparently defined as four or more people shot in a single incident). Mass Shooting Tracker.

[Update: A recent piece in The NewYorker argues, as I do, that the amendment does not guarantee individual gun rights (in fact, the author argues that the Amendment was designed to allow regulation of guns outside of an organized militia). He therefore believes the Amendment does not need to be amended. I continue to believe that clarifying it would be helpful.]

Art I'm Looking At: Mark Eanes on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi

I'm looking forward to showing the work of Mark Eanes next on The Art Wall at Shige Sushi, in Cotati. The show will run from October 6 through November 29, 2015. The opening reception will be Monday, October 12. Click on the image here for a larger view. For more information about current and upcoming shows on The Art Wall, visit The Art Wall website at http://ctalcroft.wix.com/artwallatshige/

Miscellaneous: Lunar Eclipse (September 27, 2015)

We were treated to a total eclipse of the moon today. Did you see the blood-orange red moon tonight? By the time I was able to photograph it, the color had gone....

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 110 (Santa Rosa)

I've been taking a break from the intense collage-making activity of the past two years, but here is the last one I made over the summer, Untitled Collage No. 110 (Santa Rosa). This one uses more found paper than usual. The white area on the left with a signature on it is an antique book page. The black area at the top is a piece of a platinum/palladium test print made by my photographer friend Barbara Elliott. The other pieces are papers I've made myself. Image size: 17.5 x 24.6cm, matted to 16 x 20 inches. Completed July 27, 2015. I'll start making more collages soon, as Art Trails 2015 is just around the corner.

 Click for a larger view. Visit my studio  (Studio No. 63) during the 2015 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 10th and 121h and Saturday and Sunday, October 17th and 18th, 2015.

Wines I'm Making: 2015 Grape Harvest

I picked our grapes this year on September 19, which is about three weeks earlier than usual (although only five days earlier than last year, which was likewise early). Because of the heat and dry conditions, many grapes were already beginning to turn to raisins. Fruit set was also very poor this year--the worst it's ever been. The harvest was tiny. I took in only 18.7kg or 41.4lbs of Cabernet and 12.8kg or 28.2lbs of Sangiovese. We normally harvest anywhere from two to three times that much. The crushed cabernet must measured 26.0 Brix at a pH of 3.62 (pH squared times Brix = 340.7). The crushed Sangiovese must measured 22.0 Brix at a pH of 3.57 (pH squared times Brix = 280.4). I usually aim for a Brix reading of about 25 for the Cabernet and about 23 for the Sangiovese. I lightly sulfited both containers and set them aside in a cool place for a pre-soak.

I inoculated the juice on the morning of the third day, September 22, using the Rockpile yeast for both. Ordinarily, I press the Sangiovese after about 18 hours to make a rosé, but we had so little fruit and because of work conflicts, I had to leave it longer than that, so, by default,  I'm fermenting the Sangiovese as a red wine this year for the first time in many years. I'm trying to decide whether to blend the two varieties. I may have no choice. I ended up with only about three gallons of each, which, when pressed, will reduce to about two gallons each. That would require using four one-gallon containers, which is a pain (no one seems to make two-gallon glass containers suitable for handling wine), so it will be easier to combine them.

So, fermentation is under way. I'm also doing a hard cider fermentation at the moment. More soon.

[Update: In the end, I decided to leave the two red wines unblended for the time being. As of today (October 6), the wines are resting, awaiting inoculation for malolactic fermentation.]

Art I'm Making: Untitled Collage No. 109 (Santa Rosa)

I've been taking a break from my comparatively intense activity as a collage maker in the past two years and I've been lazy about posting the newest ones. Here's a fairly new piece, Untitled Collage No. 109 (Santa Rosa), from early July. It's currently up in my show going on at The Spinster Sisters until October 4, 2015. Acrylic on paper, acrylic monoprint, collage. Image size: 14.6 x 18.7cm. Matted to 16 x 20 inches. Signed on reverse and on the mat. I didn't think about it at the time, but this a rather elemental piece using black, white, and the three primary colors.

  Click for a larger view. Visit my studio  (Studio No. 63) during the 2015 Sonoma County Art Trails open studios event, Saturday and Sunday, October 10th and 121h and Saturday and Sunday, October 17th and 18th, 2015.

Rain: First Substantial Rain of the Season (September 16, 2015)

We had odd mists of rain on a couple of days in July and in August this year--which is extremely unusual--but it was too little to make much of a difference--only 0.10 inches. Yesterday and last night (September 16) we had the first real rain of  the 2015-2016 rain season--0.4 inches in the rain gauge this morning. Let's hope that the start of a heavy rainy season. I hope the rain last night helped the firefighters up north, but I've seen no news. So far, the total for this year stands at 0.5 inches.

Trying to Find a Creative Solution to a Problem: Epson, Shame on You

My GoFundMe campaign

I'm a photographer, printmaker, and collage artist. Three years ago, after saving about a year, I bought an Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer--finally upgrading to a professional level printer to expand my activities as an artist. I've used the printer very lightly, but it's been critical to my photographic work. After printing only 50 sheets, a piece of the head transport mechanism cracked, causing serious, but temporarily manageable problems. The repair shop that diagnosed the problem believes the failure to have been a result of a manufacturing defect. Epson would do nothing to help me, despite that. Not long after, the print heads clogged so badly that the machine has become entirely unusable--and these machines are designed so that they are more expensive to repair than they are to replace (Repair estimate: $1,650). During the diagnosis, the cracked head support broke off completely. I tried to suggest nicely to Epson that this is like a $25,000 auto becoming undriveable after 3,000 miles and costing $28,000 to repair. I even wrote directly to the CEO of Epson America, but simpy got another rejection from people hired to protect the bottom line. I have nowhere to turn. The machine is out of warranty. That's all Epson cares about. Period. Tough luck. They refuse to stand behind what is clearly a lemon. Others have had nothing but praise for this machine and used the 3880 for many years--as I expected to do. Clearly my experience has been anomolous, not my fault. I bought a lemon. If you look at the photo here, you can see that the factory protective films are still in place--that's how little it's been used.

Why should you donate? You shouldn't have to. Epson is responsible here, but they've left me in the lurch and I don't have the money for a new printer. Having a printer is important to supporting my work. If you love art and hate companies that leave customers out in the cold--and product design that forces replacement rather than repair (creating yet more plastic in landfills)--then please do what you can to get me up and running again.

Happy to provide documentation of any details to parties that may be skeptical. The amount I'm trying to raise ($1,582) will cover a new printer ($1,405--retail price plus tax) and the three ink cartridges I had to buy to diagnose the dead printer ($177--yes, the ink costs $59 a cartridge, and there are nine cartridges; a full set costs close to a third of the price of the printer). 

To see examples of my work, go to  http://ctalcroft.wix.com/collage-site. To make a donation, see My GoFundMe campaign 

Thank you!

[Update: Epson finally agreed to send me a refurbished printer if I would buy a one-year warranty upgrade for the original product. That seemed a reasonable compromise, so I accepted the offer. I now have a printer again--although the first replacement they sent was faulty and had to be replaced itself. That said, they  made this offer only because someone mistakenly sent me a form letter long after our correspondence had stopped about how my complaint had been resolved (which it hadn't). The offer was made in response to my reply to the form letter, which pointed out that the letter was an added insult. In other words, they offered me a replacement printer out of embarrassment, not in recognition of the initial problem. While I'm glad I have a printer again, it seems to me Epson would have done better simply to have acknowledged the original failure and to have done something about it promptly.]