Cupcake Boot-Camp!

I think my stomach is going to burst...and I do not regret any icing eating that lead to this silly stomach ache. Earlier today I took a cupcake baking workshop at The Chopping Block-Merchandise Mart and it was beautiful and delicious and educational! Absolute trifecta. We all got into groups of 3-4 people and headed to a little kitchen station where we found a packet of recipes. I knew it was going to be a good class when the first cupcake we were making was a tiramisu cupcake. Wow, so good. As we were baking, our instructor would walk around and make sure we were doing everything right. Heating the ton of butter correctly, chopping the ginger small enough, using the egg beaters right, things like that. He would give us little pointers too about short cuts to cooling icing (moving the mixing bowl around the counter so it does not continue to heat) and other hints. We made enough different types of cupcakes so each person in our group got to do everything: melt ingredients, stir ingredients, measure ingredients, rest, pipe the icing, and clean the bowls a.k.a. just an excuse to lick the spatula. I loved taking a gloomy Sunday morning/afternoon and turning it into a fabulous day of creating gorgeous cupcakes. My groupmates were super nice too, they know their way around the kitchen well so they helped me out and answered any questions I had. My favorite part was definitely the icing part. I also felt like that was the most "artsy"....

Check out how great my Sunday was:

The adorable classroom. And that blur is our teacher.

Apple spice, fudge brownie, and tiramisu cakes

They also served us lunch! Salad, pork tenderloin, and pasta.

Hard at work? Yes.

I though we would maybe get to take home 4 or 5 cupcakes...I HAVE A WHOLE OTHER BOX! Help me eat all of these or I will have to finish them all myself and I have a feeling my body would not appreciate that, I have to save room for turkey!

Soap-ery!

Last Sunday (November 14), my friend Sara and I attended a soap making class at Abbey Brown Artisan Soaps. The place is great! The store has such a rustic feel to it and almost everything sold there is locally made. The soap process we learned about is called "cold process" which involves saponification...our teacher's favorite word...and saponification is a chemical process that allows oil and water to mix by using lye. By the way, I had no idea how dangerous it is to use lye! In fact, it is so bad that our teacher had to mix the lye water before we got to the workshop. I also had no idea how precise everything has to be measured and weighed out before it can be mixed together. Anyways, in layman's terms, the cold process of soap making calls for about three weeks before the soap can be used. Unfortunately that also meant that Sara and I could not take home the soap we helped make...but we did get to pick out a bar from the last class' batch. We made Lavender, Lemongrass, and Mango (I chose Mango, definitely a good choice).

Here are some photos from the day!

Those drawers next to our teacher are what the soaps are stored in! We made enough to fill three drawers: 300 bars of soap

The additional oils. These are added to the essential oils and the lye water mixture.

The staging area. 

Scraping the soap to get every last drop out. I think that is the Mango soap.

This class was definitely the most informative workshop I've taken so far. I think the Abbey Brown soap class is really meant for people who are seriously interested in continuing on to make their own soaps/ those who already have a background in soap making. A lot of the time was devoted to the teacher going into great detail about the processes and oils and where to get material and safety measures; all extremely important, it just was not what I was expecting. Still totally cool though. Now I understand how very hard and complicated it is to make one's own soap.

Basketry Workshop!

Saturday November 13th's basket weaving workshop at the Chicago Weaving School was absolutely fabulous! It may be my favorite workshop/art endeavor as of yet! The owner of the school, Natalie Boyett, is such an amazing woman with an immense drive to bring the art of weaving into every Chicago-ite's life. She is also a huge advocate for the ACM program (which is great) because she had an ACM intern at her site last spring and Natalie said it was a really wonderful time.

We started out learning all about the different kinds of reeds involved in making a bread basket. The materials are predominately wicker or rattan and the reeds come in flat or round styles. Luckily, Natalie started our baskets for us already so we just had to continue on what she did. Although, we were taught how to start our own baskets too for further reference. Here is what a barely started bread basket looks like:

The wrapping of the round reed is called twining and it is basically an under/over weaving exercise...quite simple once I got it. It's really entrancing. Once I got my base done, we learned how to bend the spokes, the flat reeds in the wagon wheel pattern, up to start the walls of our basket. That looks like this:

I had to keep wetting the basket and the twining reed so it did not get dry and crack. Though, of course, there were many cracked reeds. Thank goodness Natalie taught us how to fix those and weave in new round reeds. The flat reed in the above photo was added as a design element and that was woven in just like the twining reeds. After about three hours, we had a finished basket!

Art Endeavors...From Last Week...

Last Thursday (Nov. 4th) I was invited to the opening gala for the SOFA, which stands for Sculptural Object and Functional Art, show at Navy Pier! SOFA is an annual art show displaying absolutely gorgeous and absolutely expensive pieces of art ranging from glass to ceramics to wood sculpture. I went last year with my school's art club and as soon as I found out I was doing the ACM Chicago semester this year, I promised myself that I would go again and experience the beauty. This year was different though because we went the night before it opened to the general public; the night when the rich and "important" come out and view the artwork. I was just as pleased looking at the passing outfits of gala go-ers as I was looking at the art. Everything was so fancy with elegant cheeses and bruschetta and drinks galore. My favorite pieces were definitely in the glass category. The pure size of some of the sculptures was unbelievable! They were either so large or so small, unfathomable to me how a glass artist would do such a thing. Also, the colors looked like something you could only see from Hubble telescope photos. However, the jewelry was breathtaking as well. The pearls and jewels were the size of grapes and the metalwork was flawless. There was a section of "outsider art" as well that dealt more in the realm of folk art and was done by unconventional artists. Very interesting to look at and one could tell exactly where the more classic SOFA show ended and the "outsider art" began. One of the coolest things that night was walking by an artist booth and realizing I had just packaged that artist's pieces from Lillstreet's recent art show and readied them for sending back to her. I am still regretting not going up to her and introducing myself. However, I did see almost all of my colleagues from Lillstreet and we schmoozed about art for a couple minutes, so that made up for things. I was so lucky that I was able to make it that night; I was planning on going anyways, but my friend offered me a ticket to opening night and I could not pass that up.

Here are some pictures I quickly snapped inside the show, sadly I was not sneaky enough to take any up close photos of the outrageous outfits of the night:

Tim Tate's glass vanity terrarium (Sara and I)

The art fun did not stop there! On Friday some friends and I went to an art opening for Bill Frederick at Zg Gallery in River North (which also happens to be a gallery that supports my art professor Martina Nehrling). Frederick's work is all water color although, at first glance, it looks just like a black and white photograph. His detail work is meticulous and the shading is perfect. Martina knows Frederick fairly well so she coaxed him into coming over and talking to our little group of students. He is really down to Earth and explained his usage of black and white and gray tones in his work instead of color and his use of varying perspectives. It was First Friday too so many of the galleries around the neighborhood had openings. Zg is also quite close to another gallery which is right across the hall. We all went to view the artwork there as well. I fell in love with a photographer named Lauren Simonutti who does simple contact prints (placing the negative directly on the photo paper and shining light onto it) and toning them beautifully. Another very successful and beautiful art filled night!

Bill Frederick's Gallery Postcard

One of Lauren Simonutti's prints

Sunday I went home to help out with my grandmother's weavers guild show at the Botanical Gardens in Glencoe-the Fine Art of Fiber Show. It happens every year during the first weekend in November and I always used to help with the pack up after the show finished, but since I've been at school for the past 2 years I have not been able to make it in for the show so this was a special treat.She does gorgeous women's clothing and accessories all hand woven with the most fabulous color combinations. The woman has a gift with color and I'd like to think I inherited just a touch of it. Everyone's work was wonderful this year and it was so nice to see all the ladies displaying their work. They liked seeing me back there too...I'm convinced its because I can carry their heavy bags of product back to their cars haha. The space was great as always and the show went really well. My grandma sold more of her vests, capes, jackets, scarves, and necklaces than last year!

Entrance into the Botanical Gardens

This. Is. November.

Some of grandma's handwoven vests

Grandma Nancy and her garments

I got to wear one of her cloaks around and model!