gleena colors

from top: avocado, tangerine, lilac, turquoise, warm gray, rose, mustard, ocean

still life saturday with photographer pia ulin

Pia Ulin is a Brooklyn, NY based photographer.

as local as it gets: a tale of green figs

My new house came with a “Black Jack” fig tree, and by the end of August, the tree was full of figs, green unripe figs. A few turned purple and delicious by the end of September, but most stayed green, and hard. I had to pick them before the first frost. New England is not an ideal zone for fig cultivation.

When life gives you green figs, you make preserves! I found this very simple recipe from NY Times:

1 to 1 ½ pounds of unripe figs
2 ½ cups of white sugar
5 cups of water
6 whole cloves
1 organic lemon, peel removed in six longish strips
2 wide-mouth canning jars (1 pint each), sterilized

Easy ingredients, but time consuming, and hot! I steamed up the windows with all the boiling, and got a wicked steam burn. So if you ever follow the full recipe here, get a glass of wine, put on great music, and be careful not to singe your hands.

It was all worth it...

Breaking into the jar a week later, the preserved figs came out super tender, not too sweet, and oh so good on top of bread with butter. Plus they were infused with that extra goodness that comes from having picked my own fruit from the front yard. Can’t wait to do it all over again next year.

thank you, bearleader chronicle

In July I had an unexpected visit from an old friend from my art director days, Daniela Stallinger. Daniela, a wonderful photographer, and I had worked frequently together on photo shoots ranging from weddings in Arizona, to toys for your pet. It was such a pleasure to reconnect, and to spend two easy days, this time being the subject of a photo shoot, as opposed to the director behind the scenes. Daniela was launching a new online publication, Bearleader Chronicle.

The journal launched yesterday, and it was such a treat to discover Daniela’s talent for writing in the premier issue. Follow her adventures from London to St. Ives to Crete and then Vienna. And what an honor for Providence, RI and gleena to be the very first entry! Read the full story by clicking here.

Here is a bit of a photo preview, I love how prominent my little ceramic muses are in the story. They oversee the studio, and guard all the firings. And they are my first explorations in clay, way back when...

kiln moments

Opening a kiln is a treat, almost every time (except when the elements or the thermocouple burn out). Here are a few of my favorite moments, and one not so favorite...

This last photo was taken while I was replacing the kiln elements, arguably the most unpleasant task in the ceramics field. Hanging upside down for a few hours, pulling out little sections of burned, brittle elements is torturous. Thankfully, the other kiln moments make up for that.