'Flowers Grow Out of My Grave': New work by betterArts resident Jennifer Elizabeth Crone

Oil on Canvas with distressed photographs, texts, and other things, by Jennifer Elizabeth Crone

Here's what Jennifer had to say about her latest completed work:

This painting took an extremely long time, perhaps the longest stretch of time I've ever worked on anything. I started it about a year ago with a thought I had while riding a train to New Jersey and looking at the naked trees through the fog. After painstakingly, and time consumingly, painting each tree in harrowing detail (which was already the 3rd layer, mind you), I of course put an egg made of text all over the bulk of the trees. At one point this painting was looking quite neon and graphic, if you can imagine. And here is the final work, a forest grown over a forgotten promise, winter covered with the inkling of spring.

For more information about betterArts residencies and to apply, click here.

Inspiration Station: Origami house

After a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck central China last May (killing 69,000 people, injuring hundreds of thousands and leaving millions homeless), the government is planning an extensive reconstruction project that includes building more than 1.5 million temporary homes designed to last two or three years.

Urban Re:Vision hosted a contest to answer this need; one particularly cool submission for which was designed by Ming Tang, whose central feature was to develop a temporary shelter for homeless people that exhibits characteristics of  umbrellas and folded fans. The structures can be arranged into various contexts and dwelling requirements. The self-reconstructive "origami" structures can produce potentially infinite scenarios. Composed of paper fibers, water, and cement, the buildings can be used for a variety of construction applications. The lightweight paper house can be pre-assembled in the factory, folded into a small package, and loaded into a truck for transportation. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

See the full submission here

.

Workshop Introduces Students to Tai Chi & Self-Defense July 9

Better Farm has scheduled a three-hour seminar July 9 to introduce students to the fundamentals of Tai Chi and self-defense.

Individuals will become acquainted with I Ching breathing exercises, which are the foundation of the Chinese Internal Chi (including Chi Gung, Nui Gung, Fuhn Hey, and Dim Mak); and prime aspects of personal safety and self-defense. Those in attendance will acquire basic skills including necessary holds and escape maneuvers, as well as the foundation of stances and postures associated with Tai Chi.

To learn more about Better Farm's workshop schedule and to sign up, click

here

.

Latest Work by betterArts Resident Jennifer Elizabeth Crone

Large oil on canvas with mixed media and reproduction antique German scrolls and sheet music/Jennifer Elizabeth Crone

For more information about betterArts' residency program, click here.

Workshop for Budding and Established Professional Photographers Set June 19-21

Better Farm, in association with Heath Photography, has slated a workshop for budding and established professional photographers from June 19-21, 2011, in Redwood, N.Y.

"For the Professional Photographer: How to build a relationship with your clients and keep them coming back!" will be taught by Penny Heath, a professional portrait photographer for the last 25 years. The two-day, hands-on course (all day June 20 and 21, with students arriving at Better Farm for orientation the evening of June 19) will explain in detail the workflow that makes a professional photography studio successful. Participants will be shown how to pose subjects for portraiture in studio lighting, as well as outdoors under natural light. The workshop will encompass everything from photographing the client to marketing and selling photography services. Those in attendance will also learn marketing techniques, customer service, special packages, and products that are sure to increase profits and raise a studio’s bottom line.

For more information and to sign up, please click here.

Move Over Doc Brown: Man invents machine that turns plastic back into oil!

As people debate rising gas prices and the recent approval of more off-shore drilling (favored by many as an alternative to importing internationally mined oil from, say, Libya), they forget one small detail: No matter where we drill, or how often, feeding the  Hungry Hungry Hippo that is civilization is inevitably going to use up a finite source. Our hunger, that is, is greater than our fix. 

We were born into a cyclical earth system and imposed a finite method over it—one of the great inequalities bemoaned in every sustainability lecture. To be sustainable is to be able to repeat an action indefinitely. You don't need me to tell you our current system works in a completely opposite way. That means we either have to change our way of doing things, or face the fact that it's a dead-end road.

Enter Akinori Ito, CEO of the

Blest Corporation

, who realized all this and

came up with a very practical solution

.

Ito devised a machine that actually converts plastic

back into oil

. The contraption utilizes a temperature-controlling electric heater that processes polyethylene, polystyrene and polypropylene. The result is a crude gas that can fuel things like generators or stoves and, when refined, can even be pumped into a car, boat or motorcycle. Here's a video clip about the process:

One kilogram of plastic produces almost one liter of oil in Ito's invention. To convert that amount takes about 1 kwh of electricity, which is roughly 20 cents’ worth. Blest makes the machines in various sizes for residential and industrial use. The smallest machine, which you can operate in your home, will run you just under $13,000.

Of course, what humans need to figure out (and soon!) is a way to live sustainably in a system of invention that is 100 percent renewable. That means no more oil dependency, period. Harnessing the sun, wind, or even the tides could work; and is even something

attainable within 40 years, according to one Stanford researcher

. Ito's idea is at least a giant step in the right direction, and a welcome addition to the world of reusing, reducing, and recycling.

To see sample machines and learn more about the Blest Corporation, click

here

.

An Invitation to Support Incoming 'Magic Hypercube' Resident

Better Farm will be visited June 5-11 by Forbes Graham, a composer and performer who runs Blaq Lghtn Productions out of Boston, Mass., and who was recently accepted into betterArts' residency program.

During his residency here, Forbes will be composing a trio for piccolo trumpet/trumpet, clarinet, and cello inspired by magic hypercubes. Magic hypercubes are a mathematical sequence in which the hypercubes ("size n") are such that the sum total of n elements along any axis equal the same number. Forbes has begun to explore a five-dimensional magic hypercube, which will be the basis for his composition at Better Farm.

Forbes has created a web page at kickstarter.com to fund his betterArts residency. You can learn more about his vision and help support him by clicking here.

David Sedaris to Speak in Clayton

David Sedaris, NPR humorist and best-selling author of

Me Talk Pretty One Day

and

When You are Engulfed in Flames

,

is scheduled to speak at the

Clayton Opera House

at 7:30 p.m. May 5, 2011.

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humor writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that he is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.

Tickets, ranging in price from $25 to $35, are available

here

.

'Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner'

"Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner" by Jennifer Elizabeth Crone, oil paint, sheet music, and pages from John Irving's The World According to Garp.

Look Closer: New work by artist-in-residence Jennifer Crone

"Look Closer", by Jennifer Elizabeth Crone oil paint, sheet music, pages from found book

For more information on the betterArts residency program, click here. 

GoodSearch, Great Cause

There's now a free and easy way you can help support betterArts, the latest "better" venture out here in the North Country.

betterArts seeks to provide an opportunity for creative exploration and growth to artists, writers, and musicians within the context of Better Farm's dynamic environment.  Through artist residencies, low-cost and free music and art lessons, studio space, and gallery openings and events, betterArts exists as a focal point for the local art community and beyond.

There's a very easy way to help! Just download the GoodSearch - betterArts toolbar. Then, each time you search the web with GoodSearch's Yahoo-powered search engine, about a penny will go to betterArts.

Search engines last year generated close to $8 billion in revenue from advertisers. GoodSearch developed a way to direct some of that money to the causes you care about most. Add up the money generated from all your searches and those by everyone else using GoodSearch, and we can make a real difference.

Thanks in advance for helping out! And please spread the word. The more people syncing GoodSearch with betterArts, the more this little organization can do. Here's the link again:

http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/betterarts

Viva Better!

betterArts Resident Guides Us Through One Painting's Process

by Jennifer Elizabeth Crone

Once upon a time on the Upper West Side of Manhattan I was walking to the train and found a 33x29 inch painting in a wood frame on the sidewalk, discarded with the trash. The painting, signed from 1961, was not much to look at, but a canvas is a canvas, so I took it home and it sat in my living room, butter side against the wall, for months. Until now.

The first thing I did was create this tree out of bits of the Robert Ludlum book The Matarese Circle, which I also found in the street in Manhattan. I ripped up pages and spent a few hours putting tiny pieces together to make the above tree and branches, affixed with gel medium.

 Next I painted over the text to make the tree "move" or appear more dimensional.

After painting the tree I added an aqua color I mixed with terpenoid to create drips.

Next I did yellow...

 And finally olive green.

 Then I began to work on the background, putting more space between the old painting and the tree with its drips.

I then created a ribbon curling down the tree and appearing from off canvas.

 And finally I added warmth and more dimension in the fog-like middle ground. That's the technical process, for the theory and intellectual bits, well I'll never tell.

"Street Art is Dead" oil and mixed media on found canvas, 33x29 in wood frame

Post originally published on Jennifer Elizabeth Crone's blog.

Crafters Wanted for 1,000 Islands Extravaganza

Highway Legends Car Club has scheduled the 1,000 Islands Extravanza from May 20-22 in Clayton to benefit the Children's Miracle Network and Wounded Warrior Project.

The club seeks crafters and vendors to participate in the three-day event. Further information and registration forms are available on the Highway Legends Car Club's website.