In other news, I updated my about page and artist statement, and the layout of the website too.

I’m going to start working on creating my own layout soon, and make it easier to navigate, and focus more on my recent artwork as a portfolio website.

In other news, I’ve got a facebook connecting commenting system up, so check that out, and see if it runs by commenting, eh?  Thanks!

recipe after the jump, or download the rtf here

fluffy raisin bread

bill of materials

1 spoon active dry yeast
1/4 brown sugar (and extra around for last step)
1-1/4 cup buttermilk, warm to the touch (20 secs in micro should do it)
1/4th stick butter room temperature (and extra for last step)
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 spoon vanilla extract
2 3/4 to 3 cups AP (all purpose) unbleached flour
1 cup semolina flour (you can do an extra cup of ap flour, but this helps keep the bread together)
1-2 spoon gluten flour

pinch of cinnamon
1 cup raisins
2 spoons olive oil

optional: pinch of orange zest, nutmeg, cardamom, cacao powder etc.
(whatever you have at hand)

optional choices: replace a cup with whole wheat, replace up to a 1/2 cup with semolina flour

note: use what you’ve got! part of making bread is being creative with what you use. substitute and figure out a recipe for yourself!

activate the yeast

•  mix pinch of sugar in a small bowl, with 1/4 cup of warm buttermilk (not too hot, you should be able to stick your finger in it without it feeling hot, but not cool)

•  then powder the top with the yeast, and let sit for 3 minutes as it will spread and “melt.”  Then stir, and leave for another 5 minutes (as you start the next part)

bread making

If you’re using a mixer, stick the hook attachment on, otherwise use a whisk until it gets sticky, and then use your hands and plenty of flour, you professional you.

•  combine 1 cup warm buttermilk, 1/4 stick butter (you can microwave for 20 sec, but it should not be melted completely.  I use a spoon and cut small pieces off the stick) and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar and mix.

•  Add salt, 1 egg, vanilla and 3/4 cup raisins.

•  Add the optional ingredients like zest, nutmeg or cardamom now.

note: your mix will NOT look pretty.  You’ll probably end up with small curdles of butter in there, but no worries ‘sall good.  Now add the yeast mixture and mix at low speed for a minute.

•  Add a cup of flour and mix, then wait 5 minutes for the yeast to adjust and eat its way into the flour.

•  Add 1-3/4 cup of flour and gluten flour (sift together if you’ve got a sifter).

Mix just until everything is together, then add the final cup of flour and knead by hand in the bowl (or mix at medium with hook).

I know this is complicated, but it’s easing the yeast into the process –you gotta work for your airy bubbles and soft bread.

•  throw a cloth over it like paper towel, or even saran wrap, and leave in a warm place (like next to your fridge, or behind an operating tele (avoid the sun)) for a 1/2 hour to 1 1/2 hour until the dough doubles in size.

Depending how warm it is, and how active the bacteria is in your location –for example in hawaii, it takes about 1/2 hour because everything is extremely reactive.  Kombucha only takes a week here to make a good batch!

•  pound down on the dough with your fists, and flatten on a board (cover with flour first to avoid a sticky mess) and roll it up with raisins if you want, then stick it in a 9 by 5.

•  Let the whole thing rise again

The whole reason for this is because the first time, the yeast uses the flour to multiply and then results in uneven bubble formation, which may leave you with a deflating loaf later in the oven.  If you let it rise again, smaller, more even bubbles form, and there is more yeast this time so it will rise faster, about 30 min.

•  whip up the other egg, mix with 1/4 cup raisins, small melted cut of butter, throw some olive oil in there, maybe a pinch of cane turbinado sugar if you’ve got it, cinnamon, and whatever else you’d like and pour evenly right over the loaf.

It’s okay if the egg settles around the edges of the loaf, just make sure everything is at least moistened by the mixture.  It also helps to poke in the raising a little into the dough, so they stay in after it’s done.

•  preheat oven to 400 F (that’s 204 C for the rest of the world, dumb american measurements, amirite?) throw your sexy loaf in the oven, decrease oven temp to 350F (176C) right away if convection, otherwise, decrease to 300F (148C)

•  leave in for 20 minutes, then cover with tin foil tent, and another 25 minutes until golden top.

•  cool for 5 minutes, unmold, cool another 5 or cut right in, and enjoy!

I’m also trying to make a piezo-electric pickup for my ukulele, so I can hook it up to an amp.  Turns out I can get all the materials from radioshack for less than 10 bucks and put it together myself, while the same thing already built is being sold in the music store for about 60 bucks.  Fantastic. DIY!!!

Hawaii is a wonderful place, but I can’t help but miss my friends.  Working on projects with my friends this summer would have been ideal, but alas, I will only be back in hometown citadel for only half a month.

On another note I’ve been seeing really strangely psychological dreams about people from elementary school, and their behaviors, mannerisms, activities… I feel like I know more about them now than I did back then.  Strange epiphany-esque stuff.

I was entering the gym, a miniaturized version of a theater now, I don’t know how many coats of polyurethane on that wood floor but this place felt like a happy friend, pleased to see me again.  Mr. Rodriguez, the 7th grade science teacher smile stretches across the room as he shakes my hand, “Emiliano!!!”  that’s not my name, but I smile politely.  I raise my eyebrows at a nearby girl holding back laughter, we smile at his mistake, that’s Sarah.  I walk past and I’m happy to see my girlfriend getting along well with my grade school friends.  As she stands talking, her smile radiates to me, like a red beacon saying “this is where you are!” and I feel proud of who I am, proud of her.

Then I feel it, the silent judging stares and looks of all the people in the room.  The interesting thing about a grade school reunion is that we all, involuntarily separated by graduation, knew each other at some point in time.  We all knew a premature version that we were comfortable (or not) with each other.  So even now, we return to our pre-historic selves.  Maybe because we’d like to feel more like a child sometimes, or because that’s the only way we know how to interact.   In other words, I went back to my silent-type, randomly mischievous self.

Then I woke up.

On my todo list: Learn processing, and make cool things with it; Draw every day, something to improve my drawing skills; Study a bit on stage lighting, and maybe write a play or find one to direct in the fall; make a geodesic dome with bamboo and/or make a solar cooker; and lastly, learn some tasty recipes.

But we all know how summer plans go…

So I take into hand the idea of the Mumford House on campus here, and the controversies that lie behind it.  The controversy is that it once was a model farm house with some people living in it, and eventually they had to move out when the university said they were putting this area right in the middle of the university.  Well they didn’t want to move out, but instead decided to donate the land to the university, as long as they kept the house somewhere on campus.  Years and years later, the university decided it wanted to put shit there, so they had the argument of trying to move the farm house to south areas where there are actual farms and it might have some use there, but the historical preservation people here fought to keep it here, as it would degrade the house, as well as ruin the house’s historical status.

Currently the building is slowly decaying and is not in use.  Some sources said that in one summer the heat was left on, and degraded all the walls and the insides are peeling.

To bring attention to this brilliant piece of history and perhaps create more controversy, I decided to make a presentation J-C & Christo style with a model that I made as well as a digital painting of the landscape.

(click to enlarge)

(here’s what the area looks like)

My half sketch/photo montage.

Here’s a comparison from the originals:

My full sketch of the area:

final thoughts: it took a long time to figure out how to make that vinyl look… like vinyl.  I had to do a physical painting before realizing that I could do this better with sketchbook pro.

link: Information Is Beautiful

This seems to be the epitome of my current life direction –toward the culmination of all my interests, bringing together art and information, or simply giving meaning to words and numbers (not that they don’t have a meaning already) in visual form, so we can appreciate the patterns that we mimic from nature.  Our social memes are not so different from patterns found in nature –in fact, I think they’re exactly the same.  But their contexts are different, and beautiful in each sense; what we can achieve is better.

Luke and I had a cool idea for music, where in the last several number of years, a diagram is drawn, with circles indicating melodic patterns.  So much of our popular music is similar in the sense that most of the songs follow a certain melody, for example, pachabel’s cannon famous 8 note, found in a lot of different songs.  A beat would play in the background of this dynamic infographic, and as you mouseover the melodies, which are differentiated by size (popularity/number of times found in songs of that year) and by year, the melody will play to the beat.  Furthermore, you can adjust the tempo of the beat on the page, to search for different songs at different melodies.

Doesn’t sound like  a bad idea… as soon as I finish learning Java, maybe I’ll venture to creating dynamic infographics with Flash or Html 3.0

Previously I made a much more simple, perhaps too mature of a theme for the idea of the play, which was more beige and used a color noise mask to make it look a little older and colorful.  Still it was too “clean” looking for the play.  The idea they had was for the poster to reflect a sort of “super-hero comic” style, which I’m not exactly used to, so it made sense to make something that represents a book cover, but not too intense for the sake of not making it look cheesy.  Anyway, hope y’all like it.

This links back to flickr, and a larger size is there too.

also, if you’re in Chicago, you should go see it!

//Edit: this is the trailer for the Stonehenge theater… er… was//

lunch

As I was playing with some macro, I thought these were interesting to share… might make for a good photoshop brush or texture background.

Stuff like that. Cranking out, since my intercollege transfer application is due soon, thinking of new things to put in…