I love it when problems turn into pluses. And, in fact, perhaps that is the very essence of inspiration and invention.  Dilemmas arise, cry out for solutions, ideas foment and before long, solutions surface that take us to a better place than originally imagined.  At least, such is the fortunate story arc that describes two (completely unrelated!) scenarios that came into view for me, and which have enough “feel good” vibes to whisk away a touch of the winter doldrums.

Massachusetts artist Roger Kizik has been making paintings for many, many years and has, therefore, a situation on his hands familiar to the vast majority of mature artists:  not every painting flies out the door.  Large canvases, a specialty of Kizik’s, eventually grow into REALLY large stashes of work that cannot all be saved for ever and ever.

But Kizik has a healthy propensity for knowing wheat from chaff. He turned a deliberative, coldly critiquing eye on his own backlog.   And — gasp — out came a very large pair of scissors (everything in Kizik’s studio is large — think Pee Wee’s playhouse).

What resulted from the Armageddon moment is an array of place mats that are alive, cool, durable (the acrylic paint is thickly applied and tough as nails), with colors that sing in Kizik’s signature combo of harmony and cacophony.   It seems the parts are greater than the whole.  Plan B outshines Plan A.

Another large problem confronted my sister-in-law, Elspeth Inglis, when she and my brother Mark built a home on Michigan property loaded with rocks and puny amounts of topsoil.  I’m talking seriously high numbers of rocks that were too small for rock walls, but too big to ignore.  You know what they say about real estate — location, location, location.  In this instance, the ice age ended, glaciers melted, everything in the glaciers’ icy grip dropped and tons of rocks relocated to Elspeth’s and Mark’s acreage.

Not to worry.  After excavation work left a rambling ditch-like scar the through the yard, Elspeth had the inspiration to imagine a rocky stream bed “flowing” through what was to become her flower beds.  Rearranged rock debris became an artful landscape element, shifting with the seasons and accented by a bridge Mark made from other salvaged materials.  The effect is fantastic (emphasis on the fantasy).  A river runs through it, so to speak, and a very drought-resistant waterway at that.

All this confirms my belief in the power of the adage “out of crisis comes opportunity.”  Of course, I hasten to add that none of this applies whatsoever to many of the folks in Congress who view crisis as an opportunity to bungle, bluster, and belabor.  But wait!  This post is meant to chase away the winter’s woes, so enough of that.  Lemonade anyone?

Photos by Andrea Bonsignore

Hot Diggity Dog!  A wide array of destinations beckon when in the Washington, D.C. area. But the National Gallery of Art’s east wing always makes my short “must see” list.  As per usual in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I inch down Constitution Avenue past hoards of tourists flocking to see monuments, dinosaurs and other Smithsonian treasures, giving rise to a grumpy inner dialogue, and then — voila!  As if by magic, crowds thin, parking spots appear and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus breaks out in my head.  All will be well — I get to visit my friends in the East Wing.

Nearly every visit begins with a sharp turn to the left of the entrance into a warren of rooms that house a singularly appealing permanent exhibit called “Small French Paintings.” Like much of the National Gallery of Art holdings, the Mellon family collected these paintings. They are an affectionate, intimate, and lovely lot.  Being diminutive in scale, these works look you in the eye, take you in and are touching, not overwhelming.  Vuillard and Bonnard are my particular favorites.

Moving on, each year I have to admire anew the installation of work by my first-ever true love: Alexander Calder.  A large room of well lit work features table top sculptures, pieces mounted on the wall, mobiles (of course!). There is also a killer assortment of animals and wire portraits that defy credulity for their simple success.  This exhibit can be viewed at ground level and through two portals on an upper floor. It is animated by shadows that continually play off suspended work shifting in circulating air. Breathtaking.

A visit with Roy

This year,  a first-rate retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein drew an appreciative number of visitors, but was not unpleasantly mobbed (as is sometimes the case with big-name shows).  Lichtenstein’s art was organized as much by subject matter as chronology.  The conceit worked and made for a more imaginative grasp of what propelled this prolific, hard-working artist through many decades of work amidst the tumult of “fads” pulsing through the art world during the second half of the 20th century and beyond.

If visiting the East Wing midday, the display of Matisse’s large (really large) cut-outs are open for viewing.  Their relative fragility limits the hours they are exposed to light (11:00-2:00), but this joyous and muscular set of images are anything but dainty.  They dance right off the walls.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned parking spots are easier to come by after 3:00, so that may a good reason to take the Metro for a trip to DC’s mall.  And once you go for the Metro, then make a day of it and see more of the national centers — all of which have no admission charge.  Yippee!

I’ll limit myself to two additional “must-see” attractions:  The Freer Gallery of Art is serenity itself and the Botanic Garden is purely seductive all throughout the year (warning:  the superb plant material creations for the holidays draw big crowds).

 Photo of painting by Roy Lichtenstein form East Wing exhibit

Playing in your parents’ rock’n roll cover band may sound more like an idea from a network sitcom than a path to musical success. But that’s exactly the training that the acclaimed sister trio called Haim attributes to their growing musical success. Haim has been the darling of the music blogosphere for the past year, and have just racked up another accolade by winning the BBC Sound of 2013 poll. Past winners of the poll, whose voters are British music editors and critics, include Keane, Jessie J, Ellie Goulding and Adele.

Haim consists of sisters Danielle, Este, and Alana Haim. For 10 years — most of their childhoods — they played with their parents Donna and Mordechai Haim in a cover band appropriately but somewhat cringe-inducingly called Rockinhaim. With Dad on drums and Mom on vocals, they played at state fairs and block parties, a “Valley version of the Partridge family“. Alana Haim, the youngest, recounted to The Guardian how they learned to play: schooled on drums by Dad when they were old enough to sit at the drum kit, and then when they were big enough to hold the guitar, taping songs off the radio to learn the lyrics and chord progressions by ear. Their parents selections formed the foundation of their Fleetwood Mac-meets-R & B-sound.

Most teenagers would run screaming from their parents in their high school years, but the girls stuck with Rockinhaim until four years ago, when they decided to strike out on their own. They added drummer Dash Hutton and put out the EP Forever last February. A full album is due sometime in 2012.

Haim recently stopped by the BBC’s Maida Vale studios to performing a live version of a terrific new track, “Falling”:

Here’s a polished video of “Don’t Save Me” from the Forever EP:

Finally, to see where it all started, here’s the gang with Mom and Dad in England earlier this year. “Mustang Sally” was the first cover the girls learned to play with their parents. Maybe parents with musically-inclined progeny should consider chucking the music lessons and following the Haim’s lead by forming a cover band.

Go ahead.  Laugh all you want.  Lob away with all the doorstop jokes you’ve got. But stop reading at your own peril.

I am here to make a case for my hands-down favorite food to eat at my family’s annual Christmas gathering. And trust me, there is a lot of food at said gathering, with several foodies in attendance and an abundance of delicacies. In describing my sister Donna’s fruitcake as “swoon-worthy,” I am certain a normal amount of skepticism arises. But hear me out…

For starters, Donna spent many years making her living cooking in a variety of top-rated eateries, so having a professional relationship with food makes everything she bakes, cooks or “whips up” a near work of art. The humble fried egg sandwich, in her hands,  transcends the ordinary.  Her gravy is perfection. But I digress. Back to the much maligned fruitcake.

The crucial characteristic of fruitcake that deserves to be eaten is a complete avoidance of primary colors.  If you spot a speck of red, green or yellow in a loaf, quickly exit the scene of the crime.  Eerily glowing maraschino cherries, or worse, candied citrus peel and strangely processed pineapple bits, have all done serious damage to the reputation of the fruitcake. Here is a disheartening fruitcake fact I recently learned: our nation’s largest fruitcake company’s largest annual customer is the US military.  It’s not enough for those in uniform to have to spend the holidays away from home in frightening circumstances.  They also have to face down the arrival of (I am not making this up) upwards of 65,000 loaves of the creepy, color-studded loaves.  Your tax dollars at work.

Hit the delete button on your misconception of fruitcake and plan for next year’s luscious loaves.  Start caching all varieties of dried fruit when you come across a good sale.  Ditto with the nuts (wrap well and freeze till use).  Trader Joe’s has good dried fruit and nut prices all year long, and I am especially fond of their dried white peaches.  Figs, dates, cherries, prunes, apricots, raisins, cranberries, etc. all mingle well with each other.  Personalize your own preferences and mix and match any way you like. A fruitcake of this quality is also a GREAT option for hikers, backpackers, kayakers, etc.  Imagine reaching into a pack and pulling out something you actually look forward to eating — with nutritional benefits to boot.

This year I stuffed a box with fruit and nuts, mailed it to Donna in November and asked her to write down her “recipe” so as to share it with others. Copied below is the amazing gift I received from my sister Donna.  Thank you, thank you!

Best Fruitcake Ever

Heat oven to 350.  Prepare 4 loaf pans or the equivalent by buttering generously and dusting bottom and sides with fine dry breadcrumbs…This works better than flour and eliminates the need to line pans with parchment paper.

- 15 Cups mixed dried fruit…dark raisins, sultanas, apricots quartered, figs cut in sixths, cherries, cranberries, chopped dates.  12 cups would have been ample, but I sort of went nuts. Be sure to break up the fruit and mix well in a large bowl.

- Zest and juice of one orange tossed with the fruit

- 2 tblsp. minced crystalized ginger

- 6 cups broken/chopped walnuts and pecans. Toast 10 minutes at 350.  Toss in with the fruit  Be sure everything is well distributed.

- Set fruit and nuts aside while you mix up the cake batter.

Use your whisk attachment to cream until light and fluffy:

- 3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) butter.  If you use unsalted butter add 1 tsp. salt or your cake will taste flat.

- 3 cups sugar

- Beat in 6 eggs just until mixed

- Add 1 1/2 cups milk

- 2 tsp. vanilla

- 1/8 tsp. citrus fruit oil (Fiori Di Sicilia from King Arthur Flour Co.)

Switch to batter paddle attachment to stir in:

- 4 1/2 cups flour mixed with 1 tblsp. sifted baking powder

- Mix flour very minimally and stir batter into the fruit and nut mixture.

Divide the very stiff and lumpy batter into the prepared pans, press firmly into all the corners and smooth the tops.  Bake about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Reduce baking times as needed for smaller loaves.  Run a knife around the sides, and turn out onto cooling racks. Cool right side up.

The electro-pop Canadian band known as Metric has been making great songs for the everyday runner’s playlist for the past ten years. They’ve churned out a steady supply of great riffs starting in 2003 with excellently-titled Old World Underground, Where are You Now? CD. With the beautiful Emily Haines on lead vocals, the foursome has enjoyed a steady if not stratospheric level of success. The first three albums were released by well-respected indie labels, the fourth was a go-it-alone independent release that still sold more than 500,000 copies.

For Synthetica, the band’s most recent CD released in November, they’ve decided to forge ahead with their own label Metric Music. They’ve played to hugely enthusiastic crowds at Austin City Limits festival in October and continue to tour to support the album; Lou Reed showed up at Radio City to recreate his album duet with Haines, “The Wanderlust”. Some reviewers have taken the band to tasking for using the tried and true trope of the “famous rock star duet”, but it definitely works, though it’s not a top selection to get your heartbeat racing.

For a few that do, listen to “Breathing Underwater” with its great concert shots, followed by the quieter acoustic version that showcases the bones of the band’s songwriting. Then ramp it up again with “Youth Without Youth”, a celebration of crunchy guitars with a ’80s glam-rock feel.

Acoutic:

Youth Without Youth:

The band that goes by the name of Lord Huron is composed not of lords or of Native Americans. But the Great Lake of that name has been the inspiration for this Michigan by-way-of L.A. band. Started as the solo project of visual artist Ben Schneider, who played all the instruments on the first two EPs, the band now has five members. Their songs have sunny melodies and rich harmonies; NPR has called the band’s sound “indie-choirboy folk music”.

Lonesome Dreams is the band’s first LP, and it’s been compared (both favorably and unfavorably) to Seattle’s Fleet Foxes, with whom they share a penchant for lush choruses and folk harmonies. But there is a levity and worldliness to Lord Huron’s music that’s absent from the Fleet Foxes, as is evident from the video for “Time to Run”, a folk-rock tune with world-music influences. It’s pretty high concept: Ben Schneider created a fake author (who has a very real website) named George Ranger Johnson, whose stories and books supposedly form the basis for many of the songs, starting with “Time to Run.” Don’t be too puzzled by the Indonesian subtitles; director and filmmaker Evan Weinerman (who goes by the moniker “Arms Race”) says they wanted to use “familiar Western tropes while throwing in unique details from other genres and cultures.” The same could be said for all of the music on this gem of an album.

Artist Gwen Frostic depicted plants and animals native to Michigan. Her singularly deft woodblock prints continue to be reproduced in her home’s workshop, and are available through the Gwen Frostic web site. They are eye-poppingly affordable, and I am especially fond of the diminutive “pocket calendars.” At $4.50 each they are SO endearing, and make good gift package labels when trimmed up at the year’s end.

Henry Evans is a California print maker who specializes in botanical subjects. His 2013 calendar is poetic for its restraint and clarity. He captures the sense of a plant with relatively few, expertly chosen marks. His website is set up to take orders for these, again, affordable calendars of uncommon distinction.

Crane Creek Graphics make the calendars by Evans, and is a company started and owned by Wyoming artist Wendy Morgan. Her own 2013 calendar features a lively selection of well-observed birds and can be ordered on line here.