happy mid-autumn festival! :D

It’s been a while since I last wrote, I’m feel­ing quite sad about it. But the real­i­ty is that the new school year comes with so much work that I bare­ly have time to do any­thing else.

But today is Mid Autumn Fes­ti­val. I thought I should take some time to cel­e­brate. So with a hot cup of tea sit­ting on the table beside my note­book, I made a drawing.

mid autumn

Because of class sched­ule I’m not able to go home for a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing today. But as I was draw­ing I thought about how part of the tra­di­tion of the Mid-Autumn Fes­ti­val reminds us that (at least how I under­stand it) even if we can’t phys­i­cal­ly be togeth­er with our loved ones, we know that on this day, when the moon is the fullest and bright­est, we are all gaz­ing at and appre­ci­at­ing the same moon as our loved ones over the moun­tains and across the seas. 

And so as I was draw­ing I was think­ing about my fam­i­ly and loved ones gaz­ing at the same moon. And I thought about the bio­lu­mi­nes­cent mush­rooms that we saw at an exhib­it in Chica­go. I don’t think bio­lu­mi­nes­cent mush­rooms usu­al­ly need moon­light to glow, but in my draw­ing I was kind of imag­in­ing a rela­tion­ship between the mush­rooms and the moon, where the moon gives the mush­rooms the light ener­gy so that they, too, can glow and shine. And I’m remind­ed of this passage:

We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19

 

Wish­ing you a splen­did, blessed fall sea­son of harvest.

 

 

another day at the farmers market

farmer1

This time I got some black cher­ry toma­toes, pat­ty­pan squash, and some kale. I’ve nev­er had any of those before. The friend­ly farm­ers gave me sam­ples of the toma­toes and squash. They were very sweet.

Here’s what we did with the cher­ry toma­toes and squash — a sum­mer sal­ad with just some salt, pep­per and sesame oil.

farmer2

I sautéed half the kale, but found it a bit too chewy. So I thought I’d try to make kale chips with the rest of them. I’ve always been intrigued by them!

I fol­lowed this recipe. It’s real­ly rather sim­ple. Did­n’t even have to turn them over half way through bak­ing. Came out nice and crisp!

kale chips 2

Mike and I devoured the entire bowl in one evening.

kale chips 1

And this is the draw­ing of the week. Trea­sures from the earth.

treasures from the earth

May your week be filled with sim­ple joys and treasures!

 

relishing summer

Stum­bled upon a farm­ers mar­ket in the neigh­bour­hood where I used to go to school, it even has a cafe! So I’ve made it a goal to vis­it when it opens every Wednes­day, get some veg­eta­bles for the week, stop by the cafe (that is also part of the farmer’s mar­ket), and take some time to draw. Like I did when we were on our trip to Chica­go :D I’m fore­see­ing a very busy Sep­tem­ber, so it’s nice to have the time to rel­ish summer.

Photo 2013-07-31 6 52 16 PM

Trea­sures from the earth! Rain­bow chard — uni­corns’ favourite veg­eta­bles! :D But con­trary to what I thought and what the farmer seemed to be telling me, rain­bow chard isn’t a species in itself, it’s actu­al­ly a mix of dif­fer­ent kinds of chard. But any­way, I’ve nev­er had chard and it was very sweet.

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We sautéed the chard and the radish togeth­er :D

Photo 2013-07-31 4 36 30 PM

And here’s the draw­ing I made at the cafe. About shar­ing space, shar­ing resources and sup­port­ing each oth­ers’ growth.

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The farm­ers mar­ket is in front of a church and the cafe is inside the nice court­yard of the church. I should take more pic­tures of it next week.

John Street Farm­ers Mar­ket! I high­ly rec­om­mend vis­it­ing if you’re in the neigh­bour­hood :D

May your week be filled with sim­ple joys.

 

chicago drawings

And we’re back! :D

Before I went on the trip to Chica­go, I made a (small) goal to make one draw­ing a day, based on what­ev­er I saw on that day. It was intend­ed to be a way for me to get back into draw­ing, but it had real­ly unfold­ed into a time of reflec­tion, rel­ish­ing the day, trea­sur­ing qui­et time shared with Mike, and think­ing more about what I saw, learned and expe­ri­enced and how I was moved by these things.

The draw­ings are in a note­book that Mike gave me. It has this quote print­ed in it:

The past is a ghost, the future is a dream and all we ever have is now.” — Bill Cosby

 

July 18 — we vis­it­ed the Shedd Aquar­i­um. We learned about how the health and well-being of life in the sea, in the sky and on land are all connected. I made this draw­ing at night in our hotel room. The words that came from the draw­ing: Corals, bar­na­cles, kelp, sea­weeds, jel­lies, one ocean.

day 1

 

July 19 — we vis­it­ed the Adler Plan­e­tar­i­um. Before head­ing to Mil­len­ni­um Park, we stopped at a Dunk­ins Donut for $1 iced cof­fee and free WiFi. Through the store win­dow I was look­ing at the iron and wood struc­ture of the ele­vat­ed train tracks that run through the city, and the owl stat­ue on top of the pub­lic library. Ear­li­er in the day, we saw draw­ings of how ear­ly astrol­o­gists record­ed, tracked, and made sense of the stars they saw in the sky. A vol­un­teer told us about light pol­lu­tion and how we don’t see stars in the city any­more. Still ear­li­er in the day, when we were wait­ing for the bus head­ing to the Plan­e­tar­i­um, we chat­ted with a man who asked us to help him out with break­fast and then start­ed to tell us about him­self. He said he got com­pla­cent. So, I guess this is kind of a prayer.

May we find our light again
Our North Star
May we rest in the knowl­edge and the faith that it is still here
Even when we don’t see it

day 2

 

July 20 — Vis­it­ed the Muse­um of Sci­ence and Indus­try. Saw a film about the endan­gered coral reefs, and was amazed by the sea slug swim­ming. I sup­pose this is also a wish.

The hum­ble sea slug danc­ing, send­ing waves rip­pling across the ocean, reclaim­ing space.

day 3

 

July 21 — we vis­it­ed the Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Stu­dio that day. Real­ly inspired by how he blend­ed archi­tec­ture with the sur­round­ing envi­ron­ment, and his use of geo­met­ri­cal pat­terns that were inspired by nature. And in the front yard of his home there was a gink­go tree — my favourite tree — the largest, tallest, most majes­tic gink­go tree I’ve ever seen. Mike and I sat at a Star­bucks before meet­ing up with a friend. I drew while he read blogs. Bliss.

Desire of the human heart to be attuned to the rhythm of nature.

day 4

 

July 22 — Vis­it­ed the Field Muse­um. Most amazed by the bio­lu­mi­nes­cence exhib­it. Learned about why cer­tain crea­tures and plants glow (i.e. mat­ing, dis­cour­age preda­tors “I glow, there­fore I taste bad!”, burn off excess ener­gy, etc.). Also fas­ci­nat­ed by pre­his­toric sea crea­tures, before the dinosaurs, in the Evolv­ing Earth exhib­it. Had a thought about mak­ing plush­es of those creatures. 

The art of survival.

day 5

 

 

July 23 — On our last day in Chica­go, we vis­it­ed the Jane Addams Hull-House Muse­um. Being a social work stu­dent I have read a lot about Jane Addams and her work in text­books. What the text­books did­n’t men­tion was that art forms of all kinds were thriv­ing at the Hull-House. It was­n’t just a place that pro­vid­ed afford­able shel­ter and food, child­care and employ­ment, it was also a place where peo­ple’s minds and spir­it were nur­tured and ener­gized by lit­er­a­ture, music, tex­tile art, pot­tery, paint­ing, poet­ry. It reaf­firmed my belief that the arts are also essen­tial in help­ing peo­ple get to where they want to go. What I also did not know was that Jane Addams was a big fan of the Arts and Crafts Move­ment and the designs of William Mor­ris, as am I :D The draw­ing was inspired by a his­tor­i­cal pho­to­graph of the chil­dren at the Hull-House paint­ing in the street in front of a stair­way. It was drawn at the air­port, wait­ing for our flight home.

Stair­case to somewhere.

day 6

 

 

Our trip end­ed there. Too short of course :( But what I real­ly val­ued was the expe­ri­ence of tak­ing time to sit down and draw. And to think, to some­how find words to con­sol­i­date my thoughts, which made me feel quite a bit hap­pi­er actu­al­ly. Or maybe it was just because I was on hol­i­day. Any­how, I’m hop­ing to find more oppor­tu­ni­ties to do more of this at home.

Mike and I are in the process of com­pil­ing our pho­tos of the trip — we took so many! With lots of sto­ries to tell! Can’t wait to post them!

Have a hap­py rest of the week, everyone!