.JPG) | ||||
| Blue Monday. Pat traded a breakfast sandwich from Bedford Hill. |
April 1- 7th: Brandon Mathis
.JPG) | |||||||
| Brandon Mathis, an artist who works with plants, divining rods and shrines, traded a pencil plant for his stay. |
 |
| Brandon Mathis, Elsewhere Chapel, Greensboro NC |
February 16- 23rd: Maria Ducasse & Pablo Rodriguez-Sol
 |
This is Mathieu Bonardet from Paris, one of the most amazing dancers I have ever met.  |
.JPG) |
| Maria & Pablo painted this mural in the backyard in exchange for a week at The Den. They also baked two amazing tart tatins, which will never be recreated since I don't fully understand the recipe. |
January 25- 31st: Dez Stone Menendez & Emmett Smith
 |
| Dez and Emmett just bought this boat named The Dreadnaught, which they are restoring into a houseboat which will sleep 6 people and can travel along the St. Lawrence River. |
 |
| They live in Clayton, NY, where Emmett is the curator at the Antique Boat Museum. This is what people do in Clayton NY. Among other items, they traded a thick slab of bacon from a smokehouse in the Adirondacks which was insanely delicious. |
November 12th- 22nd: Femke Van Heugten
 | ||||
| Femke came from Holland to look for this 78 year old man. She met him 4 years ago while sitting on a bench in front of a bagel shop in Brooklyn. He told her a tragic story about love. All she knew was his name and the bagel place he used to go to. She returned to Brooklyn to revisit his story and reconnect him to the love of his life, a woman named Bertha who supposedly lived in Coney Island. |
 |
| In return for a 10 day stay at The Den, Femke brought bags and boxes full of traditional Delft pottery from Holland, including an original hand painted tile from the 17th century. 48 hours after arriving in Brooklyn, she found Joe in a different bagel shop, one block away from the other one. He remembered her, and continued telling her his story. They ate Thanksgiving dinner together at Juniors' and revisited the block in Carroll Gardens where he grew up. Despite visits to the Ellis Island Registry and Coney Island, she never found Bertha. |
October 22- November 12th: Garrett Riffle
.JPG) |
| He lets you dress him up for Halloween |
.JPG) |
| He cooks a mean pasta amatriciana |
.JPG) |
| And despite an early snowstorm immediately following Hurricane Sandy, the hens begin to produce. |
October 8 - 21st: Elizabeth Tubergen
 | ||||||
| The slow chicken chase. One flew the coop, to the neighbors' backyard, and needed to be wrangled. Kathleen Adams immediately volunteered Elizabeth Tubergen as the chicken wrangler, which indeed she did, though she was more like a chicken whisperer. |
October 5th- 9th: Pat Murdoch
 | ||||||
| Pat Murdoch, whom I've known for 16 years, flew in from Berlin. He used to live at Wolfcloud and was back in town to take care of some visa related paperwork. On his first night at The Den, a friend whisked him away in a car and forced him to help him move his apartment, while getting wasted and not sleeping all night. He woke up in The Den at 4pm the next day, with "one of the worst hangovers (he's) ever had", and discovered he was locked into the backyard. He was so thirsty that, after unsuccessfully trying to turn on the hose, he drank the water out of a planter. All while wearing his tight green undies, as seen above. In four short months, Pat will become a father. Angel From Above, (photo touch up by Blue Baldwin). |
October 1st- 4th: Josh Kitts
 | ||||||
| My cousin Josh Kitts and his girlfriend Adrienne Michelle on vacation from Portland, Oregon. Josh works in the Solar industry and is a master carpenter. Adrienne is a Urologist. |
 |
| They restored the side of the staircase, which we discovered was rotten and breaking. They also brought a delicious pinot noir from the Willamette Valley. |
September 30th: Nichole Hart
 |
| Check the beauty factor on this one. Nichole took the train for 5 days from Seattle to get to Brooklyn. |
 |
| She came to help her sister, Heather Hart, with Bartertown, a project for the Dumbo Arts Festival |
September 24-29th: Akemi Martin
 |
| Akemi Martin, a papermaker from LA, but who lives in NY and is 1/2 Japanese, cooked traditional Japanese homestyle food all week. |
 |
| Every night was a different meal, with abundant friends to eat it. |
 |
| Edamame soup |
 |
| Update: we just ate our last rice ball and we miss Akemi acutely. We don't even know or understand how to make rice balls. |
September 18th- 20th: Garrett Riffle
 |
| Garrett Riffle & Greta Schenkenfelder traded a case of Switchel for a few nights stay in The Den. Switchel, a.k.a haymaker's punch, is made from apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, ginger and water. Farmers used to drink it while they were haying the fields because it was so thirst quenching and satisfied their craving for citrus, which in the olden days, there was none of in the Northeast. Garetta will be back soon... |
September 2nd - 9th: Rotem Linial
 |
| Artist and art historian Rotem Linial & Jesse Lockard. Every night was a delicious feast of salads, feta cheese, and kebabs. I was introduced to tamarind juice. |
 |
| Rotem made 4 different kids of pickles, including pickled lemons, peppers and cucumbers, each with their own instructions on preserving and eating. Did she pickle watermelon? I think so. |
The Den is now open after a long summer
 |
| Sometimes the memory of place outlasts the memory of person. |
June 26th- 30th: Lucy Kim & Jon Eden
 |
Lucy Kim & Jon Eden. They were in town for a wedding. Lucy, whom I've known for years, is a painter, and Jon is a Reverend at Christ Church Cambridge in Harvard Square. |
 |
| They restored this old cast iron kid's bench which was found on the street by Luz Fleming, who gave it to me. |
 |
They also built a camouflaged treehouse in the tree in the front yard. |
June 18th- 25th: Nate Carey
 |
| Nate Carey took a vow of silence for an entire week. He began writing lots of little notes in order to communicate. But as time went on he developed a way of communicating without writing. He did not write emails. Only picture texts were allowed, and only if they were important. |
 |
Every evening around 8:00, Rotem Linial came to drink Turkish apple tea and teach Nate how to play backgammon. |
 |
| He did odd jobs around the house, including watching over the chickens, which were only 5 days old. |
 |
| Day 2 |
 |
June 18th - 25th: Nate Carey
 |
Nate Carey arrived today. He is committed to a vow of silence for the week. Already the sound of my own voice is ringing in my head. |
June 4th- 8th: Alexa Leister Frazier
 |
| Alexa Leister Frazier came from Virginia to stay at The Den for a few days. She was hoping for some relaxation and quiet in the midst of Brooklyn. She designed and built this planter in the backyard. |
 |
| This is a recent piece by Alexa. She draws the portrait with her right hand while her left is being painted, and then another with her left hand while her right is being painted, to achieve a "true, whole portrait". |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)