Artistic Nature

As a child I was always busy doing something, drawing, painting, jewelry making, baking, sewing, all sorts of things. This creative spark came from my mother, one of the most creative, influential women in my life.  When I was young l liked to make forts, sometimes with my brother but mostly by myself, my mother facilitated this passion by bringing me large cardboard boxes from appliance stores (washing machines, stoves, and fridges). She would bring them to our house and I remember being so excited, she always said the same thing “who’s your buddy? Who’s your pal?” till this day she still says it when she finds something she knows I will like. My basement was the only place in our house with carpet and that is where I would build my houses. When I was too young to cut heavy material like cardboard by myself my mom would help me, as I got older I would cut a door into the box along with windows to look out of. After this I would spend hours decorating and furnishing my new home, filled with pictures, a garden, a bed to sleep in, and complete with curtains. On my seventh birthday I had a party at my house and everyone got a box, there were around five of us and we spent the evening customizing our houses. No one had the same box, some girls had tall boxes, others had smaller boxes, this made it all the more fun because everyone had a unique space that was all their own. We had converted the basement into a little town and we were all neighbors, we spent the remainder of the night watching movies together and eventually all fell asleep in our little box homes.

   Picture source: ardell.files.wordpress.com

I eventually grew older and my love of cardboard box forts diminished but the memories remain dear to me. As I matured I started experimenting will all sorts of design and artwork, a few years later I was nine and I became very interested with beadwork. I eventually taught myself how to make jewelry and I was hooked. I once met a lady who made glass beads for a living, I toured her shop and after that I was convinced I was going to make jewelry for living.  After that it was scrapbooking, I was always in craft stores looking around and scrapbooking caught my interest. This did not last long; to be honest I just liked all the beautiful papers. For many people they have one hobby and they are content with doing that one thing, I am quite the opposite, I like too many things. Recently I have been really into Mehndi, also known as Henna, a natural dye that is used to stain designs into the skin. Also I have been sending letters, which to many is not very artistic but I think it is becoming a lost art form in need of some loving. Although I do have many artistic interests I do go back and work with old hobbies, I continue to make jewelry, and I use my scrapbooking papers to make cards and gifts, I am always sketching out dresses me and my mother are to sew, and the list goes on. I would never want to limit myself to one creative medium, rather continue experimenting to find new and exciting materials to work with.

Mud pie love

When I was young I was always outside playing in the sprinkler, riding my bike, and baking. I was a master chef naturally; always coming up with new and innovative recipes, mud pies were my specialty and were a very common sight in around my house. I remember one day specifically I was probably five or so and I had been out in the front yard baking all afternoon, it was summertime and the sun was warm on my back. I can only assume I was wearing some of my brothers old hand me down clothes with a dreadful mushroom haircut looking like a boy. 

My mother would give me old aluminum pie plates and I would find the remaining ingredients in the yard. I had an old steel bucket and would scoop up dirt from the garden and mix it with hose water. I remember being so curious as to what the little white dots were that would float to the surface in my bucket? I found out later in life that they are Styrofoam fragments that help aerate the soil, who knew! After mixing for quite sometime and being satisfied with the consistency of the mud I would transfer it to the pie plates, using non other than my hands of course. At that point the mud was too runny so it had to “pre bake” in the sun, after that point they were ready to garnish. I would collect berries from various neighboring trees, flowers, twigs, and small branches from my yard and would arrange them on the top of my pies, sometimes adding small pebbles for additional flavor. At this point they were ready for the oven! I would put them on the edge of my front porch and there they would sit until crusty and hard from the sun. I could never make just one pie I always made at least two or three, this allowed me to alternate between mixing, collecting, decorating and gave me something to do while the pies were baking.  During the summer this kept me occupied for hours, I don’t remember getting bored or wanting to do something else I was a happy little baker. Playing in the mud all afternoon would often result in me getting sprayed down with freezing cold hose water in order to keep the house clean. 

Till this day I am still very passionate about baking. Having taken a number of cake decorating classes in my free time I jumped at the chance to decorate a cake in my high school culinary class. I got carried away with my project and spent hours before school and during my lunch hour and finally finished it!

 This is a synthetic cake base (it's not real cake) covered with white fondant and decorated with buttercream icing, the skulls are also sculpted from fondant and painted with food coloring. I’m sure if I had a picture of one of my childhood mud pies this would be quite the improvement. Ever since I can remember I have had a love for food, cooking and more specifically baking, I hope that one day I will be able to pursue my love of baking and open my own bakery.