Will Northcutt’s beautiful murals inside a laundry mat really make an otherwise drab place into a beautiful setting. I took some shots of his beautiful mural and tried to give you a sense of what the space feels like. … Continue reading
Pepper and Mushroom Pizza
I was a pizza cook for many years working in small pizza by the slice restaurants in Santa Cruz and in San Francisco picking up jobs as I was putting myself through school and being a graffiti artist. It wasn’t until I went on a cycling tour through Italy that I really had a complete understanding of pizza. Riding my bicycle in Italy gave me an understanding that pizza is different everywhere you go. Even in Italia pizza was different along the way from town to town and region to region. I tasted pizza there with all sorts of wonderful ingredients but one thing that was consistent was that the pizza had ingredients that were mainly local but also the scale of the pizza was different from the gigantic slice pizzas we make here in the USA.
There’s nothing more rewarding than a thin crust pizza with cheese and ingredients you find in your refrigerator that need to be cooked off to really make for a satisfying experience. Not only did you cook something good but you moved out something from your fridge that needed to be cooked. To get started, I usually assess what is in my fridge and make my dough and get my stove ready for cooking. Preparing to make pizza can sometimes take several days. I sometimes make the dough and let it proof in my fridge and pull it out when I’m ready or I make the dough the same day I cook my pizza. Pizza dough is an easy thing to make and you usually only needs a few hours to really proof to be workable enough to roll out or toss.
Cheese Pizza
Here is Mark Bittman’s recipe for a wonderful pizza dough.
Turn on oven on hot! 550 degrees or higher! If you can, use a pizza stone to keep that temperature hot! After the dough is ready to be rolled out or tossed you can place the flattened dough onto parchment paper or use cornmeal on a large cookie sheet big enough for the pizza and start to put your ingredients on top. I usually start with some olive oil and some chopped garlic spread evenly over the stretched pizza dough. Afterwards, I usually put my cheese on the pizza and then I put any other ingredients that I like. Throw the pizza in the oven in the middle shelf and give it a few minutes for it to heat up. Open the door and check to see how the pizza is cooking. Give it about 10-15 minutes occasionally moving the pizza around to cook evently. Make sure it doesn’t burn but make sure that the crust is crispy! Pull the pizza out slice it or cut as you eat it. There’s lots of different ways for making pizza so keep in mind that the way you like it is just as valid as any pizza out there. Happy eating!!! 
Recently I took a day trip to NYC and whipped out my camera to see what I could catch near midtown Manhattan. I love to take photos of people walking around here because there’s so many people on their way to wherever, distracted by the many things happening that they rarely see me holding my camera.
Carnegie Hall
Rockefeller Center
The goal of this project is to kick out about 100 watercolors of soldiers from archive photographs of the Civil War. Mostly I am working with old portrait photographs. I’m not doing much to them other than translating them from photos to watercolor on paper. There’s some really interesting stuff coming up with this since I’m able to pick and choose any of the notable characters from this era that I find along the way. I’ll try to post all of them when I’m finished sometime later this year.
We’re getting ready to move back to California in August after 3 years away. Two of those years were in NYC and the last 9 months have been here in Hartford, Connecticut.
During the past 9 months that I’ve been in Hartford a lot has happened. My wife and I had a baby. I made art (as usual). My wife taught at one of the local colleges and I also took Russian class.
During our time here I made the effort to find out a little about the city of Hartford. I tried when I could in between the time I had available to see the sights, taste the local food, and hear the sounds and feel the environment etc. I took lots of photographs and documented as best as I could for the time we were here but also because it would be great to share with my son the place that he was born.
So if there was any art project during our year that I made here it was for me to find the city of Hartford with my little camera preferably with a bicycle but sometimes with a car. Forever we are connected here because of our son being born here. This is a dedication to the city of his birth.
They call liquor stores package stores or “packys” here in Connecticut.
The 50th Puerto Rican Day Parade happened in Hartford this year. I caught some wonderful photographs this day.
A beautiful lonely building in the North End of Hartford. A truly beautiful and vibrant neighborhood that is predominately African American. Lots of history in this neighborhood.
The beautiful architecture in this city is just inspiring
This is a logo exercise I made as a reflection and celebration of my time here.
I’ve been making drawings of Hartford to get a feel of my new home. I’ve been riding my bicycle and driving around and taking photographs. I’ve also been looking at old photos of the city and region. It’s been very exciting and interesting to learn about this place. I frankly didn’t know much about Connecticut before I moved here so it’s been great to try and see what this region is about. Of course it’s really fun trying to make art from all of it!
I like trains, so it’s great to look up some of the history of Hartford and find out that there used to be a public transportation system throughout the region that even took you out toward Springfied MA. These trains were torn out by the 1940’s. It’s a real American tragedy told time and time again throughout this country but when you go through these photographs you really get a sense it really connected people. There’s lots of commuter traffic in and out of the city because most of the people in Hartford live in the Suburbs. I’m pretty sure there will be a reverse trend soon here. I can feel it.
For the last year I’ve been working on a blog called the Beautiful Bodegas. The blog is a collection of photos and images as a tribute to the neighborhood corner market. I’ve been basically compiling photos of these stores wherever I go and also scouring the internet for images.
Recently I added a submission page so anyone out there can send me photos of their local markets. I’m hoping people will send photos so we have an online collaborative space. Feel free to look at the images, send me a message and hopefully you can also send me some photos, drawings etc. in dedication to the our local store.
The Beach Hill neighborhood of Santa Cruz, California is a great historic mix of late 19th and early 20th century mansions, cottages, mid-century motels, hotels and a wonderful historic hostel called the Carmelita Cottages. I suggest staying here when you visit, but if you are here for the day, take a walk around the neighborhood before you make your way toward more of the popular attractions in the area.
The view from Beach Hill toward the Monterey Bay. The hills on the horizon are the Monterey Peninsula.
One of the many beautiful old Victorian Mansions on the hill.
Beach Hill is situated between the working class Latino community of the Beach Flats, the bustling eclectic Downtown, the suburban West Side neighborhood, The Municipal Wharf and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park. All of these neighborhoods are within easy walking distance.
Earlier in the century the neighborhood was an exclusive community of wealthy families in large multiple story mansions. Over the years this has given way to hotels and motels as well as a few restaurants and apartment buildings both middle class and for the wealthy. The neighborhood has a distinct character that also offers sweeping views of the Monterey Bay and views of other neighborhoods in Santa Cruz.
The many beautiful bungalows and cottages in this neighborhood provide a wonderful backdrop to this famous surf town.
A small walk in this tightly knit neighborhood should give you a quick sense of what life was back in an earlier period of this city. I suggest to bring a camera and walk around and spot many of the hidden architectural gems. Better yet, stay for a few days and enjoy many of the wonderful attractions scattered just beyond the reach of Beach Hill.
Las Palmas is a popular Mexican restaurant in Santa Cruz
Over the years that I’ve been cooking food, one of my go-to favorites is roasting a good free-range or organic chicken to keep the kitchen warm, comfy, and well stocked for meals during the coming work week. I use a simple technique from Alice Water’s Simple Food Cookbook to almost always keep my roasted chicken cooked perfectly. First by roasting it at 400 F degrees breast side up for 20 minutes, then 20 minutes breast down, and finishing it a final 20 minutes by cooking it one more time breast up to brown the skin and cook it through. I put a little spin on this dish by adding chopped vegetables as a bed for the chicken to roast on a flat hotel pan. This technique captures the essence of the chicken and any of the wonderful juices that drop into the pan can be absorbed into the vegetables. I think roasting the chicken with the vegetables add a perfect balance of flavors to a dish that is perfect for the fall and winter vegetables and equally ideal with spring and summer vegetables.
First use salt and pepper to season the whole chicken and try to get the chicken to room temperature at least an hour before you roast it. During this time you can stuff the chicken with herbs in the cavity of the chicken or you can cut slits into the skin and put herbs under the skin.
Turn the oven on to 400 F degrees to preheat the oven for roasting.
Clean and cut your vegetables into smaller pieces that will make the vegetables with the chicken cook equally. You can have a look at the pieces in the above photo that I cut to give you a sense of size.
Cut the bread into small pieces close to equal size. Not too small because you can burn them but not too big because you want them to absorb the flavors of the chicken.
Combine the vegetables and bread in a large bowl. Season with salt, pepper, fresh herbs, and olive oil. You can decide how much olive oil you want but I prefer to go lighter with olive oil because the goal here is to get the juice and fat from the chicken to coat the vegetables.
Place the vegetables and bread on a flat hotel pan.
Place the chicken on the vegetables breast side up.
When the oven is at 400 F degrees put the chicken and vegetables in the oven on the middle rung of the oven. If your oven tends to burn the tops of food place the pan with the vegetables and chicken on a lower rung. Close the oven.
Turn the timer on for 20 minutes.
After the first 20 minutes quickly pull the pan out and put it on a stable heat resistant surface. Quickly and carefully remove the chicken and place it on a plate. Take a spatula and move the vegetables around the pan. Pay attention to where the juices have dripped on the pan. Try to combine the drippings with the vegetables to coat them evenly. Don’t worry if there isn’t much sauce because you’ll get plenty as the chicken cooks for the next 20 minutes.
Quickly put the chicken back breast side down on the pan with the vegetables and place it back in the oven to cook for another 20 minutes.
After the second 20 minutes pull the pan out again and repeat the step of carefully and quickly pulling the chicken off the hotel pan and stirring the vegetables to absorb the drippings from the pan. Be sure to try and scrape any of the vegetables that have gotten stuck to the bottom of the pan. Do not remove them. Simply stir them. Also, if you notice any of the vegetables starting to cook faster than other vegetables you can place them under the chicken. Place the chicken breast side up and put it back into the oven for another 20 minutes.
After the final 20 minutes, pull the chicken and vegetables out of the oven and investigate what you’ve cooked. You can tell that the chicken is cooked if you look at where the thigh meets the body of the chicken and see if it comes apart easily when you pull it. If it doesn’t looked cooked, put it in the oven for another 5 minutes. If the vegetables look like they will not take another 5 minutes, quickly take the vegetables off the pan and place it into a large bowl and put the chicken back into the oven.
When the chicken is cooked place it onto a chopping board. Let the chicken rest for about 5 minutes. During this time you can mix the vegetables and season them to taste. I like adding a little lemon juice for acidity.
Carve the chicken when ready and plate the vegetables first and then plate the chicken on top. I usually make a little salad to go with this dish but in the photo I just added some arugula leaves for some fresh textures and flavors.
Bon Appetit!
Artpology 