Rustnstuff

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The true value of coffee

Fiona and I do like a good cup of coffee. And as I have indicated on this blog many moons ago we have a small coffee plantation (30 bushes) that are now producing a few kilos of coffee beans each year. We managed to get a crop off about 12 months ago and had gone through all the processes to get them to the dried husk stage. Illness intervened in the process so they were never processed and roasted.

The flowers for the next crop is on so we decided to husk and roast the earlier crop. Thought I'd share the labour intensive process with you.

Start with the dried beans with husk (wheat coloured shell) still on. To get to this point we had already picked, pulped, soaked, washed and dried the fruit.

Then the husking starts. We bought a small hand operated husker - the red and green machine with beans for husking in the hopper - comfortably does about 250gm of green beans at a time.

The husks need to be separated from the green beans. Picking out husks is too tedious so I worked out that with the fan on full one could decant semi husked beans from an upper bowl to a lower one and the husks, being light, blew away.

This actually worked - though I ran the beans through the husker two more times and did the old winnowing trick each time until I ended up with clean green beans that were without husks.

Then the roasting needs to be done. We have an amazing electronic fan forced roaster that our friend Jeff gave us. It roasts 250gm of green beans at a time in the Pyrex tumbler that stirs the beans and removes the chaff that is blown out into the attached filter and chimney. But don't do it inside as it fills the house with smoke as some of thew chaff chars and smokes.

And after 17minutes of roasting we have beautiful roasted coffee in the NYC style - ready for grinding.

And the answer is - yes we did grind the first batch and we are drinking it each day as our daily brew; and it is beautiful. Organic and direct from the farm.

And I could not resist taking a few photos of the husks - they were like a mini installation.

The husks ended up as mulch on the veggie patch.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

A year for peace

Fiona and I have had a few planning sessions for 2013 - we use these to work out what work-work we might do; what maintenance and development needs to be done in the garden and on the house; and what opportunities we might follow up regarding our art. One of the things I would like to do this year is to use my leaf forms as a vehicle to promote a little more peace consciousness. This will not bring about world peace but in small ways it would just be good to get a few more ripples out there.

Other ways I can use my art to contribute to the peace movement might include: celebrating International Day of Peace again on 21 September; being part of Flags for Peace if it goes ahead again this year; and maybe creating a peace tree with leaves contributed by folk from different parts of the globe.

The Peace Leaves production has already started and several of them have made their way into the world. Over the weekend I managed to make four more. One has made its way into my shop; and another as a farewell gift to our local baker who are closing up shop and leaving town after serving us well for many years. A few photos of the four Peace Leaves are below.

The Peace Leaves were all made from the edges of a single rectangular middle sized silver-plated EPNS tray. Most trays I recycle are oval and therefore have very curved ends and I only tend to get two offcuts from the sides suitable for making leaf forms.

Regarding the peace tree - it was an idea SZQ and I have been sharing and working on over the last year; and we will do something about it when the time is right.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Riveting Friday

It was good to get the afternoon in the garage-studio. During the week a conversation Fiona had with a fellow artist reminded me that during the Open Studio event months ago I had committed to making a cuff bracelet from recycled leather belts, brass and anodised aluminium sized to fit the person. I had forgotten about it - but today I managed to make two cuff bracelets as you can see from the photos below.

Before beginning the cuff making process I foldformed a sheet of blue anodised aluminium cut from an old bread storage container. One has to be quite delicate fold the anodised aluminium as it is thin and the anodised splits and cracks - but in a way that is part of the beauty of using it - letting the silver of the aluminium show through the folds.

Like quite a few of my tools I create; or adapt things I find to suit my purpose. As you can see below I use a piece of 50-60mm bamboo to form and drill the bands of metal for the cuff; I use an old piece of pipe with a welded end to rivet on; and I have made a very small rivet setting tool made from an iron bolt for setting 1.5mm rivets.

When setting the rivets I protect the metal with a bit of gaffer tape.

Making two cuff-bracelets will give the person they are made for a choice.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

For Liz & adding a peace page

A good friend of ours - Liz and her husband popped in today to drop off a book. If I'm a leaf person Liz is a feather person.

Amidst a myriad of things that we talked about I showed her the feather earrings - it was in love at first sight - but it seems they did not quite suit - but "a feather pendant would be nice". So this afternoon a couple of feathers for pendants were made. One from silver-plate over copper and one from silver-plate over brass. The outcomes are shown in the photos below. The feather forms are about 6-7.5cm long and about 1-1.5cm wide. I deliberately left the bent and crinkled look to the feather forms - just seemed to be a bit more like the ones found by the roadside

And whilst I was at it I thought I'd add a page to the earlier layered pendant - so it is now a Peace Pendant as well. As you can see from the first photo the additional page is made from silver-plate over copper. I will be a bit sad when I finish the metal from this tray.

It was grand to spend a little time at the anvil; and good to add a little more towards this year of peace.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Inspired by feathers

We are in the midst of a heat wave. This is quite unusual on the mountain where it is often cooler than on the lower lands. On our morning walks Fiona and I have noticed many more feathers on the road and beside the road.

We wondered if the birds were feeling the heat to such an extent that they were shedding some of their plumage. We hope they are coping OK; and that this heatwave passes through in the next couple of days.

We were intrigued by the colour and delicacy of some of the feathers so collected a few to photograph at home as you can see below.

And of course nature is a great inspirer. It is too hot to do too much work in the garage-studio - but I felt the creation of a small pair of feather forms for earrings would not be too great an exertion. The feathers below are made from a scrap of recycled silver-plated EPNS that was lying on the bench. The feather forms are about 4cm long and 1cm wide.

Fiona said that though she loved these feather forms - maybe they could go into the shop.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Metal Peace Book Pendant

Last Friday I posted on a layered hinged pendant thingy. So of those who left comments said it reminded them of a book. So whilst I was working with Sue in the garage-studio on Monday I took the book pendant idea one step further and so created a Peace Book pendant for Fiona.

Basically it is a layered pendant hinged via jump rings.

As you can see from the photos above the 'book' has 4 leaves (8 pages): front cover - formerly scrolled worked silver plated coaster; second leaf - slotted trim from a silver-plated drink tray; and third and fourth leaves - formerly small silver-plated cake-biscuit tray.

The slotted leaf allows the words stamped on the third leaf to show through with a bit of mystery. The third leaf (5th page) is stamped with one of Fiona's favourite quotes: Peace is every step. The 7th page (fourth leaf) could provide the owner with the opportunity to add a paper page.

A piece of wearable peace art?

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Playing with hammers and metal

On Monday our friend Sue and I spent a good half day playing with recycled silver-plated EPNS, hammers, metal shears/snips, anvils, polishers etc etc.

Sue wanted to see what simple but beautiful things she could create. She thought she might make a pendant. Well the hours in the garage-studio resulted in a bit more than that - in the end Sue made 5 pendants.

And after a little encouragement she made these delightful set of beaten earrings with punched holes.

It is always great to see someone get into the metal and workshop. To see the smile on her face just showed how much Sue enjoyed the experience.

Now of course she is planning to buy a few basic tools to continue to make a few more pieces for herself when she returns home.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Test and recycling metal scraps

Fiona's friend Sue and I will have a bit of a play-day with metal tomorrow. She indicated that she would like to "make something square" by way of jewellery. I had a couple of hours this afternoon so I headed into the studio-garage to test a quick way of cutting a square hole out of some silver-plated copper using a sharp wood chisel.

Anyway the cutting worked - though a bit rustic in look - so I went on to make a layered pendant. The top layer is silver-plated copper from a small tray; the second layer is the side out of a silver-plated EPNS wine coaster; and the base layer is silver-plated EPNS from a small tray again. The chain is stainless steel recycled from salvaged piece of jewellery that resulted in a stash of about 6m of chain of different lengths and gauges.

Recently whilst cutting a thin strip from the edge of a length of silver-plated EPNS it peeled off in a neat spiral about 1cm in diameter and about 9cm long. This scrap was put aside for later use. Well today was later - so I cut the spiral roughly in half tapered the blunt cut ends; drilled holes for jump rings; and gave it all a grind and polish. Jump rings; a recycled piece of stainless steel chain; and ear-wires by Shannon completed the earrings. The spirals are about 40-45com long.

It was a good couple of hours; and I think I'm ready to do a bit of creating with Sue tomorrow.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Foibles and Follies on Friday

Fiona's best friend and her husband Steve arrived today for a few days R&R. People come before art processes so I caught a couple of hours to create a couple of very simple Light Catchers.

One just uses the contrast between a square rust iron block and and an elegant thin crystal Fiona and I bought at a market in NYC. I named this piece Slice of Light.

The other is influence by our trip to Steampunk HQ in Oamaru in NZ - therefore has a Steampunk look; but again simple lines.

And they actually do catch and shatter light as seen in the photos below: three rainbows on the table; and a rainbow on the gauge Point of Light.