2nd Annual Challenge of Travel

Welcome to the 2nd Annual Challenge of Travel.  Erin had the idea of a Staycation edition - what can be done for fun in your location. Mostly mine is a history, college and food journey of Lafayette/West Lafayette, Indiana.

Welcome to Lafayette - the third smartest city in the country - according to Lumosity's Smartest Cities website.  And yes, I was surprised to learn about this as anyone else - seriously - Lafayette????

Wabash River - The name "Wabash" is an English spelling of the French name for the river, "Ouabache." French traders named the river after the Miami Indian word for the river, waapaahšiiki, meaning "it shines white", "pure white", or "water over white stones" (Wiki)

Just so you have an idea of geographic location of where Lafayette is; it is 63 miles northwest of Indianapolis, 108 miles southeast of Chicago and is on the Wabash River.  West Lafayette is located on the other side of the Wabash River and is home to Purdue University. (Wiki)

Downtown courthouse

The town of Lafayette was platted in May 1825 by William Digby, a trader.  Like many frontier towns Lafayette was named for General Lafayette.  (Wiki)

Purdue University was founded on May 6, 1869 as a land-grant university.  The Indiana General Assembly accepted a donation of land and money from Lafayette businessman John Purdue, to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture in his name.  The first classes were held on Sept 16, 1874 with six instructors and 39 students. (Wiki)

Saturday Farmer's Market

A few weeks ago mom and I decided to walk around Lafayette and take pictures of some of our favorite hangouts. 

On Saturday's mom and I head downtown to stop at the farmer's market to pick up some fruits and veggies for the week.  This is the really the first year we have done this on a consistent basis (mom was diagnosed with diabetes so we are eating lots and lots of fruits and veggies and trying to be healthy).

"Purdue P" on campus

Both mom and I work at Purdue.  I have been working there since 2001 and mom has been working there, on and off, since 1985.  We both love walking on campus and taking photos of the buildings and of course the flowers at the hort park.

Columbian Park is where we will take the kids when they are here for a visit.  They love going to the swim park and every once and awhile they want to go to the zoo or play on the playground.   And of course the Colt World Series happens here each year.

Now onto my favorite things in Lafayette - the food :)

Dog N Suds (photo from FB Site)

Dog N Suds is a 55-year old drive in restaurant with some awesome burgers, coney dogs and of course their homemade root beer in a frosted glass. 

McCord Candies shop (no we are not part of this McCord family, rats!)  opened in 1912 as Glatz's Candy. At the time, the first floor was up a flight of stairs (The ground was a barber shop and a millinery shop. Lee Glatz eventually remodeled and operated the shop until his death in 1928. Ivey McCord purchased the business in 1947 and members of the McCord family joined the business over the years. Current owners Michael and Melissa Becker bought the business in 2005. In keeping with the rich tradition of this downtown landmark, the Becker's continue to offer many candies made in the third floor kitchens. The original McCord traditions and the old-fashioned atmosphere remain. (from McCord Candies website)  I think the best thing from this store is their handmade candy canes during the Christmas holidays!

Arni's Pizza - "Square" Pizza

Arni's pizza - In 1965 the first Arni’s opened at Market Square Shopping Center in Lafayette by Arni Cohen (website).   Because my dad was in the Army, we only had Arni's pizza when we came to visit my grandparents.  My brother and I always called it square pizza because we never could remember the name of the restaurant and they sliced the pizza in to square pieces.  When we moved back home in 1985 we had Arni's a lot, and I do have to say I kind of got tired of it :)  Still, they make some great pizzas and salads!

This is of course one of the best treats out there - the original Frozen Custard.  I tried to find the history of it but no such luck yet.  I just remember going here as a kid and getting a chocolate custard cone and thinking this was the best thing ever!  I think my favorite thing now is their fruit drink and when it is made properly their pineapple sherbert (YUMO)!

Okay, now that I have given a small taste of Lafayette here is what mom and I ended up creating for our challenge piece.

Indiana Fan Pull

Mom and I first had an idea of taking all the pics that we took and making a collage and then having it printed on metal - that didn't happen.  So, last week I came up with the idea of sawing out a pendant of the state of Indiana.

Well, the pendant ended up being bigger than our normal pendants so mom asked me what are you going to do with it now - so I decided on a fan pull :)  The pendant is sawed out from 20 gauge copper (I sawed out the perimeter and mom sawed out the star and the "P").  The star is the location of Lafayette and I used a "P" for Purdue.  The colors I used were blue and gold, from our state flag and gold and black for the "P" since that is Purdue's colors.

The beads are ones that I made and of course it is black and gold for Purdue.  The wire is something mom made up when we were into making wire bracelets a few years ago.

So, that is our piece for the 2nd Annual Challenge of Travel - Staycation.  Please head on over to Erin's blog, Treasures Found, to see what everyone else has created.  I am now off to check everyone out.  Thanks for stopping by and learning a bit about our little corner of the universe.

August ABS Challenge Piece - Space Invaders

Tres Personajes, (Three People) 1970

Rufino Tamayo

Oil on Canvas 51" × 38"

(Please note this art is copyrighted and is to be used only as inspiration.)

Mom and I finished our piece for the August Art Bead Scene Challenge.  I thought this month's challenge was a lot of fun and, well, a challenge.  I loved the colors and the abstract figures in the painting. 

This is the design mom came up with and I love it!  Something fun and whimsical and plus it reminds me of the game "Space Invaders" - hence the name of the piece :)



Space Invaders

I really thought I would finish this piece a lot sooner than I did but mom and I just have not been motivated to get out in the studio.  I had all of these plans to make beads to go with it and mom had an idea of making torch fired enameled beads in the same color palette but as you see - Nope.

I love how the colors turned out on this piece.  The colors are totally not us - way outside of our box which I guess is what we are supposed to be doing with these challenges.  I don't think I would have ever used these color combinations in my whole life if I didn't have the challenge.  Plus I used all opaque colors and I love using transparent.  I really need to start using more of our opaque colors :)

The beads we ended up using were from our stash - red Chinese glass beads, amethyst and mosaic magnesite.

So, that is our piece for the August Art Bead Scene Challenge.  I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has created.  If you want to check out the other pieces you can head on over to the Art Bead Scene Flickr site.

Focus on Life - Add Something

This week's Focus on Life is - Add Something!  Sally wanted us to get creative with our photos!  Dive into those editing programs and check out all those wonderful effects, actions, overlays and textures.

I decided to play with this image from a show we were at back in 2010.  They had old time cars on display and I love the look of this headlight and horn.

I went to a photo editing site called Be Funky.  I really liked the editing tools they had there.  I usually use Pixlr or PicMonkey so it was nice to try something new.  I am going to have to go out there and play some more.

Here is the results of a little playing today:

I had fun and it is great getting back into blogging - it has been a long dry spell of not typing something.

I hope you have fun seeing whatever has created. Have a great weekend!

We Are Alive!!!!

via Google

Sorry I have been silent for a very, very, very long time.  There has been lots going on and actually none of it has been art related.  Well, except for something new mom and I are trying.

We finally decided to put our pictures on metal prints.  Here are some examples of what we have done.

Images of rusty fire hydrants

We have 18 metal prints that I need to take photos of and post out on Etsy.  I am thinking of creating a new Etsy shop that is just for our pics.  Oh, I apologize for the poor quality - they were taken on my phone and I was sharing on Facebook :)

The extension on mom's house has been slow.  The concrete subcontractors put us about a four weeks behind and the subcontractors who did the duct work put us another five weeks behind.  Needless to say our contractor got all new subcontractors.  The duct work is finally in, electrical was inspected and the insulation was sprayed in on Wednesday and the drywall stuff was dropped off yesterday.  I have my fingers crossed that they start the dry walling today.

Pics so far.

Duct Work

Bathroom window and insulation

Living room and insulation

Bedroom window looking into mom's living room window

Looking from my bedroom to the living room and bathroom

Going out my back door

Dry wall

Lots of joint compound

 I thought you guys would get a kick out of this next picture.  I few weeks ago I got a personal loan to consolidate all my debt (credit card, HELOC [needs to be paid off before house could sell] extra money to pay the realtor and anything that comes up).  After I did that I gave my credit card to mom and said hide it.  Well, I have a credit on my credit card that I wanted to use to buy Ancient Aliens season 5 (yes, I am that kind of geek).  Mom said it is in the freezer if I wanted to use it.

This is what I found.  Mom put my credit card on ice.  The only way to get the card out is to melt the ice or if I really want it to start chipping away.  I guess I really didn't need Ancient Aliens :)

So, that is a small re-cap of what we have been up to.  I hope to be better at the blog, I guess I just needed a break.  A lot of stuff at work was going on and I think my head was ready to fly off.  It is great when you are excited again to go to work.

You all have a wonderful Friday and a great weekend.