Pumpkin Bread

3 c granulated sugar
1 c canola oil
4 eggs
1 16 oz can pumpkin

3 1/3 c flour (I use oatmeal flour to make it gluten free)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cloves
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 c. nuts (optional)

Grease and flour 5 small bread pans. I use pans that are about 6" x 3 1/4" x 2". Heat oven to 350º. Beat sugar, oil, eggs and pumpkin. Sift flour, salt, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. Beat this mixture into pumpkin mixture. Add nuts now if you chose. Divide batter among the loaf pans. Tap each pan to remove air bubbles.
Bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean at the center.
Let cool 10 min. in pans and use a knife around the edges to loosen loaves.
Wrap in foil and refrigerate.

Happy Fall!

Patricia

"Artists On the Road Box"

I dedicate this 'Artists on the Road Box' to my fellow artists who criss-cross this grand country deriving a living from what we make. It takes so much more than our hands. It takes our minds, our intuition, our passion, our sense of self. This way of carving out an income has so much more to do than sell what we make.
It has to do with what we love to do, what we have the passion to do and what fuels us to do what we do. We don't sell 'stuff'. We sell pieces of our soul and along the way, I do believe, we inspire a gentler few we encounter to find their passion.

We are dreamers, makers, creators, designers and innovators. We are people living out loud spreading a 'can do' message that it's okay to be different. Artists usually are. We are the shy kids who sat in the back of class. The ones with the weird socks. The kids that ate glue, the kids that worried about how different they were. The kids that weren't the cheerleaders or the jock.
We were the kids who hung out in the art room after lunch because it felt safe and comfortable. We were the kids not picked first on the play ground.
The ones busy looking at cloud formations.

~I think that's who we were.

The kid who was mesmerized by the intricacy of the birds nest on the ground and worried about the birds whose home was empty. The kid who listened carefully to the music in their heads because it contained the melody of the painting that was being orchestrated in their mind. We were and still are the kids who feared and embraced change all in one fell swoop as scary and exciting all mixed into one.

~We were those kids.

So to my fellow artists, I share with you my 'Artists On the Road Box'.
This handmade cherry box measures 8" wide x 3 3/4" deep x 7" high. It has jadite painted feet and opens by way of a lift off lid with the words 'artist' on one side and 'vision' on the other. Stamped with memories of a bye-gone era but reminiscent of todays traveler. The freedom of the open road before you, the dashboard your desk. So many fun stamps on this box will take the viewer down memory lane and out onto Route 66 and beyond. The road awaits and the trip begins!

May your travels be safe, your baggage in life - light and your dreams continuing to come true!
This is who we are and what we do!

Patricia

On etsy

$50.00

An Image Says it All!

For 24 years we have done outdoor juried art shows. We have utilized different ways of photgraphing our mixed media body of work. With the work being dimensional it has some parameters that call for shadow to be seen but not be too strongly side-lit that it distorts the art. It's tricky at best and becomes an expensive learning curve.
The quality of the images and their content is imperative since show juries view the work for less than 30 seconds. This is what a 35.00 jury fees 'buys'. An impression. It is that impression that either gets me into a show or not.
Is it cut-throat?
Oh yes!
Is it moreso in recent years?........You bet!
Competition at shows is tighter than ever.
It's this high level of competition that keeps me making what I feel to be better work and jury images and Jon trying to find better ways to capture them.
Todays blog shows a piece I sold at Boston Mills. It's called 'Eclipse'. He shot this in my booth with hard side lights in the booth. Not ideal controlled lighting by any means. This is not jury quality, but it does inspire us to shoot the work on an angle as opposed to straight on as we had been doing.
Here's to the competitive spirit that keeps us working towards the best possible!
★
Pat
Please see more of my work on my website:
http://www.heckerdesign.com