this is my first red chilli pepper of the summer - things are very slow to ripen this year... these are a variety called long joes and can grow as long as a pencil but they tend to curl up in the process...
soon i will have to bring the chilli plants indoors; they make the most attractive houseplants and will continue to fruit and ripen until november... the only problem is i still have a heap of dried chillies from last summer...
so, i made another batch of my not-yet-famous rothko red soup using some of the aforementioned dried chillies and a sudden glut of ripening plum tomatoes (the green ones were used to make a chilli-spiced chutney) and then i decided to make a small batch of chilli marmalade. i added fourteen finely chopped dried chillies to the preserving pot and ended up with seven small jars of marmalade - so, that's two chillies per jar...
i have just tasted it... at first there seems nothing unusual, there is the very sweet tang of orange and then, as one bites into a slightly redder shred of marmalade, the chilli begins to bite - this will surely bring a ready-brek glow to the cooler autumn mornings, especially when spread onto some homemade chilli bread toast.... actually, i find chilli bread makes a boring cheese sandwich quite lively... i even made a fruitcake with chilli and ginger... anyone not partial to chillies is unlikely to warm to my style of cookery - ie, any cunning means to introduce a little chilli into a recipe...of course, all of this chilliness has nothing to do with art, except perhaps the mild reference to rothko...it has got slightly chillier hasn't it?.. brrrr... so summer is effectively over and one's thoughts turn to the approaching autumn, to the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness (to quote Keats).i have a little theory about one's preferences for a particular season - that is, if you were born in the summer months, you will appreciate autumn as it would have been about the period in your development when you became more visually aware of the external world beyond your mother. newborns can only focus to about 12-15 inches enabling close bonding with their mother, but after two or three months their visual acuity quickly develops close to that of an adult's, along with the development in colour perception.....here are some of the one hundred small abstract paintings on paper, aka the chromatids, chosen for their visual allusion to all things corroded, rusted, earthy and autumnal - my favourite time of year...these small abstract paintings are currently small art for sale page, but unframed alas..
XX
XXII [sold]
XXXVII
XXXIX
XCV [sold]
XCVI (sold)
XCVII
XCVIIIall eight small paintings at a glance....
...a little reminder, the current little art giveaway now closes on 1st october 2010; just register your interest by leaving a comment or if you prefer you can send an email (as with the previous art giveaway)... i'd really like to see more than ten names in the hat this time!here'a reminder of what you could win - they're only little textured paintings on postcards but it's the thought that counts, isn't it..?
[three postcard paintings]...i had a bit of a spike in visitors to my blog over the weekend - not sure if it is due to the art exhibition that i am currently showing some new work in...current exhibition: the 11th annual artworks exhibition at blackthorpe barn, open daily. 10am – 5pm, 11 September to 3 October 2010…...