After the party, spice music

The reception yesterday went well, nice group for the chat part of it, with some really interesting questions and couple of great suggestions, which I will put into action asap.  No pix of the whole group, since I was talking at the time, so these are the last people to leave!

This is really the best part of this sort of event, not the leaving, the talking and discussing, where you learn from other people what their thoughts are, what they want to know, what general effect your work has had on them. It's very important for your next steps in art to get that face to face exposure.  And it was interesting to me to note that practically nobody got the Planet Suite musical reference at all, so that was instructive.

And the cookies went over okay, too!  Anyone who wants to make them: they're Martha Stewart's Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies.

Two personal tours are on the menu, too, one happened already, with a friend who couldn't get there Sunday, and one's scheduled for tomorrow, similar situation, different friend.  This is always so fun, because people feel freer to say things when there's no group there

Then today, time to regroup, all stitched and painted and drawn out just for the moment.  But, since I had pressed a spice container into service as the airtight tin needed for the reception cookies, I noticed today that all the little spice containers that fitted snugly into it,  and their serving spoon, might serve another purpose.

No sooner said than hit.  I played on them with their own metal spoon, then with a wooden spoon, and found that though they look identical, they play a range of tones, great fun. 

Then I did the usual thing, added water as you do with glasses,  to see if they would change tone, and if so how, and they did.  And then, most fun of all, when I tipped out the water, leaving the containers just a bit damp, they resonated far more than either dry or waterfilled.  

So that's the sound adventure for the day.  I recommend this for a fun art thing, means very little, but it's just interesting to do.  And the spice set, an Indian kitchen classic,  hitherto unused, since I don't use spices in that quantity, now has a new life!  You might call this a spice harmonica, along the lines of glass harmonica, come to think of it.

I'm leaving the cups out in the kitchen so I can bing and bang on them at will, just in those spare moments you get waiting for a kettle to boil or an unwatched pan to burn..unless Handsome Son presses them into service as percussion instruments for his drum-circle events.