Pumkin Pie Oh My!

Lia and Tucker cooked over the weekend, producing a healthy store of hand-picked, from scratch pumpkin pie, pumpkin-peanut butter cookies, and pumpkin-walnut muffins for the TA gang to munch on. EFFIN AMAZING!!!


Gadget cooked up an extraordinary breakfast this morning - egg & cheese omelets with bacon! Very very tasty. Thanks Gadget!


Pete drilled some hole this morning also, to enable more space for bending rebar. Got a truck full today, and about 1500 pounds of steel cable yesterday - plenty of metal creations to come.


Rebar pile - 580 pounds of post-industrial waste soon to be functional art!


Tucker took the liberty to take a shot at the '63 Chevy - changed the oil, filter and plug wires. 10-10-10 is gettin close...


Bryan aquired some old wine barrels for a Terracycle desk project. After cutting the barrels (in the background), he also crafted some table legs from rebar, pipe cuttings, angle iron, and an exhaust pipe.



Pete created a funky "Simon Says" firebowl from the salvaged rebar and wire rope.

Weldy weld!

Git in durr nice n deep like

Gotta feed the ego...

Such a brave soul.

Voilaaaa! Simon Says!

Bee Home Progress

Pete Abrams, Bryan Hendrickson, and Tim Heath of the Trenton Atelier held another meeting at Princeton University this afternoon to discuss the Bee Home project with Global Development Network about moving the project further along, garnering student support, and establishing working teams.



They discussed the organizational framework of the Bee Home GDN Partnership, goals, communications, roles and responsibilities, and a basic timeline.

The project partnership will tap the Princeton academic resource base, merging with Modern Metal Work, LLC's manufacturing and fabrication expertise to design, prototype, and implement the Bee Home in the real world by June 2011.

it's impossible to be bored at Trenton Atelier

This has been a great couple of weeks for me at the atelier!
Up until recently, I was a little shy about doing my own art in the building, but being known by the guys only for my culinary interests gave me the push i needed to kick my mojo back into gear.
I'm a fire performer, mostly with poi and have experimented with fire eating, fire breathing, and more recently, fire hoop. I have always wanted to use fire fans, but found them to be a bit of an expenditure for a novice..so i decided to make some. With the help of Pete, Bryan, Erik, Lia and Eric, I am learning the processes I need to make my design a reality. I've used a chop saw, a grinder and tonight, a mig welder. I'm so excited to practice these new skills - My fans are on their way - I just need to get a little more comfortable with the welder - and I hope make some interesting sculptures when I get more graceful with the tools.
In the meantime, I have taken a step away from my normal medium of acrylic on medium sized canvas and started using house paint on a piece of plywood, and met some fun people while assisting with an installation.
Learning new things makes every day an adventure!

Learning to survive in our own back yard!

This past weekend the Atelier received a true lesson on sustainability thanks to Dan Farella, another like minded forager. With his help we learned how to distinguish edible plants in our own back yard from poisonous ones. He taught us that plants we normally look at as weeds, in fact have great medicinal and culinary value.

Surprisingly, foraging for food didn't require a long hike or lots of effort, often, the grass around most driveways holds a multitude of edible plants. We picked pine needles from surrounding trees (mindful to not strip any one branch too much) and from that we made a delicious vitamin C filled sun tea.

Dandelions are not an annoying invader in our yard but rather as a tonic herb used to cleanse the liver and promote superior health.

We also became acquainted with plantain leaf. Not the large starchy bananas most of us know it as, but rather, a different plant with venous leaves and a stalk with seeds. A great plant to know about, it can be eaten, or turned into a poultice to cure any number of skin irritations from bee stings to poison ivy.

Right next to the plantain, sheep sorrel was also growing. This plant was very flavorful, its name alluding to its sour flavor.

A little closer to the pine tees that gave us our tea we stumbled upon yarrow, an ancient herb used by Caesar to heal his illnesses.

It was an awesome lesson in sustainability!

An Exciting Way to Start Your Day

The newest member of our team, Brando!

Pete's idea of the daily grind.

Urban muralist Will Kasso.

"This is my distinguished face."

Hello everybody! Have I got a story for you. This morning, we were working at the Atelier on our myriad of projects, just being...you know, artists. One of our associates, Mr.Will Kasso, began working on a mural for the Trenton Atelier on the face of the building.

However, apparently someone didn't like it and (follow me now) called the cops on an artist for making art on an art building that he was granted permission by the building's owner to work on. Hmm.

Will and Police Officer casually shooting the breeze about the absurdity of the situation.

I hate idiots.

Well, crisis averted. On to the next project.