I've been going through one of those creative incubation periods. I can sometimes tell because one symptom is thinking of good blog post ideas but never seeing them to fruition. I've been inspired; I am riffing. ¶ One of the reasons why I like Martin Scorsese so much, as an artist, is because he's a personal artist. He is, if this isn't too pat, an honest filmmaker. He responds to criticism with a shoulder shrug. He does what he does well, technically, and everything else is just his spirit. You either dig that, or you don't. But his films resonate with people, emotionally, like my emotional connection to GoodFellas; to Taxi Driver; to Casino. He expresses his ideas without deception through film, and he has good ideas. He also feels the same way as I do about flying. ¶ I've been working to inject more cinema into my work of late. That's why I haven't been updating my feature illustration. As I mentioned above, I'm incubating a few competing ideas on what next to showcase on Siteway, so please stay tuned. By cinema I don't just mean my subject matter, although I do mean that, too. I also mean those elements of cinema that are so appealing: the still-grandness of it, the iconography of it, the spirit of film. In the short term I think it means I'll be depicting not just characters from film, but whole scenes. This involves more labour than pure portaiture, but it's where I'm headed, so there's no sense worrying about the degree of difficulty. ¶ I've got a bunch of work out there or coming soon. I've done a few illustrations lately for Canadian Home Workshop, Meetings & Incentive Travel, and you can continue to see my work in L.A. CityBeat and NewAngeles. ¶ We've been making a bunch of Cypriot meatballs lately. Kief-TE-thez, similar to Greek meatballs, are a combination of beef, pork, potato, parsley, cinnamon, mint, salt & pepper.

Here's my Mom's recipe:

about half a kg. ground meat, half pork and half beef
5 good size potatoes
1-2 onions
quite a few sprigs of parsley
1 egg
salt, pepper
cinnamon, a few shakes
dried mint, 1 tsp
Here's how I prepare it (which differs slightly from my mother's version). I grate the potatoes and add them (grated potato plus their juices) into a big bowl with the meat. Then I chop up the onions into tiny bits, and add them to the bowl, along with the egg, the parsley, and the rest. Then I form them into smallish balls (not the rugby-ball shaped ones you see in Greektown) about an inch in diameter. Heat up some vegetable oil in a large skillet and cook away. It's pretty involved, the frying that is, so get ready (apron, drink) and you'll be fine.

Labels: CareerTalk, Cinema, Clear, Recipe, Vague

¶ 4:01 PM
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