Hats of Asia Exhibition

The above image is of a doll featuring Fuji Musume (藤娘) or a Wisteria Maiden. It depicts a dance scene from Japanese Kabuki theater. It can be found at the Asia Institute - Crane House. Learn more about Kabuki at this web site.

The Asia Institute - Crane House is a place to promote Asian culture in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. The house is located at 1244 S. Third Street, Louisville Kentucky 40203. It is free to visit the house so if you are in the area I encourage you to do so. Learn more at their web site.

As of this writing (October 2013), The Asia Institute - Crane House are exhibiting a collection of hats from the different cultures around Asia. The exhibition is called Covering Asia: Telling the Story of Asia through Hats. The exhibit runs from September 27, 2013 till May 9, 2014.

The following is a small sampling of items on display at this exhibit.

Kang Dong or round turban worn during formal occasions in Vietnam.

Kang Dong or round turban worn during weddings by the bride and groom in Vietnam.

Chinese skull cap worn till the 1940s. Also referred to as guan pimao or melon cap (xiao mao).

China green army hat used after 1950s. This one is missing its red star.

China Long March cap used after 1950s.

Muslim winter hat used in Beijing China.

Kingfisher jewelry worn on special occasions in China. The Kingfisher bird that had blue colorful feathers the jewelry was based on was hunted to extinction in China. Learn more at this web site.

Model of Japanese Samurai helmet.

Cincinnati Museum Center

Here are some pictures taken in August 2013 at the Cincinnati Museum Center in Ohio, USA. The museum has an Art Deco design from the 1920s.

Outside the museum one can see a view of the Cincinnati skyline.

Creating Grape Juice

The steps to making grape juice is not too difficult. It does require quite a bit of work though.

1) First harvest your grapes, in my case I used Concord grapes. I then soak the grapes in a large 5 gallon bucket to get rid of bugs and other debris.

2) Next the good grapes need to be removed from the stem and placed in containers.

3) Once the grapes are separated, wash them and them place them in a container to be crushed. I used a large metal bowl. You want to separate the skins from the inner pulp while at the same extracting the sweet juice from the grapes.

4) Dump the crushed grapes into a large metal pot for cooking. Cook the grapes on low medium to help extract more juice. Do not let them boil though. Stir and crush some more grapes to maximize juice production. Heat for 10-15 minutes on the stove.

5) Obtain another large container. I metal cooking pot and strained the heated grape pulp with a wire mesh strainer.

6) The mesh will get clogged with pulp so it needs to be cleaned out from time to time.

7) Have another container to discard used grape pulp into. I composted the grape pulp when I was done.

8) I used a 64 ounce (8 cup) Pyrex measuring bowl to collect the grape juice.

The 10 gallons for grapes picked ending up producing about 150 ounces or about 1.2 gallons of organic grape juice. I consider them organic since I did not use fertilizers or pesticides on the grape plants. It took two people about 30 minutes to pick the grapes. Another two people about 2 hours to clean and de-stem the grapes. It probably took one person about 90 minutes to extract the grape juice and clean up the kitchen.

The grape juice was stored in the refrigerator in three containers and consumed over a 3 week period. There was some sediment settling at the bottom of the pitchers during this time.

The juice produced was a little murky, for a clearer juice like one finds in the store, a cloth strainer might be used.

Sunset on the Ohio River

Here is a picture of an October sunset on the Ohio River. Picture taken from 2nd Street bridge connecting Louisville Kentucky and Clarksville Indiana USA.

Elderberry

When picking grapes nearby are some elderberry plants so here is a picture of the berries.  The elderberry is also known as the Sambucus. The neighbors sometimes pick these berries and use them to make wine.

Processing Concord Grapes

Back in late August 2013, my family and I harvested enough Concord grapes to fit in 2 five gallon buckets. Once the grapes were picked I soaked them water for several hours so the bugs would float off of them. This year's crop was pretty good with hardly any insects and I don't use pesticides on the crop.
My intention was to produce grape juice so we separated the edible grapes from their stems.

After sorting we ended up with 4 containers of grapes to turn into juice.
Below are pictures of some of the grapes that were picked.

New Bridge Construction in Louisville

Here is a picture of the Kennedy Bridge that connects Louisville, Kentucky to Indiana. Notice the cranes next as they are being used to build a second bridge.

Picture taken from the ramp of the walking bridge that used to be a railroad bridge till it was closed in 1969.

Asia Institute - Crane House

The Asia Institute - Crane House is a place to promote Asian culture in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. The Chinese see the crane as a symbol of longevity.  The Crane House is located in Old Louisville and is very close by the area where the St. James Court Art Show is held so I stopped by to see the building before going to the show. It is free to visit the house so if you are in the area I encourage you to do so. Learn more at their web site.

As of this writing (October 2013), The Asia Institute - Crane House are exhibiting a collection of hats from the different cultures around Asia. The exhibition is called Covering Asia: Telling the Story of Asia through Hats. The exhibit runs from September 27, 2013 till May 9, 2014.

First hat is made of palm leaves and used by Vietnamese farmers.

Second hat image shows Chinese skull cap made of black satin with a red knot. It was fashionable before the 1940s.

In China after the Revolution, the fashion changed and this third hat image shows a Mao uniform cap made of navy blue cotton with a red plastic star.

This fourth hat image is of a replica gat (hat) worn during Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897). You can see these costumes if you watch Korean period dramas on KBS or other Korean television networks.

The Crane House was founded in 1987 by Chinese-American Helen Lang.  See her interview in YouTube link below.

Rainbow Over Jeffersonville Indiana

I saw an awesome rainbow on Sunday evening October 6 2013 while driving down I-65 south to Louisville, Kentucky. So I pulled into the Indiana visitor center in Clarksville/Jeffersonville and walked up onto the 2nd Street bridge sidewalk and took this panoramic image. It is a combination of 6 images.

The picture does not do it justice. It was a powerful sight to behold.

The rainbow was powered by the setting sun in the west so I visited the other side of bridge and took a picture of the sun setting on the Ohio River.

St. James Court Art Show 2013

I visited the St. James Court Art Show and it is quite an event to take in. I am not sure how many vendors both official and unofficial but it seemed like hundreds. Lots of colors and shapes along with a wide variety of media types to visually take in.

Last time I visited, I talked to more artists and took some pictures of their works. This time due to the heat and seeing some signs about no photography I did not spend time conversing.

The most interesting art I saw was from a man who created a wide variety of airplane models (e.g. Boeing airliners, military aircraft B-52, SR-71, C-130) out of aluminum cans. The airplane made from Mountain Dew cans was pretty cool. If I did not have so much clutter in the office, I would have bought one of his models.

Another artist was using fractals to create art. He posted some of his source code and it was neat to see. He was running a number of values through loops and computing values using 2nd and 3rd order polynomials the best I could tell from the code segment I saw. I am not sure if fractals use recursion or not.

I think some artists from Louisville's sister city in China were visiting and doing live painting demos. It seemed interesting and when I passed by they had a number of American visitors interested in their art.

One artist booth I did remember on nature photography was Mark J. Thomas and he had an image of a blue iceberg. The picture was incredible with such vivid blues. He also had some great images of hummingbirds eating from flowers. Another image that seems prominent was that of a robin washing in a pool of water. See more at his web site here and learn more about the blue iceberg here.

Sadly, this the 57th art show was cancelled on Saturday a day early because of the heavy rains the area has been experiencing. Sunday might have had high winds and more heavy rain so organizers closed the show for safety reasons. Too bad since a number of vendors are from out of state and this is a special show for them.

UPDATE: I was looking at this artist's posting about the show and sales were dismal for him at only $20. Read about it here.

Cactus Ready to Bloom

This cactus only blooms for one night so it is hard to see the flower unless you want to stay up till 3 am.

Pictures from the Garden

Happy 4th of July, it is overcast and raining here in Louisville. I was hoping to fly an American flag themed kite to celebrate but not a lot of wind with this rainy weather. :(

Pictures of some vegetables growing in my mother's Indiana garden have been posted for today. The first picture is of a dill plant used when canning cucumbers.  The second is of green tomatoes which can be eaten green or when red ripe. The last picture is of bean plants which might be green beans.

First Peach of 2013

 I picked my first peach not because I thought it was fully ripe but the peach was damaged. Half of the peach was good but the other side was starting to rot and had been eaten on by a bird.

The half that I salvaged was tasty... it was soft and sweet.  I hope it is a harbinger of a good peach crop for 2013!

Summer Flowers - June 2013

 Day lilies in bloom June 2013.