4 am coffee blog... 07.11.06

4am Coffee Blog 07.11.06

In some ways I never realized before now, coffee was in fact the world's first drug. I have a plate of grounds drying in front of me that I am using in the first of many to come experiments in coffee. You see, now that I have started the coffee project, there can be no stone left unturned. People need coffee; they consume coffee nearly as much as they do water. People want coffee for the feelings it gives them: the coffee 'buzz', the warmth, the memories. To some coffee is coffee, to others, well coffee has flavor, life, passion; it gives us life. For some of us Coffee=Love.

Thinking about my teenage years and what the coffee grounds drying on the plate reminded me of another counterpart- marijuana. I saw many similarities between coffee and the great herbal smoke. For instance, marijuana, just like coffee, is priced by value; the better the quality, the higher the price. Word of its benefits travels fast, but also the attempts to outlaw/ban/regulate the said 'benefit' arrive just as quickly. In the end, its still the farmer who gets fucked (though the fair trade coffees are making headway into that category to make sure that no longer happens; coffee farmers have families too). We use coffee and marijuana in different foods, blends roasting, etc. Smell the aroma, savor the flavors before you consume them. Enjoy the benefits that each has to offer.

For the fact that it is 4am, I also cannot believe that I started in on this subject. There are more possibilities here to explore, but just not at the moment. Need to keep eyes open to pursue; will sleep on it first.

So the 'Coffee Project' is well underway; I now have my husband enlisted as a volunteer researcher/idea developer in the project. Its pretty exciting, considering what happened at the start of the fourth of July weekend.

What the hell is this you ask? Well, its been seven years for the two of us, and I felt stifled in my creativity, and I also felt like I was suffocating him a bit with his creativity. I felt we deserved time to pursue our creative interests, and I also felt that we needed the chance to miss each other. I wanted to remember what it was like when we first got together. Lets just chalk it up to too many years of 'yea, that's a good idea', but not enough of ever getting around to doing any of it. So now I have a husband who is positively delighted to participate in the coffee project and to have these in-depth discussions of art, the process, coffee, wine, anything. Damn, WE TALK! Having actual discussions!!! I LOVE IT!!! This is the husband/partner/lover that I have been missing! By the way, I am not moving out. We are working to make it work.

Enough about that; did you know that the first coffeeshop was called Kiva Hahn? Coffee was first discovered by goats (some accounts its sheep) and their herders. The religious used to use it to keep them awake at night for evening prayers.

I have lots of ideas for different paintings/drawings/multimedia projects; so many that I am having trouble getting my thoughts organized enough to know where to start and how I want things to look. I am thinking that I want to use the coffee project as a base for my portfolio to submit for admission to MIAD next year. That is a new goal, after completing the coffee project, to apply for a scholarship to attend school there.

Not to get too far ahead of myself, but its time to start getting my head out of the clouds, and back to the canvas.....