ChatterRecipe of the Month April 2010

Spiced Lamb with Coconut

© Dennis Williford

I had no choice but to feature a lamb recipe this month and although lamb is not necessarily everyone’s favorite red meat, it can be delicious when prepared well. Growing up in England, roast lamb on a Sunday was as common for us as roast beef, and I recall one famous summer in France when my cousin slow-cooked a large leg of lamb in the BBQ, infused with numerous cloves of garlic and fresh rosemary, for hours and hours until the meat fell off the bone… But for this month, I decided to combine the “lamb” and the “Fiery heat” of Aries, resulting in “Lamb Curry!”

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ChatterLog April 2010

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the April ChatterBulletin! Since last month, we have moved from the 12th sign of Pisces, into Aries, who is technically the 1st sign of the Zodiac celebrating the “New Year” and the start of the season of Spring. This, according to “Mother Nature” is when all new life begins, so perhaps some of you have noticed a little more energy already?

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ChatterArtists April 2010

Diane Arbus

First up is Diane Arbus, who undoubtedly provided me with one of my first inspirational moments with photography. I was still a teenager when I went to see her provocative exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London. This was unlike any photography I had seen previously. It quite literally “blew my mind” and opened my eyes to a world where apparently not all art was “pretty.” I was fascinated by her documentation of the unacceptable, the rejects and the “freaks” in our society, and who better than a Pisces to do that?


Photo by Diane Arbus

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ChatterTip of the Month April 2009

How to Cure the Hiccups!

Photo courtesy of http://www.lizapple.com/

I was talking with a dear friend the other day and somehow we found ourselves comparing remedies for curing hiccups, even though neither one was suffering from them at that moment. When he told me his solution, it was so hilarious, and my cure was pretty silly too, so I thought it would be fun to give you all a selection of favorite and bizarre cures for the hiccups this month! But before we get to the cures, what exactly are hiccups?

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ChatterTip of the Month March 2010

Creative Tips

© Louisa J. Curtis

As I was pondering some “tips” for the March bulletin, I thought I would switch it up and give some creative tips this month. Some of you may be familiar with a book called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. She suggests many useful exercises to unleash and regularly access your inner creativity, one of which is the “morning pages.” When you first wake up, you sit and write 3 full pages of whatever is in your head and you do that every single morning. It helps to unload all of the excess baggage we carry around in our heads. Don’t edit or think about it, simply write down whatever comes into your mind. It might be a dream or a shopping list – it doesn’t matter. Julia also suggests going on “artist dates.” You’d be surprised how, as artists, we forget to do the things we like. It might mean going to a thrift store and buying some cool prop, or to a museum to see an exhibition, or simply take a walk and see what you see. There is an extensive list of suggestions on her Blog –http://theartistswayblog.wordpress.com/artists-date-ideas/

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ChatterLog March 2010

Creativity and the Arts

© Louisa J. Curtis

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the March ChatterBulletin! We have moved from the sign of Aquarius into Pisces, and although later this month we’ll move into Aries and the first day of Spring – it is still feeling a lot like Winter and many of us have seen a whole lot of snow this year. In fact, New York is in the middle of one of it’s largest snowstorms as I am writing this, and I took the above photo the following day. Snow is of course, frozen water – remember those beautiful images of the snowflakes in our last bulletin – and Pisces is a water sign, so combine water with a cold winter, and what do you have? Snow, sleet and ice!

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