Shellac 4.0 - failing yet again

Mixing up another batch, this time well-documented: 3no. bags 150 grams shellac flake to 3/4 C denatured alcohol (a nice mix of Metric and Imperial measures):

Starting with the first bag I let it sit on the radiator to fully melt into the alcohol and realized that the liquid could readily absorb more flake, so I continued to add the second and finally the third bag. I even did a bit of kitchen work, placing the white plastic container in a large bowl of hot tap water (bain marie) to help the melting process. Then it sat overnight to thoroughly disperse and let the bubbles dissipate.

As neither the rubber nor the polypropylene moulds worked, I realized that a breathable material would permit the alcohol's VOCs to evaporate - maybe paper? Having found these candy papers...

in a kitchen drawer here, I thought I would give them a try. The shellac, being such a high concentration of solids to liquids, was skinning over quite rapidly, so each pour was different. The batch would need stirring to re-melt the skin arising after each pour, creating more tiny bubbles. The shellac became thicker and thicker, until eventually the shellac hardly dripped off the spoon, and slowed to stiff sheet, requiring a good dunking back into the batch to remelt once again.

 Looks just like brownies or fudge!

Then carefully put away on a high shelf in my wardrobe for the night.

Today I realized that these papers are waxed (duh) so I am still not achieving evaporation. Also I recognized once again that the thick top skin also inhibits evaporation. Right now the shellac is dry to the touch, yet the liquid state beneath the skin is such that the volume shifts if tilted. Would probably splooge out if a finger pierced the top skin. Maybe I need to think about something that wants to stay liquid?

Next trial? perhaps many layers in the papers? Time to re-visit the shellac man for more flake.

A walk in Perşembe Pazarı

The streets in this area seem to be continually under construction; asphalt is torn up, exposing earth and stone, thick granite paving slabs are lifted to expose gas pipes, water lines, electrical wires and cables, traffic cones and tapes block off roadways and lanes. Walking on the pavement here is tricky as all the commercial premises utilize the street and pedestrian walkways as loading zones, generating queues of cars and delivery vehicles, some drivers patiently waiting, others leaning on their horns (two images in my last post).

The steepness of some of these streets force once's attention to the ground where a bewildering combination of surfacing materials - tiles, pavoirs, marble, concrete, terrazzo, cobbles - parade underfoot:

 

This may join up with a series of works on (butcher) paper I've already started.

Shellac 3.0 - failing again

So far, no go. What about mixing the shellac with the cotton packing and trying to pack it into pre-formed shapes, say, ice cube trays? These are special Japanese trays Julie brought back from her residency in Japan last autumn.

I very carefully lined some of them in cling film, hoping I'd be able to peel it off of the mixture

Although I've never had a root canal, I somehow felt akin to the endodontist packing a root with gutta percha.

The whole thing was so sticky I ended up using a dusting of pigment as a way to preventing the mixing stick, my fingers and the cling film from being irresistibly attracted to this agglomeration:

When I finally did lift the film out of the trays, the mixture was still so soft that I could squash it between my fingers. I tried to maintain the shape of the ice tray:

Finally, six days later, I've pulled off the cling film and scissor-trimmed the stray fibres:

Not particularly satisfying. The bigger one is still soft, softer than a caramel.

Architecture 2.0

Walking around and simply coming across interesting structures, frequently with no idea what they are about. This roof is on the oldest building on our street, as seen from our terrace:

The residency is named after this caravansari, or inn for traders and their horses and camels, built on a Genoese cathedral:

The two-storey structure reveals Romanesque arches on the ground floor and pointed Islamic arches on the first floor:

Originally I had thought to do some sound pieces within these upper vaulted spaces, but the perished render over the brickwork creates a highly absorbent acoustic and very dead sounding space. This level is reached by an external stair:

There are, however, some very cool doors here, obviously not old:

 

 Although this one looks like the entrance to a corner tower:

Aside from a few stones on the ground level paving this intricately carved Corinthian capital is the only relic of the Italian Renaissance period remaining in the caravanasri, utilized as a support for, I've been told, an illegal water supply:

Walking up a parallel road towards the other Genoese monument in our neighbourhood, the Galata Tower, once again the steep geography is evident (spot all the steps on the pavement? Five on the right, just below the man delivering the ubiquitous 20 lt bottles of water). This is looking up towards Şişane/Tünel:

A bit difficult to see is that the road is completely blocked with parked vans looking in both directions. Note how the buildings' roof lines step down. Apparently it was 'code' to not block the view towards the water, although from this street one can just barely make out the other side of the Golden Horn, but no water:

But just here is an empty lot, fenced in and looking onto this unidentified structure:

This part of the city seems to be a jigsaw puzzle of 110% density interspersed with the occasional vacant space. Another steep street (well, cars do traverse it but it is great exercise walking up it!) with an unusual brick and stone pattern:

 Islamic arch above barred window:

and more interesting brick and stone combination just behind the oleander. Note the crenelation at the roofline:

Shellac 2.0 - The Success of Failure

Shellac 2.0

Having mixed up the first batch and poured it into the rubber mould (lubricated with face soap and then topped with powdered pigment), I put it in the oven to hasten the solvent evaporation. But I'd raised the oven temperature to grill some food and despite being underneath a protective steel cover the shellac boiled over, reducing its volume by half. Or else it reduced by half due to that much alcohol evaporating out. Once cool, I dug it out of the mould and the result resembles a Zombie piece of Turkish Delight:

Not a nice thing.

Next trial I used the polypropylene from a bottle of ayran (delicious yoghurt drink), cutting out the flat side walls to construct these small forms. As I was intending to make something along the size of a billiard cue chalk cube, and having learned that the shrinkage of the shellac was around 50%, the resulting forms were double height:

While my intent was to colour the shellac a peacock blue-green, the inherent orange colour of the shellac countered any blue, the mix yielding an olive-y green tone instead:

I carefully filled the forms, and where the shellac managed to ooze out of the seams, I simply kept adding this medical adhesive tape until it stopped:

Very neat and tidy. Sitting for a few hours, the shellac skinned over on top, preventing the fill form spilling when I once accidentally knocked it over with my sleeve. A day or so later, I got impatient and put them in the oven at 50 deg for an hour or so. Complete disaster:

Basically, aside from the heat compromising the tape's adhesive allowing the form to spring open, I realized that the polypropylene did not permit any evaporation other than from the exposed top surface, which, having skinned over earlier, meant that no further evaporation would occur, unless it were violent enough to break through the skin. 

So Shellac 3.0 will need to be new forms and thin layers of shellac poured in over a period of time. Hmmm, now need to find more PP to make more moulds.

Chickpea Heaven

I first had socca, a local street-food in Nice, in 1975 . Chickpea flour made up the batter, cooked on top of an oiled, very large (say 75cm) diameter slightly convex surface like a traditional French crepe. The batter, swirled over the very hot cooking surface (was it wood-fired? can't recall) cooked very quickly. Rolled up and served in a newspaper cone, the socca practically fell apart, the oily deliciousness of salt and crunch and soft was unforgettable.

Fast forward over 30 yrs, now avoiding gluten and always looking for a new carbohydrate, I suddenly remember socca. And hummus! Here they are:

Socca 

Chickpea (aka gram) flour and water in equal proportions, add additional water to thin to a single cream consistancy (US=1 C flour to 1 C+2 T water; UK 300 gr flour to 1 lt water), sea salt, olive oil (2-3 good splashes).

Whisk together and let sit for two hours (some recipes suggest letting it rest overnight to let it ferment a bit so the pancakes rise a bit). Heat a shallow sautee pan and once hot, again a splash of oil, letting it get to smoking hot. About a good sized coffee cup (US 3/4 c) of batter, swirl quickly around the pan to spread, tilting and tipping so batter covers the bottom of the pan.

Now comes a choice: the first time I made this I followed one recipe which called for the pan to go under the grill after the bottom of the pancake was well cooked. This produced an extremely brown and crunchy edge which never blackened and burnt. All delicious. The second trial, as above, was simply flipped in the sautee pan (I just forgot about the grill bit); the second side did not brown as much as the first but I put that down to not adding more oil to the pan.

Served above as a pizza base, using fresh spinach, sliced tomatoes, a mild feta-style local Turkish cheese (panyir), and crumbled kofta (ok, hamburger with kofta seasonings), thrown under the grill again until the cheese softened, the spinach wilted and the tomatoes warmed.

Another serving suggestion (next day's lunch, actually) of just the slightly salty panyir with red pepper flakes:

or, more balanced, with tomatoes and rocket, more cheese and olives on the side:

Yield: 1 c flour = 2 regular and 1 tiny pancakes; 2 c flour = 4 pancakes

Another recipe from the Metro calls this Farinata de ceci (an Italian dish) and bakes it in a cake tin; aka cecina, torta de ceci, all producing a pancake much thicker than mine.

Hummus

Soak dried chickpeas overnight or 24 hours. Pick out any ugly ones, and cook in plenty of water, adding a chicken stock cube, peppercorns and 2 bay leaves. Bring to boil, then cover and simmer for an hour, then check to see if they are tender. When done to your taste, drain and rinse. Use a food processor to whiz to a coarse puree. Add olive oil as needed to prevent the puree sticking and heating up due to being too thick. After all the chickpeas have been reduced to the desired consistancy, turn out into a large mixing bowl and add more olive oil, lemon juice (I used 2 lemons for 2 c chickpeas), a little water to get to the runniness you prefer, a few pinches of  ground cumin. Before cleaning the food processor, throw in 2-3 cloves of fresh garlic (remember to take out any central green sprouting bits) and whiz to fine mince. Add to the hummus and blend well. Turn out into a pretty serving bowl, spread the top smooth, drizzle a bit of olive oil over it and sprinkle some crushed red pepper over all as in photo above.

Remember that the garlic flavour will grow stronger over time.

Artists? what artists? Art? what art?

Some of the artists I'm living with/working with/meeting:

Julie, one of the organizers, and Laleh, from Berlin who draws and does shadow puppetry;

London-based Ughetta and her friend Chris of Chris and Anna, visiting from London. Ughetta is a graphic designer who also does illustration;

Anika, the other organizer, who uses circus-based skills in her performances;

Korhan, who is a digital composer and sound artist. He has put me in contact with two other Istanbuli who may be able to help me construct an kinetic sound device. Tomorrow I meet with one, Ekmel of AmberPlatform http://www.amberplatform.org/ and will see what happens. Then there was Jesper, who returned home to Denmark last week.

His three-month residency, courtesy of the Danish government, was occupied by his visual compilation of an Encyclopaedia of Smorrebrode for his now on-going exhibition in Copenhagen. These watercolours were made after creating his graphic design-based imagery. I visited him here in his studio/residency, where he had a really great view of the Sea of Marmara, impossible to capture with a camera.

Finally, here is Deniz as her alter-ego, Miss Universe, performing Fistula last week in the residency workspace:

Deniz is a Turkish performance artist now living in Vienna.

Went to one of the new contemporary art spaces last week, SALT Beyoğlu, and finally saw an interesting work, part of an exhibition that was impenetrable to me as it was all in Turkish. The show, Scared of Murals, concerned itself with a protest during the 1970's, displaying pages from newspapers, etc. There were just a small number of paintings and sculptures including this work, Suite de l'Operation Organe (la Caisse) 1973, by the artist Sarkis, a Paris-based Turkish-born Armenian. I could not figure out how any of the works fit into to rest of the show, but I liked this one a lot (çok güzel).