Original publish date: Aug. 22nd, 2010

Pretty in Pink, tourmaline ring.

Original publish date: Jul. 26th, 2010

From the garden to the freezer: with this large amount of green beans we'll be eating home grown garden fresh green beans all winter!  It's been a great year for the garden with the early spring and hot sunny days so far this summer, and so we have an abundance of green beans.

Bill's best tip for savoring your green beans year round is quite simple: blanche and then freeze!

1. Pick all your green beans when they are ripe, and wash all the dirt off.

2. While you're washing your beans have a full pot of water heating to a boil.

3. Also be sure to have a full bowl of ice water close by

4. When the water boils carefully add all the beans and bring back to a boil.

5. Once the boil returns quickly remove and strain the beans.

6. Add the strained beans to the ice water and gently toss until cold.

   

7. Remove the beans from the ice water and prepare the beans either French cut or Julian cut. 

9. Store these bags in the freezer until you are ready to use them on that cold winter day! When you are ready to eat your beans, simply place the frozen beans back in some boiling water to reheat.

10. When water returns to a boil your beans are ready to strain and eat!


Stay posted for more helpful garden and cooking tips from Bill!

Original publish date: Jul. 17th, 2010

 

 

Original publish date: Jul. 15th, 2010

Original publish date: Jul. 12th, 2010

Original publish date: Jul. 5th, 2010

We are so pleased to exhibit the artwork of Guy Tringali, at our Gallery this summer! Please join us next Friday July 9th from 3-6 for our grand summer art opening.

Guy Tringali, a full-time resident of Wellfleet in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and his new oil painting collection features a beautiful array of North Eastern landscape scenes and views of Kezar Lake in Lovell, Maine. His work combines a realistic style with an impressionistic style often giving an atmospheric glow and beauty to his overall pieces. Much of his inspiration comes straight from his roots, and being the son of a Gloucester fisherman has truly impacted much of his painting.

Tringali graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and further studied painting at the Museum School in Boston, Massachusetts. Guy also studied advertising art at the Butera School of Art in Boston. His career as an art and creative director in advertising spanned more than 35 years and throughout his career he was the recipient of many industry awards.

Harvest Gold Gallery is pleased and excited to hold Tringali’s exquisite fine art paintings and welcomes all to view his work currently on display. The gallery is open daily and can be reached at (207)-925-6502. They are also available online at www.harvestgoldgallery.com and www.harvestgoldgallery.blogspot.com. 

Original publish date: Jun. 22nd, 2010

 Color: Red Texture: Lilacs Wood: Spoulted Maple, Birch

Artist Lisa Ferriera, a Maine native, is among Harvest Gold Gallery’s new artists of 2010 and is definitely worth coming to see. Lisa spent her childhood on the coast of Maine where much of her inspiration for her work comes from. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art in Portland, ME and for over eight years she has been expanding her skills in creating handmade paper lampshades and wooden lamp stems. By combing several different mediums such as copper, wood, enamel, and papermaking Lisa is able to create magnificent lamps that she titles “free-form sculptural illuminations.”  She notes on her use of multiple mediums and several different processes commenting, “I thrive on combining all of these elements into my daily life. My process revolves around creating and developing the elements of my pieces, then building the forms with my handmade materials. I have always loved working closely with nature and with my hands.”

The handcrafted lampshades are designed from a completely organic and handmade paper that is made from natural elements including wildflowers, milkweed, grasses, leaves, seeds, berries, pine needles and natural dies. All of these materials are used to add both texture and color to create her original work. This handmade paper is then added to her unique copper wire formation to complete the lampshade. Finally the shade is added to Ferriera’s natural stem made from a branch that she has sanded down and stained, though making sure to retain all the branches original bends and knots. These lamp bases are made of cherry, maple, birch, willow, exotic and found wood.

Color: Yellow Tint Texture: Milk Weed Wood: Pine, Maple, Stripe Maple, Beech

Ferriera states, “I truly believe that the creative process is an evolutionary one.  I am always discovering new methods, learning new techniques, and translating them through my emotion and vision.  I hope that I have shared this with you in my artistry.  I wish for others to recognize the value of the creative process and have the chance to indulge themselves in the natural elements of my work.”

Harvest Gold Gallery is proud to showcase Lisa Ferriera’s beautifully crafted and truly unique lamps that create an exclusive environment full of color. Her lamps are great for accent and mood lighting and their earthy yet whimsical style are absolutely charming. Ferriera’s work and other fine art may be viewed daily at Harvest Gold Gallery in Center Lovell, ME.    

Color: Yellow Tint Texture: Wild Flowers Wood: White Birch, Spoutled Maple

 

Tissue paper, sales receipts, plastic ribbon, caution tape, newspaper delivery bags, and other recycled materials combine to make up the artistic palette used by Constance Old. Constance began her art career twelve years ago by making collages using old magazine paper scraps until she became exclusively engaged with recycled plastic and paper. The underlying theme of recycling that flows through her work grew from her childhood. As a child in the 70’s Constance was able to take part in the first Earth Day, a day that impacted all of her work to come. Being able to reuse materials was the answer for Constance in her struggle to both physically and mentally overcome the materialist society growing around her.

This Connecticut-based artist received her degree in graphic design from Yale University, and her artwork significantly reflects this background. Her work is compositionally arranged with attention to color, medium, shape, and size to form an aesthetic contemporary style of art. A true master of mixed media art, Constance Old, continues to amaze viewers with her use of unconventional materials as she transforms them in to beautiful fine art rugs.

She describes her work stating, “I use the traditional women’s craft of rug hooking to make pieces out of three dimensional ‘found color,’ using in particular obvious symbols of our consumer economy like sales receipts and assorted recycled plastic…I hook any consumer detritus that can be rendered into a fiber…. Living in a time of material excess, it intrigues me to work in a medium that originated from need and a scarcity of materials. I see my work as both timeless and an index of our time. It is inspired by, uses, and elevates the everyday.”

As a contemporary female artist, Old has elevated the traditional “women’s work” of rughooking to the world of high art. Her rugs are non-functional artworks mounted in plexi boxes to be hung on the wall. The combination of a traditional craft technique with contemporary and recycled materials set her work aside from the other fine art collection on exhibit at Harvest Gold Gallery and is definitely worth seeing in person. Because the identity of her materials is not obvious, as they are transformed through her process of rughooking, it often takes a second and much closer look at her work to truly discover the hidden message each piece entails.

This work among a variety of different paintings, sculptures, glass art, and fine gold jewelry from the Harvest Gold collection can be viewed at Harvest Gold Gallery in Center Lovell, Maine. The gallery is open daily. Visit our website at (www.harvestgoldgallery.com) for upcoming events and artist news.

"Exit 42 Sampler, Pamela" styrofoam thread off truck on Merritt Parkway, gift wrapping, & string