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Sweet Neecy Baking Mixes

Sweet Neecy, founded by Annette “Neecy” Council, provides pre-packaged baking mixes with a particularly NC feel. Council’s passion for her work stems from a family zeal for cooking, and especially baking. She describes her life in Chapel Hill, North Carolina learning from her mother and grandmother with heart-felt love of their influence in her life.

The website offers recipes, mixes, box sets, and baking tips. It also has a convenient store locator for where to purchase her mixes, or you may order directly from the website.

Her mixes are also available to wholesalers, with contact information online.

The website also includes a video interview with Council featured on NBC 17.

Council’s book, “The Recipe, Have a Seat at Our Table,” is for sale at http://www.annettecouncil.net/index.htm  and tells about her family’s struggle to overcome adverse economic conditions and also gives “a recipe for living” which has her own insights into perseverance.

For more information visit: http://www.sweetneecycakemix.com/

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The Enemy’s Gate Is Down: A look back on Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

by JOSEPH BOWMAN

With the movie release of Ender’s Game mere months away, a childhood dream is (hopefully) coming true. While forum debates have gone on concerning the age of Asa Butterfield (playing Ender), and whether Harrison Ford (playing Col Graff) will give audiences a performance worthy of American Graffiti or Cowboys & Aliens, it is worth taking another look at the novel before November 1st rolls around.

Nearly a century has passed since the first Formic (insect-like aliens popularly termed Buggers) invasion, and 60 years have gone by since humanity defeated the Bugger colonization armada under the leadership of military genius Mazer Rackham. The International Fleet (IF) has been training the world’s most talented and capable children to become officers to fight off the Buggers once again, and six-year-old Andrew (Ender) Wiggin is their best hope. Education at the IF’s demanding Battle School trains students in military strategy and combat tactics; however, as Ender continues to prove his abilities as a future leader, he becomes aware that the teachers are manipulating every part of his life in order to shape him into a weapon.

On Earth, Ender’s brother (Peter) and sister (Valentine), both of equal genius to Ender, have begun taking control of political dialogue amongst nations poised on the brink of war. They realize the threat of the Buggers may be all that is holding back millennia of human conflict.

Through his narrative, Card gives the reader a unique and accurate look at the technological, social and person influences that shape his novel.

Card plays it safe with the tech in Ender’s Game, rather than bog down the narrative in a Tom Clancy from-the-future description of the IF’s hardware, he offers open-ended vagaries stating: “These are the mysteries. Do not pry into them.” He keeps the timeline equally indistinct, merely suggesting that the first Bugger invasion was sometime in our not-too-distant-future.

While some readers may want a little more detail, I think it is always the smarter move to underplay the technology so as to not be left with some lackadaisical explanation (ie: the first season of Fringe or any moment, chosen at random, from Independence Day).

Card’s exception to this is his alarmingly accurate portrait of the form the internet would take as a media outlet and political tool. With weblogs and online forums not becoming user-friendly features on the nets (as Card terms the web) for roughly ten years after the book was published, their future power to influence political dialogue is perhaps Card’s most prescient glimpse ahead.

His abilities to grapple with social constructs, prejudices and paranoia are among the best of the 1980’s Sci-Fi authors, and though he is writing from within the Cold War era (an updated edition was printed in 1991) the potency of earthbound political strife is compelling. This lack of unification is seen not only among world leaders, but the children around whom the novel focuses. Card plays openly with racial prejudice among them, even in a time when humanity is supposed to be united against the Buggers. He also highlights religious separation, though he treats this rather pointedly as a more holy subject.

Card’s natural logic and language for handling strategy drive the majority of the book. Though the plot is outstanding, the games of intelligence and control pull the reader along with more compulsion. This was a prudent move on Card’s part as he had to write not only dialogue, but inner conflict for children with near-superhuman intelligence. As with the technology, Card handled this in an atypical but superior way than some comparable narratives. He layers their thinking with little more than highly logical questioning and scrutiny - a more accurate and thought provoking method than burdening the characters and pages with trivia.

Though populated with children, Card doesn’t create a world where innocence exists, and the reader must decide for himself if it is worth defending. This empathetic-alien relationship with humanity is made most profound when the only reason known for its protection is that is in our nature to survive. This rationale has a microcosm found in Graff’s lethal scenarios for educating children. These are questioned not only by other leaders, but by Graff himself. Nevertheless, Graff’s leadership is defined in his ability to not think of the students as children, because they aren’t. They are human, aggressive, brilliant and cruel. As such, in Card’s world, psychological games, manipulation, and control are made obsolete in any traditional sense as causality is buried deep within hidden motivations.

Finally, as anyone familiar with the series knows, Card provides ample room for growth in his characters. Ender’s strength of being willing to kill as it is necessary or wise, when coupled with his admission that it is in the defeat of his enemies that he learns to love them, keeps his personal motivation unclear throughout the novel.

Furthermore, Ender's relationship with the sadistic Peter, as their mettle bears similar fruit - even the more gentle Ender says, “…the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can’t kill then you are always subject to those who can�� – allows such a narrow division between the two that they often cannot see it themselves. Meanwhile, both brothers’ relationships with Valentine have moments similar to those in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slapstick – intellectually one mind with Peter and Valentine, pseudo-sexual with Valentine and Ender.

With this bizarre competition between personality and control looming over every page, the game the title alludes to is best summarized in Valentine’s statement, “Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life Ender. The best you can do is be controlled by good people, by people who love you.”

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Billie Ruth Sudduth: NC's Premier Basketmaker

Sudduth – residing in Bakersville, NC – maintains her status as a widely acclaimed basketmaker. Her craft, inspired by Shaker and Appalachian baskets includes reed splints, split oak, round reed, henna and iron oxide baskets.

Don’t let the company name JABOBS, an anagram for ‘Just a Bunch of Baskets,’ fool you, Sudduth has developed a truly remarkable style and skill second to none. Her basket making career, which began in 1983 in New Bern, launched itself into notoriety with the creation of her signature pattern, ‘The Carolina Snowflake,’ which has been featured on White House Christmas trees in 1993, 1998 and 2006.

It is for reasons like these that in 1997 she was the first female named an NC Living Treasure, the highest for creative excellence in craftwork and artistic manufacturing. Not only this, but for five consecutive years she was selected by Early American Homes for their “America’s 200 Best Craftsmen.”

Her baskets have been featured in American Craft, Southern Accents, Colonial Homes, American Style, Southern Living, and the Smithsonian magazines.

Her work can be found in the Smithsonian Institute’s Renwick Gallery, the museum of Art and Design in New York, the Mint Museum of Art as wells as homes and institutions around the world.

She has published three books on basketmaking:

Basket Inspiration for Makers & Collectors

Featuring chapters on: techniques, distinctive projects and extensive photography of over eighty contemporary basketmakers

How to Weave: Carolina Snowflakes

         A complete instruction booklet on weaving the “Carolina Snowflake”

Math in a Basket

A handbook for weaver and teachers which incorporates Sudduth’s knowledge and refined skills into math and art vocabulary exercises, the Math Basket Pattern, incorporation of colors, all aligned with specific goals and objectives.

Sudduth has also been featured in the PBS documentary “Hand Made.”

Exhibition:

Basketry Class at Penland School of Crafts July 7-20

map available at:www.penland.org

To purchase:

Carolina Snowflakes, JABOBS baskets, Basket Inspiration for Makers & Collectors, and more visit: http://www.brsbasket.com/gallery/index.html

For more information regarding Billie Ruth Sudduth, visit her website at: http://www.brsbasket.com/index.html

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Locavore-Laureate: An interview with artist Bibi Bowman

[Bibi Bowman is a painter from Raleigh, NC. She attended Art School at East Carolina University. Self-described as “expatriated artist-slash-bon-vivant-slash-sans-culotte,” she spent several years in Ecuador and Peru before returning to Raleigh in 1993 to pursue a career as a judiciary translator.]

I met Bibi Bowman at her home/studio in Raleigh. The shelves are filled with books, mementos and painting supplies; meanwhile, violins and paintings hang on the walls - it’s a little, bohemian haven. Everything here has a little of her personality, the wine glasses are hand painted by her, much of the furniture has been handed down, nothing is idle in this spartan rhapsody.

CHW.com: [From being a judiciary translator] What inspired you to start painting? Bibi: I’ve always painted sporadically, I raised two daughters unassisted and worked full-time, so it's since they’ve been grown that I’ve brought it back to the forefront.

CHW.com: What is it about Raleigh that was of so much interest? Is there something you wanted to show people? Bibi: …I love Raleigh, I love our culture, our history. There’s an atmosphere here that you won’t find anywhere else. When I was growing up, all of my friends’ parents either worked for the university [NC State] or for the government, or someone’s dad was the grocer or ran the laundry mat. There was something common between all of us.

Now we’ve been inundated with people and businesses from around the country, and that’s great, I want them to come, but I want them to love it here. I don’t want the history here to get diluted by a Bocce ball league.

CHW.com:  Your other paintings have largely, if not entirely, centered around North Carolina locations. Bibi: With the Locavore series, I wanted to paint restaurants that were ingrained in Raleigh’s culture. It had to have a history here, it had to stand alone and not be part of a chain, and I wanted them all to buy their produce from local sources like farmers markets.

I started with the PR [The Players’ Retreat] because it opened up in the early 50’s, around the time my dad started working at the university (NC State) and he would bring me down there with him and I’d sit with my back to the bar, there’s a lot of memories there. Even after it was sold, they’ve managed to hold onto the atmosphere. It’s a place you can’t find anywhere else.

  CHW.com: Is your Pier Pressure series also centered around North Carolina?

Bibi: All of the piers are from the North Carolina coast, except one. It’s from south of San Diego and I’ve always loved it.

CHW.com: Are you working on anything now?

Bibi: I’m always painting, I don’t want to get to the end of my life and think, “I wish I had gotten that one done.”

CHW.com: What is your focus for this series? Bibi: It came recently. In the last election, I got tired of seeing our consumers being glorified. When I think about paintings of young women at the beach, or a corporate office poster of an empty golf course, all I can see is people and art that celebrate lounging. But when there’s a painting of a bowl of fruit, or something really trite, like a rearing horse, you have to remember that somebody picked that fruit and somebody fed that horse. So much of what I see is too bourgeoisiebut I’m more down with the proletariat.

  CHW.com: With your experience in Latin American countries, I can see their artistic style has some effect on your color choices and even some of your subject matter. Since you’re getting into paintings with a more profound social commentary on the working class, do you think that’s something you’ve gleaned from that culture as well?

Bibi: I can’t say it isn’t, you never know what’s going to inspire you. It’s like a seed, it can be something horrendous that happened or it can be something like the way you see dust falling one day, you just never know. There’s a moment when it begins to germinate, and that’s when you put together your focus. All art, I think, is like that. It’s something that I need to say, if I can say it with words, I write, if I can paint it, if I can play it on the cello, then that’s how it’s going to come out. Deciding how to get it out is about five percent of the process, the other 95 percent is putting in the work.

…For this series, I’ve been interested in honey and grapes, and wine. So, I thought that I might keep the theme around vices.

  CHW.com: That could be pretty interesting, vices and the working class, maybe another layer on looking at the proletariat.

Bibi: It could be, we’ll have to see.

See more of her work at:

http://artsouth.us/

Read more about her:

http://artsouth.wordpress.com/bibi-bowman-artsouth/

Or “like” her on Facebook at: My Pink Chair Art

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The 26th Annual NC Potters Conference is Coming March 1-3

March 1st marks the opening of the 26th Annual NC Potter Conference in Asheboro, NC.  Featuring guest artists Julia Galloway, Peter Beasecker and Tara Wilson, the event includes demonstrations from potters, lectures, and more.

A complete schedule is available here: http://www.randolphartsguild.com/events/potters-conference.html

All attendants are responsible for their own accommodations.

Presenters

Julia Galloway

Peter Beasecker

Tara Wilson

Andrew Glasgow

Peter Chatrand

Joe Molinaro

Noah Scalin

Location

The North Carolina Potters Conference is sponsored by the Randolph Arts Guild and is headquartered in the W. H. Moring, Jr. Arts Center located at 123 Sunset Ave. in downtown Asheboro, NC.

For Participants

Registration is $250 – Includes lunch and dinner Friday & Saturday, and lunch on Sunday

Also, eligible participants may apply for the Dwight M. Holland Scholarship. Started in 2012, the scholarship is available for students to attend the conference.

Scholarship Eligibility:

Applicants must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate studies program with a focus on ceramics.

To Apply:

Send an e-mail to DwightHollandScholarship@gmail.com with the following:

3-5 images of your work

An essay: 500 words or less about why attending the conference would be of benefit to your education and career

Preregistration

The Pre-registration deadline is February 15, 2013 and is limited to 150 participants. In the past, the conference has sold out, so it is important to register quickly.

More information and a link to register is available at: http://www.randolphartsguild.com/events/potters-conference.html

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Hiding Carly by Ann E. Eisenstein: Something New is “Elementary, My Dear Watson”

By JOSEPH BOWMAN

Sean Gray, a fifth-grade loner with a bully magnet in his nose, has clung on to the memory of his dead father – murdered FBI Agent, Max Gray – for a year, when a stranger shows up in his class, a new girl named Carly. Sean’s interest in her catapults as he learns she may not be who she claims. What’s more, she may help him solve the mystery of his father’s death.

Sean’s home life is overburdened with emotionally trying obstacles for someone so young. His mother, Ruth, has been faced with the added responsibility of raising Sean alone and caring for her mother-in-law who is succumbing to Alzheimer’s. Not only that, but the family is still coping with the memory of Max. As rumors of his father’s loyalty reach the school yard, Sean begins to fear his father may not have been the hero he had know.

From murder and disease to kidnapping and betrayal, Hiding Carly holds onto a tradition of dark content in children’s mystery novels - Nancy Drew, The Box Car Children and Sally Lockhart were all orphans – but it approaches the story in a way rarely embraced by children’s authors. Eisenstein chooses not to pursue the rain coat and magnifying glass, looking for footprints in the rain approach that is seen so often; instead, she focuses the narrative around the everyday crises and uncertainties faced by children poised before puberty.

The complications of losing a father, the confusion of watching a loved one slip into mental decline, a first crush, a bully, all of these take the main stage for the first two thirds of the story while the mysteries of Carly and of Sean’s father more so bubble to the surface. That bubble, though, proves indicative of something worth waiting for as the conclusion takes more twists and turns than is typical for this genre.

According to the book’s publisher ‘Peak City Publishing,’ Eisenstein has worked with the FBI to establish validity to the book’s content, and it shows. She’s very detailed and doesn’t simply brush over procedure or terminology, yet she keeps it simple and interesting for children 8-13. There are a couple faux pas, for instance, I’m not sure how man eleven year olds would be able to connect “the Office of Professional Responsibility” to “bribery” and “extortion,” but it acclimates well with an intelligent young man who has a passion for entering the bureau in the footsteps of his father.

Strange as it seems, it makes me hope that she will embrace a little more of the traditional construct in the sequel. While the accuracy and the character depth create a real-life atmosphere around the story, Eisenstein walks a fine line between three styles of books: a little Hardy Boys, a little Ramona Quimby, a little Hunt for Red October.

For the premiere novel in what is to become the Sean Gray Junior Special Agent series, I think she has done a fantastic job blending these qualities. Eisenstein has established the breadth of content that she can handle and created a world in which her characters can grow, but something (clue-hunting, emotional development, factuality) tends to take precedence in a mystery series, and that makes me curious to see which of these paths she will take next.

About the Publisher

Peak City Publishing is a small publishing company based in Raleigh, North Carolina. They promote established as well as up-and-coming authors, and maintain a focus of children’s and adult fiction.

Their eBooks are available via the Kindle Store at Amazon.com, and they distribute locally through NoFo at the Pig, Quail Ridge, McIntyres and other vendors. Additionally, they participate in events at the Halle Cultural Arts Center in Apex, NC and at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.

Visit their website for information on their books, tours, authors and more: http://www.peakcitypublishing.com/

Hiding Carly is a mystery novel for children ages 8-13. It is a Children's Mystery eBook bestseller, and is available for purchase as a Kindle eBook at: http://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Junior-Special-Series-ebook/dp/B00AOCTZ78/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358194349&sr=8-1&keywords=hiding+carly

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Pieces are from Raleigh-based artist Bibi Bowman. Interview coming next week.

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A Grain of Sense

   This Christmas, studies showed that there was a drastic increase in the insistence from Americans to buy goods made in the U.S.A. In fact, a survey from Perception Research Services International showed that just the label stating that a product was made domestically was preferred by 76% of those asked. Additionally, a study in Boston showed that consumers were 80% more likely even to pay more for such products (TNYT).

   It’s not surprising. With the nation still recovering from the market collapse in 2008, a veritable eruption of bellicism is taking our consumer based economy by storm, and with it people are turning a sharper lens on their purchases.

   In North Carolina, there are added incentives. While the growth of the tech industry is enticing a steady flow of transplants from around the country, agriculture still accounts for roughly $8 billion dollars of the state’s annual revenue. With the state’s diverse topography, there is a rare and massive gamut ranging from produce to cash crops, pork to Christmas trees (ncrualcenter.org).

   There are added benefits that outrank even the psychological incentive of staying local – ie: when you support a local business you are paying for a family to stay above water rather than contributing to a Walton trust fund – which, though true, is not always enough to sway the minds of consumers. An article in Time Magazine stated that when people purchase from a local farmers market rather than a supermarket, “twice the money stayed in the community when folks bought locally.”

   Unfortunately, many of the larger corporations claiming to stand behind “Made in the U.S.A.” products simply highlight the Americans they have employed while ignoring the drastic shift of overseas production in recent years (TNYT).

   It can be difficult to identify true locally-produced wares, but there are helpful steps anyone can take:

-          One of the simplest is by eating in local restaurants. When dining at chains up to 80% of the revenue taken in by these companies goes to more centralized locations rather than the money remaining in the community.

-          Secondly, target small producers. While many people who sell goods – even in a State Farmers Market - have products such as jams, sauces, or wines bottled by larger companies, the majority of these companies are at least within the state.

-          Finally, if you really want to support local producers, start by supporting small businesses. Many of these businesses know the manufacturers of their goods personally and will be able to provide you with information concerning the products they carry.

Citations

http://www.localharvest.org/buylocal.jsp

http://www.ncruralcenter.org/databank/trendpage_Agriculture.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/business/media/selling-made-in-usa-but-very-carefully.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/fashion/made-in-the-usa-has-a-new-meaning.html?_r=0

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903632,00.html#ixzz2HjNEDruc

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Some of the products from makers we will be discussing

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Welcome to Carolina Handiworks

Our blog's purpose is to support North Carolina small businesses and promote buying locally. We offer information not only on the benefits of supporting local business - economic, environment, social, etc - but will provide information regarding specific businesses from different parts of the state that encapsulate a similar philosophy.

We also support local artists, craftspeople, musicians, dramatists, and publishers.