“This integral arrangement — minimalist home of rammed earth walls, plus native grasses — works perfectly as a unit.” reads the introduction to the writeup on the Roger and Mary Downey Garden for the Corrales Garden Tour we went on last weekend. The house sits in the center of the property surrounded by native grasses. Since this is only late spring, the grasses are just starting to grow. The grasses are best seen in the fall when they have reached their full heights and display their varied colors — colors that are reflected in the rammed earth construction of the house.
South face of the house. The interior shots below show the rooms from left to right in this photo.Artists were painting various scenes.Stand alone bedroom with its one bathroom.Entry and long hall on the north side of the house.Livingroom and kitchenKitchenMaster bedroomMaster bathLong hall leading to the last room on the east end of the house.The last room on the right (east end of the house) has a display of figurines, a throw rug and a frosted glass table.Interesting ceiling in the last room on the right.Looking down the hallway back toward the entrance from the last room on the right.
I bid on this Canon F-1 on ebay, it was cheap, and I was expecting to be outbid because Canon F-1s are popular cameras on ebay. I forgot about it until I got an email that I won the bid seven days later. The camera looks rough with a lot of brassing, a few dents and a few dings, but it works great and the light meter is right on accurate. It has a motor drive, which is really cool — “chunka, chunka, chunka…” at five frames per second when I hold down the shutter release. Interestingly enough, the F-1 will not trip my studio flashes or modern flashes, but it has no trouble tripping my old Metz CT-60 flashes. I included four photos that are scans of negatives taken with the F-1.
I was downright domestic and quite handy all weekend. I made a double batch of pork roast with potatoes, carrots and celery to get some food stocked up in the freezer. I had a stark reminder about how busy we’ve been when I opened the door to discover I had more film than food in in the freezer — it was definitely time to do some cooking.
I also finished organizing the catio, and got the rest of the stuff out of the armory, and started preparing to build a darkroom. I ordered a walk-thru cylindrical revolving darkroom door, which should arrive in a couple of weeks, and started drawing lines on the carpet to mark out where the walls and cylindrical door will go.
The nature of remodeling projects is that I always have to deal with deferred maintenance as part of each remodeling project, so I repaired the roof on the armory, and then put re-purposed corrugated steel on the exterior, south-facing wall to cover up the deteriorating exterior wall board that’s been blasted by the sun for the past 24 years. I also covered up the window in the south wall, since I don’t need a window in the darkroom. The re-purposed corrugated steel gives the south wall of the armory a colorful, ghetto-like look between the white and silver pieces, and the rusty spots.
Attempt at studio flash with F-1. The camera would not trip the flash, but the results were interesting. Kodak MAX 400 film that expired in 2004.
Sandias with Jetis and Rio Grande in the foreground. Fuji 200 print film
Rosencrantz through the screen. Kodak MAX 400 print film that expired in 2004
Tullips Kodak MAX 400 print film that expired in 2004
Double batch of Pork Roast with potatoes, carrots and celery.
More film in the freezer than food. In truth, there is more green chile by volume than film, but that’s about it.
Started drawing out on the floor where the walls and walk thru-cylindrical revolving darkroom door will go.
I put up re-purposed corrugated steel on the outside of where the darkroom will be, covering up a window in the process. I got out the level just because that’s what one does when remodeling, but as most everything in NM the building is “not even!”
While you can’t quite get out the door of Downtown Books with a nicely broken-in classic in your hands scot-free, by handing Scott Free a couple of bucks on your way out the door, you will have acquired a great read for a modest price. And that’s how it is at Downtown Books at 108 8th St, SW in Downtown Albuquerque, its rooms filled with shelving, stuffed with books that cover just about every topic, genre and discipline imaginable. Downtown Books is in a building that was Albuquerque’s attempt at row houses in the early years of the last century, and collectors can find books of the same vintage as the architecture. It’s a bit of an understatement to say that Scott has just about everything anyone might want in books, including a kitchen sink full of children’s books. There are areas where you can sit down and peruse books at your leisure in the laid-back, welcoming atmosphere of the shop.
Ironically, Scott and I and both our wives had studied flamenco dance together in the early 1990’s. Scott had the bookstore on 6th Street for some time, but then when he moved just two streets to the west, we lost track of each other. We happened to cross paths on Monday when I was out front of our building talking to Nina and Greg from Cafe Fino. Scott walked by and we said “I know you!” so we talked a little while, and he mentioned he had moved his bookstore to 8th Street. So for the past 8 years or so we were working just 6 blocks from each other, but had lost track of each other.
If you are in the Albuquerque area, Downtown Books is worth taking the time to visit. The web site is www.downtownbooksabq.com and you can find it on Facebook at www.facebook.com/downtownbooksabq. If you are looking for a that special, hard to find book, you email Scott at dtownbooksabq@gmail.com he might just have what you are looking for.
The city has finally begun cleaning up the burned out buildings on the end of the block. This poor, unfortunate family of breaker boxes that have made their home of the building for many years will be soon be broken up.
It’s not really concrete, but a cement top coat used for refinishing concrete surfaces. The refinishing cement is really intended for fairly smooth slabs, but the slab in the catio is very rough concrete, so getting a really smooth top coat didn’t happen.
A lone leaf decided it needed to break in the new cement floor, since I have the cats locked out of the catio while the cement cures. In the second photo, there are three dominant shades of gray. I mixed the first batch of cement following the instructions exactly, and the mixture ended up being too thick, so while it poured out of the bucket, it started setting up almost immediately, making it difficult to spread, and almost impossible to smooth as per the instructions (it’s the darkest shade of gray along the back wall).
I made the second batch soupier than the first, but I got it a little too soupy, so it spread thinner than I wanted it to (lighter shade of gray in the middle). On the third batch I got the mixture figured out so it spread well at the thickness I needed, and I was able to get it a little smoother (middle shade of gray in the foreground). I used the same mixture for the the next 8 batches needed to cover the entire slab. I also ended up spreading and smoothing the cement on my hands and knees with a hand trowel. Our air is so dry here, that even the wetter mixtures started setting up as soon as I poured them out of the bucket, making it difficult to spread with the 18 inch-wide cement spreader the instructions suggested I use.
While I was photographing the new floor, I noticed my little chainsaw and level on a bonsai shelf made a nice composition. The last two photos are the candles we have behind the couch in the sunroom unlit and lit.
This is the upstairs portion of our office after the smoke was cleaned up, the walls painted and the offices reoccupied. The first three photos are the same spaces pictured in the first three photos on my blog As the Smoke Churns from January 7, 2014 that shows the smoke damage from the Flamenco fire at the end of the block on December 18, 2013.
Off Center & Not Even 