Grinding Flour -- a Metaphor for Art (Six Word Saturday)

Originally this came into my head a couple of days ago, but it was as a metaphor for life.  Then I mused that art is also a metaphor for life.  And that life is, even more,  a metaphor for art, to an artist.

Sometimes art grinds you, sometimes you grind it.  It's about being transformed.  One of the reasons making art is challenging is that it's about coming face to face with yourself.  It takes stamina. Making art will change who you are, one way or another.

In Field and Fen this week, I've been describing my adventures in, literally, grinding flour from various pulses and grains, and it's so much like working in the studio.  Having a concept, then doing all the prep needed to let it happen and develop, then seeing the results, sometimes surprising, sometimes grittier than you expected, but always the act of making is the important issue, more even than the physical result.

And I just discovered this morning that aboriginal paintings were created in just this way: the eventual result less important than the sacred act of making the painting.  

Beautiful results are a by-product, and a bonus, rather than the whole point of making art.  Something not always well understood by people looking in from the outside.   And making something in order to sell it is so irrelevant to the whole life of art, that it's why real artists have either patrons (often generous spouses) or day jobs.

More experiments, now that I've rediscovered my coffee mill

I've been grinding up a storm, got all carried away. Years ago I used my coffee grinder to reduce cinnamon sticks, worked fine, and then forgot about it.  But in the recent kitchen overhaul, my tools are coming into use again, because I can see them and I remember to use them.

So since fullsize grain mills are just big grinders, and they make flour just fine, why not use the little coffee mill to make small samples of all sorts of flour.

To date: oat meal into oat flour, green split peas into flour, pearl barley into flour, dried chickpeas into flour.

Next time I buy lentils I plan to make some lentil flour.

This way I have a repertoire of flours for breads and pancakes and thickening for soup and sauces.  And since I like noisy tools, the coffee grinder is just my cup of tea, if you follow me.

Do any blogistas have other ideas for stuff I can grind now I'm in the groove?