I've been busy. I was going to take a look around the web for input on log cabin blocks but decided against it. I shoulda looked. Should learned what it was all about.
Each block is 9"square-ish.
I did make one years ago but the fabric was all plaids from Bonnie Doon blouses - who could tell which end was up? I sure couldn't.
And now this. I got up this morning, finished off the last blocks while listening to Charles Osgood guide us through some good and thoughtful news including a wonderful article on the English painter J.M.W. Turner and the fact the Blue Iris will be the Color to be in 2008. Then I came downstairs to see what the internet had to offer. Checking Bloglines to see who had updated recently, I was delighted to see that Dijanne Cevaal had something new to offer. It never ceases to amaze me how we seem to tune in to the same things. I like hers better but "I ran out of orange and red" seems a lame excuse. Maybe some checkerboard sashing? Maybe some ketchup and glitter?
Jude - I have to take a serious lesson from you. "SLOW DOWN & CONSIDER" would put it gently. I rushed this one into pell mell hell so far. I was knee deep in scraps when I remembered what I really wanted to do was a move on your little windows which will remain on my mental drawing board.
There are a few good shepherds on the QuiltArt mail list who, when the topics wander too often into dangerous or irrelevant territory, will ask the very pertinent question
"What are you working on" art-quilt-wise?" This time,when the bell was rung, I drew a blank.
Colin got me a copy of "Art & Fear " for Christmas and I started to keep my promise to self to make time for holding a book in my hands and taking the content in through my eyes and into my brain. Good Old Fashioned reading.
No sooner did I start the second chapter than I needed to put the book down and start assembling UFOs to be discorporated as ingredients for a functional, to be snuggled under, bed quilt. Much of the impetus for this project has come from Jude Hill's "Listen to the River" story. Really, it's where all my current work got started years ago. Making something useful out of drek. Making something to be beloved and long lasting. Making something that matters for someone who matters to me.
Not a bad way to start the new year.
Instead of wrapping, cleaning or baking, I'm crocheting.
I should have dropped a cat or something on this to give this some scale. It's getting big but a long way off from the 8 foot + diameter that I am aiming for. I've been going through my stash and cutting old hand dyes into one inch strips (with scissor, like a jerk!) and working with a plastic crochet hook that's fat like a Sharpie.
My whole point in making a rug? I'm "manifesting" new flooring to replace the ancient, hideous Berber wall-2-wall that's in the living room now. I'll keep you posted on that project.
Aside from a burgeoning case of self-inflicted carpal tunnel pain, I'm about the abandon the web for a few days. Before I go, a confession: I'm a Stumbled On junkie. Here are a few of the gems uncovered since I recently retooled and expanded my options:
This one will make your stomach flutter and/or make you laugh out loud. Dig a little deeper in Jeff's website and be pleasantly surprised at who you are dealing with.
Here is a beautiful little flash movie complete with music.
photos for all you bird fans out there.
ASL for shut ins and finally, Here's looking at you.
I got home from work this afternoon to find that my husband and my son had done all the dirty work involved in holiday decorating. The wreath had been unearthed from the attic and the tree was lit and decorated with all the ornaments we have collected through thirty years of marriage and family.
The air was full of the aroma of Jim's prize winning chili and I got to spend an hour refurbishing this little copper what-not that was languishing in the bottom of the ornament box because most of it's beads had fallen off.
Happy Holidays!
I've been busy making holiday postcards with the intent of sticking on the stamp and throwing them naked (the cards, not me) into the maw of USPS. I have great confidence that 99% will get to their destinations intact and on time.
I just spent an hour or so crocheting this coozie from that same wonderful cotton yarn I made the mittens from. And what's that poking out of the poke, you say? It's my very first cell phone unless you count the disposable kind you get from the grocery story.
I have resisted having a "real" cell phone for so long because our house is situated in a dead zone - no signal.
On the left, my Star Trek communicator pin that I bought from QVC when they first came on the air. I had hoped that someday, I could just slap that pin and make myself perfectly clear and even get beamed up but it looks like I'm still going to push buttons and get busy signals or no signal.
Exhibition Dates: Friday, December 7, - Sunday, December 23 Opening Reception: Friday, December 7, from 5-7pm Admission: $10.00. Free for participating artists. Gallery Hours: Friday – Sunday, 12 to 5 pm or by appointment Location: Kleinert/James Arts Center, 34 Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY
The Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is pleased to present the annual 5 x 7 Show, opening on Friday, December 7th from 5-7pm at the Kleinert/James Arts Center. This highly anticipated exhibition features approximately 150 original works created on 5”x7” canvases by prominent artists living in the Hudson Valley and beyond, including Gregory Amenoff, Nancy Azara, Jake Berthot, Donald Elder, Milton Glaser, Melissa Meyer and Joan Snyder. With sponsorship from TD Bank North, each work will be sold for $100 and is anonymous until after purchase. All proceeds support future exhibitions at the Kleinert/James Arts Center in Woodstock, NY. This one-of-a-kind show continues through December 23rd. You can contact (845) 679-2079 for a list of participating artists. This is everyone’s favorite little show so don’t miss out on all the excitement!
And Moi, too. I'm on pins and needles to see if my little things fly off the shelf and so honored to be in great company. Milton Glaser was a frequent lecturer while I was attending my Almost Mater, the School of Visual Arts in New York City. I know I paid attention most of the time, after all I was paying for it.
this from the Milton Glaser Studios website :
I love this picture. You can click on it get a better look.I shot it through the car window while we were waiting for our hosts to catch up with us at their house. "Yoo Hoo, honey, the Men in Black are here."
I got up with an aching back this morning and wasn't all that enthused about grocery shopping but I wanted to cook so I had to do the necessaries.
The Publix bakery worked their worst voodoo on me but while I was walking around in the store adding things to the cart, I had a change of heart about those two cannolis I was going to devour so I walked them back to whence they came. As I put them back into the cold case, who should appear over my shoulder but my best Angel, the ganster on the left in this photo, catching me red-handed being good. He was in the store picking up lunch things for his crew. Love you my darling.
Pass out the shades!
For lack of anything current to examine, here's my second ever art quilt from 2001 0r 02. I was working the late shift at AT&T answering a phone that never rang so I transferred my phone number into the conference room and kept myself busy by building this queen-sized monster on the huge conference table one hand appliqué at a time.
Unearthed in the recent studio move, it's mostly machine quilted and not bound, but real warm over the back of the couch.
It adds to my "pirate's den/gypsy camp" decorating theme doncha think?
My mother-in-law Eleanor passed away today after a long illness. We will be leaving for her funeral in New York tomorrow.
Eleanor was an "old school" kind of Mom, her kids and family came before anything else. She was the Very Best mother-in-law, trusting me to do right by one of her finest creations and never meddling with my job as wife and mother although she was an expert and I was a rank amateur. We always treated each other with love and respect and she will be deeply missed.
When Jimmy and I first made our intentions for each other known to our families some thirty years ago, Eleanor was the first non-skeptic. I'm a bit older than my husband and at first our families were a bit freaked out about it. After my first dinner with his family she and I chatted while doing the dishes. Well, she grilled me lightly as a mother should. I guess I gave the right answers because I always felt we had her blessings from that day forward.
The dyeing I could do in my kitchen but the drying of unrinsed fabric will have to take place out on the deck where I'll have to string some clothesline.
There will be cutting and piecing (did you know I was a closeted Amish?) and discharging and overdyeing going on too. In what order and how and when I am still pondering. Jeez, I don't want to overthink this one....grrrr.
In the meantime, it's back to the studio for more work on this one including meditating on a suitable name.
Don't you just love a bargain? I just got back from what I hope is my last pilgrimage to the grocery store for the things I forgot to get over the last three trips. These flowers were marked down to 2$ and were about to be tossed in the trash! I passed on the 3$ peach colored roses.
So there's a 22 pound turkey bathing in the kitchen sink that still has some ice crystals up where the giblets are stuffed and I'm blogging. It doesn't have to go into the oven until 1:30 (thanks for the calculations, Poppy)
because Jimmy won't be landing at Hartsfield until 5:30 if all goes as planned.
These two little pieces were made for an invitational art auction and have to get in a priority mail box tomorrow to reach their destination in time.
"The Egyptian Room" was inspired by the film "A Night at the Museum" which I finally saw last week. Both pieces are fabric collaged onto 5"x7"canvases with acrylic medium.
Take a look at this list. Do you recognize your home town? (If you do, send me an email and say "Howdy") This is a very partial list of locations for people who have had the interest to stop by my blog or website for a few minutes and look at my work and read about my life.
It just staggers me with hope and gratitude that so many people all over this planet can care about something as fleeting and inconsequential as the art-making of a middle aged lady in Old Dixie, America.
It reminds me that all over this world, in hometowns everywhere, we all have the same big concerns about family, hopes for the future and desire for life on this fragile planet. We all breathe the air and drink the water. I give thanks.
These crocheted cotton mittens took one documentary on Stanley Kubrick, one of his early films "Paths to Glory" and "Shakespeare in Love" to complete. Not a bad way to spend a slow Sunday afternoon.
I don't really know how to crochet beyond this one stitch so I just build with this one stitch right on my hand. I was happy they both turned out the same and can't wait for a frosty morning to try them out.
Pamela's talk about non-representational work and the mere mention of Mark Rothko has caused me to drag out pieces of hand-dyed damask and hand painted cottons that I could never bring myself to cut into and use them in a large way.
I recently came into a few acres of a really intense, black polyester blend that has found new life as base and backing fabric. Just gonna stare at it awhile and try to see how the stitching will help or hurt it. I'm having second thought about the center element. It's starting to look like a skirt.
This is me going away with Voodoo and Jinx who are not quite aware that the other is there or mayhem might have ensued.
And this is my little pagan family protection nest.
#3 is in the early stages. I resisted coming out of the blue palette but Jim insisted and he was right, but I'm not happy with some of the shapes so after the "brutal wash" there will be some hacking.
The mauve/gold/white pieces of fabric are a kind of cotton that you can no longer buy and take the dye in wonderful, fine grained marbled way that I could never reproduce in any other cloth. This was originally a sheet from my Aunt Jo & Uncle Chuck Morley's hunting lodge in Flint, Michigan so it is easily fifty years old. Two summers past, it became too fragile to continue as my favorite bedding so into the dyepot it went. I've been hoarding it ever since.
The cut work came from an estate sale in Narragansett, RI.
These two pieces have come together for me in ways that I have to call mystical. They are made from the hand dyed antique damasks and cutwork lace pieces that I have been collecting for a while now and based on that wonderful, cut-rate, ancient cotton muslin I scored at OHCO.
In some place the holes in the fabric were just there from age and laundering. In other areas I used sandpaper and a rock to abrade the raw edges and thin places for tearing - cotton damask is rough stuff. This one (55"x40") finished with less painting than I first thought.
The second piece has more stitching in it's future, some hand stitching and painting . They are both large, this oneis 57"x 42" , both too big to photograph inside the studio without picking up furniture in the frame but it's still dark out.
After the top was constructed and hand basted, I put it through a rough, hot machine washing with some work clothes. When I went to build it, I found that I had exactly enough batting left, to the 1/4 inch. I didn't see those spooky eyes until after it came out of the dryer.
Thinking about working on these pieces leaves me feeling vague and slightly possessed.
I like it.
After taking to her bed for a couple of days with lethargy and mopery, a 124$ trip to the vet for a look-see and some pink medicine, Jinx came into my studio today and jumped up onto the new WIP, rolled about and generally proclaimed herself on the road to recovery. We are all relieved.
I finished up work on what is now titled "XX" and pretty quickly "XX 2 " came together on the design wall. As big as it is, it turns out that I had exactly, to the quarter inch, enough batting to get this piece built. I did some things differently this time, distressing some of the fabrics with sandpaper and rocks to get the worn feeling I wanted.
ps. the original working title of this piece smacked of plagiarism according to the author of a book by the same name. He sicced his literary agent on me and the smell alone was enough to back me off and change the title of this whole series. We'll see what's in a name now that the book will not be mentioned here or anywhere else by me.
Pat was here representing Wildlife Artists, Inc. on a sales call to the Georgia Aquarium toting with her a huge duffle bag full of the most adorable collection of stuffed creatures you could imagine. Some folks get all the fun! When she's not pushing plush she's a kickboxer!
Here we are set up (before there was any light to see by) for a day of a little marketing and a lot of people watching at the Bostwick, GA Cotton Gin festival. Optimistic as ever, I didn't think about wearing a jacket and spent the better part of the day looking for a patch of sun to stand in. The "porto-Public" facilities were atrocious so I just didn't consume any liquid for most of the day.
When I say this place is out in the country I mean COUNTY. But just because we are in Georgia, don't think "redneck". This town and it's people are steeped in the culture of an American farming community and it was just plain nice to see hardworking people having the only good time for 50 miles around and none it having anything to do with what passes for contemporary cultural past times. A few ladies who might have had a nodding acquaintance with needlework paused by one of my quilts and then fell back clutching their hearts over the high price tag I had on it. "Honey, are these real diamonds sewn on here?" one remarked smartly. "Just WHY is this one so expensive?". My answer seemed to satisfy them- "I just really don't want to sell it".
The day started with a parade down main street that consisted of countless John Deere tractors, most of them vintage, and a few old school hotrods. The parade ended up in field just adjacent to the pecan grove where we vendors had our tents pitched. A good time was had by all.
As ever, my yard full of ghosts did a good job keeping the less hardy trick-or-treaters at bay. Tied to the ends of the tree branches, these are particularly effective when there is a breeze and I stand behind one of the trees and moan menacingly.
One adorable baby giraffe made up for a squad of surly zombies and a parade of Paris Hilton wannabes. What were their parents thinking?
I feel like posting a sign on the walk "NO ONE OVER THE AGE OF 10 PAST THIS POINT!" I am going to have to open an wholesale used candy store.
I congratulated my Dad early today on the Red Sox World Series win and now retreat into a "zero sports" mode until next April.
While waiting on a batting purchase for the Big Blue Monster
I'm trying to loosen up my freemotion moves with these little practice pieces.
At first I had wild notions of hand stitching it. I spent an hour at that this morning, took another look at the deadline and changed my mind. I can make my Janome do what I need for this piece.
Saturday I got down to OHCO an snatched up 10 yards of 90" cotton then made a special trip out to Snellville for batting and soda ash - a dyefest planned if the thermometer climbed out of the 60's. It never did but a quick check of dye colors on hand to find a seriously limited palette so a dye day will have to wait. Besides, I'm supposed to be getting ready for Saturday.
There are errands to run and a baby shower to get ready for so of course I started the day tinkering further with this WIP that I started on last night . I don't normally conjure up work for specific exhibits but this call for entry "BLUE" from Translations Gallery in Denver piqued my interest especially when I looked at the things I have done in the last few years and found Blue to be seriously under represented.
When I was little I always used every single color in the crayon box during a coloring session because I had this notion that if I neglected any colors, they would get mad at me, or maybe feel left out.
Blue, I hope I'm forgiven.
This was the house where I grew up in Golden's Bridge, New York, the lower Hudson Valley area just a short train ride to Manhattan but still very rural. I went home for a short and sweet visit this past weekend.
...and this was standing where the old house stood for 5o+ years! My brother is building a palace in it's place. It's an astonishing sight - the neighbors all slow to gawk as they drive by. I told Rob he should put a tip bucket out by the mailbox. He has put an incredible team of workers together to get this far since the first week of August. With any luck, they will be able to move back in before real winter sets in the way Indian summer has been dragging it's heels up in New England. The trees were barely thinking about yellow and orange!
We took advantage of the balmy weather to break Mom out of the nursing home to enjoy a construction site picnic the day before I left.
That's my brother Rob, my Dad (the ecstatic Red Sox fan) my mother Rose and one of my sisters, Kitty. She's a hair stylist and has worked a miracle on me. If I can make it do , with brush and dryer, what she did, I'll post a picture. If not, it's still a fabulous cut. Mom & Dad celebrated their 59th wedding anniversary yesterday. Whew!
We took a ride up to see Jim's family about an hour's ride north in the Catskill area - it was wonderful to see them too.
I took my sister to The Country Quilter in Somers to get my fiber fix and she became entranced with the ranks of bolts of fabric and put herself on the mailing list for future classes! A new fiber convert! They have a scrap bin there that should have a sign on it "QUILTER's CRACK" . All the scraps you can stuff into a quart sized baggie for $2.50 - I only got one but will send Kitty round to the shop to see what's new on a regular basis.
Today's snail mail was especially wonderful. These are some hand dyed cottons from the dyepots of Gail Myrhorodsky. For the moment, too wonderful to cut into but their time will come .
(cue the evil cackle)
Update - Here's the final version and thanks to all my brilliant friends."Mudmen Procession” is part of a series of whole-cloth, dye-painted and stitched works exploring the translation of simple gestures I call "arc and hesitation". These gestures commonly interpret as beings in various attitudes of interaction ; the similarity of forms and the repetition of actions echoing the behavior of humans congregating, as they will, like for like.
I had quite given up on finding a comfortable chair for doing handwork to put in my studio. Wasted time looking at pictures of chairs but never got my ass out to get acquainted with any of them. As more and more things came into the room there seemed to be less for even the notion of a comfortable place to sir and sew.
When I got home yesterday afternoon I found that once again, Jim knew my mind before I knew I had one and had hunted down and brought home the Perfect Chair, one that met all the rigorous "must haves" and "gotta be's" that I must have been talking in my sleep about, and installed it in my studio. He also had a half pound of cooked shrimp waiting and a good thing because by the time I headed home from the meeting (more on that in another post) road kill was looking good.
Previously loved and hardly ever sat in, it's the perfect size, shape, color, fabric - the list goes on. I'm one of those shoppers who most often comes home empty handed due to sheer pickyness. Jim found just what I was thinking about and made it happen for me.
Did I mention that pending star is a boy?
Here it is complete with stitch-in-in-the-ditch! This one is made for love, play, wash & wear and start all over the next day.
Some fun being had....
One of my best friends is soon to become a grandma for the first time and these 8" sqaures will go into making a Wild Baby blanket for the pending star.
Just picking out the fabrics for this one was fun. I stayed with the commercial fabrics for durability but the backside will be one of my favorite pieces of hand-dye that I've been saving since I started dyeing my own fabrics. If this side could be called "Sunny Day" the other will be called "A Sky full of Stars".
I'm running out of space on the design wall. Right now, it's seven pieces deep if you only count the ones big enough to overlap. I've gotta get sleeves on all these and take proper digital shots or I'll wind up calling them table cloths and tea cozys and bring them to the Bostwick GA Cotton Gin Festival. Jan Thompson & I are going to be splitting a booth down there on Nov.3 . All I have ready are a bunch of postcards and a half dozen velvet scarves.
This is the latest of the whole cloth,dye-painted group. 45"x45" as yet untitled but it's one of the Mob series.
Two days in a row I stepped over this leaf on the front stairs coming into the house.I think it wanted to be immortalized. Once I remember to take it out of the scanner, I'll tuck it deep into the pages of an old favorite book that's gathering dust on the shelf.
While looking through old files for inspiration for this rug hooking adventure I came across a picture of this fabric and was diverted to digging it out of the closet and readying it for some stitching. Looks like Halloween somehow. It's about 30"x40" and some ongoing cyber discussion regarding line in art (and stitching on quilts in particular) has me thinking hard about making a new approach to the stitched line.
I was still going in the pool right up til Friday but the night time temps have dropped off and I've been running a fever on and off for a few days. Probably something I caught from swimming in September.
We'll struggle daily to keep ahead to the falling leaves until the cover can be dragged out from under the house and installed.
The Braves just finished their last game of the season, their long-time TV announcer Skip Carey made his goodbyes and I found out (where have I been?) that Turner Broadcasting will no longer be carrying the Braves games to the nation. Sad.
So far nothing on the upcoming season seems worth watching.
I picked up a couple of wonderful books at the library the other day and set about to see what all the fuss is about. I like that rug hooking can be a real recycling art using almost anything at hand, and I got lots at hand.
With a quick stop at JA's for some burlap (shudder) and yet another crochet hook that I didn't really need. The fact that they didn't have a real rug hooking tool tells me that this technique is not on the trendy scale here in the South. At this particular JAs they are still up to their butts in scrapbooking materials/supplies and probably consider rug hooking to be a bit provincial like churning one's own butter.
I worked up this little sample in no time and I like it. The burlap doesn't thrill me but the potential and the notion of using whatever charms me.
I missed the chance to observe some pros at work at the ACA retreat back in March; I was too intent on my own thing and boy, they were intent as hell over their things too.
Come on over and see what's new in "Like Hotcakes". It was tedious as hell getting all them little buggers posted but if know one ever sees them, who will know?
