at the High

the Flower Carrier - 1935 - Diego Rivera

 Linda and I ventured into the city yesterday to see "Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting" at the High Museum.

I found Frida Kahlo's work sad and depressing and could    only  think how a caring therapist or the right meds could have helped her. Given her physical calamities, she had every right to her sorrow but it was tedious alongside the lush exuberance of Diego Rivera's work.  If you are in or near Atlanta don't miss this show.

Lush Life rescue

What I really need to be doing is cutting and fitting five sleeves onto the black and white series. The biggest, KV, is pinned and I'm stitching away. Hours of mindlessness.

And here's more..."Lush Life" dates back I don't know how many years. There is so much I love here and I hope I can save at least some of it. It's another example of being in love with specific elements  of a piece and totally disregarding crucial design concerns.

The first order of business will be picking out all the insane, loopy and the ill-advised machine quilting buried in the tender damask and a half inch of a felted cotton batting that weighs a ton.

 I'll just sit here and pick.

chapters end

I finished "Karma V" this morning. I never did count all those french knots. Final size - 44"x36".  Nothing new on the design wall right now but soon.

This one is still under the needle but there isn't going to be a lot of stitching. The truth is that I was in love with each of these pieces of cloth on their own and don't want any of the colors or textures to be secondary to any unnecessary surface embellishment. Color field painting has always been a favorite  

b

a tear soaked headless blue horse

Here I am happily working away through the rerun of last week's episode of Downton Abbey blissfully unaware of what was heading down the pike at the end of the one that followed.

Jimmy, it was good you were not here for this one because the weeping and swearing was just awful! You would have woken up growling.

It's crazy that I get so emotionally invested in one or two TV shows a season. The funny thing is I've only just started watching this show and have barely gotten the names and faces straight before the writers started knocking people off!

Juicy

Jake's cat Juicy has lived with us for a while now but he is still extremely shy, mostly of me.

He misses Jim, who has become his best bud.

A consummate opportunist, he has made camp in the first place in the house that gets the morning sun, my sewing chair in the studio.

(the little quilt he is claiming was made for a cat and says "you can help by sleeping here")