thelmasmith

Let’s see how we can do on identification. The first person who correctly identifies this image will receive a small gift. Please leave your email using DOT and AT to avoid spam. I’ll contact you.

The Mothers - No More Tears

Make some time and take some time to watch this YouTube introduction to a film in progress. The complete documentary will be called A Trail of Thread.

The haunting music in the film clip is called Water in the Desert.

I live in the Sonoran Desert. I know many of the immigrants. I learned long ago that I cared little what language was spoken as I saw good people who worked hard for a living and loved and disciplined their children.

It is so pleasant to come home and review all the posts on Planet.textilethreads. So much is going on. The synergy is building. I am really enjoying all the images.  Many thanks to all the artists who are building such an exciting community.
I had planned on using my vacation to be more disciplined about posting. However, life gets in the way. Here’s a late nineteenth century advertising sign; apparently thelma is a southern name.

A southern first name, and an uncommon one, at that, is okay, now that I’ve lived with it for more than sixty years. My great great grandparents left Virginia in the early nineteenth century. They anticipated the need for the Emancipation Proclamation.

This is a sealing iron, probably 1930s to 1950s vintage. I bought it to go with the beeswax.   I haven’t tested it to see if it works.  It will come apart easily.  I can probably rebuild it if I need.  It’s a nice companion to my 1950s GE iron.

I have not had the time or self discipline to work yet. I have two more excursions this month.

Beeswax and collagraph are calling my name.  I’ve an embellisher that I want to spend time with.  I’m also going to do some more focused study on abstract design.  I think that being forced to commit to design principles in abstract will enhance my work all around.  Once I have the design principles I’ve been using for fifty years reinforced, refreshed, and updated, I hope to use that active information to jump start my work again..

I hope I will have found both the direction and the ability to close out more mundane reality and work.

How many of you remember your American history? I learned much of mine doing research on the material detritus of the nineteenth century. I found that handling dauguerrotypes
and old wallpaper, clothing and furniture let history fall into a real place rather than dry statistics and dates.   A grease bucket for a conestoga wagon made history tangible.

In the fifties, the fashion was Davey Crockett and his long rifle and coon skin cap. Today, after traveling a full 24 hours, I saw the state park where Davey Crockett was born.

I’m on the northern edge of the Smokey Mountains. It’s the heart of the Tennessee River Valley Authority.

I have just come past the sign pointing to the home of James Polk. Here’s the image of a stamp bearing Polk’s visage.

The cameras are here. Maybe tomorrow I’ll give you a glimpse of what the south calls mountains. The Smokies and the Appalachians are old, old, very worn down mountains when compared with the Catalinas and the Santa Ritas in the Sonoran Desert.