I’ve been “doin’ life” and missing out on my blog.  Apologies to everyone.  Here’s a life summary since you last heard from me.

Printmaking classes at Santa Barbara City College Adult Education.  The instructor, Siu Zimmerman, is the best.

Started an acrylic class as I need to get a lot more familiar with the paints themselves.  Will let you know how that goes if anyone is interested.

Helped birth seven kittens on Thursday, September 22.  Feya, the fluffy flier, is a good mother; Morgan Freeman is a typical teen aged father.  I lost one of the tiny, 58 gram, babies on day three.  By now – I weighed them at four days old – they are almost double in size.  I’ve still one runt, I think a girl, she’s a funny tan tabby color.  We’ll see if she is strong enough to survive.

Waiting to get weighed

Not much happening.  I’ve got to clean up my wet palette and add a couple of colors.  Then off to school.

Please go to:

thelmasmith.3rdward.com

The Vox Populi Award is based on public voting.  Take a look at a selection from the Left Turn Lane and vote for me.  Winning the Vox Populi Award will help me progress to the jurying process.  It’s a good thing to see art quilts in an artist’s venue.

Thank you for your support.  thelmasmith

Old fold to your left, new fold to your right.

The template I marked on the ironing board in permanent marker.  Makes the work go faster.

Another stack before refolding.  I find that working with the blues I have really few lights and a lot of mediums and darks.  You can see the edge of the scotch tape roll to the left as well as the cat bat.

It’s rather sensual handling and refolding fabric.  So many lovely textures and patterns.

I’ve learned that I need to completely fill the cubbyhole.  Anything less than full is a wonderful cat bed.  I can tell what was on the top of the piles in the arizona storage.  I am scraping off great quantities of cat hair.  The large roll of tape is doubled back on itself to form a self roller.  Speeds the process.  I keep both the tape and the cat bat at hand for my clothes as well.

Big Sycamore Stands Alone

with

Author Ian Record

Saturday, March 7th at 7:00 p.m.
Dinnerware Artspace
264 E. Congress
Tucson, Arizona

About the book:  In a groundbreaking debut of its New Directions in Native American Studies series, the University of Oklahoma Press announced the release of Big Sycamore Stands Alone: The Western Apaches, Aravaipa, and the Struggle for Place, a trailblazing ethnohistory of the Western Apaches, a place called Aravaipa, and the event known as the Camp Grant Massacre.

Called a “powerful and moving work,” the book represents the culmination of a decade of collaborative work between author Ian Record and the San Carlos Apache Elders Cultural Advisory Council, a tribal organization which works to sustain and strengthen traditional Apache culture and knowledge for the benefit of future generations of Apaches.

Book will be available for purchase at special discount price of $32 (20% off).

Refreshments will be provided

For more info, call Wendy at 808-9237.

end of press release

I know where Aravaipa is.

It’s quite a way west of Patagonia Creek that runs through the Patagonia Mountains to the east of where I live.  The title, Big Sycamore Stands Alone,  instant called to my mind the big sycamore standing in a pulloff from the highway along patagonia creek.

Sadly, this is the best image I can find of the work that features the sycamore.  I have no idea what I have done with my source photographs.

It’s a special place to me.  I know that it must be as special to the, Chiricahuas, the Mescalero, the Tohono O’odham, and the Pasqua Yaqui.

A century and a half ago these tribes, while not friendly collaborators, roamed southeastern Arizona. They foraged not only for food and game, many foraged for the materials to make baskets and containers for daily life.

Although I have not met the author of the book, I know that the reseach backing it has the impramatur of the University of Oklahoma Press.  That alone recommends it to me.

Let’s see if I can find the whole image of the Patagonia Mountains.  It will give you some, faint, view of what this land looked like in the nineteenth century.

Sadly, my digital files and my print files are not in the same place.  They do not duplicate each other.  The best I can find this morning is this WIP, on the wall.  It does not have the fauna nor the sky.  The size and resolution are minimal.  It’s at least a glimpse.

Brunswick Building Gallery

233 West Railroad Street

Missoula, Montana  59802

new oil stick paintings

Nancy N.Erickson

Four Day Exhibit 2008

Opening:  Thursday, October 2, 5 – 8 pm

                       First Friday, October 3, 1 – 8 pm

                         Saturday, October 4, 11am – 5 pm

                                Monday, October 6, close, 11am – 5pm

                              exhibition will be removed after 5pm

OK, First things first:  Nancy Erickson is one of my heroes.  She has subtly influenced my work for at least ten years.  Click on the image for a larger format.  If you are any where near Missoula, please, go visit the exhibition in my stead; send me thought images through the ozone.

Second:  I believe the address above to be a gallery I visited in Missoula in the mid nineties.  It was filled with art quilts before we were really thinking about them.  The trust of the exhibition  made white cotton gloves available in the absence of human monitors.

Third; What seems like a red herring.  Planet.textilethreads.com provides all sorts of international artists and calls to artists.  I underwrite this site as part of my contributions to my artistic community.

Fourth:  My web master and I have never bluntly or openly asked for voluntary donations to subsidize the continuing stream of information of this site.  I think it is time for each reader to contribute what they can.

Please visit my website and scroll down to the paypal button.  It is grouped with the purchase of the European Edition of Changing the World One Thread at a Time.  You need not purchase the catalog.  You have full decision making power in the amount you wish to donate.

Fifth:  If there is some wonderful philanthropist out there in the audience, I would love to own another of Nancy Erickson’s works.  I have a fondness for her polar bears.  thank you, thelma