thelmasmith

In spite of good intentions to write weekly, I’m about ten days out.

Spent the last week in Mount Vernon, Washington.  I went to attend my son and daughter in law’s yard rave.  Wonderful music, skillfully mixed, mashed?, overlaid, and selected was provided by Berto Ross.  He got a big thumbs up from me for taking The Stones You Can’t Always Get WhatYou Want with a heavy drumming back beat from another group of artists.  Lots of good music!

Deirdre,  the mother of my beautiful grandchildren, is an artist in her own right.  I’m sure if you search the link you will find some lovely images.

My daughter, Gabrielle Windsor, was at the rave. Check out her résumé and if you can provide her with a contact, please do.

Her two nearly grown sons did not travel with her.  Check here for lots more images.  She grew up in Port Townsend, Washington, and was one of the original participants in the Great Port Townsend Bay Kinetic Sculpture Race.

The Mediocrity Award  seemed the best way to reward the artistic efforts at the beginning in 1983.  It remains today.

Enough of old memories.  The Northwest always does that to me.  I am grateful for the years I spent there.  I learned a lot.  It’s nice to visit.  I don’t need to live there any more.

Actually, I need, spiritually and psychically, to live exactly where I am, here in Ventura.  I spent the end of last year and the beginning of this year searching the Pacific coast for just the exactly right small city to live in.

That I found an apartment with an ocean view is a bonus.  I came here willingly and will, no doubt, leave the same way.   No pictures today, the iPhoto says 82 remaining to import.

OH! ! ps,   I will be offering things for sale, here, on the blog.  For the first offering:

White Homespun Barley Cloth

This is 100% cotton; each thread will remind you of kite string.  It has one inch hems on the 92″ wide ends; one selvedge and one zig zagged edge.  It is seven and one eighth yards long.

7 ₁⁄₈  yards

 This  is a spongy drapery cotton.  It is normally used hung crosswize for seamless curtains or made up into drapes.  Homespun House no longer stocks the barley cloth weave; the monks cloth is the closest match.  Barley cloth, originally twice as wide, has more depth and texture.

Contact me if you would like to buy this.  I will scan a sample next week.  I will post the image.   Remember this was originally 110 inches wide and has been washed down to eliminate the shrinkage.  Price is $110 for the whole cut.  Shipping cost (FedEx Ground) will be added.  This is quite heavy; shipping may run as high as $35.  I will charge you my cost plus the cost of the container.   I do take paypal through my website; scroll down from the link.

Sorry for the long sales ramble.  That’s what happens without preplanning.  Keep in touch.  I have a second piece of barley cloth that is similar in size; I’ll have to find the card for that one.

Hello, everyone,

I’m going to see if I can manage the self discipline to write on this blog at least once a week.

I have moved from the Sonoran Desert of Arizona to the Pacific Coast in Ventura, California.  Check out my view:

The days when we have strong sun the view is even better.  Some days we can see all the Channel Islands.

We are really struggling.  The fog comes sweeping in.  Forget little cat’s feet.  This is a theatrical curtain.  Summer comes in bits and spurts.  Some days we have six or eight hours of glorious sun.  Some days it’s cloudy.

I count myself very lucky to have such a wonderful view and such a mild climate.  The desert was a place of extremes.  Being ten blocks up the hill from the ocean is a dream of temperate consistency.

Since I moved from a three bedroom house with a three car garage to a one bedroom apartment with A parking space, the adjustment has been interesting.

I’ll try to begin posting quilt books and magazine collections for sale in the next month.  I would like any feedback and inquiries if you are looking for a specific book or magazine.

Recently, a colleague asked me if I could republish some of my Sonoran Desert landscape commissions.  Let’s see what I can find on this disk I dugout.

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

Kate Lenkowsky and I met at the International Quilt Study Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 2003. Lots of star power quilters to interview. The result is stunning.

This arrived by courier this afternoon. I have not had time to study more than the Table of Contents. The last quarter of the book, A Guide for Buyers & Collectors, is information that has never, to my knowledge, been put in one place. The information is extensive. Lenkowsky covers care, insuring and appraising as well as a long list of other topics in the guide.

Contemporary Quilt Art, An Introduction and Guide, by Kate Lenkowsky is published by
Indiana University Press. Extensive author’s commentary accompanies the large color photographs. The quality of the printing and binding are lovely. IBSN 978-0-253-35124-1

I was at the University of Arizona Museum of Art today. This is from a new installation by
El Anatsui.

These works are copyright of the artist and are shown here under the doctrine of fair use for educational purposes. The work above uses the rims of screw on caps of cheap liquor that the anglo world has exported to Africa for the last several centuries. It references that societal problem, the problem of garbage, and also the West African textile tradition.

Not to mention that it is lusciously gorgeous and cries out to be carressed.

More societal commentary. Aluminum printing plates used in their most maleable form to comment on waste and waste paper in particular.

If you are traveling or happen to be around Tucson, Arizona, do yourself a favor and go to the University of Arizona. There is the Museum, two galleries, the Center for Creative Photography, the Flanrau Observatory, the Arizona Historical museum and much more.

This is one of the first semi-successful prints from one of the linoleum blocks I’ve carved. My husband stole the print of the cat laying in front of the full moon. The old cedar tree taught me that it is much more sensible to carve the object. Carving away the background even when you leave a border to support the brayer requires much more skill than I have right now. I’ll have to actually get my printing done on good paper instead of just testing on typing sheet sorts of samples.

Last Wednesday I struggled with intaglio wiping the large, multi color, chard collagraph. I failed miserably. Then printed it again after more wiping. It was only a minor failure.

I cleaned the plate. Printed a blind emboss from it Wednesday and it is only a minor failure. The blind emboss, done Thursday, from the bamboo was good with only minor creasing. These are a couple of details from the blind emboss from that plate.

However, the real success on Thursday is a bunch of small square and rectangular offcuts from the big bamboo plate. I did one and then rearranged the modules.

I did five consecutively with increasing pressure. The last one was two half inch foam blankets and then thin, thick, and medium regular blankets. The blind emboss combined with the half sheet (smaller) of paper meant that I could put on gonzo pressure and still not break the paper.

Pretty rewarding to see the progression of the five. I forgot to take the camera with me on Thursday. Now I’ve got my confidence up just a bit I think I will ink each module with a different color, wipe, and print. I’ve also taxed my body mightily even though the gearing on the big press is pretty good. My shoulders and my back are telling me I ran a LOT through that press last week.

I have fallen way behind the pace of the work and the assignments. I don’t know how the kids who are taking twelve to sixteen credits are handling the volume of work.

The big plates are beautiful but a real headache. The press is thirty years old and has experienced all that teen aged students can imagine in it’s life. The bed will take a fifty inch long piece of paper; the roller is about thirty inches long.

I guess I should spend the weekend reading the text books. However, the two women, with great experience, who come in and work on lab days are very kind and teach me a lot. I’ve been delivering pomegranites for rewards.

I like the multi cultural and multi generational aspects of the class a lot. I guess it is time for me to become a bit more social person again.

A request from an old friend sent me to the old slide master files. She remembered a commission I had done in 2002. One of the things it proves is the foolhardiness of keeping backup on Cds. If they aren’t clearly marked you will never find what you are looking for.

Since I keep images in my picture files on an external hard drive to keep the speed of my machine and I’ve changed machines since then it was a challenge. However the artist’s statements were still in the 2004 business files. TMI, I know, you didn’t need to know all that.

These images are commissions that were made in 2002 and before.  They are in private collections.  This is probably the only chance you will get to get a glimpse of them.

Preliminary sketch.

One of the images, backed by textiles that was sent to the gentleman who was handling arrangements for the commission.

The cliffs along the highway, byway, along Patagonia Creek. This is the road from Nogales, through Patagoia to Sonoita. You can see the image in the snapshot and the detail.

The far mountains were too bright; they advanced too far in the picture plain. They were covered with a printed sheer. The lines were then couched to reinforce the shaping while retaining the distance.

This is, by far, my most favorite detail of the whole work. Click the image to enlarge. There is a coatamundi in the lower left corner. The tall agave blossom tell that that particular agave has reached it’s life’s end.

The whole image, All is Right With the World. It is five feet high and eight feet long.

See all those folds in the mountains? Every one of them is a passageway for a traveler who is looking for a way to feed his family. For every traveler who gets through safely and finds a job a village of forty people stay at home, retain their own culture, and survive from the wages that one poor man sends home.

Other things to remember about the Sonoran Desert, it is the wettest, greenest desert on earth. You will see the Patagonia Creek Ford at the lower right. In reality that ford is three miles down the road. It is fed by an artesian spring up in the hills above Sonoita. It has fed this land for eons.

Water in the desert is rarely seen; it is like the force that runs the universe. Seldom seen, yet it’s effects are seen everywhere.

Now, I’ll show you an earlier commission, Desert Icons, that led to the one above.

This is the mountain range I see from my workroom windows. The mountain on the left is Mount Hopkins. It is home to the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory. To the right is Elephant Head. If you look closely you will see his ear and his tusks. These mountains are all volcanic remains.

My favorite detail from Desert Icons, the Harris Hawk. He is about the size of my fist and I have small hands. There are twenty one different pieces of fabric giving him life. His stick nest is appropriate as the sahuaro is the place the hawks nest. It was made by destroying a child’s toy witches broom.

The last, Painted Desert, now in a private collection in France. This piece was the original piecework of the far, rolling, valley in AIRWTW; it was much too bright. It landed in the dustbin. I finally thought, no, it’s much too beautiful to throw away. I cut it and added the brilliant red orange, turned pieces this way and that. The backing was turned in instead of binding the work.

The image, is one of the Las Madres with artist, Valarie James, as it was being unpacked at the Tubac Center of the Arts in February, 2006.  It was a portion of the exhibition Changing the World one Thread at a Time.

Still, people are dying. Valarie James has produced one of the most professional and lyrical laments and memorials to this sad process. Las Madres, No Mas Lagrimas YouTube is well used and the subject matter is well served in this short film.

The back story on the journey of Las Madres is on Valarie’s blog.  Fortunately, the monsoon has come to the Sonoran Desert. It brings vicious squall lines, torrents of water, thunder, lightening, and flash floods. It also brings us much needed water, humidity, and a cooling of the intense heats of June and early July. A thunder storm can lower the temperature thirty degrees in a matter of minutes.

Pictured above are Sonji Hunt and Rhonda Blasingame. Do go to Sonji Says for a much more complete description of the class. Rhonda, please contact me; I’m unable to find how to email you.

Among the things I firmly believe is the idea that textile art is not well served by being kept to itself. We use the words art quilt and wonder why no other artists are interested in our work.

I went to the Tougaloo Art Colony in Jackson, Mississippi, last week because the words said art colony. I have never spent a week so joyously.

Ceramicists, painters, enamelers, textile workers, all noted and acclaimed instructors, most who were professors at other institutions came together for a week of very intense study. Very intense study was combined with very intense discussions, meals, trips out here and there.

Adding to the mix of intelligent conversation and hard work was the multi cultural aspect of Tougaloo. Above are Debbie, Sonji half hidden, and Annie from Chicago. Sonji will have much better pictures and more details.

I think this was about the point when we had all painted yards and yards of fabric and were beginning the next step in Sonji’s process.

It was quite interesting; each of us immediately had a recognizable painting style. We were creating layer after layer of painted fabric. Each layer from the big stack related to the painting before it.

Rosalind, our teaching assistant, is backed by Rhonda’s rust dyed works just behind Rosalind and on the left. The bright multi colors to the right are all Sonji’s brought to give us some idea of what and how the process goes along.

Do not be fooled by Rosalind’s seemingly plain pink fabric; when done it was a gorgeous blue fabric with pink underlays.

I’ll be more on my game tomorrow and the next few days. In the last eight weeks I have made fourteen separate flights. The airlines are fourteen for fourteen. Every flight was either delayed, double booked, canceled, delayed for mechanical problems, delayed for lack of crew, or delayed by weather. In spite of the cost of fuel I think next time I will drive.

That means I plan to go back to Tougaloo next Art Colony. It will be an entirely different group of professors. I have no idea what I will sign up for. I do know that I wanted to get my hands in to every medium that was taught next week. I’m hoping they will extend the Art Colony beyond one week