thelmasmith

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.

My dear, Scots friend, Marion, has tagged me with these instructions:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

So, seven facts about myself.

• Frank Herbert lived in Port Townsend.
  As he aged he worked with a colleague. They picked my maiden name,
  Scudi, out of the phone book. The character, Scudi Wang, in the novel
  The Lazurus Effect so spooked me for years (1983). Many years later I
  went and got the autographed copy he had left at the local bookstore
  for me.
• I was born in Indiana and grew up on a farm.
• I came from a very non standard family.
• I love to drive. I use “doing miles” to air out my mind and my spirit.
• I love the surf of the Pacific Ocean; I miss it very much. Like “doing miles” I miss that help.
• One spring when I was a child we had nineteen kittens; five of them were pure white.

• I’m much more restrained now. I have only six cats.

Now, who shall I tag?

1. lauralyn sciretta
2. rayna gillman
3. pam rubert
4. susie monday
5. sabrina zarco
6. natalia aikens
7. denise aumick

Whew! That was an unexpected amount of work. All those tagged are artists who’s work and thoughts I admire.

I still have not printed my linoleum cut. I’ve another to cut and I want to add some lines to it before I do. The class moves on. I’m being dragged along without enough hours in the day or energy in my body.

I do come home from the end of class with my enthusiasm renewed. We have begun working on collagraph. I had ordered Collagraphs (Printmaking Handbook) by Hartill & Clarke. Their shipping policies are more kind than those of US companies.

Yesterday I got a look at Collagraph Printmaking by Mary Anne Wenniger. Looking at other people’s books always costs me money.

Anyway, here’s a look at the plates I’m working on.

Bamboo underlaid with tissue paper and gauze. The sidebar is heated tyvek, ironed to flatten. All these plates need more acrylic medium and a lot more sticking down. My husband brought in the shrink pack of generic super glue.

The cats jumped into the fishtail palm that is recovering from last winter’s hard freeze. I decided since this was already broken that it was fair game for a collagraph plate.

This one is dry bok choy. I had to reconstitute it partially to unfold it. I think it will make a good looking print. One of my classmates grew up in Hong Kong. The scent of the soaking bok choy drew her to my table. The remainder of the package, reminding her of home, went home with her to make soup.

From food for the soul to food that feeds both the soul and the body:

Fresh waterchestnuts!

If you have never had the opportunity to eat fresh waterchestnuts do keep watch in the oriental markets. They are a pain to peel. I simply sautéed them with a little peanut oil, garlic, ginger, and green onion. Food fit for the gods. You will never buy a tin can again.

The good news is that I have finished the Defensive Driving Program on the net. I still need to go in to the NTSI office and take the test.

The better news is that the structure of the net teaching is designed to force you not only to pay attention but to hone your peripheral vision. Verification questions can pop up in red, small print; answer in thirty seconds or less.

The strange news is that this is the only image in the entire course that is completely out of context. The stockings and the shoe are at least fifty years old. I wonder where they found this? I also wonder where they found a car with powdered coral rock on the floor.

The other week I took some glycerin and diluted it well with water. The porcelain, butcher’s tray, doesn’t show you the water. What you do see is the dry lotus leaf beginning to rehydrate.

What is imagined as a flat circular leaf floating on top of the water is, in fact, a shallow cone shape when dried. There is no way to open it fully.

The beautiful drops of water happen because of a natural film on the leaf.

It eventually, over a few days, softened enough to either make a print or to make joan, a chinese tamale, that one can still find in big city dim sum lunch rooms. I have eaten them. I do eat the lotus root.

I chose to make a print so that I could carve a linoleum block.

The one picture of all the lotus root was out of focus. You can see here, one uncut segment and some slices that were used to print.

I went looking for the lotus symbolism. I decided it was going to be a week long research job. Not today.  There is something about the lotus there for me.

I had to get the print work done as I was going to lose the lotus root; it survives a long time in my refrigerator but not forever.

Since I working on another project and trying to get it finished up, I laid the linoleum blocks away to be carved another day.

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.

Marion Barnett has tagged me as a gardener who might have something to say about living and growing things in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Hum. Once upon a time, long ago, and far away, I had both a gardener and a housekeeper. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

My back has had a snake like shape to it all my life; it does not appreciate stoop labor. I began to use flower pots thinking that would help. Even they are not high enough that I can keep them tidy comfortably. So, rather than seven things you don’t know about my gardening I’m just going to give you some images.

Claret Cup Cactus in bloom.

Santa Rita Prickly Pear in bloom.

The Texas Mountain Laurel takes a long time to grow large enough to flower. However the spring rains push it into bloom.

The end of the first, early spring flush of roses. Once we get to June and the 106º F weather the roses have to be deadheaded. Then with the first of the monsoon I cut them back less severely than in January and fertilize them. By September we will have roses again; they will continue blooming until late December.

One of the flower pots in bloom outside my workroom door last spring.

And last, but not least, a baby pomegranite that has not yet shed it’s flower. Now, in mid August, they are the size of softballs.

As to tagging anyone as a gardener; consider yourself tagged if you wish to play. The gardeners I know are June and Jer Underwood in Portland, Oregon, and Barbara Littlefield in Deming, New Mexico. I’m mentioning them; not tagging them.

Twenty Second Street is one of the arterial boulevards that runs east/west across Tucson. I saw this sign the other day. The next day I circled back, stopped, put the four way blinkers on the little red roadster. I got a decent image. What’s more is that I got it without being mowed down by dump trucks and semi tractors.

What is wrong with a society that kills off it’s children generation after generation? ? ? It’s nothing new; look at history. Am I stupid or something? I just don’t “get” it.

The bumper sticker on the Toyota says “Amy Goodman for President.” She’s the anchor for Democracy Now. Here’s the link for information on the Karl Rove resignation.

We wonder why the whole teenaged society has adopted the “don’t snitch” policy that was mentioned on 60 Minutes last night. In my opinion, CBS got one thing wrong. This distrust of authority has been fostered by our society. It is not just a phenomenon of the poor or the immigrant societies. The biggest contributor to this fear was summed up in a bumper sticker I saw weeks ago. It addresses the political tripe of “family values.”

Family Values Is Having Your Brother Steal the Election for You.

Uh, huh. Take a look at the Virtual Iraq War Protest. Gerrie, lift these images to add to your collection there.