thelmasmith

Commonly known as Ventura. This is now my home. I’ve a new version of WordPress. I am having trouble figuring out how to send you images. So, let’s do it semantically.

I left the Sonoran Desert last spring after twelve years year round. The climate is extreme, the land is beautiful, and the situation was very good to me and to my husband.

About a year and a half ago I formed a plan for one year, three years, and twenty years. I accomplished the one and three year plan is sixteen months. Age indeterminant has been accomplished. I’ve moved back to the ocean as I had to come back to the water.

I’m about eight blocks from downtown Ventura. I can see the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the end of California Street. I can see the pier that was a working wharf fifty to one hundred years ago.

The view of the town, which was built between about 1860(?) and 1920, most often looks as lovely and peaceful as an oldfashioned christmas card. The old gothic church is just two blocks down the hill. I still have not made it down there for meditation.

I can see the ocean from my deck. It is an ongoing vision of solace. I don’t get down to the beach as often as maybe I should. Looking out the door, sitting on the deck, looking into the floor mirror from the kitchen even gives me a view of the sea.

In August I heard an interview on Bookworm on PBS. An author was speaking about islands and oceans. He said that there is something very expansive about facing open water; psychically and psychologically it teaches your body and your soul that there are no limits.

amen

Thanks to my good friend in Montreal all vestiges of the hack attack have been removed. It is a wonderful thing to have friends you have never seen or hugged. Thank you, thank you! ! ! !

I’ve discovered the media file for WordPress.  When I get figured out how to post my own photos I’ll do that.  For this beautiful Saturday morning with a few clouds, a silvery, glistening ocean and 69ºF, have a wonderful weekend.

OH, and a quick ps.  My daughter just phoned.  I had loaned her my Singer 99K about twenty years ago.  She wanted to know what disposition as I told her it was not hers to get rid of.  It’s being placed in the trunk of my roadster later today.

Did you know that sewing machines are like cats?  All are welcome and we don’t count as all are self sufficient.

Not one of the hotlinks appears to have transferred.  I think you will have to google.

Arts Funding, Programming and Performance Opportunities:  Take the time to review this list.  Deadlines vary.
Ringing Rocks Foundation Offers Support to Conserve Cultural and Healing Practices of Indigenous People
Cintas Foundation Announces Opening of Fellowship Competition for Artists of Cuban Lineage
National Film Preservation Foundation Offers Grants to Preserve Avant-Garde Films)First Nations

Composer Initiative Invites Applications for Common Ground Grant Program
Open Society Institute Seeks Proposals for Documentary Photography Distribution Grants
ICMA Offers Public Library Innovation Grants
National Endowment for the Humanities Offers Small Grants to Libraries to Host Lincoln Exhibit
Music Matters Announces Music Education Grant Guidelines
Multi-Arts Production Fund Offers Support for New Work in Performing Arts
Big Read Offers Support for Community Reading Projects
National Museum of the American Indian Invites Applications for Indigenous Contemporary Arts Program
Blakemore Foundation Offers Support for Asian Language Study and Fine Arts Programs
Sundance Institute Accepting Entries for Documentary Fund
ASCAP Foundation Invites Entries for Young Jazz Composer Awards
NAMM Foundation Offers Funding for Music Making and Research
Nominations Invited for Carnegie Corporation of New York/New York Times I Love My Librarian Award
Harry Ransom Center Seeks Applications for Research Fellowships in the Humanities
Community Leaders Invited to Apply for Preserve America Community Designation
Guitar Center Music Foundation Offers Support for Music Instruction
Princess Grace Foundation-USA Announces Availability of Applications for 2008 Awards in Theater, Playwriting, Dance, Choreography, and Film
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Arts Program Announces National Projects Fund
American Councils for International Education Offers Support for Policy Relevant Research
Meet The Composer Accepting Applications for Creative Connections
Theatre Communications Group Announces Deadlines for Career Development Programs for Theater Directors and Designers
Bush Foundation Announces Artist Fellows Program
Surdna Foundation Announces Request for Proposals for Creative Writing Residencies for Teens

New England Foundation for the Arts: National Native Artist Exchange, a program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, provides travel grants for Native artists residing in any of the 50 United States to visit different regions of the country so that they may exchange artistic knowledge and skills to teach, learn, and collaborate in traditional and/or contemporary Native art forms. Travel grants of up to $1,500 will be awarded based on budgets appropriate to the scope of travel. Requests must be received no later than two calendar months prior to the departure date of the proposed trip. Visit the website listed above to review the program guidelines. Travel Grants for Native Artists up to $1,500 www.nefa.org/grantprog/nativearts/nativeartistexchange.html

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

When a dear friend was in the process of moving the inevitable down sizing occurred.  Things were going up on Craig’s list.  I got a note saying, oh, I think the overhead projector is priced too low. I’m also worrying about the space for the easel.

So, last Monday I trucked on up to the edge of Oro Valley.  Or maybe it’s technically in the town of Marana.  I don’t know.

Anyway, look what came home with me.  I’ve learned something about manifesting abundance.  I have always known that first you notify the universe and then you get to work.  That has now been technologically enhanced.

I use Firefox  as a web browser.  It gives me the ability to open innumerable tabs and my macbook remembers them from one day to the next.

I had been researching easels.  I must have had every style and every manufacturer and every retailer of easels in my tabs.  At the end of getting my web work done I would browse through all the easel tabs.  Finally I deleted them.  That’s when I got the note from my good friend.

Yes, the universe does work in interesting ways.

There is still time to turn in a letter of inquiry to be considered for National Native Creative Development Program for individual artists and the National Native Master Artist Initiative grant programs. Qualifying artists will be asked to complete a full application but only if you submit the letter of inquiry outlining your project first. These programs are open to all US Native people who are enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe, village, or state recognized tribe or village as well as to Native Hawaiian artists.
For more information visit: www.evergreen.edu

I’ve been quiet lately. I’ve been overwhelmed by life. That is slowly changing.

One of the things I’ve been up to is reading. Articles from the New York Times are taking some of my time.

The one linked above is good reading. It is about the issues of climate change and the touting of green everything from cars to light bulbs.  This article discusses all sorts of legal, political, bureaucratic, and individual actions.  I find it disconcerting.

I’m one of those people who grew up on a farm.  Self sufficiency seems to be in my genes.  I can build a fire or build a house.  I can read and think and look at all sorts of ideas from an analytical and critical thinking perspective.  This article, while covering all the bases, neglects the idea that most people are of good intent while being frantically busy.

One quite simple solution to all of this is to spend an afternoon – only one afternoon – and plant a tree.  You have contributed to photosynthesis.  You spent a lovely day in the spring.  You do not have to pull weeds.  Granted, you have done nothing directly to feed yourself.  But is that true?  You have planted a tree that will return oxygen to you!

Regardless of the part of the world, the culture, the economy, or the bureaucrats there are plenty of places that can benefit from the gentle gift of oxygen and shade.  Public places, private places, it matters not.  It’s something to think about.  That said as someone who has lived in both the tropics and the desert.  The lack of shade is the true poverty in these areas.

Reprinted from Women’s eNews as an educational service under the fair use doctrine of the U. S. Copyright Law.   Subscribe here.

As an aside, personally I subjected myself to a tubal ligation so that I would never face the emotional and psychological consequences of possibly having to make this sort of decision.  However, I will to my dying day stand tall for all women to retain the right to make their own choices.

“Abortion” as a search term had been blocked in POPLINE, the largest reproductive health database, according to an April 2 post by Women’s Health News blogger Rachel Walden. The research database is funded by the federal government as a project of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The result is that a person who types abortion in to the database for a keyword search will retrieve no articles on the topic.

Database officials advised a librarian who queried about the omission that the term “unwanted pregnancy” should be substituted instead. A more difficult search through the database’s index can still be used to retrieve abortion-related articles, but most average library users will not know the workaround, Walden, who is a librarian, points out in her post.

The database is funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is prohibited from distributing foreign aid to international groups that provide abortions, make abortion referrals or lobby for change in their nation’s abortion laws, under the so-called global gag rule policy of the Bush administration.

On April 4, apparently in response to bloggers, Michael J. Klag, dean of the Bloomberg School, reversed the decision to remove “abortion” as a search term and said he would launch an inquiry into the change. In a statement published on the school’s Web site, Klag said that USAID had found two items in the database that did not meet POPLINE’s criteria for “evidence-based information” and administrators decided to remove the search term.

It’s time to get Published. J. Mercury & Maxed Art present: The Plume Zine: [bicycle] Conversations. The new theme is: anything relating to Bicycles or Conversations. All submissions must touch on this theme. Submit written work (poems, prose, micro fiction). Must be under two pages, double spaced. All written work is subject to a selection process. Submit images (drawing, collage, photography) no larger than 8×10. If emailing your image, it must be saved at 300dpi. Artwork will be proportionally formatted to fit the ‘zine. Submit all work by April 3. The Plume Zine is: art for people. Our debut zine, God & Love, a hand-bound, double pamphlet stitch, in an edition of 50, was distributed at select locations in Tucson and just about flew off the shelves. God & Love had 11 contributors and debuted with a reading at Dinnerware Artspace gallery. [bicycle] Conversations will have a special debut party TBA — don’t miss out! (view blog for images) Email submissions to MaxedArt@gmail.com or call 245-2681. The future awaits you at maxedart.blogspot.com

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.