Last Post

This is supposed to be the last post using blogger. The new blog is available at the usual place. This blog will remain here for archival purposes.

Extra, Extra, Read All About It

The last time I saw an extra edition of a newspaper was the Los Angeles Times the day Walt Disney died. I was downtown at the Central Mercado buying candied fruit for the holidays.

Today, here's your EXTRA. We've moved our blog. This one is archived on my own website and will remain available either here.

Progress Continues

Spring continues and has morphed into an unseasonable but tolerable summer. True summer will come in June with 106ºF temperatures.

Yesterday I worked all morning on the clean up and clean out of my workroom. The sorting and packing and throwing out was so strenuous that I slept all afternoon.

I've pushed the remains of the left hand closet junk yard to the far end of the five foot by eight foot dye board. This end is all the Hoffman Bali and stacks of hand dyes. All have to be sorted by color, tidied, and stacked.

I've made plenty of room on all the shelves with my clean out efforts. I've accomplished less than a fourth of the work. It does feel satisfying to get things in their proper order again. Too many years of pulling stuff out to try and then just jamming it back in and closing the door. What's the old cliché? If you're gonna play, you're gonna pay?

Looking for Romanian Website

I found that my web URL was listed on a page from Romania. All websites have behind the scenes panels where you can look up all sorts of information. That's the good part. The not so good part is that after a certain amount of time the information is discarded.

I would like to hear from textile artists, quilters and art quilters in Romania.

If you are an artist from far away please leave a comment on this blog or email me. I would like to do a series of blogs about artists from all over the world. Let me hear from you.

She Made Her Mark - Judges Comments

March 3, 2007

Judge’s Comments For “She Made Her Mark”

Best of Show - “Marie Curie”
By Carol Clasper

I could recognize the subtleties and surface complexities even from a distance. The hand x-rays were clear as well as a sense of radiant glow from around the hands. Subject was immediately engaging.

1st Place
“Seeking Higher Ground”
By Larkin Jean Van Horn

Doesn’t honor any one woman, but notes all who have stepped forward and held themselves up for all of us. Although not dramatic at a distance a closer view reveals a subtlety swirling emerald surface, textured by superb quilting. The eddies and whirlpools of stitching only make the elevation of the glass (allegorically, the individual) more dramatic. If I could have any of these quilts in my home to view daily, this one would be it.

2nd Place “Ruby Bridges”
By Marion Coleman

The entire composition of the quilt and its restrained use of color really accentuates the story of the girl who inspired it. There is a very journalistic quality to this piece.

3rd Place “Lady Godiva”

By Ruth Powers

Glorious color and superb quilting! The variety of stitched textures and fabrics are full of excitement and drama.

Ann Calland
The Quilters Hall of Fame
Museum Curator

Judge, Kathleen A. O'Connell
Herron School of Art and Design
Indianapolis, Indiana
Herron School of Art and Design, Associate Professor
Herron School of Art and Design, Visual Communications
MFA from Syracuse University

Kathleen looked over the entries several times in making her decision. She had good comments about all of the quilts.

Her Honorable mention if we had had one would have been “Doppleganger”. She really liked the play of light and dark, life and death, etc.

She very much wanted to give an award to the O’keefe quilt, but thought it was too much about Georgia’s work than about the artist’s own interpretations. But, she very much liked the upper center panel of the mountains and sky.

The Quilters Hall of Fame
926 S. Washington St
Marion, IN 46952

Someone Turned the Switch

In just a few days we have gone from frozen water dishes for the birds to 83ºF weather.

Sonora is like this. We never have a gradual transition from winter to spring to summer. One day you awake and everything has changed.

The johnny jump ups to the left are volunteers that seeded down. The parent plants have been good to me and true to their designation of perennials and reappeared this spring.

There has been a lot of trimming away of freeze killed leaves and so forth. So we shall see what remains of the plants in the pots.

I've been unwilling to venture into the tropical garden courtyard in front of the master bedroom. The fishtail palm is looking poorly and the last time I looked at the banana tree it seemed dead. I won't know if the roots have survived for another month.

Ah, Spring

A few days ago I got a wild hair. I emptied one of the two fabric closets. I still have the top shelf to empty. It doesn't count.

The point of all of this is to sort out, straighten out, clean up, tidy up, and get my materials in a newly orderly arrangement. I've been working out of these closets for two many years.

I pull what I need and then jam back what didn't work in a higgledy piggledy manner. Time to clean.

This is just the beginning. I have found one bundle of ivory silk broadcloth. It reminds me that there is a box that has yards and yards of silk broadcloth. I know my daughter sent them when she returned from Thailand.

I have no idea exactly where they are. Time and stamina are what I need. That and a mind that no longer resembles the ball running around in a pinball machine.

The baskets of white fabric, are only a beginning. I know that there is a huge basket of raw silks under the mangle. Oh, well. One day at a time

March, Like a Lion

Here in the Sonoran Desert we are, again, in the throes of winter. The saucer that holds water for the birds had a quarter inch of ice on it this morning.

Tomorrow morning is expected to be the same.

The datura, at left, was a photo taken in Liepvre, Alsace, last September. It is known here in Sonora as the sacred datura, a hallucinogenic.

Because it is such a beautiful flower I planted one in a big pot in the tropical garden courtyard outside one of the bedrooms. It looks as though it has been totalled. I won't know if the last two months of hard frosts has killed the root or not. It will be mid April before the warmth comes true enough to start pruning frost damage.

I hate to even go out there. My banana tree is probably gone. The beautiful fishtail palm is looking pretty sorry. I've been blocked with the art and balked by the weather with the garden. I did get the roses pruned a couple of weeks ago. I wonder if the freezes will destroy the fresh, dark red, new growth.

This store window, with the reflected shutter, is an image taken while walking in Ribeauvillé last fall. It's easy to see that I'm sick of winter. Wool socks and a coat to turn the cold wind are getting old. The brilliant Sonoran sun does little to stop the wind.

Just a Bit Snarky Today

My friend, June Underwood, and I were discussing lists and the various ways of using them. As working artists we all have many different ways. I seem to have been stuck. I am stuck. I am working on pulling myself out of stuck.

Today, I wrote down three things that have been let slide for a long time. The Howard Zinn quote was on a bumper sticker on the back window of my little red roadster. It was removed over my objections.

So today, I went Googling, and Googling, and Googling. I finally found not only the image but a bumper sticker, a magnetic attachment for it to protect the painted surface of my bumper, and the same message on a black Tshirt.

Seems like I am getting more than a little pushy in my old age. I have two of the three items taken care of. Now for the last. Maybe more tomorrow.