Catalog CD - Adobe

I am hearing from several quarters that people are experiencing difficulties with the European Edition catalog of Changing the World One Thread at a Time. This note will explain several things about the CD and provide some guidance to success.

The Spider provided me with an iso document to facilitate speedy burning. You will click on the CD icon and it will open a window that shows you a rather odd, rarely seen, iso icon. C lick or double click on that icon. You will open a window, then, with four icons. One of them will be the .pdf icon.

You may click on that icon and view the catalog directly from the disc or you may choose to drag and drop that icon (and thereby the catalog document) to your desk top.

Should you have difficulties opening that .pdf document go to the Adobe website. All Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader upgrades are free downloads. Update your Acrobat! Should you still have a balky computer, please download Adobe Reader 7.0.5. That software will open your catalog quickly and easily. Enjoy!

Carrefour du Patchwork, Liepvre, Alsace, France

I am working in Liepvre. There are many eighteenth and nineteenth century villages along the streams of Val d'Argent. Argent is the latinate work for silver. The mines have faded but the land and the villages are still as valuable as the silver that was taken from the ground years ago.

Jean Marie works for the village of Liepvre; his son, Siegfried, came by mid afternoon to give us a hand. What a delight to work with these men. My french is less than a toddler's. They were shocked at my ladies tape measure in inches. However, I went from quilt to quilt measuring for lattice. I marked the wood and labeled each one. Jean Marie did the sawing by hand.

This is one of the most brilliant means of hanging an exhibition in what day to day is a gymnasium. Good quality, white coated particle board; one and one half metres wide and two metres high is assembled with special steel corner channels. That means free standing, white, solid walls. Jean Marie then takes what appears to be copper rod and bends top and bottom to perfectly fit both the board wall and the lattice that holds the quilt.

He and I will work this afternoon. I need for him to help me move two works. One a quite long piece of lace and the other, Barbette Lockard's We Owe Them More

Vosges Mountains, Auberge du Sobach, Sainte Croix aux Mines, Alsace, France

Almost five days with no internet access. I am in the most beautiful country. High up in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace above Sainte Marie aux Croix. I see several things readily. The one lane mountain roads have fruit trees planted above and below to hold the soil and prevent erosion.

The food is exquisite. I have learned very quickly why my husband has the culinary expectations he has. The local specialties - none of this shipped in from far away - are sausages of many sorts. I saw blood sausages yesterday, such a wine dark as to be almost black.

Pork most often means locally cured ham. Turnips so sweet they melt in your mouth. I hear you saying, what on earth does food have to do with art. Everything! Food is art made everyday. A creation to feed much more than the body. It is intended to feed the soul.

Coming in from Strasbourg via Sélestat the cabbage fields tell me that the citizens prize cabbage so highly that I identified at least three varieties speeding by. I have no idea how many different cabbages I would find if I walked the lanes along the fields.

This is wine country. I see so may similarities with California, Napa and Sonoma Counties. It is easy to understand why the vintners of the nineteenth century chose the coastal mountains to root both their families and their vines.

Later today I will come down from my mountian perch and check my email. I am looking for WiFi; it is not easy to find. I understand I can go to the library. It is a formidable building, late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. What would be a mansion to you or me.



I have some motion tape already. I will try and pick up some still photos to add to this note today. Written 9.13.6.

Zeitgeist

About the letters in "Zeitgeist!" that seem to emerge more and more
upon viewing - Here's my thoughts: "Zeitgeist!" is more or less a
"freeze-frame" of the pulse and torrential pace of our world where
emerging technology affects virtually every aspect of how we lead our
lives. I think this is especially true in regard to how we
communicate. Sometimes the media and method of delivery overwhelms
the message - television advertising being a prime example. Between
individuals, groups, governments, even nations...how information is
presented can have immediate and lasting effects on how life is led
within a society and culture. In "Zeitgeist!" we see this in
microcosm. There is the rush and blur of colors and forms - each one
demanding your attention while vying for dominance. Beyond that we
see letters and numbers emerging and shifting position. These letters
and numbers suggest - to me - that the basic tool we have to
communicate and gain understanding of how we and others live in
contemporary society is language. Language implies communication.
Communication has the potential to establish bridges to our
understanding one another. I feel there's hope in that. My
understanding of the imagery of "Zeitgeist!" has only become clear
since Kanti Jocelyn-Bisgaard took the digital file and transformed it
from 2D to 3D format. Applying her vision for modifying the existing
design while selecting the kimono silk, printing, quilting, stitching,
and embellishing the piece has given "Zeitgeist!" a new
context...revealing layers of meaning that are at once both subtle and
explicit. I feel blessed to be able to collaborate with an artist of
Kanti's caliber.

Take good care!

James
© 2006 James Michael Lawrence
--
James Michael Lawrence
jmlawrence86@gmail.com

Three O'Clock In the Morning

Waiting for the car service to take me to the airport. You can see that the hand and eye of Pamela Allen will be good ju ju and keep all safe for the trip.

Really Last Minute, Honest

Five Years Hard Labor © 2006 Gwendolyn Magee, Jackson, Mississippi

Gwen's work Fire and Spirit: Burnished Soul arrived yesterday. I finished the roll of large quilts. I realized that she has had a great influence on my life. It began years ago when I first saw the House and Garden sidebar on the Gee's Bend Quilts. I commented on it quite pithily for the QuiltArt List. Then I thought about the demographics of that list and sternly softened my comments.

Gwen jumped in and said clearly what I had been afraid to say. All the pithy sentences I had cut out of my post were in Gwen's post. Little did I know then that she was not only speaking her own mind but she was tacitly giving me permission to speak my own.

About a month ago I actually wrote out and owned what I have been doing for the last five or six years. I comment on society. I speak clearly about what I see. It is both freeing and frightening. I doubt I will ever go back to silence.

Thought you might like to know how my life goes all alone in this house. All the smaller quilts were packed by 9:30 yesterday. Gwen says that the fedex tracking says her work in on today's delivery truck. That makes thirteen more to pack. They are too wide to go even in the long duffel I snatched from Sam. I'm waiting for Fire and Spirit to complete the roll.

I normally ship the Left Turn Lane in sono-tube - concrete forms of heavy cardboard for pouring round columns. I'm going to have to pay oversize. I can't take the risk of folding other people's beautiful work. Kit Vincent's Lancaster Series - Harvest is the longest.

So when Gwen's quilt arrives I'll finish rolling. Won't know until then whether the 10" diameter tube I have is big enough or if I have to take the truck to town and buy a 12" tube. Either way I have to cut wooden ends for the tubes. I went into Tucson to get a 12" tube. Wouldn't you know! The roll was too big for the 12" and it was rather small for the 14" tube on hand. I have used up the last of my bubble pack. Gwen, I stole your airbags to cushion the top of the roll in the tube. A least the 14" tube on hand already had ends.

A friend brought me the newspaper article. Full page with four more images: Letter From Home, Danza Serpiente, Choices I: Wind or Coal, and Surroundings 1850-3. Each of you will get your copy for your portfolio. The papers are laying on the dyeboard.

Yesterday was a fairly relaxed day. That's good. I needed the break.

Last Minute Update

I have not actually seen the newspaper yet. A friend phoned and said there are about half a dozen images from the upcoming Val d'Argent exhibition. The Green Valley News has always done a wonderful job of keeping a very large community aware of the work I do.

They are a little shaky on the timing. The article was written in August and no one thought to correct the "next month" line. Small thing. September 14 through 17, 2006, are the days of the exhibition.

I'll try to keep you informed. It all depends on where and when I find WiFi.

Last Minute Jobs

Well, today I take my husband to the airport. He is visiting his daughters and then going home with his son to Florida. He will have time there with both his sons. Will be good for him to have some attention in my absence.

Days are fleeting by. While I'm waiting for the airport run I am cutting the wall signage for the exhibition at Val d'Argent. Changing the World One Thread at Time will be at the Espace exposition - Liepvre. They kindly sent me a floor plan. The space allocated is good.

I thought those of you who do not work with textiles might like to see some of the tools most quilters in the US take for granted. That ruler has raised parts on the back that allows me to square up and hold in place. The little rotary cutter - that looks suspiciously like a pizza cutter for Lilliputian - is reserved just for cutting paper.

You will be able to glimpse three different blocks of text in three different colors. These wall signs are taken from the CD catalog. The signs even have a thumbnail of the work. But look carefully. These signs will give you a good idea of how much information the catalog will provide you. The images in the catalog, of course, are not thumbnail. Go to the Catalog Page.