Violet Patch

Celebrating the Creative Spirit Workshop

2010-09-03T10:36:00.000-04:00

Next weekend Marilyn Hughey Phillis and I will be offering our workshop at Sandscrest Retreat Center. It promises to be a beautiful weekend to get away to this beautiful, quiet place where we are well fed and cared for, and where we have uninterrupted time to create.

Small class size ensures quality time with Marilyn who acts as guide and mentor helping each participant try new paths, stretch self-imposed limitations.

I will offer a class on clay monoprints which is a wonderful, playful release from tightly held paintbrushes and cerebral painting. Let go and let clay! Serendipity and creative accidents provide beautiful, never-fail monoprints. At the same time something, the creative spirit perhaps, is released and artists find that on returning to their painting blocks have been removed, new options become viable. It's an exciting juxtaposition of art styles and media.

If you are in the Wheeling area, or if you are interested in joining us, there are still a couple of spaces available. Contact me through this blog or email me at cherylrharshman at gmail dot com.

Hopefully there will be some new work to share on my return from the workshop.

Playing with the Paints

2010-08-16T13:13:00.000-04:00

Here is my newest rooster. Where do they come from? I don't even like roosters! But part of the attraction are that they are fun to draw.

This one is a watercolor monoprint, the second pull from a plate that I painted at Hemlocks Studio last month. Hemlocks has been a great treat/re-treat place for me these past few years. A quiet cottage in the NC mountains filled with creative, talkative, wonderful women.

I spent my days at Hemlocks learning about paint and color and value. I don't usually consider myself a painter, but I think that one form or media informs the others.

In fact there was also some dyeing and felting. Here is a dyed, felted, over-dyed scarf made in a workshop with Chad Alice Hagen in Pittsburgh on one of the hottest days of the year. Yes! Let's hear it for steaming hot, wet wool!

And yes, these pix are in reverse order!

So this summer there are watercolor monoprints, wet wool, and abstract paintings, but so far no clay monoprints. Hopefully that'll change in the next week or so because a deadline looms and I've got to get some work made for a show in October.

More later.

Happy NYC Girls

2010-07-19T15:33:00.001-04:00

How does Mom celebrate her birthday? Why with her kid in NYC. We had an art-cation this past week and braved the heat along Manhattan's canyons. Lots of museums and galleries and great food of course.

New Work--Monoprints

2010-07-06T10:58:00.002-04:00

Got to spend some time in the studio over the long holiday weekend. This is one of the results. I have been working on a series of altered pieces, Doors & Windows, in which I combine clay monoprints. Using scissors I cut windows or doors in the monoprints and lay another print under so that the viewer can "see into" it. Then I outline the doors and windows using various stitiches on my trusty sewing machine. For this piece I noticed that I still needed more lights to contrast with the darks and middle ranges, so a third print was cut and used lintel-like across the doors and windows to bring in lights and the bright blue. Lots of repetition here with the vertical and horizontal shapes as well as repetition of colors.

FALL ART RETREAT WITH MARILYN PHILLIS SAVE THE DATE! September 9-12

2010-06-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

SPEND A WEEKEND WITH MARILYN HUGHEY PHILLIS & CHERYL HARSHMAN AS YOUR GUIDES INTO CREATIVE REALMS

CELEBRATING THE CREATIVE SPIRIT:
a workshop of art and creativity

September 9-12, 2010
Sandscrest Retreat Center
Wheeling, WV

This workshop will emphasize the creative nature that is a part of each being. In the very act of creating, there develops a unique expressive image which creates the individual artistic statement. This can be a sacred and very personal act for each artist. That inner spiritual nature within each artist must be expressed in its truest form to create, through design and expressive energy, a work that has impact and also reaches the heart.

In the beautiful settings of trees and hills of Sandscrest, we can gather informally to search for nature's and our own message in our work. Some exercises will be suggested, but you are free to pursue your own search during the workshop. We seek to become better visual communicators through our paint, brushes, papers, and sharing of dreams and ideas.
Marilyn will share different approaches to your personal statement plus explorations of fluid acrylic paint and/or watercolor in ways of expressing nature's beauty.
All levels of experience accepted. A materials list will be sent on receipt of registration.

The Details
Cost for the workshops, from Thursday dinner through Sunday lunch, includes all food and lodging. Rooms are twin bedded with shared bathrooms. Sandscrest living has a comfortable, shabby chic feel and is not a resort. Plenty of parking is available for those driving and travelers by train, plane, or bus will be provided ground transport to Sandscrest. Class limited to 20 participants.

Look for more info & updates at: www.violetpatch.blogspot.com
MARILYN HUGHEY PHILLIS
72 STAMM CIRCLE
WHEELING, WV 26003
304-242-6831
mhphillis@ yahoo.com

Gal's Best Friend

2010-01-19T11:09:00.001-05:00

So here is my darling dog, Smiley. She's just had surgery, a basketball injury, she blew out her knee. She is resting and healing well. She is a dog of mature years, and the jump shots and fast breaks have taken their toll on her!

She has been invaluable while I've been knitting a baby shower gift this week. Actually, this is not the yarn that went into the baby gift, this was old yarn for playing with. Smiley is now using all for legs again, thank goodness.

RESERVE YOUR PLACE IN THE MARCH WORKSHOP

2009-11-18T15:06:00.001-05:00

SPEND A WEEKEND WITH MARILYN HUGHEY PHILLIS & CHERYL HARSHMAN AS YOUR GUIDES INTO CREATIVE REALMS

CELEBRATING THE CREATIVE SPIRIT:
a workshop of art and creativity

March 18-21, 2010
Sandscrest Retreat Center
Wheeling, WV

This workshop will emphasize the creative nature that is a part of each being. In the very act of creating, there develops a unique expressive image which creates the individual artistic statement. This can be a sacred and very personal act for each artist. That inner spiritual nature within each artist must be expressed in its truest form to create, through design and expressive energy, a work that has impact and also reaches the heart.

In the beautiful settings of trees and hills of Sandscrest, we can gather informally to search for nature's and our own message in our work. Some exercises will be suggested, but you are free to pursue your own search during the workshop. We seek to become better visual communicators through our paint, brushes, papers, and sharing of dreams and ideas.
Marilyn will share different approaches to your personal statement plus explorations of fluid acrylic paint and/or watercolor in ways of expressing nature's beauty.
All levels of experience accepted. A materials list will be sent on receipt of registration.

The Details
Cost for the workshops, from Thursday dinner through Sunday lunch, includes all food and lodging. Rooms are twin bedded with shared bathrooms. Sandscrest living has a comfortable, shabby chic feel and is not a resort. Plenty of parking is available for those driving and travelers by train, plane, or bus will be provided ground transport to Sandscrest. Class limited to 20 participants.

COST: Early bird discount before February 20, 2010 $495
After February 20, 2010 $525
Look for more info & updates at: www.violetpatch.blogspot.com
MARILYN HUGHEY PHILLIS
72 STAMM CIRCLE
WHEELING, WV 26003
304-242-6831
mhphillis@ yahoo.com

Marilyn Phillis has taught workshops across the nation for the last 35 years and is recognized as a teacher who nurtures and challenges her students through helping them to find their own personal statements. The inner spiritual creative element is a long cherished potential she finds as a hidden way of expression among many students and tries to help develop. Elected member of American Watercolor Society, AWS, and National Watercolor Society, NWS, Author of WATERMEDIA TECHNIQUES FOR RELEASING THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. In 2000, she was elected to two Halls of Fame: The Wheeling, WV Hall of Fame and the Kent, Ohio Hall of Fame.

SOLD!

2009-11-11T09:15:00.005-05:00

Pots & Prints enjoyed a festive opening last Friday. Folks offered lovely, encouraging comments and even better, they put their money where their mouths were. Several pieces have been sold including two small collages in shadowboxes and these monoprints. (In the bottom picture, it's the monoprint with the black mat that sold.)

Thanks to friends and supporters of the arts who visited the show.

ART ON THE WALLS

2009-11-02T08:42:00.000-05:00

Spent Saturday at ArtWorks Around Town hanging my work for the show opening on Friday, November 6. I always feel so amazed to see my work out of the dark basement where it's made & stored and on walls under nice lighting. Wow!

I visitor to the gallery looked at the work after it was hung and asked, "How many artists are represented here?" "Just me, so far," I replied. Her comment made me laught, first because I was pleased that someone noticed the different media I work in; and second because I must be schizophrenic--the many faces of Cheryl!

The opening reception is November 6 from 5-8. If you are near Wheeling, please come. The show will hang through the month.

New Art Show @ ArtWorks

2009-10-29T09:18:00.005-04:00

I've been working for months on new clay monoprints, having lept to a
larger size 36"x36". I think they are all ready. I've double checked the frames. I've added and deleted the lesser pieces. I think I'm ready to hang the show.

I will be joined by Lambros, a fabulous local potter and friend, as we combine his pots and my clay prints. We hope that visitors will see and feel the attraction of clay in its different forms.

The show "Pots & Prints" opens November 6 at ArtWorks Around Town, 2200 Market Street, Wheeling. The opening is from 5-8pm and the show will be up the month of November.

Please visit.

Art Workshop

2009-10-27T10:54:00.005-04:00

What a wonderful weekend of making art and making friends! Ten of us gathered at Sandscrest Retreat Center to paint and make clay monoprints. Here you can see a wonderful class project that we made together to learn various clay printing techniques.

Colors, textures, and lots of inspiration from the autumn majesty surrounding us lead us to stretching our creative boundaries.

The view from the veranda was awe-some

We have dates for 2010, so plan to join us.

March 18-21 a long weekend for painting, printing, and recharging your spirit after a long winter.

June 13-19 a full week to go deeply into your creative spirit and take your art to a higher level.

New Work

2009-08-03T12:32:00.003-04:00

Finally finished! Here's a quilt that was started last year on viewing a fabulous exhibit of Nancy Crow's new work. Trying to learn from her, I triple dyed the fabrics, then machine pieced the top. How is it that an entire year can pass between times working on a project? This weekend I spent some time with the quilt and finished the backing and the quilting. Voila!

In preparation for my November's art show, I gave myself a mini art retreat weekend. While I worked on some painting and color theory (and the above quilt), I also tried tearing apart ugly clay monoprints and sewing them back together. The jury is still out on how effective this new technique is, so if you want to weigh in and leave me a comment, that would be welcome.

I've been thinking here about doors and windows; the comings and goings of our lives.

New Summer Work

2009-07-29T11:21:00.008-04:00

I have been making some art. The clay monoprinting has been very exciting as I have moved into a larger format, 36x36. I love this size, although it is physically more challenging as well. Challenging because of the weight of the clay in the frame as well as the amount of upper strength it takes to rub and pull a print this size. But I really like it all!

One of the earliest pieces in this size is currently hanging in the Cultural Center in WV's capitol. The title here is "Christos Rey" and I am thrilled to be included in the Emerging Artists of WV Juried Show. This exhibit showcases emerging artists in the the Commissioner's Gallery in the newly refurbished WV State Museum.

More new prints came out of the time spent at the Celebrating the Creative Spirit with Marilyn Phillis. They reflect my visit to the Axelle Gallery in Chelsea, NYC and show my attempts at a new painterly style & technique.

And finally, two more prints as I work through my two interests-- Abstract Expressionism and Minimal Ruralism. LOL, the clay monoprinting technique does not allow for details and so these two approaches seem to work in creating bold images on the reemay. Hope to have more to share in the coming weeks.

CELEBRATING THE CREATIVE SPIRIT

2009-04-08T10:11:00.005-04:00

SPEND A WEEK WITH MARILYN HUGHEY PHILLIS & CHERYL RYAN HARSHMAN AS YOUR GUIDES INTO
CREATIVE REALMS

March 18-21, 2010
Sandscrest Conference & Retreat Center, Wheeling

Marilyn Hughey Phillis

This workshop will emphasize the creative nature that is a natural part of each being. In the very act of creating there develops a unique expressive image which creates the individual artistic statement. This can be a sacred and very personal act for each artist. That inner spiritual nature within each artist must be expressed in its truest form to create through design and expressive energy a work that has impact and also reaches the heart.

In the beautiful settings of trees and hills of Sandscrest, we can gather informally to search for nature's and our own message in our work. Some exercises will be suggested, but you are free to pursue your own search during the week. We shall seek to become better visual communicators through our paint, brushes, papers, and sharing of dreams and ideas. Marilyn will share two different approaches to your personal statement: collage making using painted materials to create representational and abstract works plus explorations of fluid acrylic paint and/or watercolor in ways of expressing nature's beauty. All levels of experience accepted. A materials list will be sent on receipt of registration

Marilyn Phillis has taught workshops across the nation for the last 35 years and is recognized as a teacher who nurtures and challenges her students through helping them to find their own personal statements. The inner spiritual creative element is a long cherished potential she finds as a hidden way of expression among many students and tries to help develop. Elected member of American Watercolor Society, AWS, and National Watercolor Society, NWS, Author of WATERMEDIA TECHNIQUES FOR RELEASING THE CREATIVE SPIRIT. In 2000, she was elected to two Halls of Fame: The Wheeling, WV Hall of Fame and the Kent, Ohio Hall of Fame.

The Details

Cost for both workshops, from Sunday dinner through Friday lunch, includes all food and lodging. Rooms are twin bedded with shared restrooms. Sandscrest living has a comfortable shabby chic feel and is not a resort. There is plenty of parking for those driving and travelers by train, plane, or bus will be provided ground transport to Sandscrest. A commuter plan is offered to local artists who do not wish to lodge at Sandscrest. Meals are included in the commuter price as well. Class limited to 20 participants.

COST:
Full week course: $550
Commuter course: $400
Early registration discount:
Full week: $500
Commuter: $350
Look for more info & updates contact Marilyn at:

MARILYN HUGHEY PHILLIS

MHPHILLIS@YAHOO.COM

Quilts, and more quilts

2008-09-08T10:50:00.002-04:00

Finally have a camera to post some of the work I've been doing. The orange quilt shows some attempts to marble over hand dyed fabric. The other shows attempts with a bleach pen. And finally, a retirement gift for a friend in the children's literacy world.

Gloria Steinem: Sarah Palin--WRONG WOMAN

2008-09-08T08:21:00.001-04:00

Palin: Wrong Woman, Wrong Message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem

September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the 'white-male-only' sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hardClinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, 'Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs.'

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, 'I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?' When asked about Iraq, she said, 'I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq.'

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on 'God, guns and gays' ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves 'abstinence-only' programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, 'women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership,' so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

MATERIAL MATTERS

2008-08-15T13:18:00.004-04:00

Spent a wonderful afternoon in Columbus this week with my cousins F & M, first with lunch at the Florentine, an old Columbus restaurant, and then at the Columbus Museum of Art. I was especially happy to view the exhibit Material Matters

I was thrilled to see some quilters whose work I only know from their virtual galleries, Sue Benner and Joanie San Chirico, for example. The image to the left is by Sue, and the one on the right is by Debbie Pentak. The exhibit was wonderful, wonderful! It's only there until August 31, so if dear reader you find yourself near Columbus, it is worth a stop.

Summer Reading

2008-08-07T10:35:00.003-04:00

Occasionally I write a book review column for the local newspaper. This is a piece from earlier this season.

It’s finally summer and while the list of things to do around the house grows exponentially, I find that I am getting a lot of reading done. Maybe it’s because there are only reruns on TV, or maybe it’s because there are more hours of daylight now, maybe it is just avoidance. Anyway, I find summer vacation reading to be wonderfully luxurious.

The best book I’ve read so far this summer is THE UNDERNEATH by Kathi Appelt.
Technically this is a children’s book, but don’t let that stop you. If you read and loved Where the
Red Fern Grows, The Yearling, The Incredible Journey, Watership Down or Charlotte’s Web,
read this book.

It begins: “There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then
abandoned on the side of the road." Deep in the bayous a cat is left to fend for itself in a forest
with her belly full of unborn kittens. She is looking for somewhere safe to live, but instead she
finds Ranger, a hound, shot be accident years ago and chained ever since to the house of a man
known only as Gar Face. Ranger warns the cat that this place is dangerous and that Gar Face will kill her if he finds her, but she refuses to leave. The two curl up under the house into the
Underneath and there she gives birth to two kittens that she names Puck and Sabine. If you've a ten-year-old that can't read Charlotte's Web because they find Charlotte's death too disturbing, is this NOT the book for them. Other kids though, the ones with thicker skins, they will find much to love in this story. It will usher them into maturity, whether they want to go there or not. And it will use cute furry animals to do it.

Also on my list are an eclectic assortment of books beginning with David Sedaris’ new title
WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES. Reading a David Sedaris essay is like watching the author think. Each one is told as a stream of consciousness that somehow ties together beautifully in the end. This collection includes some laugh-out-loud essays, and others that are touching and poignant. All are thoughtful and so original they are obviously taken from real life. The stories are filled with memorable characters.

For pure fun I want to read Janet Evanovich’s latest, FEARLESS FOURTEEN, and yes, I’ve read the previous thirteen. Stephanie Plum, main character, is so smart, so honest, and so funny that her narrative charm could make a documentary on taxes be interesting. This tough gal from New Jersey, an unemployed discount lingerie buyer, has landed a job as a private detective in her cousin’s agency. Laughs ensue while murderers are captured. Janet Evanovich shares an
authentic feel for the streets of Trenton in this mystery series, and her tough, frank, and funny
first-person narrator offers a winning mix of vulgarity and sensitivity. BTW--I love the
grandmother character!

Although I am not going to make it to any beach this summer, I can visualize that vacation with
Jane Green’s THE BEACH HOUSE. Jane Green’s avid and loyal fans follow her because she writes about the true-to-life dilemmas of women—and The Beach House will not disappoint. Known in Nantucket as the crazy woman who lives in the rambling house atop the bluff, Nan doesn’t care what people think. At sixty-five-years old, her husband died twenty years ago, her beauty has faded, and her family has flown. If her neighbors are away, why shouldn’t she skinny dip in their swimming pools and help herself to their flowers? But when she discovers the money she thought would last forever is dwindling and she could lose her beloved house, Nan knows she has to make drastic changes. So Nan takes out an ad: Rooms to rent for the summer in a beautiful old Nantucket home with water views and direct access to the beach. Slowly, people start moving into the house, filling it with noise, with laughter, and with tears. As the house comes alive again, Nan finds her family expanding. Her son comes home for the summer, and then an unexpected visitor turns all their lives upside-down.

BURNING BRIGHT is Tracy Chevalier's latest novel. It paints a colorful, compelling portrait of 18th century London: the teeming streets, bawdy pubs, filthy factories, working-class homes, and the political unease generated by the French Revolution. The title, from a William Blake poem, hints that this historical fiction centers around Blake.The author's talent lies in bringing alive the ordinary day-to-dayness of the past. This work may not be as strong as Chevalier's earlier work,but it is a fun, fast read and perfect for summer reading.

Finally, I want to read Randy Pausch’s THE LAST LECTURE. A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." One of the staples of "the college experience" at many schools is the "last lecture" --- a beloved professor sums up a lifetime of scholarship and teaching as if he/she were heading out the door for the last time. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to
ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If
we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a
lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with
terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't
about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of
others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that
you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It
was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and
intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. I too want
to mull over the reason that I am here and what I still have to finish.

Icon Making

2008-08-04T10:50:00.004-04:00

These are mixed media icons made with layers of lace, trims, cheesecloth, gesso, and acrylics. Lots of layers, lots of texture, and lots of fun to make. The purple icon is framed in a shadow box and this bottom one is mounted on a board painted black (much cheaper). I have been studying Russian icons and their religious meanings. I am interested, not so much in religious meaning for these humble pieces, but as focal points for contemplation and introspection.

HIATUS IS OVER

2008-08-01T10:22:00.003-04:00

After a very long dry spell, this blog is back. While I knit and wrote and made art, I did not post to this blog. Being without a camera (Truly, my dog DID eat the camera!) also kept me from blogging photos. So all in all, here is a start. And here is an embedded slide show of some new work. The slide show offers a glimpse into my week at Art Camp for Ole Biddies (what my DD calls it) held at Hemlocks Studio in Cedar Mountain, NC. The work here includes clay monotypes, watercolor resist on Pellon and oil pastel. Also there's a little fused quilt for some color. Hope to share more soon.

CLOTH & CLAY @ Artworks

2007-09-09T18:18:00.000-04:00

Well, folks I made it through the opening of my solo art show Friday night! It was a huge success (not monetarily, however) with over 100 people in attendance. Lots of old friends, lots of new friends, good eats, too.

I was asked to demonstrate how to make a clay monoprint so I brought all the clay and pigments and tools. But what made the how-to so terrific were the two helpers, Jack & Nick, ages 8 & 5, who already know a lot about making art.

I have created a web album and you can see it here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/VioletPatch/CLOTHCLAYArtWorks02

I have received many words of congratulations and encouragement and that is its own reward. Thank you friends for coming out to the opening, and to long distance friends who check it via this blog.

News Notes

2007-09-06T19:26:00.000-04:00

First, there's this. Here's a sock using all the leftovers from my sock yarn stash...some black cahmere, some red Lorna's Laces, all mixing in. Worked on this sock on my travels to and from Poughkeepsie, NY earlier this month. Hope to have the pair completed by the time of my second visit there. Wink, wink; nudge, nudge.

I've been experiencing a lot of pain in my left wrist, so the knitting is slow going with the help of drugs! I have a couple of felted bag patterns I want to try to get on the needles before the holidays, and there are always flamboyant scarves. This is the year of the cable, and while I did make a lovely cable scarf (The Irish Hiking Scarf), I think that I'm ready to try some cables in an easy sweater. We'll see. There's also a stash full of UFO's that have patiently been waiting their turn. I've been very, very good this year about knitting from my stash, so maybe I can hold out for a couple of more months. Then dear Santa, please remember me!

Then there is this. It is a first peek for faithful friends at what my art show will look like tomorrow night. Here I am, dear readers, embarking on a very new venture. I'm moving out of the basement and into the public eye. There's been great press covrage and radio, too. But I'm feeling a lot like Glenda Jackson must have when she stopped acting. The public demands and accolades are too daunting anymore. Been there, done that, don't want it.

New Show Nearly Here

2007-08-31T14:53:00.000-04:00

A quick post to send readers to the very nice press that I received in today's paper regarding my little show's opening next week. Thanks to PT who wrote it and to LC who printed it. Let's hear it for girlfriends!

http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/52449.html?nav=528

Tomorrow the DH and I will attempt to hang the show. I'll let you know how it goes.

Chihuly at the Phipps

2007-08-29T09:41:00.001-04:00

The DH and I spent our 31st wedding anniversary in the Burgh at Phipps Conservatory. They have completed a huge restoration and expansion project and are celebrating by bringing Chihuly and his magical glass creations to our part of the world. I saw this. OMG how heart-stoppingly beautiful the installations are! I have included my photos in a google album. You can see them here. Especially enspiring were his drawings. Somehow they look like my clayprints. Amazingly, they let me take photos of the drawings, you'll see in the album, so I hope to have them in the studio for inspiration as I do my new work. The colors, the textures, the echoing of shapes found first in leaves and then in glass--all were stunning

.

Clayprints & Bundles

2007-08-28T10:19:00.000-04:00

I have included these four photos to show my friend MM how I have altered or collaged ugly clayprints. While I have not been too successful finding a glue that binds things to the clay monoprints, I have used the sewing maching with great success.

The first photo is of a piece about 9x12 that I sewed hand dyed cottons by machine and then stitched hand felted bundles by hand with a little pearl button on top.

The following photos are close ups of the bundle.

Quilt National 2007

2007-08-17T10:27:00.001-04:00

Lucky me! I can finally say that I have viewed Quilt National at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens, Ohio. What an incredible show. Marvelous, thought-provoking art. It is an exciting time to be a fiber artist. Beautiful sumer afternoon with perfect blue skies and puffy clouds made for a fine day trip.

Meanwhile in the studio, here is a new piece using fused hand-dyed as well as marbled cottons.

The marbling is a new process I experimented with on the art retreat with Monita Mahoney. Couldn't wait to get home to put the marbling scraps in a quilt. Right now I'm working on a second quilt with the marbled cottons. My stumbling block is the piece I'm using is so beautiful that I can bear to cut it. By not cutting it tho, I run into design problems. So the piece is resting and I'll let my subconscious work on it.
(Hey! Monita!)

"Working in more than one medium is like the farmer who rotates his crops to replenish the earth each medium I use enhances my use of the others," says Mahoney. "My subject matter and the feeling I want to convey about that particular subject determine which medium or combination of mediums I use."--M. Mahoney

Work on the art show is reaching completion. Yes! I have one quilt left to embroider and machine quilt. It measure about 36x40 so there is going to be plenty of work to do on the surface. It is an especially important piece to me and so I am saving the work, thinking thru what the design should be, because my usual work style is to slapdash out something fast. I really don't want to blow this one. As I've said before, my machine quilting is one of my weaknesses. It's getting better, but it's not beautiful. I really want this quilt to be a good one, so send good thoughts my way, dear reader, as I take on this privately important quilt.

New Quilt Content

2007-08-09T15:53:00.000-04:00

Here are a few new pieces that I've finished for the art show. The top piece is my first attempt at altering clay monoprints. The bottom are using Laura W's color chip ideas and negative space. All systems are on track for hanging my show on September 1. Yahoo! I'm getting excited.

Art Inspires Art

2007-08-07T08:29:00.000-04:00

I am readying my work for a one woman show--my first! after the little coffee shop showing last year. I have new clay monoprints and new fuzed quilts to hang. And thanks to my week at Hemlocks, I have new ways for thinking about how to combine these two mediums. Thank you, Monita.

But the three pieces that I'm blogging this morning are prints that I made in the style of great artists (note to self: where are the women?)
in an attempt to learn more control over this extemporaneous medium.

The first print is After Waterlilies. It is an unsuccessful print underneath with Shiva paintstick scribbles on top. I liked this particular experiment. The Shivas adhere beautifully to the clay and the oily fixative on the surface. With encouragement from my mentor, I moved the dark reds into the lower right quadrant and think that the scribbles and the piece are finished.

The middle piece is Homage to Rothko. I love all the colors under the black and red blocks--they add a shimmering to the piece that is reminiscent of the subtle movements in Rothko's big pieces. The big blocks of color are made by painting colored/tinted clay slip onto newspaper which soaks up extra moisture. Then the paper is flipped onto the clayslab that I work from and I use a rolling pin to impress the paper onto the clay slab. When I peel off the newspaper the colored clay slip has been impressed into the slab; then I print.

Finally, I have Guantanamo: A Little American Prison: Hommage to Motherwell. Robert Motherwell was greatly affected by the Spanish Civil War. He made a series of prints called A Little Spanish Prison. When I saw these I thought, "Fuzed quilts!" and there is a fabric Abbu Grab in the forthcoming show. While at Hemlocks I wanted to see if I could do a similar piece in clay. So here it is. Like the Rothko piece above, I painted each stripe and color separately on paper and pressed them onto the clay. This worked and gives the print a depth not possible in the fabric cousin.

Mini Quilt--Revelation

2007-08-01T10:10:00.000-04:00

The idea for this little quilt came to me during a rare, quiet meditative moment. The design actually came vividly on the inside of my eyelids when they were closed. So vividly, that I knew I had to capture the image on paper before I forgot it. The colors were hot pink and this green, not the purples that I finally used. Maybe I can try it again with the pinks. The quilt is fused using hand-dyed cottons.

I worked up the top at Hemlocks during my week of art camp. The photo of me avec Camp Coiffure is in our treetop studio. On the design wall behind are two clayprints which are drying.

Close ups of the quilt don't show the quilting very well. I used green thread which looks great in person.

Here's one more for the upcoming September show.

The Old & the New

2007-07-31T08:25:00.000-04:00

For the past two years I have been working in two mediums--fiber and clay monoprints. I worked in two little boxes, keeping the work separate. But all the time I worked, the boundaries between the boxes tended to perforate, to become fuzzy. I kept thinking feeling that there was a place where the two could merge, and so I have thought and worked on where those overlappings might occur.

I had plenty of ugly clay monoprints with which to experiment! In the serendipitous creation of the prints, some are wonderful and some are boring. In the first experiments I simply glued/sewed things onto the ugly monoprints to try to add interest or focal points.

OK so these aren't much better.

Finally, two years later I had a ""AHA!"

My week at Hemlocks Studio did not teach me to paint, but I did learn to let go of some of those boxes that I work in. Monita asked why I didn't sew the ugly prints into an art quilt using the monoprint as just another piece of fabric.

So here is my attempt. I am using the original boring clay print that I first altered with recycled sari silk yarn and glass beads.

This week I have sewn cloth borders around the print added batting, stitched-in-the-ditch to hold the layers together and am just now finishing, via hand sewing, the binding around the edges.

The dark framing fabric and the blue backing/binding are rather Asian with small circular designs that repeat the swirls of sari silk yarn and the glass balls.

Much improved, I think. I am making a matching piece with the first photo, the collage above with the red ribbon. The items on the collage include antique ribbon, mother-of pearl buttons and buckles, etc. from my mother's and grandmother's sewing notion baskets. I will use the same fabrics to frame this piece which I used in the swirly piece.

I'm looking for titles. Any thoughts?

ART CAMP: Releasing the Creative Spirit

2007-07-24T08:36:00.000-04:00

For the past week I have been in Cedar Mountain, NC just spitting distance from the South Carolina border in what I was told was a rain forest. Yes, it certainly was wet and my painting projects never completely dried throughout the week.

The topic of the week was Releasing the Creative Spirit and was led by Marilyn Phillis. Wow! the the Spirit Released!

QUILT CONTENT

2007-07-24T08:23:00.001-04:00

At last there is some quilt content for this blog. First, an art quilt which has no name yet and still labors under the old title of "ugly quilt." It is a fused quilt made with hand-dyed fabrics, some with resists.

The other is a traditionally pieced quilt modeled by Smiley. The pattern is Twisted Sisters by Ami Simms and uses African fabrics, front and back. This quilt is going to Kankakee, Illinois this weekend as a wedding gift.

There is a lot of quilt making going on in my studio, aka basement, as I prepare for a solo show in September. I have two large tops ready to embellish and quilt and several small ones in the queue as well. Photos forthcoming.

Hemlocks Studio Here I Come

2007-07-13T15:27:00.000-04:00

First I say that I'm back, then I say that I'm going...well, that's my prerogative thank you very much. Off to art camp tomorrow a.m. Going to Brevard N.C. and then a little more. High in the mountains and far from cell phone towers and internet access. Therefore, dear reader, I'll be back in touch with you next week.

Hope to have some new work to show and lots of new enthusiasm and peace for the school year ahead. The job, never a quiet one, promises to be bumpy again this year, so I'll take this week of solace and brace myself.

D.D. left today for a girls' weekend in D.C. We are abandoning poor D. H. who is gimpy these days with a foot in a cast. Poor darling will be home with Nurse Dog Smiley and unable to drive a car. Our parting words to him, like MacArthur....We shall return!

Art Retreat

2007-07-11T08:34:00.000-04:00

It's time for summer art camp--washing and packing clothes and gathering art supplies for a week with Marilyn Hughey Phillis and her workshop entitled, Releasing the Creative Spirit. While Marilyn is an incredible, nationally recognized watercolorist (see image), I am spending the week with her to "release my creative spirit" and to work on the art quilts and the clay monoprints.

This year of 2007 has been too busy with family and work obligations (but I wouldn't have missed a minute of those obligations for anything!) and there has been little art and little knitting. There has been work, though, just not much blogging. I have completed a traditional quilt (Ami Simms' Twisted Sisters) in African fabrics. I've also completed what I call "The Ugly Quilt" a fused abstract piece. (pictures forthcoming) There are a few new clayprints, but all in all, there is not much new.

I hope to change that with a week away in the North Carolina mountains at Hemlock Studios. There will be 8 of us working with Marilyn. I've been encouraged to bring my "other media" to the retreat. That's all for the good as I am not a painter. I have high hopes for this quiet week of work as I want to experience that creative spirit, feel the woooosh! and the rush of the energy of that spirit as I work. I want to feel those chakras all in alignment and the colors and the images coming through me and into my work.

There's the practical side to this too. I have committed to a solo show at the local artist collaborative ArtWorks in September. There MUST be some new work to show. As always, the pressure of a deadline threatens and the work gets done.

So dear reader, there is much work to do and new art to make, and hopefully a creative spirit to be released. Stay tuned for more.

Blog Hiatus Over--Knit Content Here

2007-07-10T08:43:00.000-04:00

Dear Reader,

Censorship is a damning and damaging thing. The threat of censorship is real and powerful as well. I confess to you that my self inflicted blog hiatus was due to a censorship threat by a nefarious Muggle from outside the blogosphere. And rather than give her ammunition to use in her attacks against me, I chose instead silence.

I celebrate my return to the Violetpatch with some knitting content. First there are these

and then there are these.
The fire-red socks are made with Lorna's Laces super wash Shepherd Sock yarn, to date my favorite sock yarn for its softness and ease in knitting. Currently, I've started a pair of black cashmere ribbed socks for a gift. I have discovered a new softness with these my first cashmere knits, but the yarn splits and I have to be really careful as I knit.

I took the red socks on vacation last week. And where did we go? Have a look. You tell me. First clue, Knitting Mecca.

This is Traveling Sock #2 in front of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

What's the city?

It's the home of a large body of water (my DD posing for you).

Home too of lucious knit shops (can you read the name of the shop on the blackboard above my shoulder?). And the world's tallest structure, which I have cleverly hidden behind these two smaller skyscrapers.

Yes, we were in the city of her royal yarn-ness
we were in Toronto Canada. Hot, hot, hot. We stayed in a clean, cheap motel near Humber Bay and enjoyed evening walks along Lake Ontario. Great art. Great Shopping. Terrific yarn shops. Super restaurants.

Student Quilts

2007-04-30T08:31:00.000-04:00

Here are two new student fused quilts. LastAugust, a high school senior art class came to my home to have an afternoon of dyeing. (Scroll down the page to see the students at work with dye.)

During the course of the school year, some of the girls were able to use their fabric in fused quilts. At the top is Flame by Rachel 9x15 and below is Games by Sarah 24x24. There will be a few more pictures posted as I receive them. All the girls who made quilts had an innate understanding of how to use the fabric to convey their ideas of color and design. All were great first attempts at fused quilting.

Wheeling, WV has become an extension campus of the Chicago School of Fusing. I am passing on what I've learned from the masters.

Ode to Mothers

2007-04-26T11:24:00.000-04:00

Here's my most recent review of books for children.

My daughter graduates from high school this month and I have been going though her papers. I found a folder with all her handmade Mother’s Day cards and got a warm, rosy glow as I remembered the intimacy we shared (still do). I hope that in your hectic days with little ones you make the time to snuggle with your child over some books. Use this time together to secure a safe and quiet harbor for her so that she will be able to return to your port in the storms that are surely on her horizon. Make memories for yourself in this way, so when she shoves off and heads for adventures on the high seas of life, you too will revisit intimate book times and feel my same warm, rosy glow.

Here are a few books that celebrate mothers and their loving children.

My Mother is Mine by Marion Dane Bauer

Each page features a baby animal interacting with its mother. "My mother is soft" appears opposite two sheep cuddled together; "My mother is strong" shows a tiger carrying her cub in her mouth; and two owls sitting together on a branch illustrate "My mother watches me long and long." Young children will recognize the parallels between their own families and those of the animals.

Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara Joose

Love is the only thing that really matters! There's no mistaking the powerful allure of unconditional love in this young children's book. It depicts an Inuit mother who loves her daughter, no matter what. Throughout the story the daughter repeatedly asks, "Mama, do you love me?" She comes up with many intriguing and playful reasons why the mother might be persuaded to withhold love. For example, what if the daughter broke the ptarmigan eggs? What if she put lemmings in her mother's mukluks? The mother does not hide or lie about her feelings. Sometimes she says she would be surprised, or angry, or scared, but these variable emotions do not change her love for her daughter. Her daughter is her Dear One, always and forever.

My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck

Little monster tells readers the many ways his mama shows that she loves him: she attends all of his beastball games; sings him lullabies and tucks him into bed; and "She gives me great big hairy hugs,/bakes me cookies filled with bugs,/and when I'm sick she's twice as nice-/she gives me lizard juice with ice." "Oops-one other thing is true:/Your monster mama loves you too!" Leuck delivers a reassuring message in a funny, mildly scary story.

Mama's Saris by Pooja Makhijani

When a young girl eyes her mother's suitcase full of gorgeous silk, cotton and embroidered saris, she decides that she, too, should wear one, even though she is too young for such clothing. When the mother finally realizes how important it is for her little girl to feel like a big girl on her seventh birthday, she dresses up her daughter in the folds of a blue sari.

Mama, I'll Give You the World by Roni Schotte

Every day after school, Luisa does her homework until her hairdresser mother gets off work. Recalling that her mother used to dance "when Dad was around," Luisa colludes with the regulars to throw Mom a rug-cutting birthday surprise that leaves everyone teary and laughing. Luisa herself dances in graceful, unstudied poses through nearly every frame, and the intimacy shared between child and single parent is evident.

My Mama Had A Dancing Heart by Libba Gray

If I left this world today, this is how I would want my daughter to remember me. The narrator shares a remembrance of her mother, who welcomed each season with boundless enthusiasm and bade her daughter to do the same: "Bless the world/ it feels like/ a tip-tapping/ song-singing/ finger-snapping/ kind of day. / Let's celebrate." The two danced barefoot in the spring rain, ran through the summer surf with balloons and kites tied to their wrists, performed a "leaf-kicking/ leg-lifting/ hand-clapping/ hello autumn ballet," and lay on the ground to make snow angels in winter. Now a ballerina, the girl notes how these memories serve as inspiration as she leaps across the stage.

May your children leap across their stage with the strong legs and winged hearts with which you have enabled them.

Just One Word

2007-04-26T11:17:00.000-04:00

My column recently printed in the Wheeling News-Register.

The British politician Benjamin Disraeli once said, “The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.” The authors I have selected for today’s column have done just that. For fun I have chosen books that have just one word titles. I hope you enjoy these books and will begin your own hunt to include other just one word book titles to this list.

Dam!: Water, Power, Politics, and Preservation in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park by John. Simpson. Although the valley is in Yosemite National Park, in 1913 Congress authorized the construction of a dam and reservoir on the Tuolumne River, flooding the Hetch Hetchy. The dam was built, despite opposition by John Muir and others, to deliver water and electricity to San Francisco, when other, less destructive options were available. Gorgeous landscapes and dirty politics, extraordinary engineering feats and boundless greed, and a cast of colorful characters make for a thought-provoking and relevant history.

Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather by Marq De Villiers. Chapter by chapter, the author examines the place of wind in mythology, ancient scientific beliefs about air and wind, composition of the atmosphere, wind scales and patterns, historical and modern weather forecasting, the mechanics of hurricanes, how wind moves pollution around the globe, and technology utilizing wind power. The book's grace notes lie in entertaining did-you-know nuggets. Among them: a great storm that lashed London in 1703 caused windmill blades to rotate so fast that friction set them on fire.

Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq De Villiers. Also by Canadaian author DeVilliers, this examines the checkered history the management of water. For sheer travelogue pleasure, his informal survey hops from the Sea of Galilee to Victoria Falls to a Russian boat ride down the Volga, as he delves into the science, ecology, folklore, history and politics of water. The news he brings back is ominous: rapidly growing populations, ever-increasing pollution, desertification and falling water tables endanger a fragile, finite resource.

Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert by Marq De Villiers. A third book on the list by this award winning author, “If you traveled across the United States from Boston to San Diego, you still wouldn’t have crossed the Sahara.” He charts the course of Atlantic hurricanes and offers the physics of windblown sand and the formation of dunes. He chronicles the formation of the massive aquifers that lie beneath the desert, some filled with water that pre-dates the appearance of modern man on Earth.

Oyster: History on the Half Shell by Mark Kulansky uses an important natural resource as the focus of an inviting social and economic history. Oysters were native to the New York Harbor area, where once upon a time a pristine estuary created an ideal habitat. Oysters thrived there for centuries in enormous populations that were easily harvested by the armful. When Western explorers led by Henry Hudson arrived in the early 1600s, gifts offered by Native peoples included welcome supplies of the shellfish, a longtime favorite food item in Europe. Oysters boomed and kept booming–until waterfront pollution destroyed the abundant beds. This ecological cautionary tale is enriched by wide-ranging narratives about the customs and politics of earlier times.

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

Salt: A World History Here are two other great reads by Mark Kulansky. Like the title noted above, Kulansky uses these other important natural resources to tell the stories of social and economic history. Cod is the story about the fish that probably has mattered more in human history than any other. It helped to inspire the discovery and exploration of North America and had a profound impact upon the earliest economic development of New England and eastern Canada. Today over fishing is a constant threat.

For the history of salt, Kurlansky begins in China 8000 years ago. His forte is in choosing a common entity and telling its tale with epic grandeur.

Hooked: Pirates, Poaching, and the Perfect Fish by G. Bruce Knecht. The Patagonian toothfish is an ugly creature considered too bland for eating by most South Americans. Its high fat content, codlike texture and lack of a fishy taste convinced a Los Angeles fish merchant that, given an exotic new name, it would do quite well in America. By 1998, "Chilean sea bass" had become the hottest restaurant craze. Knecht weaves a parallel plot with an Australian patrol boat is hunting down a pirate vessel for stealing toothfish. The chase takes them thousands of nautical miles away to dangerous Antarctic waters and involves South African mercenaries and a dramatic boarding in dangerous seas. hor calls "the marine equivalent of strip mining."

Blue: The History of a Color. by Michel Pastoureau and

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
by Simon Garfield

Here are books on similar subjects, two colors, yet written from very different disciplines. Blue is a beautiful look at the art history of this color. The Garfield book is a chemical history book that traces the creation of the first synthetic dye, thus opening the way for industrial applications of chemistry which later brought significant advances in the fields of medicine, perfume, photography, and even explosives.

Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner. There was a time, for a handful of peppercorns, you could have someone killed. Throw in a nutmeg or two, you could probably watch. There was a time when grown men sat around and thought of nothing but black pepper. How to get it. How to get more. How to control the entire trade in pepper from point of origin to purchase. Turner opens up the whole story of pepper and brings the exotic scents of the East deep into the history of Western culture.

Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World by Larry Zuckerman. This book goes beyond the usual scope of spud history, which commonly focuses on the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. Although this disaster is a key event in the book, the potato's broader influence in the Western world was far more complex--changing the shape of agrarian societies, triggering world emigration, and even influencing social-welfare reforms. Snippets from journals, newspaper editorials, and government documents make this a fascinating glimpse of four centuries' worth of a vegetable to which we normally wouldn't give a second thought.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. This book describes how one digit has bedeviled and fascinated thinkers from ancient Athens to Los Alamos. He argues that the concept of nothingness and its twin, infinity, have repeatedly revolutionized the foundations of civilization and philosophical thought. If you're already a fan of mathematics or science, you will enjoy this book; if you're not, you will be by the time you finish it.

And finally, for any fiction readers who have persevered through this book column, here are two novels with titles of just one word:

Silk by Alessandro Baricco. This startling, sensual novel tells a story of adventure, sexual enthrallment, and a love so powerful that it unhinges a man's life. In 1861 French silkworm merchant Hervé Joncour is compelled to travel to Japan, where, in the court of an enigmatic nobleman, he meets a woman. They do not touch; they do not even speak.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. Set in 18th-century France, Perfume relates the fascinating and horrifying tale a person as gifted as he was abominable. Born without a smell of his own but endowed with an extraordinary sense of smell, he becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. With brilliant narrative skill Susskind exposes the dark underside of the society and explores the disquieting inner universe of this singularly possessed man.

Anticipation--YH Represent Pittsburgh

2007-04-04T11:07:00.000-04:00

So here is Represent Pittsburgh--at last! Gathered together at Joseph-Beth's Booksellers in Pittsburgh's Southside neighborhood, were knitters from a 200 mile radius, I'm guessing.

Christy and Cathy, her mother-in-law, from western NY state thought that while Toronto might be closer to catch the Yarn Harlot, Pgh was a more convenient choice for their schedule. The Needletart and her husband were staying in the same B&B as the Harlot (be still my heart!!). They drove from Altoona to make a weekend of the event. I was there from WV, my 3rd trip to the Burgh in four days. And there's no telling where all the other knitting mavens hailed from.

It was great to meet these women, we were instant friends--sharing life
stories, swapping knitting and yarn tips, sharing blogs, internet sites, and
LYS locations. Where else can you go, who else can you be thrown
together with in this wide, wild world and be instantly accepted,
acknowledged, and loved just for being you. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood
(another Pittsburgh locality) is alive and well in the knitting community.

We waited, watched all the seats fill, and saw knitters hanging over the
second floor banisters to get a glimpse, to hear the words of the Yarn Harlot.
Stephanie was great. The Represent hats were there.
There was love and yarn everywhere.

yarn Harlot Represents the 'Burgh

2007-04-04T10:43:00.000-04:00

AND THERE SHE IS!

Really and truly Stephanie is a wonderful speaker--witty, articulate, and uplifting. She validates
this passion and commaraderie we have within the knitting community. In fact she helps us realize that there IS A KNITTING COMMUNITY! She represents us all as she gives voice to what we do and how we feel and she is a wonderful center for us all. She shows us what we already know, but haven't articulated to ourselves--that there is an incredible power of good here that we are channeling in the cosmic battle between good and evil. We knit to clothe the world, we raise funds to promote peace, fight disease, and all manner of good causes. We are knitters. Hear us roar.

Travel Knits

2007-03-30T11:21:00.000-04:00

I am ready and heading out to the YarnHarlot's Represent Pittsburgh!

Have sock. check
Have shades. check
Have big bag, no the purse, not me! check
Have camera. check Have batteries. check
And, yes, I have $$ and gas in the tank.

Ready to roll.

The Yarn Harlot will be in Pittsburgh peddling her new book, and I aim to be there!

The book tour started in NYC at Strawberry Fields and sounded like such great fun as well as an emotional empowering of all knitters. I need a dose of both and a Friday nite in the 'Burgh will really fan my flames.

Ought to be a mob scene, like a rock n roll celebrity crowd at a bookstore! All these women(and a few courageous guys) with pointy sticks ought to scare the collegiate drinking crowd on Carson Street but good. (hmm, note to self, check the tattoo parlors for knitting images.)

Stephanie visited the 'Burgh about two years ago and I made the trip expecting the usual turnout for a small book signing, believe me I know about small book signings from my other, non-fiber, b&w life. I was shocked, really bowled over, by the 300+ you couldn't get a foot in the door crowd that was there to see the Harlot and hear her edifying tales.

Well, tonite, I'll be ready, arriving early, casing the joint, finding a seat, and chatting up all the other Harlot fans. These knitters are really amazing people! So die-hard. So creative. So kind. And so manic about all things knitting! I live in the Muggle world and most there don't know that I'm a Yarn-Harlette. Only careful observation would show the Muggles my handknit superwash sox under the Crocs on my feet. But Muggles don't look at feet.

I am going to the 'Burgh tonite to be with my people, to climb the knitted mountain with them, and see a glimpse of the promised woolly land on the other side. Glory be to the Wool.

Still in Love

2007-03-28T11:33:00.000-04:00

Here are the Lovebirds, my parents still together at 88 and 89.

I am blessed to have them just down the street from me. They go to church & the library every week; visit shut-ins; help in the food bank; knit; do crosswords & sudoku; and brighten my life. Thanks M&P.

Forthcoming Column on Books for Kids

2007-03-15T08:43:00.000-04:00

I asked the students in my college class on children’s literature, “Who hates poetry?” All hands went up. Then I asked, “When did you start hating it?” One student called out, “Tenth grade!” and the others nodded in agreement.

Hating poetry unfortunately is something that children learn to do in school, but they are not born that way. Poetry, like curiosity, is too often either sucked out or squelched from young children.

A young child is naturally rhythmical. She beats on the tray of her high chair, kicks her foot against the table, and chants her vocabulary of one or two words in a singsong fashion. She delights in the sound of “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,” or “Hey diddle-diddle the cat and the fiddle” before she understands the meaning of the words. Rhythm is a part of the daily beat of our lives—the steady pulse rate, regular breathing, the regularity of night and day, the ebb and flow of the oceans.

Poetry satisfies the child’s natural response to rhythm, and rhyme and sounds provide a musical addition that is both pleasurable to listen to as well as it is fun to make. Children love poetry for it is play, first of all, a playing with words and a most satisfying form of language, being both oral stimulation and an echo of in-utero sounds.

So before your children get to tenth grade and have the joy of rhythm & rhyme forever extinguished from their souls, bank their fires of passion for poetry and their love of words. You will not fail them.

HERE’S A LITTLE POEM: a very first book of poetry, by Jane Yolen.

These are poems that highlight the moments of a toddler’s world from dawn to dusk carefully gathered by Jane Yolen. They capture a very young child’s intense delight in the experiences and rituals of every new day--greeting the morning, enjoying the adventures of the day, cuddling up to a cozy bedtime. This exuberant celebration of is an essential collection for every child's library and a gorgeous gift to give, share, and treasure.

NOISY POEMS by Jill Bennett.

Yickity yak, yickity yak, the yak has a scriffily, scraffily back! This charming collection is packed with noises and rhymes children will love to listen to and repeat. Illustrated in colour throughout by award-winning artist Nick Sharratt, this is a perfect first poetry book, including poems by Spike Milligan, Jack Prelutsky, Eve Merriam, and Eleanor Farjeon.

KIDS PICK THE FUNNIEST POEMS by Bruce Lansky.

This collection of poetry should be in every elementary classroom and should be read aloud to the students. This book has never failed to help me get the attention of students-- they like it and I like it too. This book covers many subjects kids address in school and in life. What better way to deal with real life issues than with laughter!

DIRTY LAUNDRY PILE: poems in different voices by Paul B. Janeczko .

These poems are "persona or mask poems" written in voices of nonhuman things, for example: a washing machine sings its washing songs "Blub-blub-a-dubba"; a vacuum cleaner complains, "I swallow twigs./ I slurp dead bugs," and finally threatens, "I think I'll swallow you today!" The volume begins with poems about wind and weather and ends with works about insects and animals. Very funny and great for reading aloud.

Don’t forget Mother Goose and jump rope rhymes as other sources for poetry for children.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT

2007-03-07T10:47:00.000-05:00

On such a white day especially, I am drawn to the vibrant painting of Emily Mason. I would love to jump into one of these and swim in all this color.

There is a new book Emily Mason: the fifth element by David Ebony and published by George Braziller that is chock full of beautiful color plates.

Happy colors to you.

WINTER--One More Time

2007-03-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

Winter is still barking at us here in the WV panhandle. I drove the 15 miles of twisty, hilly roads to work this morning--probably the worst road conditions of the winter. Even the road crews are tired of plowing, I think. No plowing or salting had been done to Rt88, my commute route, but luckily most travelers were heading toward Wheeling, and I was traveling away from...so there weren't many bad drivers going my direction and I was able to get up and down all the hills safely.

And still it snows. Here are a couple of shots from my office windows. As the world turns, I have a beautiful commute to work each day, even in the snow, and my office is surrounded by giant oaks which inspire me in every season. My library is on a very lovely campus and I count this a great blessing. My previous job of 20 years was spent in a windowless basement of an ugly cement building.

Classes for today have been cancelled, so we won't be very busy with students and I can get caught up on budgets and strategic plans.

But I also have a little time to play with Blogger and keep my technology skills sharp, i.e. this blog is my continuing education project. ;)

My little show at the coffee shop received great reviews (locally) and most important was an invitation to have a show in September at a bigger venue, the local artists co-op gallery. Yippee!

That means I have a few months to get some new work together, both clay monoprints and art quilts. I am very excited and encouraged by this opportunity, so much so that I have been stocking up on pigments for the printing and fusing fabrics so that I'm ready to go on the quilts.

Currently in the workshop I have a traditional quilt, the African Twisted Sisters project, that I am chipping away on. Most of the top is pieced and ready for borders. While it is satisfiying like a jigsaw puzzle to work on, it does not feed the soul and I am chomping at the bit for some time to be in color which is how I feel I work with cloth & clay.

The needles are not at rest either. I finished the Irish Hiking Scarf on Sunday; it was a knit from your stash project and probably the first Xmas '07 gift to be completed. Now I am again working from my stash, and am back to sox because they are so wonderfully portable. Here is the first sock of a pair for me and not for sale of for gifting. I am using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Socks, a yarn that I bought at Purl Soho last summer. This is by far my favorite sock yarn--so yummy. I am using 2 Turbos and the knitting is fast. Who knows, maybe I'll finish them while the cold weather lingers!

And finally, the traveling sock is at work with me
today. It is a welcome companion as well as a talisman reminding me that while one part of me is working and doing the professional thing, another part is planning for those precious, colorful hours in the workshop.

Quilting Gains Popularity as Modern Artform

2007-03-04T17:53:00.000-05:00

Here is a lovely article (sorry no online pictures) of my friend Linda's article in this morning's Sunday paper.

Quilting Gains Popularity as Modern Artform
By LINDA COMINS Arts & Living Editor

Quilting, like many of the fiber arts, is becoming increasingly popular as people from a broad spectrum of ages and occupations turn to this vintage form of needlework for utilitarian or artistic purposes.As varied as the forms that modern-day quilting take are the theories advanced to explain this growing trend. Some observers see it as an attempt to reclaim traditional crafts and home-style skills in times of uncertainty and turmoil, while others see the interest in the fiber arts as being emblematic of a desire to expand the definitions of artistic expression.It also has been suggested that members of the Baby Boomer generation, particularly women, have more time at this stage in their lives to utilize the basic sewing skills that they acquired in their youth.Offering a sociological spin on the phenomenon, longtime quilter Laura Cramblet of Bethany observed that historically, “craft making increases during war times.”Wheeling resident Cheryl Ryan Harshman, who enjoys making fused quilts, commented, “Women have traditionally had to provide comfort and warmth for their families with whatever they could lay their hands on. Women, after all, are the gatherers. Today, we still like making something out of nothing and the sense of accomplishment and the god-like sense of true creation.”The Rev. Theresa Kelley, an accomplished seamstress and quilter, views the trend as cyclical. “It comes in and out of vogue. It’s the same thing with knittting today. It’s really become the thing to do,” the Wheeling resident said. “It’s cyclical — things go in, things go back out.”Harshman also thinks the current popularity may be, in part, because “the Baby Boom women are at a point in their lives where they have some extra time. Baby Boom women might have been taught sewing skills as young girls, perhaps one of the last groups to learn to sew. “Quilting takes a lot of time. Our generation is just now having time to do it,” said Harshman, who is library director of West Liberty State College’s Paul N. Elbin Library. “Baby Boom women are interested in making baby quilts and family heirlooms, but also there is a new generation of young women who are discovering all types of fiber arts. Twenty-year-olds are knitting and making things by hand. It is very satisfying and it is very empowering. It’s something that we’ve forgotten about for a few years.”Kelley commented, “Quilting has really gone from the quilts Grandma used to make, which were most functional, to the art form. That’s where things take off. I have seen quilts priced at $25,000. They are works of art. There’s that nuance to what we imagine quilts as bed coverings.”Cramblet, who works at Bethany College’s Phillips Library and organized a library-sponsored quilting festival for three years, related, “Nowadays, in a lot of the churches, women in churches have taken it (quilting) up again as service projects, for military overseas, for nursing homes’ lap robes. Also, I’ve noticed that a lot of the young girls are being taught by the women of the church, like it used to be long ago, which is kind of neat to watch that.“It seems like a lot of crafts have come back big time — embroidery, beading,” said Cramblet, who also has taught quilting classes. “It sort of comes in waves.”Whatever the reasons, the renewed interest in quilting has resulted in larger numbers of entries in shows and exhibitions, and in expanded membership for guilds and groups.Wheeling resident Vicki Crawford has seen membership in the Fort Henry Piecemakers quilting guild increase from about 30 participants to more than 70 members today, with participants ranging from a college student in her 20s to women in their 80s. “A lot of people like to sew,” she said.Quilt expert and author Linda M. Poole, who spoke at the Wheeling Artisan Center during the Heritage Quilt Show in February, remarked, “Quilting has become increasing popular over the years. It brings the quilt maker a sense of warmth, camaraderie amongst fellow quilt makers and accomplishment. There is excitement in every step of making a quilt. The amazing abundance of fabric today aids the quilter in getting her thoughts and choices of colors into her quilt just as she imagined.”Poole, who hails from Milford, Pa., also commented, “Women are a powerful circle when they gather and I believe that is one of the most magnetic influences to the popularity of quilt making. We hold one another up in times of sadness and we celebrate each others’ achievements.”Crawford had a practical reason for learning to quilt 20 years ago while living in North Dakota. “If you don’t have a hobby when you live in North Dakota, you’ll go absolutely crazy. You’re snowed in some times for days,” she said. “My neighor said, ‘Let’s learn how to quilt.’ Another neighbor was a licensed teacher. Four of us learned from her.”With the colorful results of her skill and craftmanship displayed throughout her family’s home, Crawford, who has taught the art of quilting to other people, said she loves quilting “because I love to see how it turns out. I look at a pattern in a book, then pick out completely different colors.”The Fort Henry Piecemakers guild meets at St. Mark Lutheran Church, 141 Kruger St., Wheeling, at 7 p.m. on the second Thurday of each month.Visitors can attend meetings twice before being required to pay a nominal annual fee to join. Sessions start with a short business meeting and show-and-tell time. “Sometimes we have guest speakers or members do demonstrations,” Crawford said.The guild provides members with “such a good fellowship,” Crawford remarked. “I have met so many people through the quilt guild. You just have a bond.”Poole commented, “Quilters are the most caring and sharing women I know. They make quilts for those they love, and for those in need. Community projects bring women and men together. It is the most warming feeling to give of yourself through your stitches and have someone genuinely love and care for your creation. The tools we use and techniques may have changed, but in the end, the final result is the same, someone will have a piece of your heart and love given to them through your quilt. It is a legacy and a treasure to receive one. We are still making history.“I find that you can move to a new town or across the country and make friends easily within other quilt guilds,” Poole said. “A quilt show may be in a town where you are traveling and you will never feel alone once you enter a room of quilts. Enthusiasm, smiles and encouragement are usually the main priority of meeting a quilter. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is, there is always someone eager to teach you and an instant bond is created.” Currently, Crawford is one of six quilters doing a row-by-row project. “I’ll do the top row, then send it to the next person,” she said. Three of the participants live in Wheeling, two are from Morgantown and one is serving in the military in Massachusetts.Members of the guild also make quilts for charity, which they will be doing at St. Mark Lutheran Church from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 17, in observance of National Quilting Day, Crawford said. During the day-long marathon, quilters will be finishing a group of quilts to be divided equally between the YWCA Wheeling’s Family Violence Prevention Program shelter, the Gabriel Project of Wheeling and a program that provides quilts for sick babies, she said.Leslie McGlumphy, who formerly owned a quilting shop in Wheeling, donated batting and fabric to the guild. Some guild members now are making quilt tops that will be finished during the March 17 session, Crawford said.Kelley, an Episcopal priest in Wheeling, inherited her love of quilting. “Grandma was a quilt-aholic,” Kelley quipped. “She clipped patterns out of the newspaper ... There were places where you could mail order for a pattern. I have one of hers from 1932, in the original envelope.“She (her grandmother) was the one who taught me how to quilt. When I was 16, I made my first quilt, with her assistance, of course,” Kelley said. “I can remember her going down to the feed store in Dillonvale and getting the flour sacks ... She would take kids’ clothing and made quilts.”Kelley, who also has joined a new knitting guild and sews professionally, returned to quilting about 10 years ago, to use up fabric scraps that were “overflowing” in her residence. “I’ve made everything from king-size quilts to wall-size wall hangings,” she said. “I tend to like things that go fast — big block patterns. I like immediate gratification. I’m not going to sit and hand sew half-inch squares together.”Kelley admits to having “a pretty healthy stash” of fabric and “a small fortune” invested in magazines and books about quilting. In her diocesan-related travels, she enjoys visiting fabric stores, quilt shops and yarn shops in various cities as far away as Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In the quest for fabric, she said, “Those with persistence and perseverance will triumph.”Poole remarked, “Once you have decided on your design, the real thrill comes when you enter your quilt shop and choose from the amazing color pallets before you. You are never alone when you make a quilt. Inside the shop you will always find knowledgeable and friendly people to help and other quilters that share your passion. There really is no mystery to how exciting and popular quilting is once you have been bitten by the quilt bug.” Recalling her introduction to the craft, Cramblet said, “I started quilting way back in 4-H days, basic patchwork quilting. When my daughter became engrossed in sports and I had to take her everywhere and sit, I got into it big time. Once I got my skills down basically well, I went to the different large quilting areas in Pennsylvania Dutch country, in Lancaster, Pa., and trained with some of the biggest-name quilters. I kept learning more and more.”Poole concluded, “Our grandmothers did not have the same availability of fabrics, books and magazines as we do, but the process is the same. We come together, we design our quilts and we enjoy the process. We still make utilitarian quilts to use on our beds or keep us warm on a cold night and make art quilts to be appreciated by ourselves or others to hang on their walls or in a museum. Whether the year is in the 1800s or the new millennium, a needle, fabric and batting have not changed along with a quilt maker’s love for her craft.”

GOOD FRIENDS, GOOD BOOKS

2007-02-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

Readers of this blog may remember that I occaisionally write a book column for the local paper. Here is the one printed in this morning's edition.

What is that magic that happens to us as readers? How is it that an inanimate object of paper and ink can become so important to us, can change our lives, and can move our spirits? How is it that we can form relationships with books and they become our friends?
I don’t exactly have the answers. I know that what makes us humans different from the other animals on this planet is our storytelling ability. The cavemen came home from the hunt and talked about the big game that got away. The ancient Greeks made up stories about how the forces in the world worked and how the stars moved across the sky. King Arthur and his buddies are remembered for their stories of battles fought and wrongs righted.

We are no different from our ancestors, we love a good tale. Those of us who are book readers love to talk about the stories we’ve read which have made an impact on us. And those few of us who are librarians, especially love to share favorite authors and titles with one another.

Recently my colleague at the Bethany College Phillips Library handed me a bag filled with novels by one of her favorite authors, Mary Wesley, a writer I had not read. You know the weather’s this past month—snow time is book time at my house and I jumped right into this luscious bag of books.

Author Mary Wesley’s life reads like one of her novels. Descended from the Duke of Wellington, she grew up a rebel in an effete British family believing that she was her mother’s least favorite child. Like many girls of her background, she married for escape, although her first marriage was conventional. Her second husband, a writer who never managed to make any money at all, was feckless and bohemian and left her near impoverishment at his death. In between husbands, she had a love affair with Czech war hero, Heinz Ziegler — and possibly with his brother at the same time; and in her later years enjoyed a torrid relationship.
At the outbreak of the Second World War she was, as she put it, “roped into intelligence,” where she worked on breaking codes. Her experiences in MI5, and her many wartime love affairs, formed the cores of her novels.

Mary’s biography is a beacon of hope to women of a certain age who find that an “empty nest” is opportunity to redefine themselves and channelcreative energies that had been previously spent on family and relationsthips. She became an author late in life, in her 70’s and 80’s, after the death of her second husband when she found herself without means. She wrote two books for children before moving on to writing adult fiction. Her take on life reveals a sharp and critical eye which neatly dissects the idiosyncrasies of genteel England with humour, compassion and irony, detailing in particular sexual and emotional values. Her adult fiction is the point of this column.

JUMPING THE QUEUE—This first novel is a tragi-comic tale of a woman whose plans for suicide are interrupted by a series of minor mishaps and romantic incidents.

THE CHAMOMILE LAWN—These are the expoits of an unconventional upper-class English family and their German Jewish friends during the second world war. (Made into a TV mini series.)

NOT THAT SORT OF GIRL—The most autobiographical of her work, this amusing story is of a widow remembering her boring marriage and the man she really loved.

A SENSIBLE LIFE—This novel probes the undercurrents of fear threatening the security of friendship and family ties during the restless years between the wars. More than a comedy of manners, this is a story of an entire era--its relationships and its flaws.

HARNESSING PEACOCKS-- As a teenager pregnant Hebe ran away from home to bear her child and create a new life. Now, 12 years later, she is living in a seaside town, working alternately as a gourmet cook and a prostitute, and doing both on her own terms and with flair.

Thank you, Mary Bess, for sharing these books with me. Here’s hoping, dear reader, that you too have the opportunity to share a book with a friend.

CLOTH & CLAY: Bundles 1 & 2

2007-02-18T17:13:00.000-05:00

I am still searching for ways in which to integrate the clay monoprints and the fused art quilts.

Here are the lastest attempts.

CLOTH & CLAY

2007-02-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

Here is my little show at the Second Cup Cafe in Whg, WV. On the walls are clay monoprints and fused art quilts.

Twenty pieces in all. I am still surprised at how they look on walls as I'm used to seeing them auditioning next to the laundry. They seem so finished, framed and hanging here.

Sold my first piece--huzzah! so it's onwards and upwards. Looking forward to trips this year, the UK and NYC, so I wish a few more would sell.

I've had some very nice comments about the work Of course no one here has ever seen quilts like these from the Chicago School of Fusing, and they are surprised and pleased by the colors and designs.

Here you can see 3 quilts: the largest with the grey border (thank you Artfabrik!) is called Courthouse Steps: Variations; the blue to the right of it is called Cirque de Sew-Sew; and the striped one in the bottom right is called Guantanamo: Homage to Motherwell .

Robert Motherwell was very affected by the Spanish Civil War and made a series of prints about the Fascist prisons. Naturally, I've seen parallels in our own situation.

The three pieces above this man's head are a series of clay monoprints, pulled one after the other, yet they are still monoprints (ask me why) called Crop Circles.

And the last photo is a closer shot of the first wall. The purple & blue piece was made last summer in Mrs. Mel's Indiana workshop, and the yellow is one of my earliest fused quilts.

In the Pink

2007-02-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

Knitting content here today. I am learning about cables by trying the Irish Hiking Scarf, thanks to inspiration from the Yarn Harlot. Working from my stash, I've chosen pinks--Kashmir Aran by Louise Harding, ribbon & fur yarn scraps, and a fuzzy Berrocco. I am easily bored, so have chosen these different yarns to keep myself awake as I knit this long piece. Hope this will be the first FO on the 2007 Xmas list. I have a recipient in mind who loves pink, girly things, and this will be for her.

Very simple and good TV watching knitting.

Am about ready to start a sweater, so stay tuned for more knit news.

On other fiber fronts, my small show of prints and fused art quilts is up and looks great. Fotos forthcoming.

I'm back at the African quilt, and hoping for time to myself for fusing and printmaking. Here's a promise for more pix and a prompt post.

Lots of snow and cold winter weather have kept me indoors with lovely books by Mary Wesley and some movie watching with the DD and DH. This week's favorite movie was I Capture the Castle, based on the book by Dodie Smith (101 Dalmatians fame). Beautiful. Set in Britain between the Wars.

Another gift wtih the winter weather has been a long quiet spell on the couch with DD a ball of yarn and a pair of needles. She's a natural. I have a list of "skills" I think I must pass on beofre she goes to college in August. Knitting is one of them.

My First Show

2007-02-07T10:20:00.000-05:00

Do you remember me whining a few posts ago about framing clay monoprints in hopes that someone, somewhere, somehow would ask to hang my art?

Well, it has happened!

Truthfully, I thought maybe August '07 was a possibility. But Sunday nite a phone call from Jessica at the Second Cup Cafe said, "Are you ready? We have room for you now!"

Well, those poor gals at Second Cup won't know what hit them when I come rolling in with a dozen clay monoprints and nearly as many fused quilts for their small space.

The show is called "Cloth & Clay" and will be up for the month of February. Wouldn't it be great if a few pieces would sell so that I'd have $$ for more supplies?

The Viennese Winter Ball

2007-02-07T09:46:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was a magical time for my family. My DD was chosen by the Wheeling Symphony to be a member of this year's Cotillion.

Marc & I have always known that SJ is a princess, our princess, but now you know it too.

While the event was a bit rich for my blood, SJ has dreamt of being a dancer for years. She wanted especially to be in the Cotillion in memory of her grandfather, WLH, who was wild about Strauss waltzes.

Back to basics

2007-01-19T11:15:00.000-05:00

Twisted Sisters by Ami Simms

Here I am, back to basics. I am having fun this month honing my old skills, cutting, piecing, and trying to stay on the 1/4" seam line. I'm making a wedding quilt using fabrics from Africa. I decided to put some chartreuse slashing in between the busy blocks.

New Work

2007-01-19T09:57:00.000-05:00

So this is the new fused piece that I have been looking at since October.
I've been tryi

ng to decide whether I love it or hate it. Included are my first attempts at bleach pen resist. The entire piece was an impromptu creation. So now looking at it, I wonder if there is just too much going on. No center, no purpose, all chaos. When I look at it again

, I see the giant four-square and think, no there is purpose and continuity. Any thoughts?
I'm having trouble with Blogger (grrr) and posting these photos, so this is another test.

Resurfacing

2007-01-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

I'm coming back to the blogosphere after a hiatus that was nearly overlooked by blog readers everywhere with the exception of the darling Karoda--thank you friend. It's been a very busy and hectic few months, but at least there has been lots, I mean lots! of knitting and sewing.I made enough $$ selling the knitting so that I've been able to restock my stash. That in itself is enough, because around this Valley, it is nearly impossible to get ahead making crafts or art. And finally, blessedly, the family is well. The demands of being the filling in the sandwich generation have meant that the blog has suffered. Hopefully there will be pictures posted here again soon.

The new year's resolutions are not just the perpetual losing weight, but also include a promise to myself to frame the art prints and to find time for myself, for color, and for the important work that's yet to be made.

I have about 10 clay prints framed and ready for the possibility that someday, someone might call and say, "Hey! How about showing your work in our gallery?" Bring 'em on, I'll be ready!

I've also started a quilt, a traditionally pieced quilt, based on the Twisted Sisters pattern and made entirely out of African cottons. It's very busy and bold, lots of movement. And it's been fun these last couple of weeks to be piecing and fussy cutting and putting the top together. I promise, pictures of this top for sure!

Have started teaching a children's literature class at the college and read "Good Night Moon" aloud to the class. Only 2 students knew the book, the poor darlings! So I will have a lot to share with them, and I hope they do a lot of growing.

The following is from the newspaper column I wrote before Christmas asking Santa for new books and the time to read them. Hope you'll find these or others like them to enjoy and to share with your own family.

More posts soon.

Winter’s Tale by Robert Sabuda Done mostly in sparkly whites, shiny silvers, and icy pastel hues, Sabuda's pop-ups dazzle. An owl soars off the pages; a cave lifts and opens to show the foxes concealed within; and a waterfall cascades into a rushing river, where a bear darts forward to catch the fish that dance above the water's surface. The final 3-D scene shows all of the creatures posed within a forest of evergreens and bare trees, while a snowman standing in front of a lonely house reveals himself as the story's narrator, and promises to return for a visit next year. All of the animals–whether deer, squirrels, or a moose–are sculpted out of flat white paper, making them look elegant against the woodsy backdrops. This is a book of confection for browsing or winter displays and for sharing with young and old.

Winter's Gift by Jane Monroe Donovan
As a blizzard descends, an elderly farmer is preparing to spend Christmas alone. In the nearby woods, a mare has been separated from her herd, and is lost in the storm. She wanders onto the old man's farm and he stables her in his barn, warming her with blankets and nourishing her with carrots and fresh water. On Christmas morning, the farmer wakes to find the mare resting in the barn, and a newborn foal as well. With its soft watercolor illustrations, this sweet story is a wonderful holiday reminder of the importance of hospitality and compassion throughout the year. This children’s book is especially good for ages 4-8.

An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned But Probably Didn't by Judy Jones and William Wilson
Everything you should have learned, plus everything you once learned but have forgotten: such is the stuff of this indispensable reference book. An Incomplete Education offers quick studies on the major who, what, where, when, and why of history, economics, art, literature, music, philosophy, religion--all organized in lively, readable chapters. You'll find answers to questions that have been driving you crazy. And, it's a great source for settling arguments! Best of all, the whole book is written with lighthearted charm and irreverent humor. The authors bring vitality to subjects that otherwise might have seemed heavy and difficult to many of us. An education of any kind makes a great gift.

Yes & No by Linda Tatelbaum The setting is Paris in 1969. American Naomi Weiss, graduate student in paleography (the study of ancient writing), spends hours in the library of the Sorbonne, poring over twelfth-century letters between the philosopher Pierre Abélard and his pupil Héloïse. An elderly librarian observes her carefully, and eventually entrusts her with a manuscript he has found that dates from 1137. Shy, unsophisticated Naomi ends up enlisting the help of two savvy young French student activists in an attempt to keep the manuscript from a nefarious professor who doesn't want its existence known. Excitement and mystery within a scholarly context--and in Paris, no less--make Yes & No a delight to read. For adults.

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Edited by Peter Boxall
This stunningly comprehensive and engagingly illustrated guide to good reading takes you on a delightful chronological tour of the world's greatest literature, from Aesop's Fables (first compiled in 4 BC) to the best novels of 2005. The brief entries for each title--written by an impressive array of critics, academics, novelists, poets, and literary journalists--entice you with a bit of the plot, themes, style, and significance of the work. Actually, it's tremendously edifying just to read this book. The incisive summaries will help you hold your own in literary conversation--until you have the chance to actually read all 1001 books, of course.

The Wild Girl by Chris Wormell
You can't help but love her: she's independent, brave, and kind--and has the messiest hair you've ever seen! She and her little brown dog live all alone in a mountaintop cave. They never see any evidence of another living soul until, one day, they discover big bear tracks leading to their home. The girl and her dog show great courage, and even greater compassion, in their encounters with the bear, who, it turns out, is the mother of a tiny cub. As the cold snow falls in the wide wilderness, the mother and baby bear, the wild girl, and her little brown dog happily discover that there is coziness in numbers. A lovely picture book for young children ages 4-8.

Eve Green by Susan Fletcher

Susan Fletcher paints the Welsh landscape with just a few subtle strokes, and peoples it with living, breathing characters. Her story follows young Eve, orphaned at age seven when her beautiful young mother dies of a heart attack. Eve never knew her father. She's packed off from the mean streets of Birmingham to live with her mother's parents on their farm in

Wales

. Her father's identity is not the only mystery that fascinates Eve, as she faces prejudice against him--and, consequently, against her--in the town her mother fled.

Drug Tests for Librarians?

2006-10-26T13:03:00.000-04:00

The last time a librarian did something really stupid and reckless on drugs was when Laura married George. –Bill Maher

SOCKTOBERFEST 2006--first entry

2006-10-17T14:08:00.000-04:00

I have joined my very first KAL and here is posted my first sock in Socktoberfest 2006.
Hurray!

I am using US #2 bamboo needles and Knitpicks self-stiping sock yarn. Notice the wonderful purple needle holders that keep the tiny stitches from slipping off as I travel with the sock. They are made by Enabling Technologies in Webster, NY.

I am following the Dublin Bay pattern from Mossy Cottage, and shame on me, I've not given you a very good look at the lacey parts going down the sides of the sock. I have started to turn the heel, so am on the home stretch for this sock.

It feels like I've been knitting this sock all month, but it really hasn't been that long. I only have a little time after supper to work on it, and by then the light is poor and my eyes are shot.

This weekend is the big Holiday Shopping Extravaganza event at my DD's school. I've been knitting for months to have a few things to sell. Also, my DH and I will sell our children's books that day. Oh, that's not enough, now comes baking for the bake sale. My mom, age 87, is helping me make lots of bakery (even canine)
treats to tempt shoppers.

The event helps the art department, so it's a good cause. Any readers in the Wheeling area, drop me a note and I'll tell you where & when to shop!

Fun & Games for $200

2006-10-09T12:36:00.000-04:00

Write a caption for this photo.

New Knit Project

2006-09-28T11:13:00.000-04:00

Here is my latest carry-it-with-me knitting project. I dyed the yarn--KnitPicks Wool of the Andes--last summer and have been trying to decide what to do with it. It was the first time that I dyed with Kool-Aid, a science in the kitchen sort of project.

A serendipitous trip to the discount store provided discontinued Fun Fur in the exact colorway. I am working on a hat pattern that I've used before using one strand of worsted and one of fuzzy. It's a cloche-style with a brim that curls up a bit over the forehead.

There's lots o'knitting going on during lunch hours and late night TV time because I'm trying to get fuzzy scarves and hats ready for a school fund-raiser in mid October. Easy, mindless knitting is the answer. I have a few pairs of socks done too, but they will carry a high price because I don't want to part with them!

Slides and application are in the mail for the "Form Not Function" show in New Albany, IN. I don't know how well my work will hold up in the judges' eyes, but I've decided it's time for me to push my little birdies out of the nest to see if they crash or fly. I need some critical feedback instead of the bobble-heads "how pretty" response I get at home.

QUILT CONTENT

2006-09-09T12:17:00.000-04:00

I have some finished work to show on the blog.

In an earlier blog I mentioned a trip to the Youngstown, Ohio Butler Institute of Art where I saw Robert Motherwell paintings & collages that screamed "Art Quilt!" to me.

Here is the first quilt I have completed based on Motherwell's series "A Little Spanish Prison." He was so moved by the Spanish Civil War & fascist regime that he used the same motif over & over again changing the colors. In his honor, I call this quilt "Guantanamo: A Little American Prison" and will let any other comparisons to the political world be yours to make.

All quilting kept very simple. Hand-dyed cottons, fused; frayed unbound edge beneath, measures 18"x 40".

This is "Breathe" is 24"x36"all fused hand-dyed cottons, with vintage brass buttons from my great-great aunt's button box. It is an adapted 9-patch with what I like to think of as a rib-cage and lungs through the middle.

This is "Endure," the piece a made in July in Mrs. Mel's Indianapolis workshop. It measures about the same as the one above, 36"/24".

It was my intention to limit the pallet contrasting the bold with the neutral, and then adding the yellows to make it pop.

I pray that I didn't ruin it with my machine quilting. I know that the stitch in the ditch and the straight sewing were fine, but I don't have confindence in the free-motion stuff. the quilting is done in a variegated YLI cotton thread.

And a close up.

I have one more new piece ready to quilt, maybe this evening, and hopefully will be able to share it soon.

Today's Game

2006-08-31T09:36:00.000-04:00

Fun & Games for $100
Google the word "Failure"

Fun & Games for $500
Visit this site to read Keith Olbermann's brilliant rebuttal to Rumsfield's fascist talk.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/keith-olbermann-delivers-one-hell-of-a-commentary-on-rumsfeld/

Fun & Games for $1000
Mother Jones Magazine has developed a lie by lie timeline that helps track the early days of the US war against Iraq. Check it out.
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/

Dyeing Daze

2006-08-30T09:51:00.000-04:00

Well, I finally did it! I took the plunge and dyed fabric for my own quilts for the first time. It was fun! Of course I needed a little help, I needed a reason to do the dyeing, somehow I couldn't just own up to the fact that I wanted to/needed to do this for myself and my art. But the learning here once again is don't be afraid, don't be cautious. My God! I am 54 years old and I can do anything I put my mind to.

So with a little help from my friends, i.e. the 12th grade art class at MdC, I bought the dye, fabric, and soda ash. I followed the Lazy Dyer Method. And Voila! It was a tie-dye fun fest.

Seven seniors and their teacher GS came to my garage and together we dyed abaout 30 yards of fabric. We all had a blast Now I have to buy us all a couple of bolts of Wonder Under and let the Fusing Frenzy begin!

2006-08-30T09:49:00.000-04:00

The results of Dye Fest 2006

New Summer Quilt

2006-08-21T18:34:00.000-04:00

At last I am able to post this summer's first quilt, 45X45. Obviously it's a modern take off of traditional log cabin quilts. My learning here was to surround the vibrant blocks with neutrals so that they would stand out even more.
The biggest success of the quilt though, was the machine quilting. I have had a lot of trouble with my (new) machine and free-motion quilting. An afternoon spent with local machine quilter
P. Klug really helped as I learned a lot about threads.

Now that I have a good relationship with my machine and some nice new Sulky threads, the quilting is easy.

And here are two close-ups of the blocks.

Once Was Lost, But Now Is Found

2006-08-09T08:54:00.000-04:00

I am happy to report that what was lost, now is found. The past few days my family has been searching for lost items-- a credit card, lost quilt tops, a pair of glasses. It was a learning experience because we had to think about our sin of surplus. For three people, we have too, too much junk. Our excuses include the fact that we've emptied two family homesteads this past year, but those are excuses. We simply have too much stuff, expecially too many papers, books, & magazines. It's an occupational hazard, the home of two writers.

We have had to take our searching to the next level, we went to the professional. We started praying to Tony. St. Anthony, patron saint of the lost & found came through. God bless St. Anthony. When the DH was on the tredmill last evening, Tony told Marc where to look. (I'd found the credit card earlier, thanks to Tony, I'm sure.) "Look in the laundry shoot!" Tony hollered over the din of the exercise machine. And that's exactly where Marc found the quilt tops, lodged in the shoot and unable to fall free...another life metaphor I suppose!

Thank you Tony! and thank you to my DH who heard Tony shouting and looked in the laundry shoot and found my lost quilt top as well as SJ's fused tree.

Now we can get back to working our way through the piles of junk. I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow to QUILT!! and to empty more boxes in the basement. Perhaps in the quilting I will "fall free" and that would be a good thing for my psyche & my chi.

Halleluia!

Stacks, Quilt Tops & more

2006-08-07T13:47:00.000-04:00

On Saturday my family drove to Youngstown, OH to visit the Butler Institute of American Art and to view the Janet Fish pastels that are on display there thru September. What a wonderful museum and collection they have! The cafe is good too. But look what I found there--art quilt tops!

Aren't they loverly. Look at the stacks. Look at the fusible designs.

But where is the quilting? Where are the stitches, you might ask.

Well, these are really not quilt tops.

They are paintings and collages by the American Expressionist Robert Motherwell. And to be very truthful, these are not the actual ones I saw at the museum, these are pictures of similar pieces that I could borrow from the internet. Inspiration is all around. Now I'm on a Motherwell kick, getting books through interlibrary loan, and letting these images swim alongside those of Mrs. Mel and Nancy Crow.

WHERE IS IT, TONY?

2006-08-07T08:49:00.000-04:00

How many times a day are you frustrated by not being able to locate something you just had? Well, for me & mine this happens a lot--too often and I think it's time for Big Mama to put her foot down. Clean up this house! Throw away that old stuff! Put everything back in its place when you're done with it!

Well this is what is missing now. I am so upset! I've looked everywhere and can't find it. We had company staying with us last week--10 people filling beds and camping on the floor. (The Super 8 where they had reservations had a power failure.) I last remember showing them this piece that I made at a workshop with Mrs. Mel. And now it has vanished. I searched the house top to bottom, and my DH and DD who are frightened by the look in my eyes have searched too. This is without a doubt the best piece that I've ever made--fused to batting, backing attached and ready for the pillowcase finish. It's that AHA! kind of a piece.

There is nothing left to do but to post this and give it up to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost items.

Tony, Tony, look around.
Something's lost and must be found.

Geez, Tony, please don't let it be in a van on its way to Iowa!!

Arts "Fare"

2006-08-02T15:00:00.000-04:00

One of my friends is assemblage artist Robert Villamagna. We both work at the same small college in WV and RV has been teacher, mentor, and advocate for me.

This first picture is of his booth at this summer's Penn State Arts Fair. I love his work, how his eye sees things, how he remembers and re-members or puts together the lost, found, & forgotten.

And here is a close-up of one of his shadow boxes. These are small pieces, I have one of his in my library that is over 12 feet tall.

Elegant End of Week

2006-07-31T14:56:00.000-04:00

I had the good fortune to be able to visit Lewisburg, WV and stay at the historic General Lewis Inn. Their website says:

The General Lewis Inn, an historic country inn and restaurant, in Lewisburg, WV, is the ideal setting for your romantic weekend getaway, adventure on crystal blue water or trip back into time in the beautiful Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia.
Did you hear the sound of cannon fire? Oh, we didn’t mention that the General Lewis is located on the site of an 1862 Civil War Battle. Civil War and Revolutionary history lives around every corner of our historically preserved town.

The food was very good and the beds--old rope beds--were divine.

Pay It Forward

2006-07-26T08:21:00.000-04:00

Monday I was still a-buzz from the quilt retreat. I invited GS & her sister A to come to my house for a lesson in fusing. GS would like to use fusing as a component in her senior art class at Mount de Chantal. My darling daughter, a member of that class, attended the fusing class in our basement. What quick learners! Here are their first attempts--small quilts using scraps. SJ's is the watermelon, A's is the log cabin, and GS's is a seascape.(I regret that I can't turn the photo AND get blogger to upload!!)

After getting their feet wet, the three made these:

The four of us had a lovely day being together, talking about school, NYC, art, and family. I felt as though I was paying forward all the help & teaching of fusing & art quilting that others have shared with me.

Quilt Weekend Work

2006-07-25T15:25:00.000-04:00

Here is a fabric sketch that I made several times in the workshop trying different colorways and sizes. The exercise was meant to help me think about values as well as enlarging. This post was meant to go with the following post about the quilt retreat, but Blogger & I were feuding.

QUILT WEEKEND

2006-07-25T11:56:00.000-04:00

I have spent 7 hours fighting with Blogger! Sorry for such a poor post. I'll try again tomorrow.

I spent a terrific weekend with Mrs. Mel and a baker's dozen or so of the kindest, most talented women you could ever hope to meet.
Our retreat was at the Frederick Talbott B&B in Fishers, IN. I arrived just before the lightning & thunder and a rootin' tootin' Indiana thunderstorm. I knew it was a good omen. All the stagnant air was cleaned and cleared away leaving the atmosphere crisp and ready for our creative energies and color work.

The facilities at the B&B were cozy & clean. Huge bedrooms & baths, clean sheets & firm mattresses. And the food--delicious and beautifully served. Best of all was that I was not doing the cooking, cleaning, nor laundry and so everything was all the better for that.

The topic of our retreat was Design Small for Large Works.

And that was just what I needed. I really feel that I need help thinking about design elements and how to use them in planning an art quilt. I came home with several new ideas as well as a good quilt top.

2006-07-25T11:20:00.000-04:00

The work waiting to be done. These are the luscious hand-dyed fabrics
by the Fibermaniac, Mrs. Mel.

The exquisiteness of it all. Be still my heart! These colors made us giddy and tingly all over.

The thrill of the possibilities.

Birthday Gifts

2006-07-17T12:54:00.000-04:00

Another year older and wiser.

I had a lovely birthday weekend. All the important women in my life were with me--My mother, my sister, my daughter, my college roommates(from across the miles), and my three dear local girlfriends. I am blessed, loved, and nurtured by these women. Too often I take that love & support for granted, and I hope in the next year I can work at being more mindful of such blessings.

One of my girlfriends gave me this message in a card:

The Real To-Do List

Sing
Smile at strangers
Keep learning
Notice kindness
Eat ice cream
Hope
Count your blessings
Laugh
Love
Love some more

Those sound like things I want to do this coming year.

My other dear friend, whom I met in 1970 (eegads, I really am old) and who is without a doubt the wisest, deepest thinking person I've ever known, wrote this poem for me as an ode the the new directions I am seeking.

A Burning Deep Within

A burning deep within--

like a mysterious light

glimpsed far deeper in the woods

than you have dared to walk.

A beckoning, "come home:"

home to your uniqueness;

home to the home

this world cannot offer;

home to the place you belong,

that which you love.

To go there you must

develop apatheia,

the discipline of detachment

from all that is trivial,

that fragments or scatters,

develop a unifying heart

that gathers like a glass

refracting rays of light

from the source

of the burning deep within.

--B.T. 7/15/06

Quilt Content

2006-07-10T09:56:00.000-04:00

Treasure Trove:

Dearest BB has returned from 10 months in Burkina Faso, and look what she brought home for me!! Lovely, lovely cottons to be added to my African stash and ear-marked for a big, new, surprise project to be unveiled in the near future.

Meanwhile...

On the homefront, I found a little time for my- self and have started a new fusing project. This is half--about 45" long. Hope to add 8 more blocks and make it into a square. I ran out of fabric, so am waiting for more. Learning from Mrs. Mel once again, I tried setting the vibrant colors off by choosing the neutral strips between blocks.

I've been away from the fusing for a while.
The time I need to focus on fusing has been taken away from me because of family obligations. So the few hours to myself were especially delicious.

Finally, these little tops are about 12X18. They were warm up exercises for me before jumping into the bigger project. Using scraps from the scrapbag, it was fun to play around, get the juices flowing, etc. I'm getting all revved up because next week I'm going to Conner Prairie to work with Mrs. Mel. Let the colors begin!

FINAL REPORT--sent to grant agency

2006-07-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

Thought that I would blog this final report which was sent to the grant agency that underwrote my workshop this spring. It conveys some of my thoughts on making art & making clay prints.

As an emerging artist, I work alone. I make art for myself and for the process of making art, swimming in color. I often wonder if I am kidding myself about this clay printing that I do in my basement. Maybe it is just a flight of fancy. I don’t have many opportunities to compare my printmaking with others, and so after a year of this solitude, I felt that I had reached a wall. This workshop helped me find a way around that impediment. It helped validate my work, and it inspired me to continue working.

To watch Mitch Lyons work and demonstrate various techniques in clay printing was first of all a remedial class. I had forgotten a lot of what he shared with me last year. Maybe forgotten isn’t the right word, maybe I mean these techniques had lain dormant and he reminded me of them. In any case, seeing him work refreshed my own notions of clay printing. He gave me plenty of ideas to try. Mitch is a fine teacher who always praises and builds up a doubting student.

Working along side the other 12 people was also stimulating. Each one of us had separate, individual ways of approaching the clay. Some, like me, worked fast and the work poured out of them; others dawdled and worked the clay slab for an entire day before trying to print it. Seeing such variety and diverse styles broadened my thoughts and techniques as I borrowed from those around me. Thus, both the mentor-student relationship and the community of artists’ relationships were enriching and stretching to me as a solo, emerging artist.

My techniques changed too. Because we shared colors, my palette was forced to change. Sometimes I only had a few colors to work with and this limit made me think about how to use these colors effectively. New color juxtapositions were made and sometimes I also was forced to not think in color at all. Rather, I was forced to think about adding textures, inlaying surfaces, scratching, and scraping out lines in the clay that would be visible when printed. These textures added depth and interest to my work and helped make the pieces stronger.

Finally, I was able to return home with a new body of work—12 new prints! But even more importantly, I drove home with a sense of validation that my work was good and true--that it could stand along side others’ works—and that I could spend another year working on my own thanks to the inspiration as well as the techniques that I gained from this workshop.

Knitting Rules!

2006-06-14T16:44:00.000-04:00

One of the loverly things about being a librarian is ordering new books, sometimes even books that I'm interested in reading. Today our copy of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's "Knitting Rules" finally hits the shelf! Of course I must browse through it to be able to talk about the book with the library patrons! You see right through me, don't you.

Well on page11 Stephanie explains so perfectly why I knit.

"Knitting is a miracle worker. With knitting, people can suddenly do things they couldn't do before. They can wait in line without becoming impatient. They can sit through a grade-school concert with a smile. They can handle long meetings and lectures, all without bothering other people or pacing around like lunatics. I can think of several times in my own life when knitting kept me from slapping some fool upside the head. Knitting makes boring people interesting and mundane things intriguing. The only other thing that does that has the disadvantage of giving you a hangover instead of a pair of socks."

And I personally want to add to Stephanie's litany--keeping from crying like a baby in the Emergency Room. My father was taken to the hospital yesterday with a very low pulse & dizziness. He is 88. I am watching him slowly dissolve before me.

Knitting is good.

Recent Work

2006-06-08T08:43:00.000-04:00

When I returned from my art retreat, I tried to set up my workspace in the basement and use that new found energy to keep on track with the clay prints.

So at home with my limited, as yet, available colors, I have been trying out different combinations, different tints and pigments.

Those beautiful blue-green leaves were made by mistake. I was looking for black, a really deep black that when mixed with white clay slip would still be black. I grabbed the black food coloring I use at Halloween, and the clay was black, but it separated when drying on a piece of newsprint and became this color I never could have mixed on my own.

I am also trying to make recognizaable images and am having no luck. I keep coming out with impressionistic flowers instead of the simple lined Japanese iris that I am trying to make.

Here I have flowers, but somehow I just keep slopping the color around. And the fact that the history of the clay slab comes to the surface makes for the serendipity so exciting in the expressionist prints, but so frustrating when I want to be in control of my feeble designs.

This is a close up of the first pastel piece I made at Peters Valley.

And finally, back to the brights! The orange was made by grating a pastel over the surface & spritzing it with a little water. Here is the black I was hoping to rediscover when I used the food coloring.
The black lines were made with a very thin slip i.e. watery, and drawn on newsprint which soaks up the excess water. Then the paper is inverted onto the slab and inlaid.

Recent Work

2006-06-08T08:30:00.000-04:00

These next images are some of the work I did while at Peters Valley with Mitch Lyons. There I enjoyed time without interruptions and I worked fast & free until I was spent. Then everything turned to mud--literally. At one point all my colors merged into yuck--nothing! After a rest, a break through! Note to self: Creating is hard work. Take breaks.

In this print the mud forms a great background, and I learned a valuable lesson, nothing is wasted in clay prints.

The history of the clay slab, like our own histories, makes for more texture, more depth, and consequently more interest in the work and in our lives.

Here is a second printing of the clay slab. Note how the bright yellow and red are disappearing and the mud color is coming through, showing the history of the slab. I added a darker green on top of the light green which is nearly gone. The blue and white from several layers below are making their way to the surface again.

And these next pieces show my actively adding textures, rolling things in the clay, carving and cutting the clay. I need to remember to add varied textures, not just color, color, color.

And finally, one last look at brights & bold black.

STITCHKEEPERS--found at last!

2006-06-01T09:56:00.000-04:00

Last fall while at a storytelling festival, I met a woman knitting socks. She had the neatest little gadget to hold the short, 4 " DPN's together, Stitchkeepers, she called them. Since then I have looked everywhere to keep my sock projects from unraveling. Well, today's my lucky day! In today's issue of "The Knitter's Review" Clara Parkes reviews "StichKeepers" by Rollie.

The Knitter's Review says about StitchKeepers, " The notion behind (them) is extremely simple: you have two small rubber cups that are connected by a narrow strand of elastic. That's it! You simply arrange yoursock so the needles are all aligned, then slip the rubber cup over each end of the needles. The elastic automatically holds the rubber cups together and keeps your needles (and the knitting on them) right where they are."

StitchKeepers by Rollie are available in three different needle size groups: size US 0-3, US 3-5, and US 5-9. Elastic lengths of 4", 5", 6", 8" and 10" are available in each of the 3 widths.

I called the listed phone number pronto and spoke with Rollie in person. A retired teacher who makes jewelry and StitchKeepers, she has been knitting since she was 4 years old. Hurrah for Rollie! I placed my order, enjoyed the chat, and hope to share these Keepers with sock making friends.

Memorable Memorial Day Weekend Making Art

2006-05-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

My own slab and work space. Note the pastels (dried clay) that I grate onto the slab for bursts of color. The red onion bag was rolled into the slab and removed for texture, and the back side of the spoon is used to finish braying the corners of the print where the pizza roller can't reach.

The process for me is immediate, serendipitous. I grab whatever colors I have at hand and dive in working quickly and pulling about one print per hour. I have been wondering why I work like that. Maybe I am so starved for the artmaking and the color; maybe I know how precious little time I have to myself for my art; maybe it's the adrenaline rush and thrill of it all.

Anyway, it was important to me to be working along side a woman who worked in a completely opposite manner. She spent hours dawdling over her slab, enjoing the fussing and carving and playing with it. She only made a few prints, but each was very beautiful too. Her presence helped me calm down, think about how I work as well as how I might work in new ways.
Here are the finished prints hanging after a preservative coating was applied. Can you find where the onion bag was used?

These are monoprints because when you pull a second print from the "plate"(the clay slab), the second print is not a ghost print, but a completely different print. As you print 2, 3, or more times, you actually pull clay from deeper and deeper in the slab, rediscovering the history buried beneath.

I am gaining quite a body of work and must think about what to do with all these prints. A show? A sale? Lots of frames? Let them accumulate in the garage?

What I do know is that it is the making of them that is important to me, not the selling or finding homes for them. That will happen when the time is right. In the mean time, I will make time for myself, my clayprints, and my quilts.

2006-05-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

This is the view from our clayprint studio of the lake at Thunder Mountain, part of the Peters Valley Arts Education Center. Next door in our building were jewelry makers. The weavers had their own studio, and the blacksmiths, their own shop.

Hard at work! My table mate has pots of colored slip at hand. She painted stripes of color onto newsprint and then will inlay these colors into the clay slab that we print from.

Here is the slab with other colors that she has already inlaid. The sprayer is used to spritz water on the clay slab to keep it just barely moist. The pizza roller is the most often used tool; used to inlay colored clay as well as used as a brayer to pull the print.

Clay Monoprint Workshop with Mitch Lyons

2006-05-30T09:28:00.000-04:00

What a wonderful weekend I had making art at the serene Peters Valley Art Education Center, Layton, NJ! Located in the NW corner of the state, Peters Valley is a forgotten, wild & natural spot near the Delaware Water Gap. It's distance from interstates, jobs & family demands makes it a perfect place to dive in and make art.

I didn't choose the place, tho, I chose the instructor, Mitch Lyons. This past year I have been making clay monoprints and felt that I needed a refresher course, a booster shot, a chance to watch Mitch make art and think about how to improve my work.

It was like going to summer camp! New friends to make, all supportive and encouraging one another and our printmaking.

I stayed 1 1/4 hours south with friends and so drove each misty moisty morning through beautiful old farm land, past old stone houses, and numerous still lakes. Quiet, no Jersey highways, just me and the mornings.

Here is Mitch Lyons talking to us about the process that he discovered 30 years ago while trying to decorate the ceramic pots he was making. Over the years he has refined this printing method which begins with a slab of clay. Clay slip is then tinted with either inorganic (ceramic glazes) or organic pigments (paint) and applied to the slab. Use is made of pressing textures into the slab and adding layers & layers of color. Then a piece of reemay or pellon is laid on the colored slab and a print is pulled. A very thin layer of clay actually sticks to the reemay creating a permanent, archival print.

The Merry Month of May

2006-05-17T09:13:00.000-04:00

I know that it has been a while since the last post. Life has intervened. The generational sandwich has slapped itself up one side and down the other squeezing me like the PB &J between 2 slices of bread.

I moved my parents from their home of 55 years acorss state lines and into assisted living just down the street from me. It was the right time, it was the right decision, but it was and is so very hard emotionally. Their new place is beautiful and caring and I'm the one who really wants to move in. No dishes, no laundry, no grocery shopping, no housecleaning! My wise father says, don't wish your life away, it happens soon enough.

I've also been Science Geek Mom. My DD was awarded two trips to national & international science competitions again this year. I know that it was the last big hurrah for her and that there won't be any more scince fair projects (Hallelujah!), so of course I had to go too.

The photo above is of DD on the square in Santa Fe. We rented a car and drove from Albuquerque north through the mountains (it snowed in the night) for a break from all the other science geeks. We drove the Turquoise Trail along the eastern slopes of the Sandia Mountains--great beautiful barren emptiness! In Santa Fe we ate blue corn tortillas and took in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. I was moved to tears to see the paintings I've loved and studied in books, right there before me. Her work & her country call to me. I could easily live in those mountains.

Last week DD and I were in Indianapolis for the International Science & Engineering Fair. And the best part of the fair again was not the science or the competition (yuk), but the fact that the 3 aunties came to see & support their young neice. My sister drove from Cleveland and two great aunts drove from the IN state line. Our far-flung family came together for a few hours--making memories and empowering the next generation. Really wonderfull! Pictured below is DD & DS from Cleveland. Sorry, ladies for the blurry shot!

The DH has never seen DD at any of her 3 trips to the international fair, and so the final blessing was that he joined his own aunties in this day of family pride. Needless to say, there has been precious little quilting or making art this month. I did, however, take my watercolors to NM and was inspired by all the art around me & the mountains outside my window, and so painted in the hotel room That has kept the color current and the pump primed. Thank goodness for knitting which travels well. More new socks are in the works! I'll share knitting pictures and the watercolors soon. And don't cry for me, I'm going to a monoprint workshop over the Memorial Day weekend---all by myself!

Cincinnati Art

2006-04-25T20:09:00.000-04:00

The best part of the entire trip was my serendipitous meeting with Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi. I had just visited a gallery where her powerful quilts were exhibited, and there she was! Skyline Chili and coneys paled by comparison; and the Chihuly handing in the lobby was gaudy and over the top after Carolyn's quilts and her wonderful smile. What a small world our quilt world is, and how beautiful.

2006-04-25T17:44:00.000-04:00

Sun-shadow by Alice Schille

Museum Hopping with the Girls

2006-04-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

Lucky me, I was Mom on the junior class art field trip and drove a van load of girls across Ohio last week. It was wonderful!

Our first stop was the Columbus Museum of Art where we saw the most wonderful exhibits.
We were there to take in American Impressionism .

"This exhibition highlights stellar works of American Impressionism held in both private and public collections in Ohio. Including approximately 75 works, the exhibition explores the variety of styles and interests that define American Impressionism. Artists such as Mary Cassatt, Robert Blum, and Theodore Robinson worked side by side with French Impressionists such as Edgar Degas and Claude Monet. The striking Japanese-inspired compositions, spontaneous application of pure pigment, and interest in the effects of natural light seen in their works show evidence of the strong influence that French artists had over their American counterparts."
(February 3 - June 4, 2006), but were treated to much, much more.
I learned about a wonderful artist, native of Columbus, whose color and style made my heart beat fast. Alice Schille: An Independent Spirit.

"As an auxiliary exhibition to American Impressionism, this exhibition will take a renewed look at Columbus's most important Impressionist, Alice Schille. An impressive array of Schille's masterpieces, in both oil and watercolor, will be assembled for the exhibition to present more fully the artist's explorations in the boundaries of color and light that mark the central concern of Impressionism."

http://www.columbusmuseum.org/specialevents/aib2006/ And best of all was Art in Bloom. Floral designers were asked to interpret art works throughout the museum for a gala that was to take place later that evening. I was able to watch and talk to the designers as they created their floral arrangements in the museum. Oh! the colors, the smells, the wonderfulness.
(I gush!) More in the next post.

Student Fusing

2006-04-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

This is what happens when one shares the secrets of fusing quilts with a young artist! Mary, a talented undergraduate, is mentoring with me in fiber arts Look what she has done with one piece of fabric and some shears. She has thought about lining up all those little bubbles that appear thru out the fabric to create the feeling of energy and power around this radiant red/warm woman. Then she uses the blues and greens, the cools, and cuts them into grasses, maybe seaweed to frame her.

This piece is about 15x22 and is fused to the batting. Mary checked out a few embroidery books last night to learn how to use some hand stitches on this before she puts on the back panel and quilts it.

Stunning! Mary, I'm so proud to know you. You are far better than your mentor.

SENATE HEARINGS ON BUSH, NOW!

2006-04-18T09:14:00.000-04:00

Carl Bernstein, who has not copted out like Bob Woodward, has written a wonderful article in Vanity Fair comparing the Bush Administration with Watergate. Here is an excerpt, but the entire piece can be found at:

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege08

Senate Hearings on Bush, Now
By CARL BERNSTEIN
Published by Vanity Fair

Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans—including some of the president's top lieutenants—now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans—nearing fifty percent in some polls—who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.
Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington.
After Nixon's resignation, it was often said that the system had worked. Confronted by an aberrant president, the checks and balances on the executive by the legislative and judicial branches of government, and by a free press, had functioned as the founders had envisioned.
The system has thus far failed during the presidency of George W. Bush—at incalculable cost in human lives, to the American political system, to undertaking an intelligent and effective war against terror, and to the standing of the United States in parts of the world where it previously had been held in the highest regard.
There was understandable reluctance in the Congress to begin a serious investigation of the Nixon presidency. Then there came a time when it was unavoidable. That time in the Bush presidency has arrived.

Knitting Knirvana

2006-04-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

On the knitting front, I have been a busy girl. The weekly knitting clatches at the library have proved to be fun and well attended. Bev Beatty, fiber diva, is doing the teaching, I'm the cheerleader, and as you can see, I'm getting some knitting done, too.
On Friday evening I drove thru highway workzones, rush hour traffic, and thunder & lightning to the Burgh to see the Yarn Harlot in all her splendor.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was speaking at Knit One, a new (to me) LYS in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. What a beautiful store, what gorgeous yarn, and what a crowd! Filled to capacity and standing room only, over 200 people came to hear the Yarn Harlot. And she was really worth it! Funny. Articulate. Warm & empathic. A great time was had by all. I managed to escape with only one ball of yarn for, what else, new sox and two pattern books that I've been dreaming about for months "Colinette Pattern Books: Rock Gods & Movie Stars ." Also a Colinette book of throws and pillows.

Sorry so small, but I bought a pin from Stephanie to prove to you that I was there. It is a Knitters without Borders pin supporting Doctors without Borders.

And finally, am getting a fused quilt & 2 clay monopriants ready for submission to our local art show. Keep your fingers crossed. Maybe the quilt will break into the local art world.

Fused Fiber Postcards

2006-04-11T14:48:00.000-04:00

Pretty irconic, I think, since I've only been fusing a little over a year. I've been asked by an art professor at our college to present fused quilting in his contemporary craft class this spring. Yesterday the students began fusing Wonder-Under to their fabrics. Their first assignment is to made a fabric postcard.

I'm not sure about the W-U--am holding my breath. What will I do if it's the bad stuff that Mrs. Mel and others have discovered??!! Twenty students and a bolt of W-U! We'll see.

Haven't been blogging lately because I'm moving my 87 year old parents from OH to WV to be near me. We are closing and selling the house they built together 55 years ago. It's the hardest thing I've done in a long while, but they are very independent and capable and my sister & I with them are doing a little every day. Blessedly, everything is coming together--sold the house to the neighbor, found an antique dealer who will clean after we're gone, have found doctors, a lawyer, and a church for them when they are settled in their fabulous new apartment.They will be 1 mile from me, and that will be a good thing, as well as a new and different thing.

ADOBE SPRING

2006-03-21T08:39:00.000-05:00

I am looking forward to a spring visit to New Mexico and in anticipation of the trip, I made Adobe Spring. Here's my most recent attempt at merging the clay monoprint with the art quilt (15"x 22"). The last piece was critiqued by a non-quilt artist as "too much" when I fixed bundles a la Sonji on it. This time I held back and only glued 2 green leaves sprouting up out of the detrius of winter a.k.a. The fabric isn't cotton, but an upholstery remnant that melts when the iron hits it--now there was a learning moment! Variegated threads pulled the colors of the monoprint onto the fabric and quilting with the same color thread in straight lines echoed the weaving. I used the reverse side of the fabric to take advantage of the softer colors.

Clay monoprints

2006-03-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

This posting is an attempt to gather together some of my previous posts that were buried in the archives. These are for Arlee and others new to my blog.

2006-03-07T11:31:00.000-05:00

Clayprints: First before altering, and then after altering & embellishing.

2006-03-07T11:24:00.000-05:00

Ugly clay print, sliced, reassembled, and embellished with bundles from the School of Sonji.

Clay prints sliced, diced and served up anew.

Video Shows Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit - Yahoo! News

2006-03-02T08:59:00.000-05:00

Video Shows Bush Warned Before Katrina Hit - Yahoo! News

The Associated Press released secret transcripts and video footage showing President Bush being personally briefed the day before Hurricane Katrina hit land. The predictions he heard were shockingly precise and accurate—including the failure of the levees. He knew exactly what was coming.

The article is a smoking gun on Bush's unpardonable failure to keep us safe. At the August 28th briefing, the president was told exactly what to expect:
The chief scientist of the National Hurricane Center warned that a major levee breach was "obviously a very, very grave concern." Bush lied to the entire nation about this point just 5 days later.
Michael Brown told the president that if New Orleans flooded the Superdome emergency shelter would likely be under water and short on supplies, creating a "catastrophe within a catastrophe."
Experts and officials implored the President to prepare for, as the AP described it, "devastation of historic proportions."
President Bush didn't ask a single question during the briefing. In the next two days he campaigned, attended birthday parties and played guitar while the worst natural disaster in American history killed over 1,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

There can now be no mistake: President Bush had a chance to lead, and he failed to keep us safe. The survivors of Katrina deserve to know why the president left them to suffer the storm. And the people of the United States deserve leadership we can trust to keep our families safe. In just a few hours, the White House will be filling the airwaves with spin, so it's important to reach out right now to pass on the straight story to family and friends.

Knew Knittted Sox

2006-03-01T09:56:00.000-05:00

Here I am starting my second pair of sox. I've discovered Knitpicks and their inexpensive yarns. Have gone in with a friend to take advantage of the bulk discount.

And because it is Ash Wednesday, I am starting a new routine. Instead of giving up something for Lent, I'm taking up an addition. I will do something physical everday for 40 days. And, no, knitting does not count.

Heel & toe and off I go! Ready to start the heel flap on these spring colored sox.

We Are Stardust

2006-02-28T13:15:00.000-05:00

Trying to use the notion of personal icons, I came up with four images. I used fused scraps to make the leaves and the bark here. And I repeated the human form seen in another square in the tree trunk and branches.
A simple fused Mr. Moon. Lots of empty black space to fill, but how?

And a glimpse of the four corners that make the whole. The piece looks like a child's quilt and that was not my original intention. Still, I will finish it. I am nearly ready to add the batting, but am dragging my feet because I want to think about embroidery, beads, and other decorative elements.

Any suggestions from you, dear readers, would be appreciated.

Violet Patch

Celebrating the Creative Spirit Workshop

Playing with the Paints

Happy NYC Girls

New Work--Monoprints

FALL ART RETREAT WITH MARILYN PHILLIS SAVE THE DATE! September 9-12

Gal's Best Friend

RESERVE YOUR PLACE IN THE MARCH WORKSHOP

SOLD!

ART ON THE WALLS

New Art Show @ ArtWorks

Art Workshop

New Work

New Summer Work

CELEBRATING THE CREATIVE SPIRIT

Quilts, and more quilts

Gloria Steinem: Sarah Palin--WRONG WOMAN

MATERIAL MATTERS

Summer Reading

Icon Making

HIATUS IS OVER

CLOTH & CLAY @ Artworks

News Notes

New Show Nearly Here

Chihuly at the Phipps

Clayprints & Bundles

Quilt National 2007

More Quilt Content

New Quilt Content

Art Inspires Art

Mini Quilt--Revelation

The Old & the New

ART CAMP: Releasing the Creative Spirit

QUILT CONTENT

Hemlocks Studio Here I Come

Art Retreat

Blog Hiatus Over--Knit Content Here

Student Quilts

Ode to Mothers

Just One Word

Anticipation--YH Represent Pittsburgh

yarn Harlot Represents the 'Burgh

Travel Knits

Still in Love

Forthcoming Column on Books for Kids

THE FIFTH ELEMENT

WINTER--One More Time

Quilting Gains Popularity as Modern Artform

GOOD FRIENDS, GOOD BOOKS

CLOTH & CLAY: Bundles 1 & 2

CLOTH & CLAY

In the Pink

My First Show

The Viennese Winter Ball

Back to basics

New Work

Resurfacing

Drug Tests for Librarians?

SOCKTOBERFEST 2006--first entry

Fun & Games for $200

New Knit Project

More Quilt Content

QUILT CONTENT

Today's Game

Dyeing Daze

New Summer Quilt

Once Was Lost, But Now Is Found

Stacks, Quilt Tops & more

WHERE IS IT, TONY?

Arts "Fare"

Elegant End of Week

Pay It Forward

Quilt Weekend Work

QUILT WEEKEND

Birthday Gifts

Quilt Content

FINAL REPORT--sent to grant agency

Knitting Rules!

Recent Work

Recent Work