Showing New Work for a Weekend

 Thirty years ago  Pnina Granirier & her friend Anne (who has passed away & whose last name eludes me) started Artists in our Midst. The idea was people could walk around a neighborhood & go into the homes & studios of artists some of whom operated a bit outside the high end gallery scene. I first participated in this event was in 1997, three years before I retired from teaching. 

When I moved to Yaletown in 2009 I couldn't see a way of continuing to participate, so I dropped out. But earlier this year, Alice Philips invited me to show at her house & I jumped at the chance. She's another textile artist & I really enjoy her work & her company. She is now chairing this event which has a new tag name: West of Main Art Walk.

While I've been living on the east side of George Wainborn Park, I made opportunities for myself to show my work in a lovely grove of trees on the west side of the park. One year & showed the eighteen number quilts I made, & another year I hung "recent work".

The thing about putting up a show is that "a public" gets to see a curated collection, & for the artist, it's an opportunity to take stock, look at a body production & reflect on it. That's really important. The artist has to pause production while all the show-hoopla is happening. This is, as Pooh Bear would say, A Good Thing.

Alice has a marvelous garden, so I could use my clothesline approach to hang larger work in her front & back yard, for the room she gave me was in her basement room which is maybe 12 x 20 feet &, it turned out wonderfully suited to showing my smaller & more recent work.

So here we go, mostly recent work... First the CheckerBoard Series. I've posted most of them before. I am still thinking about re-visiting this zone. I don't think I'm quite finished with this playground!

 The "Confetti Quilts" have been another theme. In a dyeing workshop I came home with a batch of Procyon dye recipes & postage-stamp swatches glued on paper. I soaked by dye recipe pages in water, got the paste out of the samples, & voila -- confetti patches! In various stages of completion.

Then the Fiji/Post Fiji series. 

          I did some of the sewing work in Fiji & the major composition work when I got home.

    This quilt (Fiji Hot & Humid) is patched by hand & quilted by hand, so the surface is very textured.

Then a final category: Most Recent Work

                                                    
                   And finally 'the look' of the room in Alice's basement & the quilts hanging in the garden.

                                                    Me setting it up with Erica's wonderful help.

Other parts of the room.

The Garden

So what my take-away was: right now my work has an airiness of soft sweet colors & shapes. 

It seems to make me happy & others too.

And the Last Word goes to The Garden!

HEAVEN!

That's it for now.

Making stuff makes me happy

 2022 has been sweeter to me than 2021 was. Though I still don't like Covid Effects, I am used to it. I've discovered that I rather like hunkering down, doing less running around, & having more time available.

I made quite a lot of stuff in 2022.

Two baby quilts, for example..... for baby Willow...

                                                                ...& for baby Oak...

I repaired a quilt for Joslyn, one that was over 20 years old & had quite a number of patches that were plumb worn out. I just discovered I didn't/don't have a photo of it at the beginning!

Visiting in Whistler at Lesley's house, I was able to get a shot of a collage that I made in the 1990s. The underimage came from a marvelous collection of illustrations for children's books in an appointment calendar book I had. The over paper I made inspired by a student I had named Geeta. I made quite a few sheets of "Geeta paper" that I used & treasured. I often wonder what she would think if she knew how she has inspired me. She was very shy & rather sad.

Then I happened upon a book written by Ferren Gipson called Women's Work. She was born in the USA but now lives in London. She's quite well known as a designer, writer, thinker.

The cover image & the title captivated me & so I googled her & found she had made two "checkerboard" quilts that I loved. 

"What a great new playground for me," I thought.

Of course square-patch quilts are about the oldest kind, but I had never played with squares in quite this way before.

My first effort was a bit chaotic... Summer Checkerboard...

Then I did a second one based on zinnia flower colors... Zinnia Checkerboard

 I got to wondering if I were going to run through the seasons...

Definitely b/w/grey, so maybe B/W/Grey Checkerboard.

 I realized that I had quite a few leftovers from all three endeavors. 

Checkerboard Salad Delight was generated. 

At this point it's patched & I'm just starting to quilt it up.

Do I want to do more in this zone? I'm not sure, but I know I do want to try some work based on Ferren Gipson's book cover.

That's it for now.

I Have Measured Out My Life

 

 “I measure out my life with coffee spoons.”  T.S Eliot

And me?

I have measured out my life with blue jeans worn out,

with Chapstick tubes,

with chickens I cooked,

& countries visited.

I have measured out my life with the cars I’ve bought,

with music I’ve learned to sing,

with the lessons I planned & taught,

& houses I’ve lived in.

I’ve measured out my life with yards cloth I bought,

with needles threaded, pins lost, & spools finished,

with quilts I’ve made,

& shows I’ve been in.

I’ve measured out my life with books read,

with movies seen, radio interviews heard,

with historical turning points I lived firsthand,

& wars won or lost in all zones that I cared about.

I’ve measured out my life with generations I can see,

with births, marriages, & deaths that I know,

with people moving & coming back,

& with accidents, scandals, disappointment, & fortitude.

I’ve measured out my life with friends & lovers,

with ones I kept & ones that fell by the wayside,

with dinners I’ve given & gone to,

& with the address & contact lists, letters, & emails.

I’ve measured out my life with photographs taken,

with albums from the past, mine & others’,

with cartoons & jokes I remember,

& trips & outings to see art.

I’ve measured out my life with my favorite garments,

with sheets used & torn,

with tablecloths loved,

& hats that came to me & were lost.

I have measured out my life with china I have eaten off,

with coffee mugs & wine glasses, especially ones I broke,

with vases, oh! the vases with the flowers,

&  nearly daily loads of stuff in the dishwasher.

I have measured out my life with letters: email & postal,

with presents & packages sent & received,

with stamps bought,

& with newspapers & magazines.

I have measured out my life with sweaters I made,

with art bought, decks of cards worn out, 

music on LPs, tapes, CDs, & beyond,

& with furniture & carpets I have loved.

I have measured out my life with loads of laundry,

with filling my car with gas,

with bagfuls of carpet dust & floor sweepings,

& with all the Pentel pens I have used up or lost.

I have measured out my life with journals kept,

with dances & exercise classes,

with yawns & sneezes,

 & with heartbeats & respiration.

I have measured out my life with favorite numbers,

with clotheslines delighted in,

with apples, pears, & tangerines eaten,

& classrooms I have been in.

I have measure out my life with lost earrings,

with watches, 

with pairs of glasses & sun glasses left behind somewhere

& treasured gifts & hand-me-down possessions. 

I have measured out my life with 3 siblings,

with 3 children &  3 step-children,

with 2 husbands, 16 aunts & uncles

& 4 grandchildren.

I have measured out my life with cartons of ice cream,

with television programs & series,

with phone calls, especially the long-distance ones,

& games of Russian Bank, cribbage, Set, & solitaire.

I have measured out my life with measuring tools,

with many special collections,

with egg-beaters, thimbles, letter-stamp sets, scissors,

& 4 important cameras

I have measured out my life with the places I have lived,

with the bike, plane, bus, train, & car trips I have made,

with my traveling companions & trail buddies,

& with currencies I have used.

I have measured out my life with spools of thread,

Seam lines, quilting stitches,

Scissors, bought, given, & found,

& special quilt-making projects.

I have measured out my life with favorite grey garments,

With dance skirts I made, dance shoes & blouses,

With nightgowns, wrappers & slippers,

& 

A Few Very Last Quilt Items

 After my last entry there were still some untold/unseen items on my screen saver. 

So here goes.

One of the most "extreme" quilts I ever attempted I called The Spirit of Africa. It was made in a big patch of time where I was doing dyeing & printing. I look at it now, shake my head at my bravery for "pushing it", & think, "it didn't work", but some elements I still like.

In almost an opposite vein is this simple quilt based on a lovely old linen table cloth that had pansies woven into its damask pattern. I added two frames of white shell buttons & a frames of silk screened flowers on the border. Sweet Memories of Simpler Times I called it.

During my first workshop with Nancy Crow in Portland, Erica was rehearsing in an outdoor space for a ballet during her time as a dancer with Oregon Ballet Theater. Some how this piece came together. I called it Dancing on the Avenue.

 

And from 1972, with Joslyn, age one-&-a-half, & with me way before I discovered I was pregnant with twins, is a photo I took of my newly made bedquilt made with thoughts of the op artist Vaserelly. I had seen his work in Province, France a few years before.

Joslyn's wet bottom + my thin belly says it all!

To close, some of the very recent quilts. These are quickies & small ones.

First, Summer Confetti 2 or Three.

More Els (I've played with Els before)

Sunflowers & Echinecia

                                             Handundfussecstase (hand & food ecstasy) & its reverse.

                                           

 

And finally, the quilt that replaced my Covid Quilt in my front hall: Marimekko & Other Echos.

That's it for now. My screen saver is now empty of quilts-in-waiting!! Hooray!