Summer phone photos

 Suddenly it’s the middle of July! I have been loving the feeling of freedom that the summer brought, with fewer restrictions regarding COVID precautions. This last week has brought concerning news, though, about the more dangerous variant of the virus and rising rates of infection. It continues to astound me that there are still people refusing to take COVID seriously and those who who refuse the vaccine. Depressing to imagine that this pandemic will drag on and on, if this thinking continues. I’m sad and sorry for everyone living in those communities where it is surging and ever grateful that my friends and neighbors here in Western Oregon have had the wisdom to comply and vaccinate. Our vaccine rates are high and infection numbers are low. I hope that continues. 

One of the best things that has happened are outdoor, in-person get togethers. The photo is our art quilt group, High Fiber Diet, meeting together, for the first time in more than a year this week, in a lovely park. And another group I am part of met in another park the next day. Both were such joyous occasions!  And, why, I wonder, have we never thought to have our summer meetings outdoors?  A circle of camp chairs under a big, shady tree beats the heck out of a Sunday school room in a church or  community center meeting room. We will do it again next month. 

 I finished my piece called “Tower of Babel” and submitted it for the next High Fiber Diet exhibit called “Can You Hear It?” It represents the Biblical story that explains the origin of the many languages of the world. The background uses a required fabric that resembles sound waves, to which I have added the word “hello” in many different languages. 

My big project this summer is putting together a book for Oregon SAQA (Studio Art Quilts Associates). 21 Quilt artists from the Oregon chapter of SAQA were chosen from proposals, to create a piece of quilt art, that they would document from inspiration to completion in words and photos for a book. I was asked to design and lay out the book. I am also one of the 21 artists. It is exciting and challenging! I’ve spent most of July, so far, creating the overall layout, communicating with the artists and the editor, reviewing and choosing the first sets of photos, then resizing and tweaking them to place in the document. I loved my work in publications and have sometimes missed it since retiring, so this is fun!

The city of Portland has taken a beating this past year, both literally and figuratively, but it is recovering and still a great place. We haven’t left home much at all this past year, so trips into the city have been few, but we went in and across the river to one of Sofia’s soccer games a couple weeks ago and the city was beautiful and vibrant as ever. As we crossed the iconic Burnside Bridge I spotted this message on a building near the bridge, and it made me smile. I think we’re going to be OK!

So, to all my fellow wildcard, misfit and dabbler friends—I hope you are vaccinated and I hope you are having a great summer, or, at least, a better one than the last one…