June arrived in a heatwave

Last week we took a short trip to Southern Oregon for the opening of "Concrete and Grasslands" at the Grants Pass Museum of Art. It is the newest exhibit from SAQA (Studio Art Quilts Associares) and includes SAQA artists from around the world. I was lucky enough to have a piece juried into the show. We took the opportunity to spend a couple days in Medford, with our dear friend, Muriel, and spent a day in Ashland, our old hometown, including a play at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where I once worked.

Photo from The Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The play was The River Bride and it was beautifully designed and very charming. We loved it.

The day we drove to Grants Pass was a sweltering 100 degrees for the opening. The show was beautiful, well-attended and a real high for me, but OH! the heat was overwhelming.

That's my piece, Camas Prairie Idaho, on the brick wall. Above, a favorite by K.Velis Turan.

The Grants Pass Museum is in a wonderful old downtown building and the show is worth seeing if you are in the area.

Home now, it has been so unusually hot that it's hard to be motivated, but I have deadlines and work to get ready for shows. I will have some small pieces in a gallery in Sisters, Oregon next month, and one of the other artists offered to deliver my work with hers, so I spent today doing little finishing touches. All the pieces are either framed or mounted on stretched canvas panels, so they needed hanging wires. Picture wire always has such vicious, poke-y bits, but I discovered a trick for dealing with the problem. There is a product made for electrical work that is plastic tubing that will seal up the sharp ends of twisted wire.

I cut a short piece and threaded the wire through it before twisting onto the screw eyes on the back of one of my little pieces.

Then, when the wire was completely attached, I slid the little tube to cover the raw ends.

The final step is to heat the tubing with a heat gun and it will shrink tight around the wire. No sharp bits!

Here's a larger piece with a twist on each side. I slip a little scrap of cardboard under the wire when I'm using the heat gun so I don't scorch the back of my work.

I also neatened backs with taped edges, added labels and wrapped each piece for delivery. Fiddly stuff that must be done. At the end of the day it was packed and ready to go. It all fit perfectly into this Eddie Bauer tote!

It is supposed to be cooler tomorrow. More like Oregon is supposed to be.

 

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