Like a well-oiled machine

Isn't it nice to be part of a group that works well together—like a well-oiled machine?

When our small quilt group went on a retreat weekend to Cannon Beach, Oregon back in January we were offered the opportunity to hang a show at the Cannon Beach Historical Society museum. We've never had a show before—never even thought about it—but we got kind of excited about the prospect. Today we went over to Cannon Beach and hung our show.

After pondering the ways to do this, it seemed like the best option was simply to load up a bunch of quilts then figure out which pieces would work in the space once we got there. It is a small room with log walls half way up and windows all around—not the easiest room to fit quilts into. But after laying everything out on the floor, we started working our way around the room, anchoring it with Beth Nimmo's traditional wedding ring quilt on one of the longest walls.

It went surprisingly well and we found it to be a lot of fun to piece it all together, working to make the unrelated pieces relate and the varied colors flow. There was nary a disagreement, nor a cross word. There was a lot of laughter and kudos—"wow! That looks great there!"

We packed that little room with quilts, but I don't think they look too crowded and I think we have given them a nice variety of work. Beth's big wedding ring sort of represents the historic aspect of quilting and the other quilts show how far it has come.

We couldn't leave the coast without a visit to the beach. It was a perfectly gorgeous day and there were lots of people out enjoying the weather. This is a shot of Cannon Beach's most recognizable landmark, Haystack Rock.

The quilts will be at the Cannon Beach Historical Society until July 22. If you are visiting the Oregon Coast be sure to stop and take a look, then let me know what you think.

Never throw anything away

Now there's a dangerous philosophy and really, I don't subscribe to it. There are others in my family who are far worse than I—don't look so innocent—I know you are reading this and you know who you are.

But I digress. I have been in a mood to clear things out. I took a load of fabric to S.C.R.A.P. I took a bunch of clothes to Goodwill. I even cleaned out the spice cabinet. (I can't believe how many partially used bottles of cumin I had—) Sometimes it depresses me that I have accumulated so much stuff, not least of which are sketchbooks and folders with old artwork and ideas.

Last week I decided to make a salmon quilt for Illustration Friday. (See previous entry). I could have researched salmon and found photos to work from, but as it happens I did that about 20 years ago when I did this drawing.


It was for an invitation to a salmon barbeque fundraiser. It has been hanging out in a file of drawings all these years and last week I whipped it out, scanned it and it was a starting point for the new salmon.

This was not the first time it has come out of the file in the past 20 years. Several years ago when I was designing pieces for our garden art business, I pulled that salmon out and used him for a stainless steel salmon that can be mounted on a stake or on a wall.

It's hard to know what to hang on to and what to get rid of. I'm glad I'm still keeping most of my sketches.

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Robot". I think I'll take a pass on that one.

So, have you looked at our Ecuador blog lately? We've been writing about the time we spent in Cuenca, our favorite city in Ecuador. Ray got some great pictures at the ceramics factory we visited and the Vega gallery was very inspiring. We had an interesting meal that is an Ecuadorean favorite and I share some of my favorite photos of Cuenca. Check it out—

Illustration Friday - "Spotted"

This week's Illustration Friday topic was almost limitless in its possibilities, but I seem to have animals on my mind, so I immediately went there. It was tempting to just do another beetle, but I decided I needed to branch out a bit and I kept thinking of those spots on the sides of salmon, so a salmon it was. This is Oregon, after all.

I was a little bit thrilled at how well the paisley (yes, paisley again!) fabric worked for the fish. Here's a closeup.

An Easter Story

Easter is not being celebrated in a big way at my house. In fact it really isn't being celebrated at all, since I am the only one home and I haven't yet reached the stage where I enjoy hiding and finding my own Easter eggs.

When my kids were young, the Easter egg thing was a big deal. We would dye and decorate a couple dozen eggs the evening before Easter, which was a messy, but creative and fun activity. Andy was into mixing dye colors and dipping and redipping eggs until they were striped in various mud colors. Emily liked pure, unblemished color, then happily applied the rub-ons or stickers that came with the dye kits.

The next morning the eggs and Easter baskets, filled with cellophane grass and foil-covered chocolate eggs and jelly beans, would be hidden all over the backyard for the kids, in pajamas and robes, to find. I had counted the eggs so I knew exactly how many needed to be found. Throughout the day the eggs were hidden and rehidden—inside the house and outside. Eggs were eaten or stepped on so the number dwindled and the actual count became less precise.

One summer, my cousin and wife and their son, Eric, came to spend the 4th of July with us. Eric, who was probably about 8 that year, was between my kids in age, so the three of them were pretty good companions. It was a hot July day—up in 100 degree range. We had taken the kids to the parade, eaten lunch in the park and were tired and very hot, so we came home, closed all the windows and cranked up the air conditioning. We were sprawled all over the livingroom, fanning ourselves, sipping iced tea and waiting for the AC to do its job. Eric, who was stretched out in the middle of the floor, rolled over lazily and said, in a matter-of-fact voice, "I see an Easter egg", then plucked a dyed egg from an arrangement of dried flowers sitting on the hearth. It had been visible only from his vantage point flat on the floor. It was uncracked and the color was unfaded. It did rattle when you shook it, however. It had obviously been there at least since Easter, but maybe it had been there since the previous Easter, or the previous . . .

Eric is past 30 now, a handsome young man, a husband and a father. We don't see him very often anymore, but the last time I did, he said, as he always does, "remember the time I found an Easter egg on the 4th of July, at your house?" Then we all laugh. It is still a funny memory.

Have a Happy Easter—and try to keep track of your eggs.

Make that a grande, fat free, chai latte, extra hot with a shot of pop wisdom

I spend a lot of time at Starbucks. Lately, they have been printing quotes on the back of their cups, under the title "The Way I See It." Being good marketers, they have chosen some good quotes—thought-provoking and on a wide range of topics—not too corny or Hallmarkish for the most part. I usually read them and sometimes they resonate and sometimes not so much.

This morning I read the cup. It was a spring morning with a little rain spitting half-heartedly and the smell of green in the air, we were laughing and talking about what a good week we'd had and how good it had been to spend time with friends and how proud we are of our children. And I read the cup. And damn, it was just right. On a paper coffee cup. Sometimes it doesn't take that much to start the day off on just the right note.

Let go your sorrow.

Let go your blues.

Coz I know tomorrow

is yesterday's news.

Let go your sadness,

give up the fight,

follow your madness

and take flight . . .take flight.

-Seal-

Illustration Friday - "Speed"

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Speed". I am demonstrating a lack thereof, by finally posting the one I did for last week's topic, which was "Spring" . I doubt I will get around to doing anything to illustrate speed. Speed seems to be less and less part of my vocabulary.

This a fiber (quilt) piece, continuing my fascination with small size and small subject matter. It is roughly 18 x 22. It is all commercial fabrics, with the exception of the green, leafy fabric in the background. This is a piece that I dyed and silkscreened. On the quiltart list there has been discussion about the relative merits of hand-dyed fabrics vs. commercial fabrics. Personally, I think it is not a contest—whatever works for what you are trying to achieve. I love pattern, especially stripes, so I tend to use a lot of commercial fabrics. Some folks expressed the opinion that hand-dyes and commercial prints don't mix well. I think they work OK in this piece. What do you think?

Birthday aftermath
Thanks to everyone for all the nice birthday wishes. I was really dreading that birthday, but decided the best way to deal, was to announce it to the world and face it head on. As I keep being reminded, getting older is far better than the alternative. I love that my old friend, Carla, reads my blog and comments and I especially loved her birthday comments. She and I were glamorous sorority sisters back in the college years—well maybe not glamorous, but we were pretty cute! Over the years our paths seemed to crisscross as we have moved around. She is suddenly within easy driving distance once again, just "up the road" in Tacoma and I am looking forward to getting together soon. We will bore our husbands silly with our reminiscing about the good old days, though we have now known each other long enough that the husbands are old buddies by now as well.

It's a big day

What do all these people have in common? (No hair jokes, please)

We were all born in 1946—the leading edge of the baby boom generation. That means we all turn 60 this year and today it's my turn. In addition to the faces you see above, I share my birth year with Jimmy Buffett, Linda Ronstadt, Steven Spielberg, Sylvester Stallone, Diane Keaton, Patty Duke, Tyne Daly, Sally Field, George and Laura Bush, Liza Minnelli, Bob Vila, Diane von Furstenburg, most of the Pocatello High School Class of '64 and millions of others. So, hard as it is to face the age of 60, I do it in good company—or at least a lot of company.

Our sheer numbers have pushed through the last 60 years like a wave. We thought we could change the world and maybe some of us did—at least a little bit. We came of age in the '60s. Our youth was tumultuous and hopeful and tragic and exciting. It was the end of polio, it was the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietman War movement, the Beatles, the first man on the moon, and too, too many assassinations. It was "never trust anyone over 30". Now I'm a little disheartened by how many of my former classmates have become complacent and conservative and how we seem to be revisiting some of the things I thought I'd never see again.

But for me mostly it has been a good 60 years. I was fortunate to have wonderful parents, a great husband and the best family. I've never been rich in the financial sense, but I haven't been hungry one day of those 60 years. I am healthy, still have all my marbles (I think) and life is good.

So happy birthday to me. I hope the next 60 work out as well.

A beautiful thing

It was beautiful here today, but I was stuck inside most of the day working on hard, crummy, number-crunching kind of work. I walked down the street to my mailbox and laying on the ground right in front of the mailboxes was this beautiful red leaf with little black splotches. It was the only one. I looked all around and could not figure out where it came from. I could see no plant or tree with red leaves like this. It's a mystery leaf. It seemed like a little gift. Thanks.

New work

These three pieces came from an Illustration Friday topic “Insect”. After I did the first one, I liked the idea of imposing unnatural pattern and color onto the fairly realistic, natural forms of the beetles and did a couple more. These may not be the last.

On the QuiltArt mailing list people talk about finding their artistic “voice” or developing their own style, and I have struggled with that myself and tried out quite a few styles for working. In “Art and Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland I came across this thought and it struck me:

“we don’t learn much about making art by being moved by it…. As viewers we readily experience the power of ground on which we cannot stand…”

How often we think that the art we love looking at is the art that we need to do, so we take a class from the artist whose work we admire, or we buy the book and do our best to emulate that work. But that is not our work.

There are so many fiber artists whose work I admire and love, but trying to work as they work is futile and ultimately unsatisfying. I love Lisa Call’s cool and rhythmic abstractions. I love June Underwood’s organic energy. I love Pamela Allen’s sense of humor. I love Rayna Gilman’s layered complexity and Melody Johnson’s joyous color, and so many others. But the pieces I am doing right now come from someplace altogether different and they feel, more than most of the work I have done, quite satisfying. I guess they are somewhat like I am. Quiet. Straightforward, I hope.

They are observation and a little bit of storytelling and, quite a lot, a consideration of pattern and relationships. And, of course, my own ideas about color. And while they do not convey any heavy messages, I feel they are quite personal to me and may be harder (for me) to sell than some other work has been.

I don't get it . . .

Pulled this out for my solitary little dinner tonight and noticed that it is a "sesame chicken vegetarian" rice noodle soup bowl.

Chicken vegetarian?

Isn't it odd how small the word "vegetarian" is?

The photo on the front of the package shows chunks of chicken in there. The list of ingredients lists no chicken, no chicken broth, no chicken anything and reiterates "vegetarian". Also no mention of chicken in the cooking instructions. Hmmm. I looked in the package. No chicken.

I'm adding some chicken.

Springtime on the trail

My friend, Beth, and I walk a section of the Fanno Creek Trail 5 days a week—summer and winter, rain or shine. We just started our fourth year.

About midway on the walk we cross Fanno Creek and we usually pause to watch the creek and see if we can see ducks or geese in the water. Yesterday when we got there, there was a great blue heron standing in the creek. I didn't have my camera with me. We watched him for quite awhile, then he spread his wings and soared away. I knew we wouldn't see him again, but I brought my camera along today anyway, and took this picture that I call "where the heron was yesterday". Squint your eyes and try to imagine it.

There are signs of spring all along the trail. Fruit trees are blooming and everything is covered in brilliant green moss, after the wet winter and spring we have had.

One jarring sight is this razor wire strung along a section of fence where the Portland Golf Club course backs up to the trail. It's a snooty, private golf course. This addition to their fence looks really nasty and is an eyesore along an otherwise beautiful walk.

In a marshy area we stopped to watch two mallard ducks. The female, who is harder to see in the lower right, was finding lots of worms and grubs to eat in the mud, while her mate stood by. He seemed to be guarding her. He just followed her around nervously and once he spotted Beth and me, watching from a little bridge, he seemed really nervous, watching us and flapping around her.


Here's where our walk always ends—the Garden Home Starbucks. Our friendly barristas posed for a picture. I promised them they would be famous when I published it on my blog.


I just looked at my friend Carl Schmidt's blog. Coincidentally, he and Dickie, hundreds of miles away from here, in Northern California, saw a great blue heron on their walk yesterday too. He had his fancy camera with him. Carl takes great pictures.

Where do Panama Hats come from?

This is a trick question. The answer is not Panama. The answer can be found on our Ecuador blog, (now, there's a clue!) where we show you our visit to a Panama hat factory.

S.C.R.A.P.

That stands for School and Community Reuse Action Project.

Yesterday I had two big black trash bags full of fabric that I wanted out of my house. I loaded it up and took it over to SCRAP. SCRAP is a great concept—a place where you can donate anything that could be construed as an art or craft material, which they turn around and sell cheap. It's a wonderful resource for artists and students and teachers.

They have moved since I was there before, but they were easy to spot as I drove down the street toward the store in NE Portland. Isn't this storefront a great contrast to that grey, cold Portland sky?

The inside of the store can only be described as "junky", but if you are willing to look closely, there are treasures to be found.

Lots of odds and ends of tiles.


These barrels had all kinds of odd bits that seem to be donations from manufacturers of one thing or another. Those black things are plastic cubes with one open side.

Here is the fabric department. Looks pretty motley, but I found something really good here. (see below)


And, finally, you didn't think I would come home empty-handed did you? Three yards (really wide) of black linen ($3) and 6 of the little tins seen in the barrel above. (2 for .25) They are good—smooth edges, nice fitting lids. I see many possibilities for storing beads or pins; or travel holders for pills or earrings. I hope I got enough. And the fabric and tins don't even look "scrappy" once you get them home—especially if you pose them next to a vase of camellias.

And just for fun—on the subject of recycling/reuse, check out this dress made from umbrella pelts. (Pelts??—that terminology really amused me)

Illustration Friday - "Monster"

Who is this guy?

He's the monster that lives in my head, under my bed, lurking in the dark corners of the parking garage, behind a tree, under the stairs, in the back of the closet. Haven't seen him in years, but this week's Illustration Friday topic, "monster" required a visit. When I was a child he chased me through my dreams with a lawnmower.

It may sound like I've dredged up some horrifying memory, but, in fact, my imaginary monster was always a little deliciously, shivery, scary, but ultimately easy enough to fool. To keep him from grabbing my ankle as I got into bed I simply had to jump up onto my sister's bed and leap the three feet to my own. Get a running start on the stairs, and I was up them before he had a chance to reach around and grab me. In fact, I believe he was more afraid of me than I of him. One had only to confront him in the dark corners and he would quickly melt away into nothing. You may have met him—he gets around.

To see more monsters, visit the Illustration Friday web site.

The kind of day we all need (and deserve)

Yesterday was a very indulgent day and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Fellow art quilt blogger, Gerrie Congdon, just moved to Portland and I have been looking forward to meeting her. I picked her up at her new house and we went down to Portland's Pearl District to meet up with one of my favorite people, June Underwood. We decided to start with lunch at Andina, a Peruvian restaurant that has gotten rave reviews in the local paper. It is a beautiful space and the food was very good, and something new to try.

I should have taken this picture before we dug into the food, but we kind of fell on it like hungry wolves when it arrived at the table. We shared 4 plates of tapa-like dishes. There was potato omelette, quinoa-crusted prawns with dipping sauce, avocados stuffed with shrimp and crab and little red peppers stuffed with ham and quinoa. (are your mouths watering yet?) We also had desserts. Mine was chocolate sorbet with just a hint of chili pepper. Oooooooo.

After lunch we strolled around the area and visited several art galleries. At the PDX Gallery we saw work by Bean Finneran that was quite fascinating. They were constructions made entirely from curved ceramic rods. They were quite similar, though not identical to these.

Here are Gerrie (front) and June carefully considering a piece of art at the Lawrence Gallery. At the Lawrence Gallery there were two obnoxiously yippy, barky little dogs chasing each other through the gallery—wierd. And annoying.


When we took June home, she invited us in for tea and showed the stacks (literally) of artwork she has been working on recently. June is incredibly productive. You can see some of the work in progress that we saw yesterday on her website.


After delivering Gerrie home, I headed right back downtown to meet my other friend, Jeri. (It was a Gerrie-Jerry-Jeri day—including a brief visit with June's husband, Jerry Underwood) Jeri F. had invited me to meet her for dinner downtown then see "Cats". We decided on the ArtBar at the Performing Arts Center where we could sit and visit over a nice glass of wine and graze our way through appetizers and a bowl of soup.

By the time we got to the theater, the wine and a long day had taken its toll. I had a hard time staying awake. I loved "Cats" when I saw it in New York many years ago. Last night's performance was good, but the sound was mushy and the actress playing Grizzabella couldn't hold a candle to Betty Buckley, the original Grizzabella. (It took me all night to remember Betty Buckley's name)

What a great day. Good food, good art, good musical theatre and, best of all, a new friend and two old friends. Does life get any better than this?

Oleg Cassini

The death of fashion designer, Oleg Cassini, was barely noted this week. Most reports said he was 92, one said he was 93. He was Jacqueline Kennedy's favorite designer and designed her inaugural gown as well as the peach silk dress, at left, that she wore on a trip to India. I wore a nearly identical dress, only amethyst, in my cousin's wedding. When I was in High School I had a pink, silk suit that was a copy of one of Cassini's Jackie K. designs. The clothes were so pretty, without being frilly and fussy. So simple and innocent. Another icon of my youth is gone.



About comments . . .
I love and appreciate getting comments, and I love leaving comments on the blogs I read. I notice that some bloggers acknowledge every comment with an email. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. If there was a question asked, I try to answer it. The etiquette seems hazy.

If I am just commenting to say that I love seeing what someone has done, or I agree with a comment they made, I really don't expect a reply. I am thinking of marking such comments "NRN" or "No reply necessary". Feel free to adopt this practice if you think it's a good one. I don't want anyone feeling guilty that they haven't acknowledged a comment I left.

Play day

I belong to a fiber art group called High Fiber Diet and every so often we set aside a Saturday to get together and dye stuff. Today we met at the Mill End Store here in Portland, mixed up a bunch of dye and tried out several techniques. Karen Miller showed us some new ideas for silk screening with thickened dyes. We used a blank screen and tried several different techniques, using cut stencils, torn paper and finally my favorite, drawing directly on the screen, letting the dye dry, then screening another color through the screen.

Here are the pieces I did today. Nothing too earth shattering, but all probably usable for something and definitely some new ideas.


Here's my favorite. I used thickened dark blue dye in a little bottle with a fine tip to draw a swirly design all over the screen. I let the dye dry. Then I used a combination of gold-y and green-y mustard dyes (thickened) to print. In the first print, the dried dye functioned mainly as a resist, though some of the dark blue released. The second print released the blue dye and the design printed mostly dark blue. I did a third print, which printed a much faded and ghostlier blue design.


Here is the first print after it was washed and ironed. The white streaks were wrinkles in the fabric—oops.

Here is the second print. I am exhausted, but I'm pretty pleased with some of the things I did today.

The company of women

I belong to two guilds here in Portland and I've blown off the last meeting of each one. No particular reason. I planned to go and then when the day arrived I just wasn't in the mood. I'm not mad and I'm not finished, but I think I am tired.

I have friends who never join women's groups and seem to take pride in saying "I'm not a joiner." I guess I am a joiner of women's organizations. Started with the Brownies and from there on I just kept joining—Job's Daughters, Pep Club, sorority, YWCA, PEO, and a whole variety of quilting and stitchery guilds. For the most part I have really enjoyed all these associations and I have made some really good friends along the way. It has always seemed to me that you can accomplish so much as a group that one person alone seldom can.

One of the things about quilt guilds that is discouraging to me is how rapidly things become "the way we've always done it" and then making a change is just really hard. One of the guilds I belong to is one I helped to start about 6 years ago. Already there is a lot of stuff that is "the way we've always done it" and it's hard to move beyond. Last year I was on the Quilt Show committee and I must say we had a great, renegade committee and a really good, and pretty darn classy, show, but we fought for every little bit of originality that made it so. (you can see pictures here.) And I'm convinced there were one or two members who were gleefully hoping the whole thing would be a disaster just to prove that you don't need to "fix what ain't broke" or "reinvent the wheel". (Thought I'd gag if I heard those two cliches one more time.)

Sadly, it is also the case that sometimes one nasty or negative or overbearing person can sour a whole group, and just dealing with that negativity is immensely tiring. (You all know someone like that, don't you?) So I think I feel tired. And maybe too busy with other things. And maybe I'd rather hang out at home with my husband than venture out in the cold and wet and dark. And maybe I'd rather make my own quilts in what little spare time I have, than go look at other people's quilts.

I'll probably feel completely different in a month. I'll probably want to see everyone and find out what's new and what they've been stitching on. I'm pretty sure I will.

Making small work look like something

I have really liked doing small pieces, but I have to admit that when you bind them and go to hang them, they tend to look like hotpads or placemats. I have been finishing some small pieces over the last couple of days and decided to experiment a little with ways of giving them some significance.

You have seen this piece in its unfinished form. I did minimal quilting, then sewed some strips of black canvas to the edges and stretched the whole piece on wooden canvas stretcher bars. The image is about 11" square. With the canvas and stretched it is 16" square.

I quilted this piece a little more heavily and then bound it with black binding. Then I stretched black canvas on stretcher bars and mounted the piece on that by stitching through the canvas on the back side to tack the piece to the canvas. The stitching does not show on the front. (Sorry this image is a little blurry)


This last piece uses a silkscreen I did of pine. I put a backing on it with no binding, then mounted it on a piece of black canvas with fabric glue. I cut a piece of bamboo to the right length and stitched the top edge of the canvas to the bamboo. This piece will go in the Japanese Garden Show this summer. I have finished other pieces this way for that show. You can see examples here and here. It works well to give the work for that show an Asian feel.

I have also framed very small pieces. How do you quilt artists out there finish your small pieces?

Serendipity strikes again

Yesterday I posted my Illustration Friday response to this week's theme "Tattoo" and stated that if I ever were to get a tattoo it would be paisley. It was frivolous—I don't want any kind of tattoo really.

Today I went over to Columbia Art Supply to pick up some stretcher bars and other things and as I was paying, on the counter I spotted a display of little Dover books, including this one! Whaaaaaa—I thought I made that up, just yesterday. It was a whim and yet, here were actual paisley tattoos. Of course I had to buy it. And of course I had to come home and apply one of them to the very hand that was my model yesterday.

It's temporary, but I think I like it. Do the real ones hurt? A lot?

Illustration Friday - "Tattoo"

If I ever were to get a tattoo, it would be paisley.