Open Studios, second weekend

This weekend was the second and last of the Portland Open Studios. We visited several today. I didn't take very many pictures this time. For the most part the studios weren't as interesting as those we saw last week. The studio below is that of painter, Theresa Andreas-O'Leary. It had been a small apartment attached to her home, with a separate entrance. Great lighting and a nice little kitchenette, which would be nice to have. Her paintings were very nice, as well.

My favorite studio visit today was ceramacist, Gene Phillips. He makes wildly patterned and textured pottery. I especially liked this kimono-shaped vessel.

He has a variety of items that he uses to impress patterns into the clay, including carved blocks and Indonesian tjaps. He also said he uses shoes and has become quite aware of shoe sole patterns. He had a piece of clay ready to receive impressions from visitors' shoes. This is the design my Clarks made.

Ray enjoyed talking with him about studio construction and learned that he had the huge kiln delivered and set in place, then built the room around it.

I hadn't planned to buy anything, but decided I needed this small plate, which will hold a candle or serve as a soapdish.

Then I noticed this heavily patterned platter and decided it had to come home as well.

Mary Catherine Lamb

Friday I met Gerrie downtown to celebrate her birthday and to see Mary Catherine Lamb's quilts that are showing at the Nine Gallery in NW Portland.

Mary Catherine Lamb died in August from complications from breast cancer. I never met her, though she lived here in Portland, but knew her quilts quite well. They are so clever with their imagery of saints and apostles, using a vast array of vintage fabrics and doodads, with their very Byzantine faces and poses. I really connected the first time I saw them. I always hoped I would meet her one day and felt such sadness to read of her death.

This one is titled The Archangel Michael bids you Aloha. You can't see it in my photo, but the coral colored background fabric is a souvenir tablecloth printed with Hawaiian flowers and the word "Aloha".

Here's a detail.

I love the look of Byzantine art, which was obviously an inspiration to her. Here is a Byzantine image of Michael the Archangel from the 12th century. This may very well have been her inspiration.

And details of two more of Mary Catherine's quilts.

Very sad to know that there will be no more of this wonderfulness.

Something so beautiful and something for June

One of the main joys of a visit to Washington D.C. is the National Gallery of Art, near the Capitol Building, on the National Mall. Though I have been there several times, it is always thrilling, and there is never time, nor stamina to see it all.

I love looking at art almost more than anything I can think of. And I love all kinds of art. I feel privileged to have studied art in college, especially art history. Seeing the paintings that I studied, actually hanging before me is, for me, always a revalation. It is not the same to see a painting in a book or a projected image or on the computer monitor.

I have never believed that art must be beautiful. It can be exciting in many ways, that are not what one would call traditionally beautiful. But there is art that is so beautiful that it tightens my throat and makes sudden tears burn behind my eyes. The painting above does that for me. It is by Vermeer, the 17th century Dutch artist—Lady With a Balance. Vermeer is lauded for his delicately lighted interior scenes and luxurious color. My photo does not, of course, do any of this justice. But, I ask you, isn't there something in that soft and luminous face, that speaks? Is that not a real woman from more than three hundred years ago whose essential humanity and quiet beauty live in the paint? Isn't that a miracle of some kind?

The painting, below, by living artist, Cy Twombly, may be at the opposite end of some spectrum from the Vermeer, but was also one of my favorites. I took the photo especially for my friend, June, who has a particular affinity for Twombly. At first glance the work looks, for all the world like a page of graffiti or scribbles, like one might doodle during a boring meeting, but there is intention and symbolism, as well as a tumbling kind of rhythm and energy to the images. I am also intrigued by the smudgy background that serves to create the structure and form of the composition. What looks random is actually a pretty classic compositional form—the S curve.

There, now you've had your art lesson for the day!

We did not make it out to see any more art studios on Sunday. Sofia came to visit, instead, which was much more fun. I do hope to go see more this coming weekend. I will be sure to take pictures.

Open Studios

Yesterday morning Ray and I made a spontaneous decision to buy a ticket for the Portland Open Studios event, which takes place this weekend and next. Artists all over the Portland area open their studios for tours. We were interested in seeing studios, as well as artists' work. I always love seeing where other artists work, and we still hope to build a studio here at our house for me to work in. We were looking for ideas. Ray is good at asking good questions, "what would you do differently?" for example and the artists we met were very generous with their ideas and seemed to love talking about their studios. Below are just a few that we saw yesterday.

Jan von Bergen
Jan is a printmaker and ceramacist. Click on her name above to see her beautiful work on her web site. I loved her prints. She works in a small room in a daylight basement. I have done printmaking, both on paper and fabric, and I envied her press. Jan seemed like such a nice person—very generous and interesting to talk to.

Sylvia Emard
Sylvia (in the blue shirt), a weaver and dyer, works in her small basement with one little window, but look how much light there is! She has solved the dim basement problem with daylight flourescent fixtures, plus the very smart addition of large mirrors, that literally double the light in the room, as well as making it feel much more spacious than it is. Isn't that a great idea?

Pam Greene
Oh. My. This one blew my mind. Pam Greene is a painter of wonderful, large landscapes. Her home, from the street looks like a very typical, not-very-memorable, suburban split level in a suburban neighborhood. Stepping through the front door is like falling down the rabbit hole into "artland". The entire house is a gallery of paintings, collections, memorabilia, light and texture.

When we got to this room, in her basement, we learned that Pam is a senior designer for Nike. This is a series of paintings she did of Nike footwear.

But wait, as they say in the infomercials—there's more! Behind Pam's amazing house, she had a studio built, where she paints most of the year. The mostly glass studio nestles between the house and a lushly landscaped hillside. I can't even find the words to tell you how divine this studio is, so I will just let you enjoy the pictures.

More about Pam here and here.

We are off to visit a few more this afternoon, but I'm not sure we can top yesterday's experiences.

Bird's Eye View

When we flew out of Portland to go East a couple weeks ago, I was sitting by the window and looked down as the plane flew over Sauvie Island. Below me was the corn maze, it's pattern perfectly clear. I scrambled for my camera, but were well past the shot by the time I had it wrestled out of my backpack. But now that my camera was out I was prepared as we flew past Mt. Hood.

I am always fascinated with the views out of airplane windows. So often you are above clouds so all you see is white, but on this clear day, we could see the ground for much of the flight.

The theme for the next High Fiber Diet show is Bird's Eye View so I am thinking there may be some inspiration in some of the photos I took.

The squares and circles created by irrigation systems on farms is such a natural for abstract design. The clouds and their shadows on the ground add another element.

This is the Mississippi River.

The natural colors are subtle and interesting, but I begin to see even more possibility when I change the colors.

And the winner is . . .

Me. I am the real winner! I had nearly 50 comments in response to my post about my 800th post. I followed every link and looked at all the blogs. Wonderful stuff! I now have some new "must-reads." One of the most mind-blowing comments came from Lyn who wrote: "Imagine my surprise to also rediscover how connected this world is when I read about your friends Bill & Carla...you see, I've been familiar with their names through my friends Dave & Robin for years." I don't know where Lyn lives, but I am in Oregon, Carla and Bill in Delaware and I believe Dave and Robin are now in Maine. I met Dave and Robin many, many years ago when they all lived in Crescent City, California. Some days I really believe the degrees of separation between any two people are even fewer than the six cited!

One of the great blogs I discovered through these comments is "Quilts and Other Stuff from Frances". When I went to her blog I found that she was also having a giveaway to celebrate her first 101 posts. She informed me this morning that I was the winner! Wouldn't it have been perfect if she had won mine? But she didn't. In the interest of fairness I used this random number generator to choose the winner, after assigning each commenter a number. Since I had so many great comments, and I am feeling lucky myself, I generated four more random numbers, whose corresponding humans will receive one of my glass coasters. They each have a picture of one of my quilts and are great to keep beside your computer or sewing machine for your tea or coffee. Nice and heavy, so they don't stick to the bottom of a damp cup.

The winner of the little stitched "garden shadows" piece is Dotti, of Peaceful Musings. You should click over to her blog to see her October 2 post of an amazing video. I really loved it.

Winners of the coasters are:

• Leigh, who barely has a blog! If she's the Leigh I think, she is right here in Portland.

• Barbara, my new blogging friend from the Washington D.C. area

• Brenda, my fellow "Twelve" who lives in Australia. BTW, so many of the comments mentioned how much they enjoy our Twelve by Twelve Quilt Project.

• Connie, in Kentucky, of Life Scraps and Patches. I loved reading her blog. Connie looks like someone I would love to know!

Thanks, so much, to everyone who left a comment. You really made my day!

Washington—the city, the monument

Last Monday was our last day in Washington D.C. We were tired and we had seen a lot, but we wanted to take advantage of our limited time. Seeing art is always my first choice and having "done" the National Gallery and the Museum of African Art earlier in the week, I was interested in the Phillips and the Corcoran Museums. Alas, both were closed on Mondays. Why do I always forget that art museums are nearly all closed on Mondays? I have stumbled into that predicament before, and I probably will again, slow learner that I am. We knew that the Smithsonian museums are open on Mondays, so we headed toward the Holocaust Museum, which we had been told was a "must-see." It was closed. It was Yom Kippur, one of the few days in the year that it is closed.

So we stood on the sidewalk and wondered what to do next with this beautiful fall day. I stopped to take a picture of the Washington Monument and Ray said, "Let's see if there are any tickets left to go inside."

We tried, on a previous trip, to do this and were unsuccessful. This time we were able to obtain the free, but timed tickets. We waited our turn near the entrance and were amazed by the strength of the wind on the slight rise on which the monument sits. After I took this picture I told Ray I thought some of his hair had blown clean off his head!

The views from the observation level were wonderful. You really see the layout of this incredible city. The National Mall lies between the monument and the Capitol Building, with most of the Smithsonian Museums lining its sides. They were in the process of taking the down the tents from the National Book Festival held on the weekend.

Looking out the other direction you see the Potomac River and beyond. That's the Jefferson Memorial right about dead center.

We walked toward the Lincoln Memorial, which is always one of my favorite spots. It always makes me think as much of Martin Luther King as it does Lincoln and I can picture the crowds listening to that amazing speech, as I stand on the steps, looking down the reflecting pool. But on this day the crowds were nowhere to be seen and a butterfly landed at my feet on the pathway.

We sat at a table near the Lincoln Memorial, with a soft drink and a beautiful polka-dotted bird landed near us.

I looked him up when we got home and I learned that he is a starling, a breed of bird with a bad reputation. But I still think he is quite handsome and very striking in his spotted fall suit of feathers. While I love the images of birds in general, I'm not very knowledgeable about breeds and names. I don't think we have starlings in this part of the country. They are a non-native bird that was introduced to Central Park in the 1890's and have spread to other parts of the country. They can be taught to talk and mimic music—pretty clever bird, I'd say.

During our time in Washington D.C. we experienced rain, as well as stifling, humid heat, but on that last day it was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Today's numbers are 12 and 800

12

Today we reveal the twelfth set of twelve quilts made by the Twelve by Twelve quilt project. The theme, chosen by me, is "Twelve". All twelve are now posted on the 12 x 12 blog and I urge you to go look at all of them. I have to say I am feeling really quite joyful. We have been at this for two years now, have completed, in all, 144 12"x12" pieces of fiber art and become friends in a way I never thought possible, scattered around the earth as we are. Go here!

This challenge completes our project and could have been the end, but you will be hearing more about the 12 x 12s and it is pretty exciting! Stay tuned.

800
This is my 800th entry to this blog. I just celebrated my 4 year blog anniversary, so that averages approximately 200 entries per year, approximately 4 per week. This number really stuns me. I know many bloggers post every day, some multiple times a day, but for me this is an accomplishment—and a joy. I have always done this for myself and for anyone else who cares to read, but it has been such a surprise to find that people do read, and comment and become friends in time. It is a community for me. I have been so lucky to find all this. And I have been lucky in receiving such generous gifts from other bloggers that I decided to send a little of that generosity back out into the blog world. Leave me a comment in the next few days and Monday morning I will do a random drawing. One of the things I will send is the small piece you see below. There may be some other things too! Tell me something funny or interesting. Tell me about your own blog and where to see it. Tell me what you like, or not, about my blog. It's all good!

"Garden Shadows" 8.5" x 11"

Travel

We are home from our East Coast vacation. It was wonderful and we are happy we went and happy to be home. Tonight I uploaded about 350 photos that I took. You will probably be seeing quite a few in the weeks to come as I go through them. Looking at the photos is one of my favorite things after returning from vacation.

We went to Delaware to visit our friends, Carla and Bill. I have known Carla since we were sorority sisters at Idaho State University and we have stayed in touch for all these years. Many years ago we lived relatively close when they were in Northern California and we lived in Southern Oregon and our husbands and children became friends as well. It is truly a rare blessing in life to have friends like these. When they moved to Delaware several years ago I wondered if we would see them again, but we made it happen. Following our visit in Delaware we went to Washington DC for several days and continued our time with Carla and Bill there, as well as their daughter, son-in-law and grandson, who live in the DC area.

We have traveled quite a lot and love to travel. Neither Ray, nor I, had been to Delaware before, so we were discovering new territory. We loved the history and the lovely small towns in the coastal areas. We didn't see a single Starbucks or Macy's in Delaware—I'm sure they are there in the larger cities, but it seemed a place that has, so far, escaped the "same-ification" so much of this country has experienced.

One of the things we really started noticing were large stars on the fronts of houses in Delaware and Maryland. We were puzzled and wondered if there is some significance to them, or if they are just a regional kind of decoration. (Like the butterflies in Idaho?) I took these pictures from the car window.

Isn't that pointy attic window great? Love the details on old houses!

I found a little information on this web site. It seems it depends on who you talk to whether they mean something or are just decorative. I haven't decided whether they are tacky, or charming or just interesting . . .

Thursday will be the reveal of the final 12 x 12 quilts. I will also have something else to celebrate and share here, so check back later!

Oh, and let me know if you know anything more about those stars!

National Book Festival

We have been in Washington DC this week and today we were lucky enough to be here for the National Book Festival, which is held in a series of big white tents on the Mall. When we planned this trip we weren't aware that this was happening, so it was a happy coincidence that we could take this in. Lots of people!

The biggest part of the Festival is talks by many authors. You can find the author you want to hear in the program and just show up at the appointed tent at the appointed time. The tents are filled with folding chairs, but we weren't able to snag a chair before they were all filled when we went to hear John Irving speak. We got there in time to hear most of Julia Alvarez's talk as well. She is the author of several books about the immigrant experience. She wrote How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents which I read and enjoyed. She was really a great speaker and talked about the experience of having her books banned in a number of schools. I loved her idea that in schools it would be great to help organize parents' reading groups, because she believes that parents who support the banning of books are not really readers themselves and do not understand how it works to live another kind of experience and broaden your view of the world through reading.

I was really thrilled to hear John Irving talk. He is one of my favorite authors and his thoughts on writing were so interesting. He starts a book with the last sentence of the book and works backward to the beginning. He said it is not a device or gimmick, just something that developed and works for his kind of storytelling. His comments on writing were very thoughtful and thought-provoking, especially his thoughts on hard work and practice and rewriting and continuing themes. I have always loved his work and the underlying themes of vulnerability and coping with tragedy with a philosophy of hope and redemption. He is a very good speaker and seems a serious and thoughtful man who works hard at his craft. I sat on the ground and could only catch occasional glimpses through the crowd, of the speaker, but it was well worth it.

Another of today's highlights was a visit to the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. Wonderful.

I have taken so many pictures! But I will need to get home to sort through and decide what is worth sharing.

Missing in Action

Did you wonder where I was? Delaware, that's where. We have been visiting friends here and seeing the sights. Never been here before so it has been a good adventure. I thought I would be writing blog entries, but honestly, it is such a pain when I am sharing Ray's computer, trying to download photos on a different computer, etc. So, it isn't happening so much. But I'll be home soon and catch you up on everything!Meanwhile, here are some pictures from Milton Delaware. This is a tiny town, but world famous as the home of Dogfish Head Brewery, where our friend, Bill, works. We took the brewery tour yesterday and tasted some of their beers. Mostly really good. Only one I had to dump in the "bucket of shame" during the tasting part of the tour.

Besides beer-tasting, we have enjoyed the beautiful weather and charming little towns. This is a real agricultural area. A visit to a farm stand alongside the road produced the pictures below.

The Reservation

When we were in Pocatello several weeks ago we went out to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation one afternoon, mostly to check out the casino, which was built long after we moved from the area. As casinos go it is pretty modest. There are no table games, no restaurant or lounge, only machines and Bingo, but I managed to come out about $6 poorer anyway.

The Fort Hall Indian Reservation is between Pocatello and the town of Blackfoot, Idaho. While it was quite close to Pocatello, it was not a place I was ever very familiar with, other than what you see from the freeway that runs through it. It was named for the historic Fort Hall on the Oregon Trail. The fort was not a military fort, but rather a trading fort and was owned by the British Hudson's Bay Company. The land was established as a reservation for the Bannock and the Shoshone tribes in the late 1800s. The view from the freeway is of desolate, sagebrush covered hills, but much of the reservation is actually rich farmland and there are also phosphate mines, that produced phosphate for fertilizer for many, many years.

When we were kids you still saw teepees on the reservation and many of the Indians (which is what we called them then—"native American" was not a term anyone had heard of yet) who we saw shopping in town still dressed in the old styles and men and women both wore their hair in long braids. Nowadays they dress in Levis and western shirts, just like everyone else and the houses you see from the freeway are just like the houses in town.

Our High School sports teams were known as the "Pocatello Indians," supposedly in honor of our association with the reservation. In recent years there have been requests from the tribes, who feel that this is demeaning, that this be changed, but to date it has not. I remember feeling uncomfortable about that name, even as a student. As someone once pointed out, "would a school ever call themselves the Springfield Caucasians or the Lake City Hispanics?" Of course not.

The one place on the reservation that I was familiar with was the trading post, which looks pretty much the same today as it did 40 years ago. It became popular when I was in High School to go out to the trading post to buy moccasins. Beadwork on buckskin has always been a native art that the Bannock-Shoshone tribes have excelled in. When we bought them, you could get a handmade pair, with a small beaded design for less than $10. If you wanted more beading the price went up. We wore them with our jeans. They were soft and comfortable, almost like wearing slippers and as you wore them, they conformed to the shape of your foot. They are still selling them at the trading post, along with all kinds of beaded purses and jewelry and accessories like belt buckles. The price has gone up—a lot! The kind of simple moccasins we used to buy are now selling for $75, which still seems pretty inexpensive considering the time that must go into a pair.

I saved the last pair of moccasins I bought years ago. They are pretty well-worn and missing the ties, but I knew I would probably never have another pair.

You can see the imprint of my feet, even toes, if you look carefully, on the bottoms.

I wonder what the future of Indian reservations will be. This one didn't look very prosperous, but it never did. I had a lot of classmates in High School, who lived on the reservation. I didn't see any of them at the reunion. When I looked at the class lists with current addresses, it looks like most have moved away.

"It's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land . . ."

Maybe you had to have been there to know how much this meant. Still means. Peace, Mary Travers.

Buried treasure

Today Ray was doing some yard cleanup and in the process of retrieving some debris from the creek, he found these two items buried in the mud at the bottom of the creek. How mysterious! I wonder how long they have been there and how they got there. Both are in perfect condition aside from being quite filthy. The glass paperweight (?) cleaned up pretty easily. The bottle is still quite dirty on the inside. I am soaking it in some vinegar and baking soda. I tried using a bottle brush, which dislodged a lot of gunk, but did not get it entirely clean as you can see. Hard to tell how old these things are or how long they have been there. There are no identifying marks on either. The heavy glass object is quite beautiful. It is a solid half sphere, faceted over its surface, likely cut by hand, judging by its not-quite-perfect symmetry. The bottom is cut in a starburst pattern. Even though it has been buried in the mud for who knows how long, it really sparkles in the sun.

You just never know what new gift the universe will hand you on any given day. I wonder what else the creek has hidden, waiting to be discovered. Pirates' gold???

Anniversary

"To pay attention, this is our endless and
proper work. "

-Mary Oliver

Last week I got together with an old friend that I have not seen for probably 40 years. It was a wonderful day and a gift to reconnect with someone so special. During the course of our conversation she quoted the line above, by poet, Mary Oliver, and the connection it made for me was this blog. Writing a blog and taking pictures, has had many positive and unexpected effects on my life. Not least of these has been discovering the rewards of paying attention—remembering conversations, noticing the beauty in small things, finding the lessons in living life, seeing the faces around me in a new way. Today is my four year blog anniversary.

My blog anniversary will always be tied to the anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. So it is a day of bittersweet remembrance. For some reason, today, I have been thinking mostly about the passengers on United Flight 93, who caused the highjacked plane to crash into a field in Pennsylvania. What an extraordinary effort. Perhaps the purest act of bravery and patriotism I can remember.

The photo, above, is my favorite taken this summer. I took it when we were in Southern Oregon in July, walking with my friend Muriel. I looked up and saw the beautiful moon and sky. I had my camera in my backpack. And, thankfully, I was paying attention.