Rain

We had the driest summer I remember, followed by a a long, beautiful, dry fall and now the rain has started. Oregon rain. I'm an Oregon transplant from the high desert, but I have learned to love the rain. I may be singing a different song when we get to February, the month of please-make-it-stop, but for now I am celebrating the rain. It really comes down when we get serious about rain, here. Looking out my kitchen window a couple days ago it was sheets of pouring rain. And it was a beautiful sight.

I was driving and through the rain and mist this week, and saw a solitary, brilliant red tree in a field, bravely doing its best to fly it's autumn colors in the downpour and it seemed like something that might lend itself to fabric interpretation. At least, something to experiment with. I had this idea of an overlay of some kind of textured, sheer-ish fabric, so I took myself off to the fabric store to look for cheesecloth or scrim, or...? What I found was mosquito netting, and while not exactly what I was picturing, I thought it might do. More experimenting needed, but I think it might be something. The mosquito netting is soft and drapey but pretty stable. There is more to it than tulle, and not crispy or shiny.

 

 

 

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A day's worth of phone photos

Every new gadget that comes along could change your life. Most don't. I think a lot about how the camera in my phone has changed mine. I remember when I first heard of cameras in cell phones. It sounded like a useless idea to me—a gimmick, that would never really catch on. And now I read that the iPhone is the most used camera in the world and that fact isn't even a little bit surprising. And I am 100%, unapologetically, onboard.

Yesterday:

Beautiful, foggy morning for our walk. The wetland looked like a painting.

I drove directly from my walk to Oregon College of Art and Craft, where the SAQA group was meeting for dyeing and discharging demos and practice. I painted Soft Scrub onto fabric to see how it discharges the color. Here is the Soft Scrub drying on black cotton fabric.

Here are my two test pieces washed out. The pink, predictably, discharged to lighter pink. The black—hello!—surprise!

 

After SAQA, Ray and I went out to lunch at an Indian restaurant. No, I didn't photograph my food, though the butter chicken was a beautiful, rich orange color. Then to the Portland Art Museum to see the current exhibit, "Viewing Nature" works from the Paul Allen Collection. it is a gorgeous exhibit.

 

And it was fascinating to see, from above, a new exhibit being mounted in a different gallery.

 

Home again, and Ray was cleaning up the garden and disposing of green tomatoes, which made me wonder how they would work as fermented pickles. I rescued a bunch and filled a couple big jars with tomatoes and brine. It's an experiment. The jars look beautiful.

 

Emily had to stay late at work for parent-teacher conferences, so I picked the kids up from after-school. Em texted, asking how they were, and I texted back a photo, which I knew would make her smile much more than just the word "fine".

 

A day's worth of phone photos. None of them really keepers, but moments to go to and share or just smile over. Honestly, I end up deleting most of my phone photos, sometimes after posting to Facebook, or on this blog, and my friends and family do the same and, in this way—through our pictures—we understand each other better and we share in the everyday lives we all lead, even though far away. We see babies grow and change and know our far-off families and friends as we never could have. We share the beauty and wonder all around us, and I really think we are better for that.

I love this camera in my pocket.

 

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House numbers

Getting ready for Open Studios last week, I realized that when we painted the house this summer we removed the house number and had not replaced it. Seemed kind of important for helping people find the studio.

When we moved onto this house (which, by the way, was 7 years ago yesterday) there were no numbers on the house. I hope you all know that, in case of emergencies requiring ambulances or fire trucks, it is really important to have a visible house number on your house. So I started looking for numbers that I liked and wouldn't cost a fortune. I'm fussy. Not just any old numbers would do. I wasn't finding anything I liked. One day I got a FedEx delivery and the driver snarled at me, "no HOUSE number!" So I made some numbers to use until I could find my mythical "perfect" numbers. I had a sheet of sticky-back black craft foam and I cut numbers from that and put them up above the garage door, and they stayed there until last spring when Ray peeled them off and started painting. Who would've guessed they would last that long? And, I have to say, they looked pretty good. And I still haven't found the perfect ones. So, off to Michael's for a sheet of sticky foam.

Using Illustrator on my computer, I found a typeface I liked and typed my numbers.

 

Two things I learned from my first round of home-made numbers:

• Numbers that slant to the right are harder to place evenly with the slant angle matching. This time I picked a face that is vertical.
• Numbers with perfectly straight lines and sharp corners are hard to cut perfectly. This time I picked a face with a hand-drawn look—slightly wobbly lines and rounded corners. Besides, I like this one and think it has a hammered iron look.

I enlarged the letters to the size I wanted, turned them into outlines (not necessary, but it saves ink when you print) and flipped them to mirror image.

Then I printed it out, glued it to the peel-off sheet on the back of the craft foam and cut each letter out.

 

I laid them out and arranged them so they would look good, then measured the arrangement and found the center point.

 

Then I took my letters and a stepladder outside and starting from the center I started peeling and sticking the numbers very lightly to the house. I stood back, looked hard to decide whether everything looked centered, even and correctly spaced, made some final adjustments, then pressed them down hard.

 

Ta Da! I like them. Maybe someday I will find those perfect, gorgeous house numbers. Maybe not. Either way, these, at about $1 total cost, do the job nicely.

PS, I know someone will ask why I didn't use contact paper or black tape or paint, or something else. I love two things about the foam. It has this velvety, unshiny matte texture and it has dimension, being about an 8th inch thick. It really could fool you into thinking it is cast or forged iron.

 

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Getting ready

 

Next weekend is Washington County Open Studios and that is my cue to get in gear and get the studio ready to receive guests! I have been merciless this week about decluttering. All my studio visitors will think I am organized and tidy every day of the year.

Today I hung up some recent work (above) and cleaned off my work surfaces before I headed down to the Beaverton Library for my volunteer docent stint at the Beaverton Art Mix show. It is a really nice juried show and I was pleased to be juried in for my third year. My piece was the only fiber work in the show this year, but it seemed like there was more mixed media, sculpture, ceramics and metalwork than past years, so not so heavily painting. A very good show, I thought.

Here I am with my piece, "The Moon is a Mirror". Today was the last day of the Beaverton show, so I will have the moon to show at the studio next weekend. It is the piece that is in the printed program for the tour, so it will be recognizable. I'm thinking I might hang it on the outside of the studio, next to the front door. I hope it doesn't rain. I am always asked questions about how the quilting is done when I have visitors in the studio, so I plan to have one of my machines set up with a sample quilt sandwich that visitors can try quilting on.

 

Open Studios is so much work, but so gratifying. It isn't about selling stuff (though that is sometimes a nice bonus). It is promoted as an opportunity for the community to get to know their artists and see where they work, and the people who come really seem to get that and have great questions and nice things to say and bring a feeling of celebration to the event. People of all ages, from small children to old folks all seem to get into it. Last year I was busy with a large group of people when I noticed a teenage girl slip in the door and begin carefully examining each exhibited work. She was dressed all in black, with blue-colored hair and her body language and bored expression did not invite engagement. I couldn't imagine what she was thinking. As she was about to quietly leave, I thanked her for coming and she finally made eye contact. "This," she said, twirling a finger around to indicate the entire studio, "Totally awesome." And she was gone, before I could return the compliment.

For all the information and list of artists and directions for the tour go to the web site, or pick up one of the great catalogs in public locations in Beaverton, or come to my studio first and I'll give you one. And did I mention—the tour is free. And totally awesome!

 

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Chastened

There's a word I don't use much, but that is how I am feeling about my last post. After writing about the toilet paper quilt an anonymous commenter told me they thought my sense of humor was in the toilet, which made me laugh out loud, so I may not be a totally lost cause, humor wise. Another commenter suggested that my reaction was one of the reasons people think artists are snobs. Even I, the next morning, wondered what had gotten into me. I could try to explain it, but suffice it to say I overreacted to something trivial. I was in a mood. And I have to agree that time spent making any kind of a quilt beats the heck out of innumerable other ways one can waste one's time. Chastened, I am. Let's just forget the whole thing, okay?

And on to something else...

I think I have mentioned that I am making quilts based on some of my USA cross-country trip photos. I am into my third one. My process has been to make a little digital sketch based on a photo, or in one case, a combination of elements from a couple photos.

Sometime toward the end of our second week on the road, we drove through a little section of Pennsylvania, and we decided to leave the interstate highway and take some back roads through some beautiful countryside. As we passed through one little farming community I snapped a photo of a lovely old house and as I go back through all the photos I took, I keep stopping at that photo, so I finally knew it was going o be a quilt. Here's my sketch.

 

And here is work in progress.

This series of quilts was going to all be landscapes, but I can't resist a charming old building, in a landscape. Landscape to come...

 

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Time, Toilet Paper and Tomato Soup

 

We made a quick trip to Boise at the end of last week, mainly for Ray's 50th High School reunion, but we also spent time with relatives, I went to a quilt show, saw all that is new in Boise since we lived there and revisited what we loved, and still remains, of the city we remember. A sentimental journey in lots of ways.

The quilt show was put on by the Boise Basin Quilters guild and two of my favorite young, quilt artists, Lisa Flowers Ross and Kathleen Probst, were the featured artists. I walked the show enjoying the exquisite traditional quilts, as well as some bright contemporary quilts, and most of all, Lisa and Kathleen's bold, clear abstract art quilts. Each, in her own way, has explored the possibilities of simple forms, complex color and transparency, creating exciting work that really elevated the show. I was drinking in all that, plus the richness of tradition and craftsmanship in the rest of the show, then I saw something that stopped me short. In a vendor's booth a quilt and the pattern to make it, consisting of four quilt blocks, each depicting a slightly different view of a roll of toilet paper. I was dumbfounded, and I snapped a picture with my phone.

Walking to my car I kept thinking about why that quilt had so shocked me, and I posted the photo and my reaction to Facebook. Comments started rolling in. Some just didn't like the idea of making "art" from kits or patterns. Some expressed a distaste for the subject matter. One commenter defended it as "fun" and wondered why art had to be serious and a couple seemed to think I was attacking someone's personal expression in a rude or condescending way coming from someone who should be supportive of a fellow artist, while others dismissed it as "not art."

Only my friend Jeri seemed to understand that it was really time that I was reacting to. Events of recent years have made me acutely aware of how precious time is, and I have, more and more, pondered how one uses the limited time each of us is given. I have come to abhor busy work and mindless time-wasting. I hope I don't sound morbid or overly earnest. I want to relax and be entertained and have fun (though I still fail to understand why a toilet paper quilt is fun) as much as anyone, but I know full well what goes into making any quilt. When I expend my resources, including money, skill, emotional investment and time, I want it to be meaningful, and I could not, hard as I tried, coax any real meaning from that little quilt. My reaction turned to a little sadness that there are people who so little value their own time on earth and the skills they have worked to achieve.

I have been accused of overthinking in the past and this might be what I'm doing here. Things like school reunions and nostalgic weekends in an old home town will do that. I know I probably should not be concerned with how anyone other than I, myself, chooses to spend their time and energies and usually I'm not, and really this time I'm not so much concerned or disapproving as I am simply confounded.

And the tomato soup?

Several commenters mentioned Andy Warhol and his soup cans as somehow similar to the toilet paper quilt. One said, "how is this different from Warhol's soup can?..." Poor Andy. He has come to represent, for many, art that is so simple-minded that if a can of soup is art than anything can be. I rather love those soup cans myself, and find a lot of sly meaning to be found there. How many people know that he did not paint just one big tomato soup can? The original exhibit was 32 separate Campbell's soup paintings—one each of the 32 varieties Campbell's made. They were exhibited all together, side by side around a room in a galley—iconic in their style of presentation. Initially 3 were sold, but the gallery owner quickly realized that they were a set—complete only as a whole—and bought the 3 back. They have continued to be exhibited only as a group since. How does one view them? Icons of popular culture? A comment on the power of advertising? Beauty in the everyday object? When asked, Warhol said he chose soup because he liked soup and had eaten it for lunch every day for 20 years. So, now do you maybe see parallels in art and nourishment? Warhol went on to make many more variations on the soup can—large, very grand cans; soup cans as a repeating pattern; cans with the colors changed. A roomful of these pieces becomes a dizzying contemplation on the very nature of the manmade image, which can become entirely divorced from its original meaning. What has that image now come to represent? Simple nourishment? capitalism? the Pop Art movement? or something else? I'm probably overthinking again, but I think comparing Andy Warhol and the toilet paper quilt is a stretch. I don't think I'm buying it.

Thanks for reading all this. If you've hung in here you probably want to see that TP quilt that got me so agitated. I decided not to publish my photo without permission from the maker, but here is a link to the original pattern:

https://www.javahousequilts.com/shop/product/were-bigger-roll/

 

Draw your own conclusions.

 

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Paint

I've been busy. Not so much in the studio, but I am feeling that small pressure to get things done while the weather is good. We have been painting our house's exterior all summer, and by "we" I really mean Ray has been painting and I have made a couple of half-hearted efforts to help. Early in the process I was painting the trim. Then one day I fell, backward, off a lower step of the ladder, not a great distance, but into a very poke-y bush, that scraped the heck across my back and trapped me in its branches. It took some flailing to escape and the whole experience pretty much soured me on the painting project—for awhile. Then a few weeks ago I began to see how good it was looking and I took on the front door and railings, which did not require a ladder. I really wanted to see this project finished before the rain begins.

When we moved in the house was yellow with white trim—not a bad color scheme—but with all the trees and all the green, I always felt it needed to be darker and more earthy. Now it feels like it nestles more comfortably into its surroundings.

Here's my paint inspector, making sure I do it right.

 

Here is its former yellow self.

I even made a small quilt at one time.

There is only a little painting left to do in the back, so I think we'll make our good weather window. We are also having some landscape work done out back. Today the guys started laying pavers, a much needed improvement.

I don't think the projects ever come to an end with an old house.

When I have made it to the studio recently it has been for some experimenting. Something about painting those railings on the porch made me want to paint on fabric I think. Paint is seductive.

 

 

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Kinda crafty

Have you seen the light shades people are making from old crocheted doilies? I know, it sounds kind of dreadful, but some of the photos are pretty enchanting. A Google image search will turn up lots of examples.

 

I wanted one! I had a few old doilies, and then I scored a whole cookie tin full at an estate sale.

 

I also had a bottle of this stuff, purchased on speculation many years ago.

So, a year or more ago I got myself a big balloon and decided to give it a try. The first thing I found was that it was all but impossible to get the doilies to cling to the balloon, unless they were just dripping with the stiffening goo, which then squashed the ballon and distorted the round shape. Then, when I finally got the doilies on and they were drying, apparently in the middle of the night the balloon popped and by the next morning what I had was a caved-in sphere, resembling the shape of a rotted pumpkin and hardened into permanence with bits of balloon fragments imbedded into it. I threw it away in disgust and shelved the idea.

THEN a couple weeks ago my son-in-law was preparing to toss out an IKEA light shade that had become scorched and discolored and I was attracted to its nice shape and brought it home for another go at the doily shade plan.

 

I noted that it could serve as a mold and then slip, easily, out of the hardened doily shell. I hung it from the shelf over my studio sink and started applying soaked doilies.

 

 

Alas, the doilies immediately started sliding right off, but I was able to add a few pins and finally got full coverage. Another hand would have been handy, but clothes pins worked to keep things together until I could pin. I left it to dry overnight.

Next morning I discovered two problems. First, while most of my pins are rustproof, there were several rogues who rusted big old rust-stains onto the lace. And the second problem was that while the stiffening agent stiffened them nicely, it did not glue those doilies to each other as I had hoped, so it wasn't going to hang together.

This required large amounts of Elmers glue, carefully poked between layers and clamped with clothes pins and another night to dry. Once the glue was dry, the old shade did actually slip, fairly easily, out of the shell and I finally had something to work with. I touched up the rust stains with some white paint, rigged a little wire frame for the inside to hold it to the hanging light and, voila!, I was in business!

It is hanging in the studio, upstairs, in my reading corner and I kind of love it.

 

 

I probably need to get a bigger, round lightbulb, but it is, at least, functional. I still don't know how all those beautiful round shades were made, and anyone who tells you that this goes together easily is lying. But, really, isn't it pretty?

 

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Ten Years

So here we are, ten years later. This was me 10 years ago. I wonder what happened to that shirt. I really liked it. And I was still wearing contact lenses back then. Otherwise, not too many changes.

 

This is where I sat, in my wonderful old house on Illinois Street, the night I decided to create a blog. The house is different and I have gone through a couple new computers since then. iPads hadn't yet been invented and tonight I'm using my iPad to write this post.

I have been looking back and reading old posts this week and marveling at all that has happened in ten years, and amazed and grateful and just confounded by the friends and opportunities and wonderful moments that have come to me through this blog in the past ten years. Honestly, I expected nothing. What I got has been huge. Awhile back a friend was going back and forth about starting a blog. She said to me, "your blog is great and all, but has it really proven to be an asset to your art career?" And my answer was that it has been everything that brought me an art career at this stage in my life. And so it goes...

Of all my yearly musings on my blog anniversary, this is the one I liked best. Written on the seventh anniversary:

 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Seven

Seven years ago tonight I sat at my computer, wondered how you set up a blog and followed some links down a rabbit hole. I came out the other end as the new owner of a blog called And Sew it Goes, which I have to explain is a name arrived at through desperation. Every other name that popped into my head had been taken, including my own name. I remembered that in the early days of the internet when I joined my first quilting listserve I used to add that line to my posts. The internet seemed so anonymous and I was having trouble keeping people straight on the list. The tagline seemed like it might be something memorable to distinguish me from the faceless multitude. I now regret using the cute "sew" in the line. "And so it goes..." says better what I intended, but of course that was the line associated with Linda Ellerbee the wonderful journalist. Also a heartbreaking Billy Joel song and a refrain in the Kurt Vonnegut book, Slaughterhouse Five. But there it is. And now, seven years later, I am still And Sew it Goes.

I had no idea what this blog would become for me. It is, first and foremost, a journal of my past seven years. The only journal I have ever kept. It didn't occur to me that it would engender a community of friends and open up opportunities never anticipated. I can't imagine coming to a place where I have nothing more to write about. I know it is probably the height of self-absorption in some peoples' eyes, but it is something that I now love so much that it doesn't matter to me.They say that life happens in seven year cycles. They say that every one of our cells is replaced in the space of seven years. So, the new me wonders what the next seven years will bring. You know where you can find me.And so it goes...

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