Reveal Day at Material Mavens: Canyon

      Today was Reveal Day at Material Mavens, the international art quilt group. Our topic was "canyon." I am sort of embarrassed by my effort. I should have looked at a photo of The Lighthouse in Palo Duro Canyon, but I am always in a hurry. I have learned my lesson: be patient, think, make many sketches, don't run with your first idea. You can visit the site to see more than a dozen interpretations of "canyon" in a 12" x 12" quilt. Yes, I hope I have learned. Below is my presentation at the MM site:

       Palo Duro Canyon drove my work this time. The canyon is thirty minutes outside of Amarillo, Texas where I was born. Only Grand Canyon is larger. Georgia O’Keefe painted images inspired by it; and my friends who are marrying June 1 developed a romance on the ranches in the area.

       The Grand Canyon has an Eagle structure and Palo Duro has a rock formation called The Lighthouse. My lighthouse looks more like a bottle, unfortunately (champagne for the upcoming wedding?). I made two futile efforts. My first “Canyon” is tamer. I used fabric paints and Sharpie’s Rub a Dub pen. I always felt it needed crows or blackbirds that O’Keefe put in her painting of Palo Duro. My second “Canyon” has stronger colors and shapes are simplified. It needs some yellow beaded flowers. I layered mostly batik fabrics, and stitched all over.

       I had the best time stitching trying to learn something. It often takes more than two tries to learn new techniques. I just have to keep trying. I can begin another for a wedding card.  I have now learned I must slow down, observe better, make many sketches, and THINK. I always wanted a theme to work on and maybe canyon or home could be a start.

       I like the idea of a lighthouse, my home as a light, an assist in navigating life. The warm colors of the Panhandle, yellow (in Spanish, Amarillo), orange and red are in a marbleized fabric on the back of the 2nd quilt. This makes me think of old books...tales of the Apaches and Comanches who once roamed here and the sad histories shared by all people. CLICK to enlarge the images.

First Snow: a Magical Time

       Last night we had our first snow of the season. Big flakes! The evening was magical with the cross country skiers, sledders and sculptors out in the dark.

       And what to my wandering eyes should appear, but neighbor Lloyd and his mother's rolling 3 foot snowballs from the top of the block down to their house. This was an engineering trick I had never thought of. Granted, #2 and #3 snowballs had to be whittled down to lift to make a snowman, but Lloyd and Sarah did it! A strand of brussel sprouts left over in their garden made eyes, nose and arms.

      Next, Joe noticed that ten-year-old Katherine on the other side of our house had put up what her dad called "an abstract snowman." I am surrounded by art!

        I keep close at hand this photo of  "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil," the young efforts by myself and five friends in my front yard, teen years, long ago in Amarillo. I always hoped to duplicate it alongside Storrow Drive in Boston someday. I remember being told that Carl Sandburg said the only thing between Amarillo and the North Pole was a single strand of barbed wire. Note: Speak No Evil is having a tougher time of it!

        As of today, we have probably received more snow than we had all last year. This old photo pictures the amount of snow delivered. There has been double that in the past. You can click on the photos to enlarge.

Joe's Red Garden: my return to Journal Quilting

      Tornado parties, deep snowfalls and trampolines are favorite childhood memories of my life in Amarillo. We didn't do gardens there in the prettiest dust bowl you might imagine. There is a mini Grand Canyon after all. But we did have irises, hydrangeas and little yellow tomatoes in my yard. Croquet and football took over, mostly.  Joe's dad grew lots of roses in Little Rock, but Joe and I have never gardened except for his digging holes for bulbs in the fall, our planting around the house wherever there is a vacancy, and my one time successful herb garden.

       I am so glad Joe decided to make a garden in his retirement, however too early it may be. I will call it his little red garden for he edged this sunny slope with big red paving stones and grass for a new direction. Altho he tied strings and built trellises, he mainly wanted flowers. I wanted food. So he allowed for that as well.

      Missing my journal quilting, I made one this afternoon. I had fabrics of seeds but chose a batik background since I think that is a good contrast with strong graphics. I grabbed some narrow strips that suggested trellises left over from the Round Robin. I laid these out and secured them with a glue stick. I needed more life and created an award for Joe, just grabbing ribbons from an open drawer. I needed to bead the center of the badge but there was a sticky rhinestone left over from a grandchild's craft and I stuck that on. I would have continued if I could have found my puff paint, but you know how cluttered an craft person's work areas can get! (I finally found it!...in a box, carefully put away.)

     After sewing this collage, I cut it down to 12 x 12, added a batik backing  and sewed the edges of the quilt sandwich (top collage, batting, backing). I added some red bias tape for edges, reminiscent of Joe's red edges to his garden. Forgetting the quilt was finished, I went back to sew in free motion Joe's garden 2012 on the tomato and embellished the award. This showed up on the back. Duh. I colored it out with a blue-green Sharpie. I REALLY have missed journal quilting.

      

School for learning: a journal quilt

click to enlarge

   The Journal Quilt Connection meets this week. I needed to make a quilt with a school theme, one quite appropriate for September. I just couldn't get started. I thought of my upcoming trip for a reunion with friends with whom I began elementary school  in Amarillo. The grandchildren were starting new schools in their new state. I wondered about new courses for everyone, my boys in NYC and Joe and myself.
   I was blocked. But to get started, I set out a sky background over batting and cut the two to 14" x 14." That would be the big sky of Amarillo, the Southwest and memories of school, first through 12th grade.
    Blank. I brought in Kaffe Fassett fabric pencils. Buying my school supplies (pencils and paper) was so exciting back in the 40's. I wasn't interested in clothes, just drawing. Where to put the pencils? I found black board fabric and sweet memories of lettering. But how to compose?
    The 9/11 tenth anniversary memorials were on tv and my piece came together. I ironed Wonder Under to the fabrics and cut them out, ironed them on, and quilted them to the batting. The backing was put on at the end and brought around the sides and stitched as I watched the memorials on television or listened on the radio.

End of Summer: Memories in Oil

      A good man is hard to find but I did. Joe just finished repainting the bathroom and I took another look at the two very, very old paintings of mine I have hanging there. One was painted on the Vineyard in the backyard of Dianthe's friend. I don't know how I had the nerve to paint with strangers but I did.  The other was painted from a photograph at the Maxfield's place in Port Clyde, Maine. Every time I look at these two simple paintings of the end of summer I am reminded of those two especially good times.

(click to enlarge)

      I never planned to be a painter but at a teacher's conference after getting my Master's degree, I bought a $10 set of oil paints in a box that came with a canvas, brushes, paints, turpentine for cleaning and a medium. My first oil painting was sold at my big show Recombinant Imagery back in the mid-90s, bought by the daughter of a famous Australian painter, Sydney Nolan. I think the colors of Australia must be similar to those of Amarillo. I thought more abstractly than the two above, calling it The Panhandle with its squared landscapes and atmosphere, dust colored (with kitchen spices and sand added for varied textures), cattle, ranch, windmill and wide horizon. I wish I had a better photo.

The Texas Panhandle

      All you need are a few oil paints, brushes, Winsor Newton Medium to thin the paints, Turpenoid (odorless paint remover or brush cleaner), and something to paint on. You buy prepared canvas or make your own: gesso on birch plywood, shellac on cardboard, gesso on canvas. It is so much fun and probably my favorite medium after trying everything. You can paint over mistakes.

Mutts and Magic Movies

       Vacation this week centered on Farley and Flip, movie making and mailing. We wanted to go to NYC to see, this time, the Matisse show at MOMA and Durer at the Morgan. But given the heat and imagined complications, we stayed home with Farley, day tripping to Ogunquit, Maine and Exeter, New Hampshire. At the same time, I was trying to understand the nuances of clipping video with my Flip Mino, making "Magic Movies" with  appropriate music and mailing to friends. My actions were reminiscent of a cat with a mouse he is proud of presenting it to his owner. So I spammed my friends with my creations, proud as I could be.

       I also finished a good book, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, by Gail Caldwell (originally from Amarillo, now Cambridge) who wrote of her close friend, another writer, their dogs and deep friendship."It's an old story," Caldwell began. "I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that.'' I was sad to finish the book. It prompted me to return to walking Fresh Pond, where those friends walked and I walked Molly, our Bearded Collie, years ago. I made two of my little Magic Movies at Fresh Pond, scene of our first picnic in Boston, and Ogunquit, the first beach we visited after moving to Massachusetts.

         [note: These two still photos of Farley were clipped from Flip videos I took of him.]