Prayer-wrong number: a journal quilt

The memorable incident this week to record with a journal quilt, took place on Sunday at the Memorial Church at Harvard. During the closing prayer of the service, my cellphone went off. Joe and I had rushed out of the house to get to Cambridge for the 11 AM Palm Sunday service. He had grabbed my cell phone and handed it to me since I can forget to pocket it on the way out the door. During an earlier prayer, I had a warning: my mind wandered to wonder if the phone were turned off; and since I am married to a dedicated caretaker I decided Joe had turned it off for me. I thought it might be more disturbing to look to check mid-service. Wrong.

The swirling circles in the journal quilt can refer to the noise of the phone's ring as well as to the whirlpool of my embarrassment as I fell down to my pew seat to find the phone in the furthest pocket and realize the impossibility of rising. I was so mortified.

I could not think of a metaphor for the church and prayer; so the circles and colors (more magenta than here) are going to have to refer to eggs/colors of the season, a stretch but a reminder. I thought I might Google Images, for praying hands, to find something to embroider outlines later. There I found a tutorial on drawing such. By the way, amazingly, I saw noone looking at me at the time or afterwards. People must have realized I was humiliated enough; thus the closed eyes on the quilt.

Colored eggs and heavy thoughts

Busy getting switched over to the new computer, reorganizing and hooking up things, I thought I might not have anything to post, being too busy to live. Then, we got a phone call that this would be a good day to dye eggs, Monday's bringing Passover and Seder.

And today is Palm Sunday, so we made it into Memorial Church at Harvard to hear the passion according to St. Luke and Peter Gomes talk about why we celebrate Passion Week...that life is full of sadness, treachery and violence; and the point of Jesus' being God incarnate is that God shares all of this with us.

Next, it was rushing out to get eggs to boil and dye, chicken pot pie makings to create with the grandchildren before coloring. I got the usual color tablets, a kit to marbleize with and pulled some Model Magic off the shelf for rabbit, chick, egg modeling and cookie cutting. After dinner I read Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco, a good tale with pictures of pysanky eggs. I finished with another of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's cure stories. It was a sunny, rich and colorful day.

Historic Healthcare, a journal quilt

Abby, creator of the terrific While She Naps blog, said that a blog is an impetus to produce. So true today. I need to set up my big new exciting computer, but I am stopping everything to get out today’s posting. This week’s journal quilt had to be about the Healthcare passage, a historic event.

I have a truncated beachball, not beached, w hints of the Healthcare logo (in all honesty, I didn’t have time to perfect which probably improved the idea for the quilt) all on a stormy sea. I must find a new metaphor for stormy seas in novelty fabrics! A different fabric than felt would have been more difficult for the logo, and I don’t mind these results. I got the journal up in less than the goal of two hours despite the detached scanner awaiting hookup to the new computer. Harried but happy here.

Double Drawings

Adrienne, a good friend from 40 years ago, joined me for lunch yesterday. We like to share our journals and latest projects. She knows I like to have a big blank book about 8 1/2” x 11” that I can open each morning at the breakfast table, so that as I read the newspapers or magazines I can clip out what interests me visually (or want to think about) and can save to sketch, embellish or add to. I never know when something I cut out, glue, draw or develop on a page will be a source for a spontaneous future piece of art.

Some time ago I found this photo of an artist and the child he painted (I assume his nephew or grandson) and pasted it into my book. Much later in Houston when I was visiting with my nephew, we decided to draw each other in charcoal at the same time, probably prompted by that painting in my journal. It was fun and a surprise for me to see how much Alan remembered from his visit to my studio in Boston: a record I now have of three special memories.

I regret I do not know the source of the magazine illustration or the artist’s name.

Sketching Portraits and Flowers

Sometimes it is fun to sit at the kitchen table to watercolor (the most difficult medium IMO) or enjoy Holbein Acryla Gouache which I discovered about a year ago, a fast-drying, opaque acrylic based watercolor paint which is water soluble when while wet . When dry it is water-resistant, matte and opaque. The latter is easier to use like oil paints, in that you can paint over your mistakes if you know what they are! Easy water clean-up.

Tonight I wanted to watch Baylor and Kansas play in March Madness basketball, a new stretch for me and paint at the same time, in order to have something to post. I thought I could try to watercolor Molly, a memorial portrait. I immediately wished I had gotten out the acrylic gouache.

I had used this gouache to paint several self-portraits (the first two here) on one trip to NYC when I had no other models. At the Neue Gallery I bought and studied a book on Paula Modersohn-Becker portraits. She often painted flowers under the faces of people and I decided to add to Molly’s portrait the flowers Dianthe brought by in remembrance. As art often surprises, they formed wings for Molly.

Spring Cleaning Surprise: NYC Zine

Until a few months ago, I had never heard of a zine. But loving books and magazines, I turned my hand to one, using the format of the magical paper book in my March 10 blog.

After the holidays, a trip or two. and lots of arts and crafts, it was time to spring clean. What a treat to locate my long lost beading books flat in the bottom of a small cloth bag I must have taken to show someone. And then in an envelope, ready to mail, I found the zine I had made of a NYC reunion trip I had w a dear college friend. It was my present to her she never received.

The zine is created on an 8.5” x 10.5” sheet of paper. I affixed photos, text and Japanese tape (Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum) in positions that would fold properly into a zine for Alice.

Water Water Everywhere...

The ten inches of rain in Middlesex County is certainly the subject for my two-hour journal quilt this week, but w hints of other things going on as well. I will surely add some bugle beads for the rain’s coming down and some rounder glass beads for the splashes out of the barrels or buckets used in my studio.

That night (Bill’s birthday and the rising waters) when the grandchildren were here going through my fabric stash and expecting me to whip up something in minutes, I found my machine stalled. All I needed was a new needle, hooray! Also, reflecting on how surprised the beaders were that I don’t make doll clothes, I asked the girls what doll clothes I could make for them and they chose the 18-inch Snow White outfit. One for each. Little did I suspect the rains would slow down that effort and others! But we know, the sun always comes out. Coincidentally, Hannah had chosen the ocean fabric for her project. It was reflecting on her smile and compliments that kept me relaxed and alive while bailing that night.