Swallowed by Details…

Meditation. Lots of it. School issues. Kid issues. Insurance issues (everything costs too much and all the bills are due during the only time of year when I don’t get a paycheck.). College issues. Too many little tiny fussy details and it’s HOT here. Brain turns to mush.

All I want to do is make art and everything else keeps getting in the way. Today will be that, over and over again. Even school…I have to go to school today. That’s just wrong.

So yesterday, I traced a lot, like over 3 hours of tracing…

Kitten was absolutely no help at all. When she’d try to lie on the paper or the Wonder Under, the plus of the light table is that the glass is really slippery, so I’d just slide her over, out of my way. And sometimes she’d stand right back up and plop right back down. Bitch. No really. I love my cat. And yes, the glass is cool. I use LEDs so there’s no heat off that sucker, or I’d be dying right now of heat exhaustion. You can’t see the fan pointed at me. Actually, for some part of the time, girlchild had the fan and I was sweating. Sigh. Need another fan. I did break the one in the studio, so it’s on my list.

It was nicer to trace at night. Nice and cool. View of my neighbor’s drone over the driveway (I’m hoping he doesn’t have a camera on that thing…because I flashed it last night).

I’m getting closer to done. I think I just have the head to do…maybe one arm. I quit when I was too tired to stand any more.

Then I decided I wanted to finish watching the season finale of Orphan Black, so I sewed bindings for a while…

I got about halfway around before I was really tired. Then I went to bed and didn’t sleep. I don’t really know why. Too many of those details racing around in my head, bumping into each other. Time really gets away from me sometimes. I have a huge long list of things to do today, and so many of them are just BLAH. And I keep fighting the kids over the damn dishes. Seriously. It’s Not Mine, put your shit away. And jobs and their anxiety and stress, which doesn’t help with mine.

I should wake up and meditate. And then I should do it again right before bed.

But I don’t have time! Amusing that.

I am trying to straighten up the house and organize it and get rid of stuff too…although I tossed a bunch of papers yesterday and then had to make more to try and get all these insurance quotes straightened out. Waiting on one more, and then I can toss the whole pile.

But I finally hung the last three year’s of SAQA auction purchases…

They’ve had hanging slats for about a year now I think…the one on the right is one of my older pieces, pre-divorce, believe it or not (so fucking ancient). It’s one of my favorite pieces…Caught in the Headlights (2002). And yes, my kitchen is a disaster. I’m working on it.

Here’s Lorie McKown’s My Three Sisters II, Susan Lenz’s Death of Desire, and Helen Conway’s Transition: Brick Lane II.

I have 4 others in my bedroom, so that’s 7 years of donations to the cause. I don’t make auction quilts (they’re way too small and always due in the last trimester of school, not a good time for me), I don’t have hours to donate, and I don’t have a ton of money, but I do try to buy a small one of these every year. Last year was going to be a no-buy-year for me, and then I sold a bunch of the bird quilts and made enough to be able to breathe last summer.

Same with this Jette Clover piece, Interjection 1, purchased as part of the FFAC 100 artists donation to cancer…I donated one and bought one.

This year…this year, none of that is on the table. Deep breaths. Sighs as well.

Today? Doctor’s appointments, school shit, lots of details (apparently that cat up there on the light table? She wants food. Demanding beast.). Hopefully some more tracing will get slotted in there, so I can get that part of the project over with and move on to the next piece. I’m also trying to get my freelance copyediting business up and running, and to exercise in there as well and maybe even sleep more than 5 hours a night. Really. I feel like I should be able to sleep on vacation! Stupid brain.

Make art, support artists, buy art. Meditate regularly. Don’t get swallowed by details…

I’m Not Crazy at PIQF

Last weekend, I boarded a plane Friday night with my flu virus and some cold meds and kleenex and sore-throat lozenges, and I made my way northward to Santa Clara, California, where the Pacific International Quilt Festival was taking place. I had never been to one of the Mancuso shows before, but knew it had a mix of art and traditional quilts, much like IQF, but with more emphasis on the traditional.

I went to see my curated exhibit I’m Not Crazy, which opened back in August, but only travels to California once in the year. I was looking forward to seeing the pieces in person, since pictures don’t do fiber art justice, most of the time.

My camera card ate my photos (it may spit them out again…it has done that before), so Tanya Brown was nice enough to take some for me the next day…Here are the three sections of drape that we had for this show.

The first section with what I call The Face Wall, staring out at those who walk by…

And its facing wall…

Below, Sylvia M. Weir’s Insane Asylum and Karen S. Musgrave’s Glimpses of the Dark Angel.

The coloring on each of these two pieces is beautiful in real life.

Below, Mary B. Pal’s Stogie, Lois A. Sprague’s Moody Blues, and Kathleen McCabe’s What Next?

I love the range of expressions in those three pieces.

Below, Carol Howard Donati’s In My Head and Cynthia St. Charles’ All Alone and Blue.

Both pieces have hints of traditional piecing and patterning, but the details of quilting and pattern move beyond the traditional.

Below, a general view of the second section…

And the other wall of that section…

Below, Gerrie Congdon’s Alternate Universe and Salli McQuaid’s Bipolar 1: Loco.

They echo the movement in each other. Salli is our catalog designer and we are very appreciative of all her hard work on the project.

Below, Susan Lenz’s Held Together by a Thread, Judith A. Roderick’s Red Ravens, and Harue Konishi’s SYO#42.

Below, Nancy L. Bardach’s Running Through and Connie Rohman’s Woven (for Jack).

These two quilts seem to speak to each other. I hope we get a gallery exhibit for these at some point, so they can have more space around them, but they did play well together despite the limited space.

Below is one side of the third section…

And the other side…

Below, Jane B. Broaddus‘ Another Panic Attack and Lea McComas’ Recovery.

Both of these had lots of surface design and embellishment that worked well with their chosen images.

Below, Melinda Bula’s Good and Plenty and Karol Kusmaul’s Whee at the ALF.

This picture shows more of the texture that was visible on these two quilts than the pictures I had for their entries…so it was nice to see that in real life.

Below, Elizabeth Michellod-Dutheil’s Mal Etre and Judy Kirpich’s Circles No. 5.

The circles seem to lead the eye from the left piece to the right. It’s always interesting to see it hung in real life, instead of just laid out on paper. It was harder to visualize the works together in the space than I thought it would be…I would think it would be easier if I had them in the space and could choose the hanging order. That said, it is a beautiful show, thanks to all the hard work of the artists and Sue Reno’s decisions on which pieces to include. I’m looking forward to seeing the catalog, which is in process. I’ll announce its availability when I know it’s coming out. I appreciate SAQA for giving me the opportunity through the curator-in-training program to put this exhibit together; Kathleen McCabe, Martha Sielman, Eileen Doughty, Lisa Ellis, and Bill Reker for their help within SAQA with the process, the website, the shipping, and the entry program; Mary Claire Moyer and the Mancuso Brothers for helping SAQA and me, and giving us the exhibition space; and Sue Reno and the artists for working with me to create a great exhibit. The feedback we’ve gotten has been positive, which is a plus.

The show continues through May, following the Mancuso shows in Florida, Virginia, New Jersey, and Colorado, having opened in New Hampshire and already traveled to Pennsylvania and now California. Hopefully we can add some venues to the end of that, because I think the show deserves a gallery space somewhere.

SAQA Auction: Susan Lenz

The last 5 years, I’ve made an effort to buy one piece from the SAQA Auction in September. They’re all about 12″ square, so they’re easy to hang around the house, and they’re affordable if you’re willing to wait (and possibly lose the piece because you waited too long for the auction to come down in price). This year, there were (as always) a couple of pieces that caught my interest…I ended up buying Susan Lenz’s grave rubbing…

Death of Desire. It’s a grave rubbing on silk, which is even nicer in person than it is in the photos. It’s been quilted and hand-stitched around the edges. The girlchild expressed interest (uh oh). The back is also interesting…

with the information about whose grave it was from, and the addition of doily tatting in a 9-patch pattern.

Now I just have to hang it…before the girlchild wanders off with it.

I’ve been reading Susan’s blog for a long time, and have always been interested in her use of antique fabrics and graves, as well as her work in the Decision Portraits, so I’m pleased to own a piece of hers. She has a piece in my curated exhibit I’m Not Crazy and is a Quilt National 2013 exhibitor, so if all goes well, I should meet her in May.