I finally have Carlos' website re-designed and updated. What's that saying about the shoemaker's children? It definitely applies here...
We spent quite a bit time with the new camera shooting and re-shooting all of his paintings and then getting the photos ready for print and web. There are still a few early prints to shoot and more older photos of sculpture to scan, but all of the current work is up and ready for viewing.
Please let me know what you think!
...my favorite child arrived here on earth. Happy, happy birthday, baby. Nothing will ever surpass the moment when I first saw her and held her in my arms. I can't believe it's been 24 years. I feel like I was 24 just yesterday. Or last week. It's been an amazing adventure so far.
This may be my most favorite photo of the two of us together. She was about 7 months old and I had just turned 22. Carlos and I had space in an old schoolhouse converted into artist studios. I printed my intaglios nearly everyday with her in that backpack, singing to me and peeking over my shoulder to see the colors I was rolling out on the table.
I used the paper that I block-printed yesterday to wrap her presents. The cupcakes just came out of the oven and are awaiting frosting and decorating. Tonight we celebrate!
So I'm going to be a proud mama for a minute and tell you about my daughter, Samantha. She just posted photos to her etsy store and has been working her tail off on adorable products for your furry friends. She makes gorgeous pet collars, toys and bedding for dogs, cats and ferrets. She's started stocking her store and has much more to come. She makes the cutest things -- fun, colorful and happy!
I love that she loves to sew and make and create. It's fun hanging out in the studio with her, each working on our own things with a convivial, creative hum and banter. Sometimes while we're making stuff we watch dvds and try to get caught up with "our" shows (Lost marathon, anyone?), other times we watch chick flicks, but mostly we tease and talk and chat and giggle and laugh. The best of times!
She's been sewing on a machine since she was five, knew how to use Wonder Under at four, and designed her own stuffed critters from age six on. She jumps in to everything with enthusiasm and verve, confident that she can realize her vision.
We applied for a really cool indie craft show in June and just found out that we didn't get in (boo), so now we'll look around for somewhere else to hawk our wares this summer. Can't pass up the idea of showing and selling together.
When I was teaching in Asilomar at the Empty Spools seminar a couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting Annie Smith, podcaster extraordinaire. She interviewed me one evening and we really hit it off. You can head to her website to listen to the podcast and hear us chatting about art and quilting and life and everything. Please leave a comment for me here - I'll be giving away a copy of my new book, Art Quilts at Play, on Wednesday, April 1st (no fooling!)
So you can follow along, in the podcast I talk about the books I've written with Elin Waterston, the shop that my mom and I opened in 1990 (that will continue as an internet store) and my husband's artwork.
UPDATE: The winner of the free book is "sewjoe"! Please contact me with your mailing address and I'll get an autographed copy of Art Quilts at Play right out to you. Thank you everyone for your very kind comments! And thank you Annie for the opportunity to talk to your listeners!
Happy Friday the 13th to me! The picture above is of me as a mere babe (of course, I'd like to think I'm still a babe, lol) and my mom outside of the house of one set of grandparents in Queens NY. Today we're both a number of years older, but no less cute than we were then. I think it's auspicious that, on the cusp of re-inventing myself for the next phase of my life, my birthday once again falls on a Friday.
Mom and I have worked together for the last 18 1/2 years at the shop we opened in 1990, The Country Quilter. What a ride it has been! We've seen trends and fads come and go, we started our own pattern design business, we've taught hundreds and hundreds of quilters and we've a blast doing it all. We've never had an argument or serious disagreement - which, if you had seen us doing my teenage years, you wouldn't believe. My mom is an inspiration and it's a joy to work with her. She and my dad are now retiring and planning to spend a lot of time at their house on the lake in the Adirondacks, traveling, and enjoying each other and the family. Richly deserved and highly anticipated!
So, this left me at a crossroads and I decided to take the path less traveled, the journey less certain. The shop closes in two weeks and I start a new chapter in my life. I will be expanding our online business of art quilting supplies, continuing our pattern business and exploring new avenues in teaching, writing and designing. Very exciting and a little bit scary all at once.
I am looking forward to being at home on Saturdays, not having had weekends off in nearly two decades. I'm also looking forward to having more time for art, family and friends, and to being open to whatever comes next. Stay tuned!
So the big project that Sam started on Thanksgiving is finally finished. It's actually been done for a while and I didn't get around to posting the pictures. It's really remarkable!
She found a really neat pattern for a cat bed and decided to make it for her ferret, Paisley (good name, right?) It was quite an adventure, starting with an egregious error on the supply list. It called for 12 feet of 24" wide by 1" thick upholstery foam. There are places in the construction where you would be sewing five layers of this foam together. Wasn't gonna happen. Of course we didn't discover this until we had spent nearly $80 on the foam and she cut out all the pieces. Headliner fabric worked perfectly though. Anyone want a whole bunch of weird shapes cut out of 1" foam? We can hook you up...
She picked fabric from my stash and made hers a Rainbow Trout. I think it looks amazing. The mouth is the opening to the bed, the whole inside of the fish is hollow (and lined), the fins are quilted and the eyes are styrofoam balls cut in half with pupils painted on.
It's huge - nearly 30" from pouty lips to flirty tail. And Paisley loves it.
This holiday meme is going around and it's really kind of fun! Play along if you'd like.
Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot chocolate. With whipped cream.
Does Santa wrap presents or set them under the tree?
Definitely wrapped. I love, love, love to wrap presents (see photo above). I collect odd bits and bobs all year to incorporate into gift wrapping, so there's quite a bit of recycling and repurposing involved. I have a gift wrapping supply closet - that's how serious I am about the topic.
Colored lights on tree or white?
White all the way. I love the way white lights look in trees outside too, but our trees are way too tall.
When do you put your decorations up?
Sometime around the middle of December and then they come down the first Wednesday after New Year's. We lost most of our decorations in a flood in our basement after Hurricane Wilma a few years ago and I haven't had time to replace them. That needs to be on next year's list of things to do - stockings, tree skirt, tree-topper...
What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Homemade mashed potatoes. We almost never eat potatoes but have rice at nearly every meal, so mashed potatoes are a treat.
When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Wait, there's no Santa??? Honestly, I don't remember. I do know that as eldest child and the oldest-of-thirteen grandchildren I was in on the conspiracy early and worked hard to preserve the faith of the younger kids.
How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
With an artist's eye, of course! Colors and forms need to be balanced, etc etc. The majority of our ornaments are handmade and many are folkart from other countries and yet they all still play well together. The ones our daughter made are my favorites. No tinsel.
Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Hate it! When's spring?
Can you ice skate?
Totally. I took figure skating lessons for years. I can still do backwards crossovers, mohawks and swizzles, but it's been a while since I've attempted a choctaw, a sit spin or a jump of any kind! I also used to love the pick-up ice hockey games in the neighborhood.
Do you remember your favorite gift?
There's no one gift that stands out. Mostly, I cherish the handmade gifts and anything that shows that someone really "gets" me.
What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Spending time with family. Slowing down and enjoying a few days without deadlines. Getting to be a little lazy.
What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Chocolate cream pie. With whipped cream.
(there's a theme here, it's really all about the whipped cream...)
What is your favorite tradition?
We open gifts one at a time so everyone gets to see and appreciate the time and energy the gift-giver put into their choice. This is especially nice when the gifts are handmade.
Which do you prefer, Giving or Receiving?
Giving, without a doubt. And if I'm making something, I love spending time thinking about the recipient as I'm working. It imbues the gift with a lot of positive energy.
What is your favorite Christmas Song?
Yeah, I'm not really into Christmas music, much to my parents' chagrin. I usually try to put the Brian Setzer Orchestra on while decorating the tree, but that's about it.
Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Yum. It's the only time I eat anything peppermint flavored. Usually I don't like the taste - I don't even like peppermint toothpaste. Of course, I also eat candy corn at Halloween and marshmallow peeps for Easter, so maybe it's because it's a holiday thing.
Ever recycled a Christmas present?
Once or twice.
This Thanksgiving my sister and her family came for a day of fun, food and art.
While the turkey was cooking everyone got to work on a variety of projects. Some of us started with stamp carving and block printing. A quick how-to from me, a few samples, all the tools and supplies, and they were off!
Even the dog got into the act, supervising while Sam was cutting out pattern pieces for a pet bed.
Whitman is already an accomplished artist and was eager to try this kind of stamp making and block printing.
He kept his first stamp pretty simple (below) but quickly advanced to larger, much more detailed blocks (which I totally forgot to take pictures of before everything got packed into the car, but I was really impressed.)
Sage assured me that she had already done this in school and she knew exactly what she was going to carve.
Everything she carved, drew or made today had a heart on it, reflecting her loving nature (and the fact that she's six ::big smile::).
Sam was working on the pet bed and it's amazing that she managed to get that 1" sheet foam cut into the multitude of needed pieces with the dog and a small cousin underfoot. 
Linda tried the stamp carving too and, again, I forgot to take a picture of the block she made. She came with fabric and a plan, worked quickly and secreted the results away. I have a feeling her prints may factor into some handmade holiday gifts...
But most of the day she was knitting these neat "muttons" (mittens without fingers) for a co-worker. Last year she made me a pair and I love them. They keep my always-cold hands toasty warm and I can still work with them on.
I managed to open my new soldering iron, but never actually used it. Sage and I made some jewelry, but decided to keep it simple with beads, findings and fabric. She even made up a song about her new necklace and performed it for all of us. Over and over and over again. I could sing it for you now, if you'd like - it's still stuck in my head!
It was a wonderful, warm, creative day with good food to eat and good people to enjoy it all with. I'm so thankful for my family.
This year my whole family took the Buy Handmade Pledge. We put our own spin on it by adding some guidelines for each other:
1. Give something that you made.
2. Give something that someone else made. This lets us support other artists, irl and online.
3. Give something that helps you make things. We're all creative and artistic and a good tool or supply is always much appreciated.
4. Give something that goes with something handmade that you're giving. This one's a loophole, really, but you have to be creative to make it work. So, as an example, if you make an amazing case to put it in, you could give someone a hot new cd.
5. Books and games. Because it isn't Christmas without books and games. This is a total exemption. We're making up our rules, we can do that.
The decks are cleared in my schedule and I've started gathering supplies and tools to work on my projects (including a soldering iron, how intriguing) - plus cool stuff to sell as well, because I want to support other people's handmade pledge. Altruistic, aren't I?
And it's not even Thanksgiving yet... Whoa.
My baby turns 23 today (and I refuse to let that make me feel old, lol). She has grown into a beautiful, intelligent, creative, capable, poised young woman.
seven months old, first Easter
ten months old, Woodstock NY
almost three years old - I was her age now when she was this age then...
four years old, first year of sixteen + years of dance
first day of school
A sunny five year old
A stunning seventeen year old
The girls taking in a show last month
Every year on the first day of school, from kindergarten on, I've tucked a brand new box of crayons in her backpack. It's been an inside joke all these years, and I'm sure caused her some embarrassment in high school, but there's something about a crisp, new pack of crayons that just shouts "new beginnings". This is the first year I've forgotten, so here's a virtual box of glittery crayons.
Here's hoping everyone has a new box of crayons on this glorious day!
Every time I have more than two days off next to one another we tackle a home reno project. My hope is that eventually we'll run out a things to renovate and be able to relax over a long weekend, lol. This past weekend we decided to hit the living room - finally. Unfortunately, Carlos tore the mantel off the fireplace before I got a good "before" photo, but trust me, it was not our style at all, with its fluted Colonial columns and dentil moulding. We had a fireplace insert installed last month to help with the heating bills this winter which was sort of the catalyst for the remodeling. Notice the weird little closet to the right of the fireplace.
small dog in a big hurry
One side of the living room had a built-in bookcase, also with dentil moulding and Colonial detailing, that we just piled books onto willy-nilly when we moved in a number of years ago. We did remove the doors from the lower section thinking it would help, but it didn't, we still hated it, partly because the top half was only 7" deep. Why? Who makes a bookcase shallower than a standard book's depth? So out it went on Saturday morning.
A couple of hours with a crowbar and a sledge hammer took care of the bookcase. We had put up track lights a while ago, but they were the plug-in kind so I spent some time on Saturday adding a switch and hard wiring the track fixture. Much better than cords draped across the ceiling and walls! The new bookcase is almost ready to be installed (maybe tomorrow) and I wired in new outlets and a cable receptacle for a television and dvd player, again to avoid cords draped out of the bookcase. Too much time spent in the cobwebby and hot attic (no dead rodents this time, thank goodness), but it's done. Here are some "in progress" photos. We haven't gotten all the way to the "after" yet...
We didn't finish in the three days, but we did get pretty far on the project. The walls and ceiling are painted, the track fixtures and outlets are wired, the new wall and door moulding is up and the bookcase will go in shortly. The fireplace will be re-surfaced next weekend. Now we have to decide what art goes back on these walls and what art comes out of rotation - maybe my collection of Oaxacan carvings will fit on a few shelves in the bookcase? Maybe those shelves will need under-cabinet lights to show them off? Hmm.
And the dopey little closet next to the fireplace is gone now too. The wall has much better balance without it and it was way too small to use anyway.
I'll post some "after" pictures as soon as everything's done and gorgeous!
Sam and I headed into the City today and caught a matinee of Wicked on Broadway. 
A really nice guy I know, Steven Skybell, plays Dr Dillamond in the show and we had awesome seats. Steven gave us a backstage tour after the show. The stage is so much smaller when you're standing on it than when you're in the audience looking at it. We stood in front of the giant Wizard of Oz head backstage to take a few pictures.
Sadly, all of the costumes are stored downstairs and we didn't get a chance to see them up close, but they were amazing from the audience (did I mention we had really good seats?) The colors and textures of the fabric were gorgeous and the designs were so quirky and whimsical. We loved the shoes especially!
This dragon was in the lobby and was a small replica of the much larger one above the stage inside. The sets were incredibly inventive and the mechanical aspect of all of the moving parts was remarkable.
A feast for the eyes and ears - I definitely feel inspired to make a small piece of art from the experience. It was a Wicked good day! Thank you Steven and Michael, you're the best!
Tomorrow afternoon I head out to Cleveland for a few days of teaching and a lecture, so I've got a ton of packing to do, but now I've got a soundtrack to sing along to.
Last night I was helping my daughter make a flag to mark a camp for her and a bunch of her friends at a huge outdoor concert that starts today. She picked Hypnotoad as their mascot and we painted him on a piece of canvas and mounted it on a tall stick. They're heading off to Gathering of the Vibes with 25,000 other crazy people where they'll camp on the beach, listen to the bands, check out the art, and be young and free.
I had a special assistant help me paint my section of the banner. She made sure I did a good job! Painting with a puppy on your lap makes things just a tad more challenging.
Here's hoping for good weather!
Can you stand a few more pictures? I am fortunate enough to own one of Virginia Spiegel's Moon Shrine series and it hangs in my dining area.
I adore every piece in this series and hope to acquire more of her work in the future. Virginia is enormously talented and very generous of spirit.
Shrine of the Planting Moon
Carlos' art, of course, is well represented on all of the walls in our house and we rotate his work on a regular basis. I love this painting, it's so dynamic.
I also recently had one of his prints framed, as well as a few of his father's sketches. These drawings were studies for paintings, haphazardly torn from sketchpads. My father-in-law, Alberto Davila, was much more well-known for his abstract expressionist paintings, but he also produced a large number of representational paintings of coastal Indians. He was an amazingly prolific and disciplined artist and he continues to be an inspiration to me. I'm really glad I came across these sketches while organizing and now have them out where we can see and enjoy them everyday.
This print of Carlos' is one of a series. I have frames for all of them but have to figure out where to hang them. We need more walls!
We also collect indigenous art. Every year for our anniversary we try to buy a piece of African art from one of our favorite galleries. This antelope head dress is from an anniversary a number of years ago. The passionate red painting is another of Carlos'.
I find the juxtaposition and contrast and compatibility of the contemporary (and hand-wrought) and the ancient (and hand-wrought) completely fascinating.
