Auspicious beginnings and endings

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!

An afternoon at the aquarium

As a special treat, Tracey Brookshier took me to the Monterey Bay Aquarium after we finished teaching on Friday. What a feast for the eyes! The aquarium is famous for its jellyfish exhibits and rightly so. I need to go back with my good camera, the jellies are hard to photograph with a point-and-shoot.







I found myself completely captivated with a tank of sea anemone. The colors were amazing. I feel a new series coming on...





Some of the pictures I took were disappointingly blurry - the leafy sea dragons (unbelievably cool and surreal-looking), the river and sea otters, and the sand dollars (we stared at these a long time while they moved in s l o w motion) so I'll need to try again next time. We bumped into some of my students who were practicing their observational skills at the aquarium before their flight home.

After we had our fill of the fishies, we headed to Cha-ya, a Japanese tea, art and antique store in an old part of Monterey, where I found origami paper, small dragonfly dishes, a couple of pretty chirimen bags and a tiny metal jizō statue (that caused my luggage to be searched at security the next day, I guess it looked more menacing in the x-ray machine than it does in real life!) Then on to an art supply store for a paper fix, gorgeous handmade paper with Thai writing on it, a vintage-looking map and more handmade paper with newspaper inclusions. And finally back to Tracey's house for a home-cooked meal with her family. All in all, a fantastic ending to a fantastic week.

A week in paradise

Last week I taught at the Empty Spools Seminar in Asilomar, California. Despite the chilly, rainy weather, it's a magical place. The ocean is a very short walk from the conference center, is visible from many vantage points and the sound of the surf is omnipresent. It was a very inspiring setting for a very creative week.



The dining hall where everyone on campus gathered for meals. The speed with which they feed hundreds and hundreds of people is astounding.



Just beyond the dining hall is the boardwalk to the dunes and trails. Beautiful even in the grey drizzle.





There are warning signs along the trail to watch out for mountain lions and advice about what to do if confronted with one. I memorized the sign but didn't need to use the advice, phew. There were a lot of crows and racoons, and many almost tame deer wandering about.



My classroom was a cosy building standing by itself, filled with courageous, talented women. We had a wonderful week filled with art and laughter.





It didn't rain the entire week, one morning there was a gorgeous rainbow above the dunes.



The first day I was there my friend, Franki Kohler, and I went to Pacific Grove for lunch and shopping. This is the town where the monarch butterflies gathered by the tens of thousands every year during their migration. A sculpture in front of the post office:



Walking back from an exhibit at the art center I spied these gulls hanging out on top of a car and it struck me as funny.



Wednesday night a bunch of the teachers went to dinner on Cannery Row - Tracey Brookshier, Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby Smith, Reynola Pakusich, Marcia Stein, Annie Smith and I feasted on seafood and cheesecake.


I'll be back next year during the July session and I'm really looking forward to it!

A group exhibition - in the truest sense

FIBER + THREAD = ART



If you like art quilts and you find yourself in the NY metropolitan area next weekend, there's a marvelous show opening at the Mahopac Library. The group of art quilters who meet at the Country Quilter are putting on a group exhibtion that has truly been a group project. Together the group decided on a title for the show, the size range of the pieces, cohesive mounting of the art, specific pieces for the postcard and much more. We had a discussion about writing artist statements, a digital photography demonstration, and a mass attachment of art to canvas and application of screw eyes and wire for hanging. It's been a very rewarding experience and everyone has gotten to see firsthand what goes into mounting an exhibition - from contacting a gallery, to sending out press releases, to organizing the reception. We hope you can come!

Let's get this party started!

Tomorrow is the big release party and book signing for Art Quilts at Play, the new book that Elin Waterston and I have written for C&T Publishing.



Please join us at the Country Quilter in Somers, NY from 1-4 pm for the celebration!

If you can't make it and you'd like to have your own party, you can order an autographed copy here.



We'll have an exhibit of a lot of the quilts from the book, great snacks, good music and as a bonus, the retirement sale is in full swing at the shop. A number of the contributing artists will be there and, of course, your favorite Most Inspirational authors - me and Elin!

Almost...

The new office area in the barn studio is nearly complete. Sometimes I think I should have been an interior designer, the decorating part of any project really floats my boat (bad metaphor, I get seasick really easily, but you know what I mean). Or, putting my reno and carpentry skills together with the decorating, a contestant on one of those reality shows where you get two days, $100, half a sheet of plywood, six old planks of knotty pine, two rubber bands and one copy of the Sunday New York Times to make over a room. I would totally rock that.



This project did involve trips to Ikea, Home Depot, Lowe's and an office supply store, and didn't involve any rubber bands, but it still looks hot. The shelves on the other side of the room are getting containers and labels. I need another trip to Ikea to finish it up.



And yeah, it's snowing again. Even with the snow, the view is better with the window.

More art, another collage made in December:



pescados musicales

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Lots of stuff going on, lots of changes happening and lots of time being eaten by said stuff and changes, which leaves little time for art. So, I'm going to distract you from the fact that I haven't posted a new Loteria collage in a while with some art I haven't shown yet.


las peras verdes

This is a mixed-media collage mounted on bristol board, using more of the mini-pear prints from last summer.

And this is a quick peek at one of the distractions in my life right now - another reno project, this time in Carlos' studio.

We decided that the shed attached to his studio would benefit from the addition of a window, among other things. Of course, there's always more to a project than that.



First I needed to clean everything out of the room and paint. I like to visualize things in advance (and I'm impatient), hence the blue tape to see where the window will go.



A quick trip to Ikea with a very focused list netted us some extra-tall shelves to create an impressive amount of storage along one wall of the room. I love Ikea.



Today we put in the new window and tomorrow, after the foamy, squirty insulation is dry and shaved down and the moulding is added, I'll take photos from inside. This is a picture from outside and in looking at it closely, I'd better add "paint the barn" to my To Do list for the Spring. Ignore the air conditioner lounging on the shed roof. It's a long story involving two ladders, a long rope, colorful words in several languages, rodent offspring and a slight miscommunication...



Have you noticed that when life-changing events are taking place that you have difficulty producing art? I certainly do. It isn't even a matter of having the time or desire, but rather the mental, emotional and creative energy necessary. So, a fallow and frustrating time.