Philadelphia and beyond

More art from  Fiber Philadelphia: here is one critic's review.

 This piece at  the Snyderman was made of combs. Clever use of ordinary objects.

 

 Plastic now seems to be part of the fiber category: this is Amy Orr's House of Cards at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.  Made completely of credit cards.

This is a detail of the piece made from horsehair, wire, and transparent filament.  It is not 3-D but it is hung away from the wall and the dimension and lines you see are shadows. 

 Barbara Lee Smith - only one among many of her textile pieces on exhibit.

This photo doesn't do justice to Joan Dreyer's piece made of dental x-ray film and wire, in a radiator grill vase. It is part of her two-person exhibit with Dianne Hricko at the Crane Building. Dianne's beautiful silk woods don't show up well, either - but here I am with my two friends.  Dianne and Joan were two of the moving forces behind Fiber Philadelphia and Dianne's blog has some great behind-the-scenes posts.

One piece by Norma Minkowitz was at the Crane; she also had work at the Snyderman Gallery.

 And here is  a sample of the beautiful, not-to-be-missed, art cloth exhibit, Lines and Numbers, that Judy Langille put together at the White Space. This is by Sue Jones.

We did a huge amount of walking around the city, which is a work of art all by itself and is filled with murals and heart-rending old buildings.  My favorite parts of this city are South Philly (South Street, Lombard, and environs) and the Old City, around Cherry St. and Third.

The beyond part is my trip to Cleveland to tape a couple of guest spots for Quilting Arts TV and make a new DVD. Next post from there!

Fiber Philadelphia

I came home Sunday night excited but too exhausted to do anything but upload my photos from this marvelous, city-wide event that boggles the mind, warms the spirit, and inspires the imagination.

Two of the most intense art days I've spent in eons.   Sensory overload from all the amazing work -- and we saw just the tip of the iceberg!  You MUST go see what you can of Fiber Philadephia if you are within four or five hours' driving distance.  There are lots of places to stay overnight -- worth it!!!

Mending=Art, the exhibit at the Gershman Y curated by Diane Savona, was possibly my favorite: it touched my heart.  It was beautifully put together and the whole premise was special, probably because mending a thread that runs through Diane's work and the fabric of her life. Mending as metaphor: nobody mends anything any more (except Michael Swaine).  I was so absorbed in the exhibit's layers of meaning that I forgot to take pictures, except for this one by Ilaria Margutti. But the entire show was beautiful.

Next we went to the 8th Fiber Biennial opening at the Snyderman.  This very large piece by Dorothy Caldwell was the first thing I saw as I came into the gallery.  So simple and elegant.  Dorothy was there and we chatted and caught up on things -- but I was not taking pictures of people at that point. 

 Jeanne Williamson also had a piece at Snyderman and was there for the opening and it was also great to see her.  We kept running into each other as we moved from opening to opening and at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, finally had our pictures taken together.

  Too tired to do more; I shall have to put up another installment tomorrow.  Fiber Philadelphia runs through half of April.

miscellaneous

Perhaps random. Or various.  Tonight's blob is a catch-all, and if I can remember all the things I wanted to cover it will be a miracle.

First, since it was Wordless Wednesday when i started this post, here are my two point-and-shoot photos (traffic was at a dead standstill on the Manhattan Bridge) as I was heading out of Brooklyn on the trek home last week.

Also taken as I was sitting on the bridge, the WTC Freedom Tower and whatever else is next to it. Progress?

Here is a print from that screen Susanne was doodling on in class last week.  Some of you were curious, so I asked her to take a photo.

Wow! I'm sure subsequent prints were even better.

 

I spent most of the morning in the supermarket.  Forgot to buy paper towels, but detergent was on sale so I bought four.  You would not have believed that only one person lives in my house...but I hadn't been shopping in so long that my pantry was empty.  Kale was on sale, so I decided it was time to try making kale chips.  My son-in-law Tommy made them several years ago and I thought they were wonderful, but have never gotten around to it till today.  I munched on them before dinner and this is all that is left of the ton I had.  They are addictive.

In the ethnic aisle, I saw canary beans and after reading the recipe on the bag for Peruvian Stew, I bought them.  Here was tonight's dinner, made with the Italian sausage I had bought earlier in the week.
Simple and yummy!

Oops - forgot to stop at Whole Foods for yogurt.  I used the last of it yesterday afternoon when I had a frozen yogurt emergency. Lemon.  My ice cream maker is a lot happier now; it was feeling neglected.

 

The week is almost over (or so it seems). Later today is the opening of  QuiltFest in Somerset, NJ.  It's a Mancuso show so my expectations are not high, but I'm going in the afternoon to see Usha, who is vending --and hopefully, we will go out for our usual South Indian dinner after the show. 

deconstructing the screen

The two-day workshop in my studio was way too much fun and I can't even begin to show you what fabulous fabric my students made -- because, as usual, I was too busy to take a lot of pictures.  But you'll get the idea.

Here is Susanne, putting the thickened dye on her screen.  For some reason, I didn't get a photo of the resulting fabric but you can imagine! 

 Here is another one of her fabrics just after she had printed it, before we dried, steamed, and rinsed it.  But it was just as beautiful and vivid afterwards.

 

This was Susan L's favorite print.

And these were amazing, too.  These are her first and second prints, and she made about a dozen more from the same screen.

You can see how much Judy was enjoying the process.

And this incredible piece was her favorite.

Everybody went home with piles of beautiful fabric and I just hope they will send me pictures of what they do with it.  Using it, of course, is the hard part.  I'm putting together a new workshop called "I've Printed it -- Now What??" 

yesterday I painted

                                        It is much more difficult than it apears.


Friday & Sat I will teach. Easier than painting.

half over

The week, I mean.  Goodness, it is already Wednesday and the weekend beckons. Personally, I like that.
I haven't been able to blog about the delightful afternoon I had at the Turtle Creek Quilters' Guild in the wilds of south Jersey because the unofficial event photographer just sent me the photos.

There was a slight glitch in getting to my destination, since Mapquest sent me to a different town from the one where the meeting was.  Finally got there, after a phone  conversation that began something like this:
R: "I'm lost."
Guild Person "'Where are you?"
R: "I don't know."
GP: "What does the sign say?"
R: "Church St."
GP "that's right."
R: " But I'm in Yenemsville and I'm supposed to be in Groveville and nobody here knows where that is."
GP: "Well I don't know where Yenemsville is because I'm not from around here."
R: "Neither am I."
Finally a guild member who was from around there guided me and the rest of the day was fine.

Three-fifths of the guild members showed up for my lecture and asked lots of good questions.

 

With one or two exceptions, the quilters were very traditional and were fascinated by the idea of free-form slicing/dicing and no-ruler strips.

 In fact, several of them were already working with strips, making a quilt out of jelly roll strips by sewing them together end-to-end.  I totally missed how they got from a 1600 inch long piece of cloth to a quilt, but here is a site that shows what they look like when they are done.

Meantime, here is a group of guild members checking out my quilt and trying to figure out how I did it.

 Yoko is a new member - this was her first meeting.  And she told me she thought that Japanese quilters would go crazy over my way of working and that I should go and teach there.  Sounds good to me - LOL.

 Here are the Block of the Month giveaways that some of the members brought in.  I was struck by the fact that 9 of the 14 blocks used brown and that 4 of the remaining 5 contained blue. What the significance is, I have no idea: I am just making an observation.

 All in all, a lovely afternoon and I believe we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Before I waltz off to bed, I have to share with you some photos on the Pixetera Blog which captivated and delighted me.  The buildings in this urban enclave are so vivid, so full of energy and color and humor - despite the obviously poor environment, that they made me smile.  They are an inspiration  and remind me of the buildings that Sean Scully photographed in his book, The Color of Time.  It is my favorite photo book in all the world and I bought it in 2004. It is now out of print and the least expensive price is 10x what I paid for it.  Good grief!  If you ever find it in a used bookstore, grab it!

Tomorrow, I am going to explore something new. 

Happy Day!

That's Emma's version of Happy Birthday.  Jessica and I took her to the Brooklyn Children's museum and later, she had her b.d. cupcake. 

I left mid-afternoon and it took me two hours to get home because they were doing construction work on every bridge and road I needed to drive over/on. GRRRRRR.

Sunday, I gave a lecture at a quilt guild in NJ and it was a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, the photographer has not yet sent me the photos -- or maybe there was nothing worth posting, anyway.

Tomorrow, I hope to go to the studio for a while to finish cleaning up and getting ready for the Deconstructed Screenprinting class I am teaching on Friday and Saturday in my studio.

I am scheduling another class for March 16-17, so if you want to sign up, email me.

Unpicking stitches

Oh, joy.   One of my favorite activities - especially when I am in a rush to finish a piece.  I seem to remember posting a bunch of strips I pieced from hand-printed fabrics - ah, yes, on Feb 8. Well, I threw them at the wall and am now quilting what stuck.  But nothing is easy.

I have a deadline, which I will not make. I am lecturing to a guild on Sunday and was hoping to bring this little one with me.  Well, I can bring it unfinished.  First, I broke 3 needles this afternoon and discovered that the needle thingie had decided to move itself off center.  By the third needle, I figured it out and moved it back. Fine.

In the past year, because I am such a crappy free-motion quilter, I decided to skip that stuff altogether (at least for now).  "Aha," I thought, "straight stitching -- what could go wrong?"  So I've been doing straight stitching and it has made me so much more relaxed, I can't begin to tell you.  On this small quilt, the lines are very straight. Except that I discovered that toward the end, they were straight but slanted (if you know what I mean).  Don't know where I went wrong and I may 1) never know and 2)never be able to correct it. But meantime, I am unpicking a few rows to see if I can minimize the angle.

Before I sign off, I have to send you over to read Margaret and Helen.  I just about fell off my chair reading Helen's post tonight, I was laughing so hard. She is hilarious; unfortunately, the subject is far from funny - it is scary.  But you have to read it!

what I did today

Before I go on about my not-very-interesting day, I want to say that my heart is full and I have been so moved by your wonderful posts and private emails after my last post.  I am overwhelmed with your thoughtfulness and caring and I have received all of your hugs in love and comfort. If I haven't yet answered you personally, I apologize.
 When I left the house this morning, there were 19 turkeys on my next door neighbor's lawn. Nineteen! Oy.

eeeeeeeeeeek! I hate them!

I am standing in my driveway taking this picture.

By the time I got my camera out, some of them had scattered, but not very far. When I finally pulled my car out of the driveway, they had all regrouped in the middle of the street right in front of my car. They did not move and I was forced to drive around them.  Trust me, I was sorely tempted to plow over them. But I didn't want dead turkeys messing up my car. ICK.

I bought Emma a book at a local, independent bookstore.  It did not cost me any more than if I had gone to Barnes & Noble, and the owner wrapped it.  Then, she didn't have another book I wanted for myself so she asked if they could order it. Yes, they could.  I felt very good.

Then I drove across town to an independent toy store and bought something I would never have found in Target or Toys R Us.  And she wrapped it. And I was happy to give her the business; she has been there for 5 years and just came back from the Toy Show at the Javits and gave me a sample of something new to give Emma to try.

Yes, Amazon is convenient and discounts everything, and I do buy things from Amazon. But less than I used to because they are putting everybody out of business and it is well known that they mistreat their employees.  There are reports all over the place about this, including a current one in the Seattle Times.  Now they want to build a warehouse in NJ and want a sales tax holiday for 2 years, while the independent stores have to collect and pay it.  Ha.

Tonight, I have been working. I'm in the midst of stitching a small piece and maybe I'll get it done by tomorrow.  Right now - off to bed before the whole night is gone.  Thank you again for being there; I don't know what I'd do without you.

love,
Rayna

love and loss

While I am far from a romantic (or so I believe) it has nevertheless been a difficult day for me and I suspect, for any of us who has loved and lost a partner/spouse/lover in the recent past (however you define "recent."). My sense of loss caught up with me today and has doubled.

In this household - although there were roses in the early years - and always cards, no matter what -- Valentine's Day always got mixed up with Marty's birthday.  We rolled the 14th into the 18th and went out to dinner on the 18th. Marty picked the restaurant (ordered lobster if it was on the menu) and it was the one time a year that I picked up the check. My birthday gift to him.

When he was 82, Emma was his birthday present and we were at the hospital. I don't remember anything about dinner -- I think we postposed it for a day.

But Marty was afraid to hold that brand new baby and it was a month or so until he felt secure enough to hold her.

 When he was 82, we went out to dinner with Ross & Nancy -- and Jon, who had come down from Boston to see his father.  Marty did not order the lobster, even though he wanted it. He never explained why and he never had lobster again.

This coming Saturday he would have been 83. Perhaps my sense of loss will have receded a bit by then.  Instead of birthday dinner, there will be a birthday cupcake. I am going to celebrate Emma's birthday with her and that will give me great joy.