Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday night is garbage night

and I dragged the garbage can out to the street in freezing cold weather - like 6 degrees F. Am I the only one who remembers when the garbage men came all the way up your driveway to the back of the house, took the cans to the truck and brought them back up again?  Well, that went out with high button shoes, didn't it!

Today was good.  Ross and Nancy Gillman and our two grandkids, Kayla and Alexander, came to visit.  They brought bagels from Tal Bagels in  Manhattan - vastly superior to the ones we get around the corner from us. After brunch, the kids found a game of Pictionary downstairs and we had some hilarity for a couple of hours. Our game is from the 1980's and it is HARD.  Without going into a long, detailed song and dance about how you play - bottom line: you play in teams: you pick a card and get a word and you have to draw a picture so your partner can guess what the word is.  With the drawing talent in this family, it was amazing that we were able to play at all.

After we were done, Ross (just like his father) tore up the paper before he threw it away.  I fished 3 of the pieces of the page on which he had drawn his word.  Alexander had not guessed and when Ross told us what it was, Nancy and I laughed so hard our sides hurt.
Would you have guessed "leopard"?  I am still laughing.  However, it was the pot calling the kettle because Alexander and I both had to draw the same word at one point, to see which team could guess first. Can you guess the word? And can you guess who drew which one?  Alexander is eight.

After they left I got back to work on Emma's quilt and I am just making blocks and sticking them on the wall.  I shoot as I go so I will remember what I did when I go back later to REALLY put it together.  This one has a long way to go. Chances are it will end up being neither of these arrangements, esp. since I am still making blocks as I go along.

I have blocks of different sizes and shapes and it was the other night, when I had some other arrangement up on the wall, that I was thinking how much our brains need to make order out of chaos.

Elizabeth Barton was talking a while ago about working in a grid; it seems that an underlying grid is instinctive - part of the way we organize our world visually.  I love grids, which is probably why I am so drawn to printing with construction fence and sink mats and such.

Here are two quilts in grids I made... this one after I had just been fired from quit the job from hell. 1993
...and this one I made with the leftover blocks in 1996, after we had moved into the wonderful space we now live in and a period of upheaval was (temporarily) over...
I realized that when my life is in chaos my work is more ordered; and when it is in order, my work is much freer.  Do you find that to be the case? Is your work different, depending on what is going on in your life??

These two quilts  hang in each of my two guest bedrooms and while this second one makes me smile, it is the other one that I prefer. It always makes me feel peaceful.

11 comments:

Gerrie said...

i just love Emma's quilt. I often find comfort in reverting to the grid. Many never leave it.

GerryART said...

We have two big trash bins to roll out to the street every Sunday night, also.
Where to put them with eight inches of snow on the ground and it is piled high where drive and stredt meet. Yikes!
Sunday night Hugs,
Gerry

Eva said...

Emma will later describe the origins of her art career to be concentrated in one quilt.

laurence said...

Your Emma's quilt is very beautiful. I like colors.

Judy said...

Well, read this sitting down: our trash men STILL do backdoor pick-ups! With the economy tanked, the city powers that be wanted to quit that and insisted that everyone purchase those huge & ugly plastic rolling things that you roll to the end of the driveway. Well, everyone was in an uproar, so the men still come to the back door BUT we are paying an increased price for that service.
Emma's quilt is going to be gorgeous! Lucky girl!!
xo

p.s. my word verification is 'rankle'...LOL!

Judy Sall Fiber Art said...

I have a slightly different story, Rayna. Whan my life is in chaos, I can't work... went almost 12 years during my first marriage where I couldn't create! This time around, I have no difficulty creating to my heart's content... must have something to do with who I'm married to, right? :->

Susan Ettl said...

Emma's quilt is beautiful. I love all the bright colors. The high today is 70 degrees. Don't you want to come for a visit?

Linda Branch Dunn said...

Emma's quilt rocks. Lucky girl.

I was little when the trash men still came into the back yard. They were the only black men I met. It felt strange in ways no one talked about.

We also burned our leaves. And I don't think there were plastic trash bags; least-wise I remember carrying the yucky wet peelings down to the trash in a waxed paper bag and having the bottom break because I didn't follow my mom's instructions to carry it upside down. But you never lost the phone, because it was tied to the wall.

Maryse said...

Love those squares....tough to decide where they will go?Keep on going....

Peg Howard said...

I am guessing the word was posse?

Del said...

TELL US THE WORD! Is Peg correct?

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