Name the baby

Name the baby
Originally uploaded by raynag.

How much trouble do you have naming your quilts? And how do you finally pick a moniker? Invariably, I finish a piece and it sits nameless for quite a while till something appropriate comes to mind. Often, not MY mind. My crit group frequently suggests names for each others' pieces, but the name has to spark a "YES!!!" in the owner's mind -- and it doesn't always. Ho hum.
My friend Helene named one of my favorite quilts Cacophony. I was thinking Babel but her name was just perfect.

When my son was born, I didn't have a name for him and I went back and forth for DAYS until hospital authorities threatened to choose his name for the birth certificate. Since the hospital was St. Barnabas, the odds for a name I liked were not high. I finally picked one.

So, you've probably guessed that I'm looking for ideas. If this quilt were your baby, what would you name it?
Comments, please!!!

temporary insanity...

All this cleanliness -- not sure how long I can cope with it. A week's worth of throwing out and reorganizing has yielded an upstairs studio that, if you know me, is a candidate for Ripley's Believe it or Not. The BEFORE, just to refresh your memory, is below. I don't have any BEFORE pix of my downstairs print studio/office, but use your imgination. Here's what it looks like today. I can't vouch for tomorrow. This is where I dye my fabrics and silk scarves and screen them with thickened dyes. And just to keep this fabric-related, here's a 12'' swatch I am contributing to the Surface Design Association's Swatch Library. It's printed with thickened dyes. I have more of it but it hasn't told me yet what it wants to be when it grows up. But then,why should it be different?

It's a long story...

So here's the short version: My local arts council asked me to do a demo at the arts festival this weekend. 15 minutes? What could I do in 15 minutes? Print with some found objects on a gelatin plate and then add a couple of quick screens -- all while explaining what I was doing. I had already gotten blue paint on this shirt at my workshop last week (see lower right)so decided to go all the way. Here it is, as of yesterday. I've added a few flourishes since then, but it's essentially the same. The audience LOVED it -- a transformation from a dirty shirt to -- well -- to what? Now I've been asked to do this with 100 boy scouts. Gelatin printing t-shirts. When and IF I am insane enough to do this, you can be sure I will let you know.

me at work

Concentrating as I demo

this is a mess Originally uploaded by raynag.

One of my demo pieces during the five-day workshop I just gave. Fortunately, my students had their own ideas about what to do. See the post below for more pictures. In the meantime, I am still trying to get back on East Coast time. YAWN.

Hi honey, I'm home

Where's the snow??.

Back from gorgeous Whidbey Island, WA and the Coupeville Arts Center. Spring-- and everything in bloom, from cherry trees to wild currant bushes.The island is in Puget Sound and surrounded by water and mountains. A paradise! And I arrived just in time for the annual Penn's Cove Mussel Festival. What a treat.

The ferry's not in yet. It was a fun week of teaching -- and what a great bunch of talented surface designers! We screened, stamped, transferred, and monoprinted. I was too busy teaching to make much fabric, but here are a few pictures of the beautiful and unique cottons and silks the workshop participants created... Miriam printing with found objects, Judi, my wonderful class assistant, chuckling at something I must have said. We did a lot of laughing along with the work. Miriam's concentration yielded a variety of wonderful results -- as did everybody's.

Bonnie, with the first layer or two on the table behind her. And then, below, the same fabric a couple of layers later.

Here's Miriam printing with found objects, and below, a sample of her original stamp, image transfer, and personal mark-making.

Originally uploaded by raynag.

IMG_0932 Originally uploaded by raynag.

Originally uploaded by raynag.

Ellen particularly loved the gelatin plate printing and here's one of her prints on paper.

Then, below, Jacki at work and an example of her fabric. Next, Jacki at work and an example of her fabric.

March-ing along

Ouch. Corny. But I figured I'd better post before the month gets away from me. No pictures tonight - just words. Saturday morning at the crack of dawn I head for the airport and go to Whidbey Island, WA to teach a five-day surface design workshop. I'm excited -- and I expect that I will learn as much as I teach. My crit group met today and we discussed, among other things, the push-pull of family and studio; of needing to create and having life events that we can't control interfere with our creativity. Health, aging parents, kids, spouses, financial issues - there is no end to interruptions. Should we fight it or go with the flow? Shrug our shoulders and figure we'll get back to the studio when life lets us? Or gnash our teeth and go, kicking and screaming, to try and create? There's no right answer -- but what do you think?? How do you handle the vicissitudes?