dross into gold

I was on Kathy Kleeman's blog the other day, admiring her latest beautiful piece of work. When I commented on how much I liked it, she called to my attention that the fabric with the green blobs, which went perfectly with her other fabrics in the quilt, was in fact a piece of cloth I had printed and thought was ugly. She sent me back to my own blog to see the original post. Oh, dear. She made it look so terrific I hardly recognized it. Maybe I should just sell my fabrics and not bother with making anything with them. http://studio78notes.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_studio78notes_archive.html It just proves that sometimes you need to get away from your own work and let someone else's eyes and sensibilities transform it.

Susie Monday has some comments on her blog about simplicity - and while they are a big complicated for me to grasp all at once, they do indeed have merit. The first two rules of simplifying are 'reduce' and 'organize,' two things they want you to do in succession - but which I think have to be done at the same time. I was going to head to the basement to begin the process but think I will take an Advil instead. Or better still, make myself a cup of this divine Gorilla coffee that Jessica brought me when she and Tommy came from Brooklyn today to see my mother. Expensive, yes. But the absolute best!

We picked Jessica and Tommy up at the train, I gave them a quick studio tour, and then we went to lunch at a Salvadoran restaurant in West Orange (the studio is in East Orange). The pupusas with hot sauce and pickled onions were the high point of the meal, although the other things were good, too. Fortunately, the kids are studying Spanish in preparation for their trip to Columbia to visit Tommy's family -- because the restaurant people do not speak English. We managed fine and I expect to be back there again, soon. There is a Peruvian restaurant a few doors up, which is next on the list to try. How interesting! Now, if we only had a good Indian restaurant in town, I would be in heaven.