Art Quilt Claremont pre-day 1

Who are these people and why are they laughing? Class doesn't even start till tomorrow, but Gerrie Congdon and Lizzie Berg are already having fun. Me, too! I arrived at the hotel this morning and spent a good part of the day unpacking boxes and getting set up. This is the Claremont Hotel and Spa - gorgeous and out of another era. When I first saw it I was reminded of the Hotel del Coronado on Coronado Island in San Diego.
Later, I found out it was designed by the same architectSince Deb Roby and Gerrie Congdon were taking pictures of the food at dinner, you can check their blogs for images of dessert and salad. My images are a bit more pedestrian.

This is where I ate lunch and I did not take a picture of the food.Tomorrow is a busy day - class starts at 8:30 am. So here is where I am off to in a few minutes.

Berkeley

Spent a busy day in the bay area today. Tonight,on the way back to Berkeley, we stopped the car to look at this view.
Tomorrow, checking into the Claremont Hotel and looking forward to seeing old and new friends.

gadzooks

Where has the time gone? (as usual). I've been packing and packing and packing, it seems, for days. And then, repacking. Tomorrow morning, no matter what, I am out the door to the airport. Why do I always think I am forgetting something vital? Then it turns out that I have overpacked. I never learn.

Despite my best intentions, I never got to the studio this week and I will have to e-mail my studio mate to ask if she can water my plants. I should also take postcards to address for Open Studios, since I have not had time to do so. Something to do on the plane, I suppose. Oh, yippee.

Meantime, in the hopes I could dye some nice fabric to take and impress my students with, I threw some pieces in the dyepot this afternoon. The less said about the results, the better. One piece was sooo bad that I decided to experiment with discharge and see what happened. I tore it into three pieces. Here is the original. This is a flattering picture. It is much more blah in person. I threw one piece in a container with that blue cleaning gel - whatever it is. Then, of course, I put it in anti-chlor.
Better, but still not as nice as this picture. Finally, I put discharge paste on the third third, wrapped it up and steamed it for 10 min. Aargh.
It looks diseased. I can hardly wait to see the improvement on all of these after I have printed on them at Art Quilt Claremont. I will post from California.

the long weekend

Very long. Friday seemed like Sat. Today felt like Sunday, and tomorrow will probably feel like Sunday again. Maybe because it will be! Happy Easter Sunday to all of you who celebrate it: I guess it feels more like Thanksgiving or Christmas, depending on where you are.

In case you are wondering what that piece of fabric is, it is a discharge experiment. It is wrinkled because I have not ironed it; I will wait till it dries because I don't want it to discharge any more than it already has. Pretty, huh?
What did I say about this being an unpredictable process?

Now, where was I?

I've been up since 4 this morning - so if I'm a bit fuzzy, excuse me. Bed, soon. You know when you have umpteen things on your mind? That was me. I had to get up and pack my supplies to ship to Art Quilts Claremont so I could teach my workshop. Ack. Finally got a box packed; the rest will go in my suitcases. But I had to send it air, it was so late - and I could practically have bought my own ticket for what it cost.

Spent some time in STUDIO today - and I'll let you in on a secret: I sewed. Shhhh.... I was supposed to be printing. But I had a piece on the wall and just couldn't stand it any more - so I plugged in my Viking 210 basic machine and got to work. What a treat!

The printing did yield a couple of nice bits, among which was this one:

Tomorrow - back to work. For now - bed.

my lecture on art quilts

I was invited to give a lecture on contemporary quilts to the Decorative and Fine Arts Society here in New Jersey, which I did this afternoon. The program chair is an admirer of Eleanor McCain's work and has fallen in love with art quilts in general. She decided that the group to which she belongs needed an education about what is being done today in the art quilt world. I brought along, in addition to the slides, a few of my own pieces. This one,"Bad Hair Day," garnered the most enthusiasm. Interesting.

Before I started talking about art quilts, I showed the audience a few of my own antique pieces.I'll share them with you, too - and you really need to click and enlarge them. This Tumbling Blocks top is so vividly graphic that it knocks me over every time I look at it.
I adore this wonderfully quirky pattern and Marty fell in love with it,too, years ago at the Piers in NY, so we bought. I hve been told by someone who should know, that this is very likely an African American piece because of the pieced strips between the rows of blocks. If anybody out there can verify this, I'd be interested in knowing more. I love this top! It was never finished and seems to have been cut off at the bottom.
I bought this one in Denver more than a decade ago. Chimney Sweep? It's an album quilt and some of the blocks have been signed in pencil but none has ever been embroidered. 1860's-1880's, I think.
Finally, two quilts I actually use. I rescued both of these from oblivion when they were dirty old tops. I washed, added batting/backing/binding and HAND QUILTED both of them. The first one is 1910-20; I think I replaced one of the stars that was rotting.It lives in the downstairs guest bedroom.
The next one lives with me: I cuddle under it when I am tired or cold; it is made of feedsacks from the '30's and was so filthy when I found it, tied with an old sheet and red & white striped bakery string, that I didn't think it would every be healthy again. For that reason, it is dear to my heart.
The audience was gracious and enthusiastic and asked lots of questions. Hooray for education! By the time I was done with my slide lecture (thanks to those of you who sent me jpgs or slides) these folks wanted to know when the next juried art quilt exhibit in this area would be so they could take a trip! I'll keep them posted on the next Sedgwick (or whatever it is now called) in Philadelphia, which is a 2 hour drive from here. We've gained a whole new audience - isn't that nice?

chicken soup and laughter

This is not chicken soup: this is a brisket, just as I took it out of the oven last night. Because of Marty's eye surgery, I declined to make this year's seder and we just opted to stay home ourselves. So we bought matzo and I made a brisket. Tomorrow night, we will go to our daughter Hilary's. She asked me to make matzo balls but I didn't have matzo meal. So I had to run to the butcher's and while I was there, I bought a chicken. So the house smells like chicken soup, which reminds me of my grandmother. But you didn't need to know this.

What you do need to know is that yesterday I had the best two hours I've had in what feels like centuries. Kerr Grabowski was teaching at the Newark Museum yesterday and we needed to catch up with each other's lives, so I ran down to see her after her class was over. In the meantime, I needed to see Diane Savona , who just got home from spending a month in the fiber studio at Peters Valleydoing a residency. She had all that time to try out some wonderful new surface design experiments. Kerr wanted to meet Diane and see what she had done, so Diane came and I introduced them. Here 1s a great picture of both of them. Diane had just finished showing Kerr this gorgeous piece of fabric she had printed. And here is the laughter -- pure joy and silliness worth its weight in gold.
We don't do that often enough, do we? When I got home, I felt like a new person. I am NOT a new person, but you can't have everything.

Wishing a sweet Passover to all of you who celebrate it, and a happy Easter to those of you who will celebrate over the weekend.

woof woof

This critter seemed to have lost the rest of the herd this morning - he or she was out there barking and stood still till I could get my camera so you could see how ugly he or she is. Doesn't he know it is not November? Maybe not: the woods are still bare -- not even a teensy shoot of a leaf. So much for the groundhog's prediction of an early spring. Bah, humbug.

So I went around to the front, looking for seasonal encouragement. The crocus was gone and the little daffs are up - so that might be a good sign.
A little history...or mystery.On another subject, let me introduce you to Mr. and Mrs Yockenfloss.
That is not their real name: I don't know their real names. But I do know their photo was taken by Carl Lemke in Wausau, Wisconsin and they are probably younger than they look. I HATE not knowing anything about them. He is handsome under all that fuzz and he is wearing what looks like some kind of Maltese cross in his lapel. Blue eyes, I think. I guess around the turn of the century - but could be earlier. If these people look like any of your relatives, let me know.

Some years ago I posted a picture of my favorite couple on my blog and got an e-mail from a woman in Ohio who swore the man was her relative.(I had bought the picture in an Ohio antique market). She sent me a picture of the rest of her great-grand uncles or whoever the were and I swear, there was one in the picture who could have been the same guy or his twin. I sent her a scan of my photo but couldn't bear to part with it.

In the meantime, I googled the name of the photographer who took this picture and found that his wife's name was Ulrika and that his children had compiled a little family history, which consists mostly of pictures. Many were made by their father, a professional photographer or by their brother, Carl Jr. who became the family photographer. It is the story of their parents, youthful German immigrants. Carl landed on Ellis Island, unable to speak English and with only five dollars in his pocket, while the teenage Ulricka began life in the New World as a cook in a Wausau hotel at $4 a week. But I can't find any reference to WHEN, and of course, nothing to tell me who these people are. Sad.

Comments would be welcome; there is nothing more depressing than NO comments...whine, whine,whine.

blobbing along

I did not poke my nose out the door either yesterday or today, and I may not go out tomorrow either. So what could I possibly have to write about? The wild turkeys, barking like dogs outside our door? My husband said there was a herd of them behind the house; I didn't think herd was exactly the right term, but on second thought,these monsters are so big and ugly and NASTY -- and there were so many of them that maybe it fits. Somebody ought to eat them for dinner.
I could talk about this sign,which is one of my prized posessions. My parents liberated it from the bathroom door in their stateroom more than 50 years ago, when they went on a cruise. It hung on the inside of the powder room door in the house in which I grew up, and when my parents moved, I inherited it and it hung on the inside of MY powder room door until we moved to this condo. It never fails to make me smile, but I am not sure why.

I could talk about what I did all day, but you would fall asleep from boredom.

Or, I could wax eloquent about my lush, beautiful front garden. You can see how it is bursting into bloom.But I will do none of the above. I will send you to look at more of Judy Langille's work, which Lisa Walton asked about. You can see more of it and read about it here Enjoy it!

more on discharge

Just a follow-up to yesterday's post and Rachel's beautiful turquoise discharge...especially since there was some discussion on the QuiltArt list today about that subject. That was from one bolt from one manufacturer; a different bolt discharged to a different shade of blue.
I have had fabric discharge to pink, light periwinkle, orange, beige, white, pale olive, and everything in between.
So, don't worry about what you will get; the elements will decide for you.

Sunday stuff

Don't ask. This afternoon, I steamed some fabric I was playing with yesterday. The picture doesn't do it justice; this really looks a lot better in person. Honestly. I also did a little work on the new website for Franklin Street Studios - our group of seven artists in the old J&J factory in East Orange. So far, it's just one page - but the postcard and directions for our open studio tour is there - so come and visit us on April 29. And it has links to all the artists. But the best and most worthwhile thing I did today was go to the opening of a terrific exhibit called High Fiber Content. It was at the ARts Guild of Rahway,NJ and the guest curator was Jappie King Black, chair of the Fibers Dep't at Kean University. I realized, as I walked around and looked at the fabulous weavings, mixed media, and paper, that I was actually happy not to see a single quilt. I think I have become jaded and it was refreshing to be reminded that fiber is a diverse and wonderful category that includes so much more than quilts. Of course, I didn't take my camera, but the opening was packed. And I have to say that this was the best fiber exhibit I have seen in a long time. So, if you are within driving distance of Rahway, NJ (exit 135 on the Garden State) - make it your business to go see this terrific exhibit. It's up till April 20. For directions and hours, http://www.rahwayartsguild.org .