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.

black and white

 and grey.  The sky is the latter and earlier, big white fuzzies fell from the sky and landed on my garden - just enough to be  pretty but not enough to be annoying.  All gone,now:-). 

I hope the weather gods hold out for a while - I am giving a lecture next Sunday and the following week, Friday-Sat, Feb 24-25 I am giving a deconstructed screen printing workshop in my studio. There is one more spot left - email me for details if you are interested.

 
Mags Ramsay sent me this just now - a contour sketch she says gave her day a creative start. Thanks, Mags!

I've spent my day sorting and slicing as I work on a small piece that may or may not get finished by the deadline. And now I am off to visit my mother for the rest of the afternoon.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend: I plan to enjoy every minute of mine!

Happy Friday

How can I not be happy when I receive more whimsical drawings in my email??!!!   It is fascinating to see how clever you all are.  Keep them coming!  If you missed my post with the original blank, I've inserted the blank again, below.  C'mon guys - see what you can do with nothing.

 

This one is from Martha Bilski

And this is from Eva-Marie Nerling

I found it amusing that Eva and my granddaughter Kayla had the same idea. Kayla's was more minimalist but apparently the saying 'great minds think alike" holds true here:-).

Kayla and Alexander and their parents stopped in last Sunday en route to a Superbowl party and I gave the kids these line drawings to see what they would do with them.  This is Kayla's second  (and more elaborate) piece of art.  I don't know what happened to Alexander's. 

 

i am captivated by the possibilities and the creativity that emerges when we have only the bare bones to work from.

My bones may not be bare, but they are creaking and since it is already tomorrow, they deserve a rest. Ahhh- the weekend is here.

a few flakes

of snow fell during the night.  Before they evaporated, I ran out to take a picture or two,

As I looked at this micro-layer of what passes for snow, I remembered being in Atlanta 16 years ago when this much snow shut down the whole city.  'Nuff said.

Remember the line-drawing exercise from the art/brain post on Wednesday?  I am happy to say that one person sent me what she had done with those bare-bones lines.  Debbie from Jerusalem - thanks!

Will post more tomorrow. I am turning into a pumpkin. And pumpkins make typos.

mud

Those are the fabrics that just don't work as whole pieces -- or even half pieces.  Bleh colors and printed stuff you don't have time or energy to overprint -- or have overprinted so many times that they are - yep - mud. 

There's only one solution: slice thinly and try to hide them by combining them with other fabrics, hoping nobody will notice how awful they are.  In fact, when they are cut really thinly, they are not awful at all: amazingly, they often become little gems. 

You know those packages of fabrics that have been cut into strips 2.5" w x 40" (or so) long? Some call them "jelly rolls" (why??), others like Timeless Treasures, call them "treats." (better name, IMO). Irrespective of what you call them, the 2.5" strip makes a lot of sense.  It can be any length (mine vary between around 10"-20" (give or take) and the width slices nicely into two or three strips.

Yesterday I posted this picture on my Facebook page. I had cut a bunch of "ick" fabrics into strips, laid them on the table and photographed them.  The arrangement was completely random but when i saw the photo, I knew they looked great together. (these do not include the swatches above)

The fabrics work together because the colors repeat elsewhere,so that despite the varied patterns there is some unity. The black and white version showed me that there is sufficient value contrast. 

Now I have to decide where I am going to use it -- a task that will remain on hold for a while.

In the meantime, on another subject - I forgot to mention in yesterday's post about Lonni Sue Johnson's art exhibit, that the last thing in the exhibit was an interactive exercise for visitors.  These pieces of paper were on the table near the exhit, with a bulletin board overhead, on which there were tons of wonderful drawings done by people who had come to the exhibit.  I gave these to my grandchildren to complete and the results were delightful.  I offer you the same opportunity: print this out, enlarge and complete it, and scan it back in or take a photo and send it to me. I'll post your creative output.

art and the brain

For those of us who wonder about how/where the brain contributes to art, scientists at Johns Hopkins are doing an ongoing study of an artist whose career was interrupted by brain damage.

Sunday afternoon I attended one of the most remarkable and fascinating exhibits I had ever seen: An Artist's Journey Through Amnesia. I would never have known about this exhibit were it not for an artist friend of mine who had encountered Lonni Sue while she was recovering (an ongoing process) and was working on her art.  He knew about her struggles because she was from the Princeton area, where the exhibit is currently taking place. The exhibit had been at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and is now in New Jersey at Morven in Princeton (the former governer's mansion - now a museum).

In 2007, Lonni Sue Johnson, a talented, whimsical, prolific artist and illustrator who had illustrated books, New Yorker Magazine covers, and done art art for the NY Times, was stricken by encephalitis which left her with permanent brain damage and amnesia.Also, click on this link to see the video about her.  She is not only an artist, she plays the viola, which she had no memory of ever having played.
 It is amazing to track the progress of her work and how it has changed (and yet retained many of the elements it had before her brain damage).  If you are anywhere within driving distance of Morven in Princeton, NJ it is worth seeing. 

back to work

It has been more than a week since my grandson Josh's bar mitzvah and the requisite family celebration a week ago Saturday. Here is Josh reading from the torah.

 

And here I am on Saturday night at the party, getting rare kisses from Josh and Ben.

It was great to have my cousins and my kids staying here and since midweek, I have been scrambling to catch up with my work. 


I have 3 pieces going into a gallery in Philadelphia for the week of Fiber Philadelphia and still have to put a sleeve on one.  I am working on a large project with a tight deadline and still have to make something for the ugly fabric challenge on Karen Musgrave's blog and do a tutorial for another blog. Phew! Bitten off more than I can chew?  What else is new?

Over the weekend, went to a couple of art exhibits that were very special.  One was an exhibit of paintings and drawings done by the A-Team Artists who are members of the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. Self-taught artists who work with donated materials, they do remarkable work filled with poignancy, humor, and energy. The reception was packed, quite a few pieces sold, and the proceeds went directly to the artists. Some of the artists provided music and poetry to accompany the visual art.

 The second exhibit deserves its own blog post, so I will bid the full moon goodnight and head upstairs to pull down the shades.  Tomorrow, the next exhibit.

the magic of caffeine

Those of us who love our coffee already know its benefits.  But humans are not the only ones whose lives can be enhanced by caffeine!

I have always complained about my black thumb with houseplants. Last year, my friend Jennifer looked at the rather pathetic specimens around here and advised me that her mother, who has the most fabulous plants, waters them with coffee. i thought that was interesting and then forgot about it til a couple of weeks ago.  My basil plant, which I had brought indoors when summer was over, is near my sink, under the fluorescent under-cabinet light. It was doing ok for a while but the leaves were getting smaller and smaller, as they do with insufficient light (or so I thought).  In a moment of desperation, I poured a cup of diluted leftover coffee into the plant and now I wish I had taken a "before" picture.  Within a few days, it started to grow new leaves and they were normal size!  Yesterday I snipped off the top leaves and used them in my pasta sauce.  You can't believe how amazing this is!

 I've been watering my asparagus fern with coffee, as well - and it is sprouting new growth and looking quite handsome. Have you ever tried this?

After I finished admiring my happy plants I decided to move some magazines from the cookbook shelves. And what was in with the magazines?  Two relics from the 1950's.   In junior high school we had to take sewing and cooking. I flunked sewing but fared much better in cooking class, where we learned to make such items as cinnamon toast and tomato aspic (not to be eaten together).  Public Service (the electric and gas company) had a test kitchen and we made field trips over there periodically.  I still have what apparently was our textbook.  Why there is a picture of a boy on the cover is beyond me, since boys were not permitted to take cooking and sewing: only shop.

The book is full of recipes for such delicacies as frankfurter stew, dinner-in-a-dish (don't ask) and salmon macaroni loaf.  Two particularly tempting recipes caught my eye tonight as I leafed through the booklet.
Snowball Salad
Thoroughly blend a 3 oz. pkg cream cheese, 3 tbsp mayonnaise and 1/2 cup of chopped nuts.
Fill cavities of (canned) peach halves with the mixture; put two halves together with toothpicks.  Roll each peach in cocoanut and arrange on salad greens.  If desired, serve with whipped cream.
Standard Cream of Vegetable Soup
2 cups vegetable pulp
2 cups thin white sauce
Cook vegetables till tender, drain and press through coarse sieve.  Combine pulp with white sauce.  Serve hot.

The second piece of ephemera was a menu from 1955. My parents had taken us to Washington D.C. and we had apparently eaten at this place. I wonder if it still exists.

And here are the specials of the day.  Read it and weep.

P.S. - If you're interested, I'm doing a UFO tutorial over at the blog And Then We Set it On Fire

and so forth

The Gillman Hotel is in business.  I picked up my cousin Nancy from California today at the airport; tomorrow, my cousin Mimi from Florida arrives. The last time we were together was in October when I was in Florida.  The week promises to be fun, culminating in my grandson Josh's bar mitzvah on Saturday.  In the meantime, the three of us will so our share of laughing.

I have just sent off a brand new quilt to be photographed and published in an article I wrote. and I am just starting to do a UFO tutorial here as I remake these uglies.  You can check my progress over there as the week goes on.

Earlier in the day I made miso soup and granola (not to be eaten together) and tonight, threw together a quiche for dinner.  That should take care of my cooking for a day or so - tomorrow, we eat o-u-t.

Back to the blocks...

Saturday snow

Well, so much for going out this morning with Emma.  The snow is not as bad in Brooklyn as it is in New Jersey, but who needs it?  It is supposed to stop later this afternoon.  In the meantime, I am having fun.

And so is Emma. There is nothing like the laughter of a child.

Now that she is in bed I have no excuses. Back to doing my taxes - the most fun of all.