10 days!

Time flies! I've been busy painting fabric and more fabric. I started out doing my own thing and then I was invited to an artist demo at ARTichoke next Saturday. I wanted to do a make it and take it thing so I asked if I could do some fabric painting with the visitors. Of course, that means I have to get a bunch of samples (and small things to sell!) ready. Hence my awakeness at 4:00 am. It takes a while for the paint to dry so I do a piece, set it aside to dry and start on another piece. I have 3 or 4 pieces in varying stages of paint/dry all over the house and as soon as I deem them done, I'll get started on the construction. I'm thinking checkbook covers, placemats, table runners and journal covers. We'll have small pieces of fabric and plenty of house paint available for the visitors to create their own masterpieces on this Saturday. If anyone is in Jackson and wants to come play with us, it's from 10-2 at ARTichoke on Fortification St, between Jitney 14 and New Stage.

I have to deliver 'Piano Tornado' to the casino in Vicksburg tomorrow so it will be hanging when the casino opens. I'm not sure when the grand opening is though. The weather has been so nice the last couple of days I'm sort of looking forward to the short roadtrip. I hope it stays nice through the weekend too, since I'll be working outside for the demo.

Another post!

Can y'all believe it? Two posts in three days! I've been having fun with the fabric painting stuff that (hopefully) will eventually become whole-cloth pieces. Or maybe I'll just keep painting fabric and then have a stack of painted fabric and no quilts. I'm sort of stuck on the graphic stuff right now, but I can feel the Jackson Pollack coming soon. I like the geometrics but I have to restrain myself from getting more and more non-geometric as I'm working on them. When I get to the point that I want to just do it freehand, I stop and call it finished. It's a bit hard to force myself to keep it graphic looking, but I think it's good practice to work on pure abstracts. Line and shape and color are much more important. Maybe another 1 or 2 of these, then it's off to the freeform abstracts. I'm looking forward to the comparison between the 2 styles when I get enough to compare.

I added a little more red to the first one, and did the second one this morning. I like the second one much better.

"Don't feel bad" I tell myself

Nobody else is updating their blog with any frequency either. But I do have pics today! My youngest daughter on the cover of a local magazine and a whole cloth piece that I just HAD to do. It's been rattling around in my head for a a couple of weeks and I finally just bit the bullet and did it. I like the process so well I'll probably do some more of them. No idea where the abstract, graphic sort of feel to it came from but I see great possibilities for different designs. I had originally intended to use some text on these, until the subject came up on the QuiltArt list and then it sort of felt like I'd be jumping on the bandwagon with it, so that idea may have to wait, although the lyrics and words I want to use are still there and still an option. White PFD fabric with acrylic and rust staining. Stamps, stencils, templates and masking tape shapes. The rust stained stripes are from the piano sound board in my front yard. Most people have garden decorations. I have a 400 lb chunk of a piano. I also rust stained stripes on a white linen dress with it the other day. Totally cool, and the dress only cost a quarter at the Salvation Army.


The cover shot is for a new magazine called Metro Teen and it's published by the same people who did the other magazine she was on the cover of. There are several pictures of her throughout the magazine too and they all look great! I might be biased.

like a bee

My poor blog looks so neglected! Maybe because it is. Too much drama and crisis in my life lately. 3 funerals in less than 2 weeks, all sudden and newsworthy, and nothing I want to talk about. Just say it's been a couple of weeks of rough going, so I sort of have an excuse for not updating.
Now that I am updating, I have news! I submitted for a corporate art exhibit at a casino being built in Vicksburg and I am officially one of their "inaugural artists" as of yesterday! The stuff hangs in Oct, reception in Jan, and hopefully sold! I've also got to get stuff made for the show at the New Stage Theatre in Jan and Feb. Trying to develop an outline for 2 classes, and I'm the new incoming VP of my 'home' quilt guild! I'm really excited about that, and will write more on it later. My brain is still sort of scattered from the last week or so.
My oldest daughter is on the cover of another magazine and we just got a stack of copies of it so I'll have to scan that and post it.
7 quilts off to the Pinebelt show next week and then a quilt/wallhanging/crib set thing for the sis-in-law's baby, which is expected soon!! Maybe after that I can take a break.

busy, busy

Hung a bunch of my quilts at Cups, a local coffee shop chain (better than Starsucks!) yesterday with my friend Chris. I wish she lived a bit closer to my regular orbit so I could see her more often, but it was fun spending some time with her, and meeting the owner at Cups. The work will be hanging through the end of Sept, then some of them are off to the show in Hattiesburg, and hopefully some will be off to the casino in Vicksburg shortly after that. No word on acceptances for that yet though.

An email the other day about putting together an exhibit at the local community theatre at the end of January in conjunction with their performance of the Gee's Bend play. No, before you ask, the exhibit won't be Gee's Bend-ish quilts created for the production but a variety of quilts to tie in with the quilting theme. I have to go down next week to see the space and how to hang them and that sort of thing. I love that the theatre has related art exhibits for each play too. They had an invitational for the current "Sherlock Holmes" and local artists created SH related work. The next production is To Kill a Mockingbird, so much a favorite that my cat is named Boo Radley.

Some other stuff coming up or already happened, but I've been up, glued to Ike reports since about 2:30 and my thinking is a little fractured, so you're getting stream of consciousness more than any real thoughtful posting. Hey! At least I'm putting a post up!

I had big plans to post a picture too, but I'm on the laptop so I can watch the weather channel so the pic will have to wait.

I'm off to a sew day today with a group of other quilters and I am inordinately excited about it. I know a couple of them, but not as well as I'd like to, am acquainted with a couple others and don't know a couple of them at all. Judging from the ones I do know, I'm sure I'll like all of them and would love to get to know them better. No idea why it's so hard for me to reach out and do the work involved to make friends, but I'm always grateful when others make the effort to include me. There's probably some deep psychological reason for that, or maybe it's just because I'm in the habit of being solitary and a bit isolated in my daily life. I do try to get involved with stuff, and don't mind volunteering and being active, but that's different than making friends.

Speaking of being active, another surprise the other day when I was asked to be one of the committee chairs for the upcoming quilt show this fall. I scribed last year and absolutely loved it! I can still scribe this year since my duties won't overlap the days of judging. We've also put together a very basic crit group and I'm hoping my scribe duties will expose me to some real critiques from the judges. I'd love to be able to apply some of that to my own work also.

After much angst (and laughter with Cindy) we have finally gotten the October gathering put together I think. We even got the info together for the newsletter, which Leslie got out even though she was in the middle of Gustav! The gathering is on the coast, and I'm hoping to get word on a training seminar in Ocean Springs I've applied for through the Arts Alliance that will be held the 3 days following the seminar. One trip to the coast instead of 2 would be nice since the following weekend is the Hattiesburg show, and that's halfway to the coast. Lots of driving (and gas!!) in a week and a half if I have to go down and back for each.

Big prayers for everyone in the path of Ike, and I am dreading the aftermath with so many people deciding to ride it out. I can't help but think of the hurricane party at the apartment complex on the coast during Camille, and the result of that.

"The Storm"

It's been a week of unbelievable tragedy and crisis for someone I love very much, so my posting and working has suffered. I've done some mindless piecing on a quilt sort of loosely based on one I saw earlier in the week (thanks Rosemary!) that was loosely based on one she saw in a magazine. It is morphing from what I started with to something a little more involved, but the base idea is still there.

The only piece I have actually finished this week is the one I did for the Breaking Traditions show. It's another Katrina piece using some more of my debris, and it was another one that was hard to work through. The storm pieces are getting easier, but still not (maybe never) easy. And now we're all on edge with Gus wandering around. This piece is 12"x12" and constructed on a commercial print cotton base using blue tarp, a scrap of Army fatigue, reverse appliqued Red Cross, scraps and bits and orts of MRE packaging, nails, a chunk of roofing, and a bunch of other stuff. A paint-covered screwdriver, a beaded cross, and some Mardi Gras doubloons from the 70s. Between working on this piece, the personal crisis and the nerves from Gus, I'm about wiped out emotionally this week.

OK, enough whining and on to the picture!

We're gonna give it a shot

Me and my big ideas! We're getting an on-line art quilt crit group together. So far, we have 7 people participating, and once the fog clears from my brain I'll be putting together the "official" guidelines and rules. Right now, I'm just sending out links to existing crit forms and info so everyone will have an idea of the direction we're trying to go. I'm actually sort of looking forward to it too. I've discovered that I can learn as much about my own work by analyzing other people's as I do by analyzing my own. It's almost easier to define and verbalize the elements of someone else's quilt. Maybe I just "know" in my head how I want to do something without having to put much more thought into it than "it looks better at the bottom than it does at the side" when I'm working on my own stuff. Looking at someone else's, I have to decide specifically WHY it looks better at the bottom and be able to put that into words.

Concentrating on the art aspect can only help and it's never a bad thing to be able to get some insight into how others perceive your strengths and weaknesses in design, color, etc.

A post!

Not an important one, or an informative one, and probably not even an interesting one. But a post nonetheless, which is more than I can claim from the last 2 weeks or so. Deadlines for three really big things that have all fallen at the same time. 2 show submissions with the gobs of inherent paperwork, and a newsletter deadline with a bunch of information and phone calls back and forth and emails flying to get complete and accurate info.

Both show submissions are going out today, then a couple of quilts to finish up for one of the shows and I'll get a break. I think. At least the kids are all back at school so I have the time for my own work. Having the energy and motivation is a different story.

My oldest daughter started her practice teaching yesterday to finish her degree to be a high school English teacher and she is SOOO excited. She's assigned to a school less than 2 blocks from her apartment so she plans to walk as often as possible. Her original assignment was 41 miles away and we were sweating the gas costs for an entire semester of that commute. She's thrilled with the teacher she's assigned to, and she has only Jrs and Srs and at least one AP class to work with. She's in hog heaven and can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! We're incredibly proud of her.

Good vibrations

I sort of had a lapse there with the chronological steps on this one. It's ready for quilting now though. I added some notes, a black and white flange between the background and the narrow black inner border, and then finished off with a wider print border. The outside border is the same fabric as what's behind the notes, and the colors were perfect with the hand painted background, although I painted the background over a year ago and the fabric was a gift last month. Worked perfectly though. Not sure yet what the quilting pattern is going to be but I'm leaning towards some big sweeping curves sort of echoing the lines of the staff and the keyboard.

the Satchmo piece

It didn't even occur to me to re-post the Satchmo piece that was in the show! This is "Primarily Jazz" and it's 35"x35", hand painted and commercial cottons, pieced, appliqued and thread painted.

Satchmo art show

The reception was great! Wall to wall people, open bar upstairs and 3 buffet tables of food. The only glitch was the fact that, because of the lay out of the exhibit, it was hard to hang out by my piece to eavesdrop on the viewers and there was no way to identify the artists from the visitors. I did pass out a bunch of cards and talked to a few people and just enjoyed the experience of being in an art show in New Orleans. The president of the City Council (her name escapes me, unfortunately) spoke, and we were all given fancy certificates signed by the Mayor. They were worded strangely and it sort of looked like the kind of thing politicians do so they look like they're doing something, but at least they went to the trouble of doing it. I'll stick it up on my wall with the ribbons from local shows and call it a souvenir, although I actually like the poster better. It was pretty cool to see my name on the list of artists though. No prize, but I didn't expect one. I was just happy my work was accepted for the show to begin with, considering the caliber of the local artists. The 46 pieces of art are on exhibit until September 1.

I didn't realize until the speech that this is the first year back since the storm, and the 25th anniversary of the Satchmo art show, so maybe it's an even bigger deal than I thought it was. At any rate, I'm happy and proud and excited to have been included in it.

36 hours I won't soon forget

Bear with me here. Wed evening I headed down to Biloxi to spend the night with my uncle before heading over to NOLA Thurs to deliver the quilt for the art show. Nice drive down, pleasant evening with my uncle and a good night's sleep. Up and out around 10:30 the next morning for the hour drive to NOLA. Plenty of time, since I had to be there between 10-4. 20 minutes down I-10 and the car died. Crap. Call Rickey and he comes over with his truck and towed me maybe 2 miles to a repair shop in Diamondhead. So far, so good. It's now about noon so I have time to take him back home and still get to the gallery by 4:00 with plenty of time to spare. Drop him off and head back down I-10. Beautiful day, nice drive and not a lot of westbound traffic. Everything going great until about the state line, then it came a flood. Literally. I was in his big, heavy pickup and I was STILL hydroplaning occasionally. The 1 hour drive took over 2 hours since we were lucky to be hitting 35 mph for the last half of the trip. Nerve wracking doesn't begin to describe driving across the bridge in an unfamiliar vehicle that's much larger than my Honda, with about 10 feet of visibility through the rain, and half the morons driving without their lights on. Apparently, God was just washing the city down for my arrival though, because about the time I pulled on Canal St. the sun broke through and the weather was gorgeous! Thank goodness, too, since I didn't have plastic over the quilt, just a fabric wrap on it. I found a free parking space literally at the door of the gallery. One of the secretaries squealed with delight when she saw my work too. After dropping it off I hooked up with my friend Charles for a beer at Ryan's and then down the street for lunch at Maspero's. It was great chatting with him and catching up on stuff. The only hitch was the call from the repair shop that the bill would be $950 for a blown radiator and head gasket.

Friday morning I took off in Rickey's extra car to go put the deposit on the car repairs. Great trip over to Diamondhead and back until I got ONE BLOCK away from being back at the trailer (yeah, he's still in a FEMA trailer) and the car overheated. Cracked radiator housing. Crap. Good thing the truck is in great condition, huh? Meanwhile, I'm looking at an overnight trip turning into a 6 day saga on the coast. Quick trip to the Family Dollar to at least get something to change into since I only had 2 shirts and a pair of jeans with me. Another meeting with the powers-that-be about his grant from the IRD at 1:30. He didn't qualify for that grant, and they knew it the instant they looked at the paperwork. They SHOULD have known it 3 months ago when he submitted the paperwork and told him then. It would have cut out all the worrying he's done in that time. Drop the car off on Pass Rd. to be repaired and get another call from the people fixing my car. Once they got into the engine, they magically discovered there was an additional $400 of necessary repairs needed that they "missed" in the estimate. Um, no. We'll be by tomorrow to pick the car up so figure out what I owe you for what's already been done. An hour later, another call, this time from the owner of the shop. "Gee, we're real sorry we screwed up your estimate, so we'll make it right by eating the extra cost and fixing your car for the original quote." Yay! Something finally going right in this comedy of errors!! Back to the trailer about 5:00 for a nap.

We napped until about 9:00 then decided a run to the Waffle House was a good idea. That's one reason I love my uncle Rickey so much. His sleeping and eating patterns are as weird as mine, and he thinks a run to the Waffle House is a good idea any time it's suggested. So off we go in the one remaining vehicle that still runs. The aforementioned honking big-ass pick up truck. The WH is maybe 3 miles from his house. We made it 2.99 miles of that distance before we were broadsided pulling into the WH and the truck rolled. Not a lot of detail about the wreck, other than the fact that we (I) had now gone through THREE vehicles in about 36 hours. Well, that and the fact that we were now trapped in the truck in the middle of Hwy 49. The cops and firemen were great, and neither of us sustained any real physical injuries, although the wreck was pretty impressive looking strewn all over three lanes of traffic. The truck looked remarkably good for being turned over in the middle of the road too. Rickey's ex-step-daughter's ex-husband came and picked us up (after we ate, of course) and offered us the use of his spare truck to get back to Jackson yesterday. We'll take it back down on Wed when I go to pick my car up and then head over to NOLA for the artists' reception that evening. If any of you have any special pull, could you see about having the rain hold off this time?

The cops who worked the wreck said ours was the 4th wreck they'd had in the last hour and a half on about a 1/4 stretch of highway right there.

My dodo chair

Another of those phrases (like "make groceries") that has crept into my vocabulary from grandparents. This one from my maternal grandmother. A dodo chair is basically that soft, comfortable chair that you sink into that seems to have the magical ability to make your eyes heavy within minutes. It refers to sleep, not the bird. One of my kids thought for years that it meant it turned you into a dodo. Not too far off the mark if you have a really good dodo chair. Think Sunday afternoon football games snoozing in the chair.

From Wiki: Fais do-do is a name for a Cajun dance party, originating before World War II. According to Mark Humphrey's notes from the Roots n' Blues CD "Cajun Dance Party - Fais Do-Do", the parties were named for "the gentle command ('go to sleep') young mothers offered bawling infants." He quotes early Cajun musician Edwin Duhon of the Hackberry Ramblers, "She'd go to the cry room, give the baby a nipple and say, 'Fais do-do.' She'd want the baby to go to sleep fast, 'cause she's worried about her husband dancing with somebody else out there."
'Do-do' itself is a shortening of the French verb dormir (to sleep), used primarily in speaking to small children. Comparable to the American English "beddy-bye", it is still commonly used by French-speaking people.

Que'?

Fairly early Saturday morning, my husband came in here and said something weird had just happened to him. He was trying to watch a movie in the bedroom and was having trouble understanding what they were saying so he kept turning the tv up louder and louder. Nothing strange about that since none of us can hear very well to begin with, but he realized after he'd turned it ALL the way up that the movie was in Spanish! Seems like he would have noticed that sooner.

A couple of days later, he came in the living room and asked me to flip over to another channel for a minute. He was again watching a movie and it was in Spanish. When I changed channels in the living room, it was in English. He went back and forth for a couple of minutes, looking very confused. After much discussion and playing with the settings on the remote, we discovered you can actually set the movie channels to broadcast in Spanish. It took forever to dig through all the settings to find it, but eventually we did. That might also explain why the NWS alerts come across the screen in Spanish on that tv. Mystery solved!

I'm off to New Orleans next week to deliver my Satchmo piece for the art show, and then back down there a week later for the artists' reception. I hear Crescent City Brewpub has great oysters! I'll go armed (discreetly, of course) with plenty of business cards and a portfolio. I mean, ya know, just in case someone wants to see more of my work. After being so productive last week, I wrecked my back cleaning house...a lovely reason to NOT do housework...so sitting at the machine or computer is a touch and go proposition. I haven't forgotten about the updates on the piece I was posting pics of so religiously for a few days! I just haven't done any more to it yet. I did find some absolutely gorgeous gold metallic fabrics at Hobby Lobby and Hancocks (I almost typed "Kilgore" just then. Old habits die hard.) on the coast that will probably find their way into the gold and black piece. Most likely, those pics won't show up any time soon since I intend on submitting that one to a show in Hattiesburg this fall.

Since sitting in my dodo chair is more comfortable than sitting in a computer chair, I did manage to get some beading done this week though. I finished another piece for Dorinda and did a peyote stitch bracelet and the beginnings of a necklace for myself. Still dithering about exactly how I want the necklace to look but at least I have the rope part of it made. It's all copper and bronze and metallics with some black glass cubes and seed beads. I love the look of the flat peyote bracelet but I'm thinking of putting some danglies on it too. We'll see.

And a gratuitous quilt photo. The topic of bad hanging at quilt shows came up on the quiltart list the other day, and we had just discussed that very thing the day before. This piece is mounted on black fiberglass window screening, intended to disappear into the black drapes at the show. For some unknown reason, they decided to go round up a white background to pin to the black drape, which they then pinned my quilt to. Hanging sleeves be damned! It looked like crap I hear, and I was very surprised it took a ribbon.

WOOOOOOO freakin' HOOOOOOOOO

Got this in email this morning! Any of you who will be in New Orleans for Satchmofest are invited to drop by and see it. I am SO excited about this!
Talk about doing a happy dance, I'm dancing so hard I think I pulled something.

Good morning Rhonda,
Congratulation, we are delighted to have “PRIMARILY JAZZ” as part of the Sixth Annual Satchmo juried art Show. Please plan on delivering it on July 24/25/26 (10am to 4pm) at French Quarter Festival office@ 400 North Peters St in the French Quarter. (522-5730 or 957-3540). If you need directions let us know. Call or e-mail your time choice or if you need other arrangements. Joann

Oh! And one more

I completely forgot about adding the info on this one. It's going back to my original idea for the gold and black with the same horn pattern. (I really, really like that graphic.) I figured I better use it before I lost the already prepared pieces of the Liquid Gold fabric I'd originally started with. (Is "originally started" redundant? Probably is.) I grabbed this piece of Michael Miller fabric yesterday on my daily jaunt to the quilt shop, and it's working perfectly for the image in my head. I know it's sort of hard to see the effect in the picute since the gold has such a reflection and the little confetti pieces (in gold and copper) don't show well on the picture, but you can take my word for it that it really does look just like I wanted it to. Eventually it will involve narrow gold ribbons, gold mesh and probably gold sparkle organza.

on blogging and comments

Thank you all for the comments you've left. I love getting comments, but I don't really expect them. I rarely leave them on other blogs. Not for lack of thoughts on the work or posts on the blogs, just some sort of weird reluctance to say something to someone I don't know.

During this hemorrhage of thoughts and pictures throughout the process on this quilt, Mary Ann commented that this is what blogs are all about. The next comment by Michelle made me think "this is what blogging is all about!" She said she agreed with my thought on enhancing the horn since she hadn't even noticed it. If left to my own eye I might never have gone back and outlined it, or maybe I would have dithered around indefinitely about if I should or not. I truly appreciate a well-thought-out comment about a design or color or placement question. A good comment about a problem spot, or the way a viewer sees something that I might have missed or overlooked is always welcome. I love getting true critiques and opinions on a piece as I'm working on it and have several friends I shoot pics in progress off to for that very reason. I'm just as likely to verbally describe something to them too, and sort of let my mind go with the back and forth that stems from those conversations. It's not that I feel my designs need any 'help' from other people, it's just that I appreciate hearing how something comes off visually to others. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't.

So, without further ado, here is the horn, enhanced.

...and then the staff

The lines for the staff have been making me crazy! The black lines are just under 1/4" wide, so it was a lot of little fiddly stuff to try to get it even and a soft curve and not fray into nothing. After several starts and stops and regrouping, I finally landed on a workable solution. The black is cut double width, as is the teal behind it. A line of liquid fusible (thanks, Terry Grant!) down the middle of the teal, fuse the black down the center, zig zag the outside edges of the black and THEN cut it apart! The black is already stitched to the teal and I'm not working with something so narrow it stretches out of shape. Another line of liquid fusible on the face of the quilt and fuse the strips down. All that's left is to do the narrow zig zags on the edges now, but at least it's secure while I'm stitching. And yes, the 'shadow' on the top line is intentionally wider than the others. The staff will ultimately have some music notes on it, probably with the multi-print from a previous pic. Again, subject to change!

Is anybody but Mary Ann even reading this? I've made more posts today than I usually do in a week. I'd like to get this one finished (at least the top finished) by Thursday since we're heading out Friday morning for the coast. Long weekend with my uncle in Biloxi and a side trip over to New Orleans just to play. My uncle has already laid in some shrimp and oysters (sto' bought since it's the wrong season) for us, and I'm planning on cooking stuff for him that he can freeze.

progress....again

The more I look at this, the more I think I need a stronger outline around the horn itself.

or maybe I'll use lime green