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Archive for November, 2015

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, November 25th, 2015

WW 11-25-15

November Is Almost Over!

Monday, November 23rd, 2015

safricangoods

Truth be told, I am having a nice November. My SDA job has taken less time. I no longer have the Printed Fabric Bee to worry about. Portland has been beautiful this fall. Wednesday, Paige and her mom and dad are arriving to spend Thanksgiving with us. I am so happy about that. We will be going to Lisa’s for the dinner. She has a big dining room table. I am making the turkey, stuffing and a pumpkin pie. It will be nice having the whole core family here in Portland.

At Trinity, we are having our annual art show and sale for Thembanathi, a nonprofit project that provides early childhood development, education and community building in an area of rural South Africa devastated by HIV and the effects of segregation, poverty and unemployment. The bowl and necklace up there were my purchases. Here are some other examples.

safricanart

There are also prints and photographs. The work is done by Zulu artisans and is really beautiful. The bowls and little animals are made from colorful covered copper telephone wire and the jewelry is mainly beads.

My art quilting friend, France Alford, turned 70 last month and she requested that all of her friends make and send a 6 inch block that was sandwiched and quilted. This is what I sent her. I finally got it finished this month.

franceesblock

I also finished this sweater and hat for a little girl baby. Her mother is a friend of my daughter Stephanie. Now I am starting another set for my hair stylist’s baby boy.

lunahat

lunasweaterfinished

You know I am chilling when I am knitting.

Last week, I got to go back to the Seeing Nature exhibit at the Portland Art Museum for a docent tour with my local SAQA group. It was great to see it again with a docent. There was another interesting exhibit that was not quite installed when I was there last time. It was very intriguing. It is title Paradise.

PAMexhibit

The artist collaborative Fallen Fruit will explore Oregon’s paradisiacal backyard through the lens of Portland Art Museum’s permanent collection. Based in Los Angeles, artists David Allen Burns and Austin Young create site-specific projects using fruit to examine concepts of place, history, and issues of representation often addressing questions of public space.

I hope I can go back and study this a bit more.

For my master class this month, we were given our choice of 3 photos to simplify and interpret. I chose this one of Christo’s gates in Central Park.

christofcropped

I decided to distill it down to the simple shapes.

NovGECSketch

My mock up in fabric was thus:

chrstogatesmockup

I did not have satisfactory grays so I am waiting on some to arrive from Etsy and I also need to work on the orange bits. I cropped it so that it looks centered, but it is not.

So, I am not blogging as much, but I hope that I bring you something interesting when I do.

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, November 18th, 2015

ww11-18-15

In Stitches Quilt Show

Monday, November 16th, 2015

seasonsfromabove

Yesterday, Mr C and I drove 4 hours over to the Coos Bay on the Oregon coast so that I could attend the opening reception of the In Stitches, Not Your Grandmother’s Quilts exhibit at the Pacific Park Gallery. The gallery is a big open space in quite new dental office.

The gallery is a lovely space, but not lighted that well. Quilts were hung on both floors. The women involved in putting this on were very gracious and welcoming.

pacificparkgalley2

pacificparkgallery1

seasonsfromabove

My Pick Up Sticks was on the landing of the stairs to the upper level. It looked great all by itself.

pickupsticksinsitu

My other quilt, Taking Leaf of My Seasons was on the long hallway.

meanseasons

tinamccannandquilt

This is Tina McCann from Depot Bay who won Judges Choice for best freeform art quilt. It is titled Saturday Market Baskets. I met Tina at Cynthia Corbin’s workshop last summer. It was nice to see her again.

Paulette Landers, who is a member of SAQA, and an incredible artist won Best of Show with this piece; and it was well deserved.

plandersquilt

She was not at the reception even though she lives in the area. The quilting on this is exquisite.

There was also a traditional quilt category. No photos of those.

Now here is what took me aback about this exhibit. The jurors got to speak and give out the awards. They were both very much in the traditional quilting wheel house. They actually judged the quilts as in a quilt show. They talked about taking off points for this and that to reach their awards. There was nothing in the prospective that would have given a clue that this was going to happen. I did not expect an award. I am very happy with my two pieces and think as far as “art” goes they were in a small minority in this exhibit. I do not enter my quilts in judged shows. I enter them in juried shows which I thought this was. I will not enter it again. I think some people I know did not enter this year for that reason.  It is too bad because this is a lovely venue and would make a great space for a real art quilt exhibit juried by artists not quilt police.

Mr C and I stayed overnight and drove back this morning. Even though it was cloudy and rainy, it was a beautiful drive and the fall colors were still quite vibrant.

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, November 11th, 2015

WW 11-11-15