I have written the crimes and places that I want to include in this piece. They are written in red using a squeeze bottle. They are meant to look as if they are written in blood. ( I am so going to need to do a bright, happy quilt after this.) I have then screen printed the Bush images on top. After I have set the paint, I will cover this with a piece of gray organza. I will add the red hands over the organza, I think. Can’t decide for sure yet. On top of that I will begin to collage the statements regarding indifference and silence. I’m thinking of stamping some skeletons – what do you think?

My niece Robin sent this to me – Thought I would share it.

By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor, St. Petersburg Times
Published March 27, 2005

Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here’s what mine says:

* In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn’t be long enough for me.

* I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.

* I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I’d be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise building a semblance of a normal life.

* I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.

* I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.

* I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.

* I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.

* I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.

* I want total strangers – oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on – to start calling me “Bobby,” as if they had known me since childhood.

* I’m not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a “Bobby’s Law” that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.

* Even if the “Bobby’s Law” idea doesn’t work out, I want Congress – especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in “less government and more freedom” – to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.

* In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country’s attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.

* And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.

* I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.

* Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent vegetative state, I’d want President Bush – the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas – to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best “to err on the side of life.”

* I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF’s care.

* And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what’s best for me, I won’t be in anyposition to argue.

I feel that I have made some progress on this. I found some wonderful quotes which I want to transfer to different neutral shades of organza which would then be fused to the screenprinted background. Some logistics to work out, but I like the idea that I am getting more texture and interest. I may stamp some abstract stuff, also.

Finally, I am back to creating. I must have my Eighth Deadly Sin done by the end of the month. This is for an online challenge through the Quiltart list. These pieces are going to two Mancuso shows this year and the Crossroads show next year. I was very interested in Pam’s method of planning a piece. But, she can draw!! Anyway, I decided to do some possible layouts of my piece in Pagemaker because I am using a lot of text and some screenprinted faces. So here is my first attempt. The background will be gray because I feel that is the color of indifference. W is the current icon of indifference, not the only one! He is representing all those who have silently let atrocities happen. The hands covering the eyes, mouth and ears will be cut from red cloth to signify blood on the hands. The words that represent many of the atrocities in my lifetime will be done in citrasolve transfer on sheer fabric and fused to the background. W will be screen printed over this. The red lettering will also be screen printed. The title, Indifference, will be screen printed or possibly printed on WU and fused to the top – I’ve been wanting to try something like that. This is not a happy piece and I am feeling like I want to get it over with. I fixed my Thermofax so I can get moving now. The Assoc. Rector at our Church told me she has another quote for me to use and I am waiting for that to come and will work it in somehow. Here is the layout which has been cropped because it did not quite fit on my scanner – but you get the idea.

I think I will use different fonts for the words in the background to add more interest.

(You need to read the previous post to know what I am doing!!) Here are photos of the art in our dining room. The art with glass is photographed at an angle to prevent the reflecton of the flash.

This is a beautiful print by a Japanese printmaker which Steve picked up on one of his many trips to Japan.

This is the real deal – a Robert Motherwell – “Espania”.

This is an old etching from Europe that used to be in my MIL’s house. I found it in my BIL’s garage in Annapolis. It was moldy and dirty and the frame was broken. I took it to a restorer and had it reframed. I think it is happy with it’s new life next to the ultra modern Motherwell.

Some objet d’art given to me by my MIL back in the ’70’s. It has sentimental value.

I have fused glass!! I love this piece by a local Santa Rosa woman. She is originally from France.

On a trip to Monterey, I found this print of a painting of Big Sur – had to have it in North Carolina as a reminder of the beautiful coast here.

The only quilt in the dining room is this collage called Winter Tuscan Sunset. I also have an etching of this which will show up later. This was done by pinning bits of fabric to batting and covering with tulle and then stitching the heck out of it. It really looks great with the golden yellow walls in the dining room. The tree and the vineyard were added after the quilting of the background.

For the quilter’s out there, here is a close-up.