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Archive for January, 2011

The Birthday Girl

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

My daughter, Lisa, and her partner, Clay, are here for a long week-end to celebrate her birthday. They are both vegans so her local vegan friend invited us to her home for dinner. She made fried vegan chicken (an oxymoron, you say?), mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and the most divine mushroom gravy. Steph brought cole slaw and collard greens. I contributed the vegan birthday cake and wine. I bought the cake at a local bakery — Irish Oatmeal cake — and it was delish. The whole meal was fantastic.

The photos were taken in a dark room with my new iPhone. Not too bad!

I rephotographed my Twelve X Twelve quilts. The color is more true, now.

The last one is the one which will be the official Twelve X Twelve piece.

I am really getting the urge to get in my studio and do some playing and experimenting. I am postponing my weekly challenge for one more week unless I get to it tomorrow. The girls are here until Monday morning. I have to get up early that day for some training on Drupel for the new SDA website. Drupel is a free and open source content management system for the web. Then, I have a field of vision test at 9:10.  So the week is starting off on a busy note.

It has been a week since the violation of our home. It has been a long week. I think I am beginning to feel as if I am getting my life back on track. There have been so many little things to take care of, not to mention the emotional strain of something like this. I just want to say a big thank you for all of your kind comments. It is very appreciated.

Eggplant ala Albers

Wednesday, January 12th, 2011

I had so much fun with the eggplant theme for our Twelve X Twelve theme that I could not stop at one. I made 5. They are all silk. I love the color studies done by Josef Albers and decided it would be fun to use the square in a square composition.

I have a disclaimer. The colors are not very truein most of these pieces. The reds in pieces 2, 3 and 4 are not as red as they appear in the photos. I am going to try to photograph them again in natural light.

I need help deciding which one should become part of the Twelve X Twelve colorplay mosaic. So, I am asking for your help.

Now, go on over to the Twelve Blog and see what every one has done.

Making Progress

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

That is my beautiful daughter, Lisa, in the February issue of Martha Stewart Living. It is an article about collecting. She just finished posting a collection a day on a blog. The photos have been published in a book, due out soon.

A very exciting time for her and of course the Mom is enjoying a vicarious thrill.

Yesterday, I bought a new MacBook. It looks just like my old one, but it is driving me nuts! I spent an hour on the phone with a Mac genius to get my Mail working properly. The Trackpad is driving me nuts because it has a popup menu which is supposed to help, but I don’t like it. It is a big learning curve.

I also got a new camera. I had to get a new tripod because the attachment for my old one was on one of the cameras that was stolen. I upgraded to a Nikon D3100. It is very similar to the D3000, but has better video capability.

So, then I downloaded photos to my new laptop and fought with IPhoto which was being very cantankerous. I still need to upload photos for the Twelve X Twelve reveal and write a blog post.

I am exhausted with all of this. I am still not sleeping or eating well.  I am so far behind in my goals for this month. But, I am making progress. My new iPhone is coming tomorrow. Hope that doesn’t give me fits, too. I have decided to wait until next month to replace the iPad as the next generation is due out.

Here is a photo of my best friend, Scooter. He and Mr C are keeping me sane. This is the first photo I took with my new camera.

Violated

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Tonight, I fully intended to have my first post titled, “You bought it, now use it”.  That is not to be.

About 3 am this morning, we heard Scooter barking in his basement kennel. Usually when he does this, he has an urgent need to poop. Mr C went down to get him, he came up and did not want to go outside. Instead he was running crazy around our tv room, the dining room and the kitchen. Steve finally put him back in his kennel. We heard a few more barks from him.

When I got up this morning, the first thing I saw was my purse on the kitchen floor with money strewn about. The  contents had been dumped on the counter and ransacked. I screamed for Mr C. We then looked in the tv room and discovered both laptops, my iPad and two cameras were gone. In the living room, our iPod loaded with all our music was gone.

I think that when Mr C arrived with Scooter, the burglar was scared off as he was ransacking my purse. He got my iPhone, but my credit cards were not gone. I had stuck some business cards in my change purse. He grabbed those, thinking they were credit cards. Ha! At least I did not have to deal with calling all the credit card companies and getting a new driver’s license.

I spent the morning changing passwords and trying to cover any tracks of things that might be on my laptop. I have tried to activate Find my iPhone and Find my IPad, but nothing yet. Apparently, the devices have to be on for that to work. A very nice policewoman came very quickly. All of the serial numbers are in their system. Pawn shops are supposed to  check for stolen items in the system. I am checking Craig’s list every couple of hours.

I have my desktop downstairs. Every thing is backed up on Carbonite on line. No one was hurt. I have to be thankful for the good things.

Even if I had gotten some work done, I would not have been able to take a photo. Steph is going to loan me one of their cameras.  I have ordered a new iPhone. Should arrive next week. The insurance adjuster is coming on Monday. We have $500 deductible.

I think it might be good for me to be less connected for a few days.

You are wondering how he got in – the back door was not locked. Mr C and I have been married for over 47  years and never had a burglary. IMy car was broken into once. It is such a feeling of violation.

I will be back when I can take some photos.

First Thursday Fun

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

It is Portland First Thursday gallery walk night. We had the opening for our show, Mirror, Mirror at Trinity. I had to go early to help set up the food and drinks for the reception. We snuck away for a bit to see the show of stitched works by Anna Von Mertens at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery. I had hoped to catch Marci McDade, Fiberarts magazine editor, but she had not shown up yet when I was there. Anna said she was expecting her to be there. Anna, just won the prestigious United States Simon Fellowship of $50,000 in the field of visual arts. I think it is so awesome that a fiber artist won this award.

The piece above is Girl with a Pearl Earring’s aura, after Johannes Vermeer 2009, hand-dyed, hand-stitched cotton, 17 3/4″ x 15 1/4″ Anna paints layers of dye on cotton to achieve the auras that she sees in famous paintings and then hand stitches tbe trail of the aura. The pieces are very luminous. She is a delightful young wife and mother from New Hampshire. It was nice to chat with her about her work.

Our show reception was well attended which made us all very happy. I got such positive feedback on my piece. Someone I don’t know guessed that I was the artist because of my hair.

Here are the winners of the prizes. I took the photos with my iPhone.

This was best of show by Joe Dubay, a retired priest. Each smaller painting is collaged with memento’s of his life – family photos, letters, and other ephemera — a lovely piece.

This piece won for Best Interpretation of the Theme – Mirror, Mirror.

This amazing piece won an honorable mention. It is woven from yellow cedar. The face was made by pressing the wet weaving over a mold of the artist’s face.

This morning, I made one more eggplant colorplay piece, rearranging the colors one more time. I think it will be the piece I use for Twelve X Twelve.

Tomorrow, I am having lunch with Terry Grant. She has to deliver some quilts to me and I suggested I treat her to lunch, using my Groupon for a restaurant in the neighborhood.