Seamless Skin

Smallview of Mega-Artist Date

 

glue drying in screen, auditioning fabric, gelatin plate in the making, reference books

I ended the week feeling very productive.  I did push it to the limit though but feel it was worth it every second!  I did some brush calligraphy, continued with graffiti and writing on cloth, set up some buckets of soda-ash solutions (one for over-dyes, the other for white cloth), made a gelatin plate, mixed dyes for dye painting, and set up a screen with glue resist, and held steady with 3 hours in the gym.  I increased my time on the reclining bike from 10 minutes to 30 last week.  All which has brought me to today: the hardest thing I'm doing today is rolling in and out of bed.  The humidity has increased which is horrible for me so going out I'm not!

My social highlight of the week was an artists' date with friends, old and new.  Here is Emma, Pat, myself, and Juanita inside the theme hotel 21C.  The theme is 21st century art.  The C in 21C could stand for Cutting Edge and Conceptual also.  The hotel is a series of gallery spaces.  Below we are standing between the elevator interacting with a video tech. exhibit.  When you walk around the corner there is this wall screen/camera that puts you into the image of fallilng cascading letters...the letters bounce off of you or your body acts as a blockage to the letters falling.  This is highly entertaining!!!!!!! and addicting!!!!!!!!!

This is the lobby of the hotel and the 2nd picture below is a projection on the floor in front of the hotel desk of a couple in bed trying to get comfortable.  It is in video format so if you stand there long enough you see them adjusting pillows, checking the clock, tossing, turning.

The man and woman at the desk where just as stoic as the figures above their heads, as if they, too, are figures in the art.

  The art in the hotel is not just compatible or complimentary, the hotel is more gallery space from every nook and cranny, than hotel.  Even the bathrooms provide an ecletic artistic experience with projected video words in the mirror and one way mirrors that allow you to see out in the hall ways of the hotel.

Local artists are represented along with internationally known artists. 

 

digging this white on white embroidery

one of the galleries held a solo exhibit of lithographs by Kara Walker's grotesque antebellum imagery.  This is the 2nd exhibit I've seen of her work. I've read a dissertation turned book on it and I'm sorry to still say, the full meaning escapes me.  For work to be so intense and disturbing, and it is to me, I still can't fully grasp the intent of the artist.

We also headed to the headquarters of the Embroidery Guild of America to see the LAFTA show. Here are just a few shots from the show:

 by Joanne Weiss

And sometimes it all boils down to a sense of humour! This is a bust by Alyce McDonald:

 

 

We ended the outing at the Carnegie Museum of Art and History in New Albany, Indiana where Penny Sisto's newest solo exhibit is hanging.  I'm always so engulfed and interested in her work but this show, a series of portraits of faith/religion, left me feeling mediocre.  Even hearing her give a gallery talk some weeks ago did not tie me into the work beyond a cerebral/academic connection.

I'm looking forward to returning to my workshop next week...it will be my first time doing a gelatin plate and using glue as a resist.

Peace and blessings, immeasurably.

this is what I'm talking about

Our weather has been really nice the last week...humidity not as high and temps in the 80s with dipping into the 70s at night.  Some spots of rain but nothing troublesome...even the gray overclouding we had I found relaxing. 

I can actually say now that going to the gym is habit.  I don't feel right when my routine breaks as it did on Saturday.  For those who know how I feel felt about exercise CAN I GET A WITNESS?!  Last week I went up to 30 minutes on the reclining bike with the programmed hills.  The exercise aggrevates the fibromyalgia but not to the point that I can't move or don't eventually feel better on the days I don't go.  And it really all boils down to my philosophy of "if I'm going to be uncomfortable or in pain, I might as well be so while doing something I want to do or have fun anyways".  That waiting for the perfect time or when things are just right or all the lights are green just doesn't happen...

Congratulations are in order to MudMan, my brother.  But I can't say why because there is the need to keep it hushed for reasons personal to him.  I've been bursting at the seams wanting to share it here since it relates to his life as an artist.  pssst, family and friends, email me for the news on the downlow ;)

As for me, I'm working into a groove but not quite there yet.  I've made this cover for my iPod and was proud of myself for figuring out how to put the snap on.  Its a project from Alissa Burke's book, Canvas Remix.  It (the case, not the book) is coated with polyurethane which makes it feel coarse.  I'm going to make another one without the coating.

I'm still playing with the graffitti look on canvas and the combining of techniques from the online class, Graffitti Chic, taught by Alissa.  I love the Ning format for taking online classes compared to the other formats I've taken.

Taking this class has got my eyes tuned to graffitti as I drive around town.  Yesterday I found myself wanting to make a sudden spontaneous stop to get out of my car and walk across a large gravel parking lot of a industrial business, cross train tracks to get a closer look of some very ornate lettering on parked train.  I didn't.  But I experience that urge daily whenever I come across graffitti now.  I like to think of graffitti artists as calligraphers who think really big.

I cut this stencil out from a photo of Peter when he was a young fierce teen-age warrior for the revolution. ;)  (incoming divergent thought:  we already know that the revolution will not be televised...but, will it be blogged?)  I might do another stencil of him as the now aged fierce tomato grower.  I get a daily tomato plant report with such detail and passion.  He is so cute with his serious passion for his tomato plants.  Reminds me of the days when we spent hours sitting in the Afro-American Reading Room solving all the social and political ills of the world when I decided he wasn't as square as I thought he was.  Oh my words, I'm cracking myself up here.

This piece has gone through some changes.  The base is silk paper.  Its been beaded 3 different times.  Yesterday I removed the beads and painted inside the squares with pearl-ex powders mixed into a textile medium.  In spite of really liking it just as you see it here, I'm leaning toward making it a cover for a journal.  It is 3 layers, but the edges of the silk paper which I didn't want to tame extend beyond the bottom 2 layers which end at the sewn line.

Right before leaving my workshop yesterday I sat and took in the space that I've been in now for a little over a year.  I sat reflecting on the on-going challenges of health, finances, deferred dreams, family conflicts, etc. and felt thankful for the Grace which is allowing me to have a space and abundance of materials to explore my imagination and artistic heartbeats.

To top it off, I came home to Kyra E. Hicks' new book!!!! I waited patiently to open the package while I listened to Peter's tomato report but just as soon as he finished I ripped it open and was like "look, look, look"!  I had to explain who Harriet Powers was to him and why the book was signficant and then I saw the pink sticky notes...couldn't contain my excitement...Kyra is kind enough and gracious to have blessed me by mentioning Seamless Skin.  Seeing myself and my blog referenced gives me an ethereal feeling.  Do you ever ponder humanity from a soul-physics point of view?  My mind is too small to grasp it but I do ponder it often...even tring to conceive how each individual small inhale and exhale we take effects change across the globe and if one breath has impact then what can be said of our breaths compounded.  Have you ever seen the African cylinder sculptures of humans interlocking to form a tower?  Maybe this is the way that particular culture or artist(s) understand what I ponder...how our small individual lives connect to form spiral cylinders that increases our humanity for the greater.  Lord know that scholarship on Harriet Powers is not exhausted and I never could have imagined or envsioned that my small breath would ever be of assistance.  But we can only see what we can see and living life larger means keep trusting the process and stepping out on belief (i.e. what I cannot see but know to hold truth).

I'm going to commune with some trees today with a grand-sistah-poet and tomorrow will be hanging out with Juanita, my quilt guru, who is here teaching some classes! All praises to the Most High!

Peace, 

 

Its all good.

This morning it was a song by Kool Moe Dee on the radio that perked me up...nothing like old school rap...I was just "this close" to break dancing and annoying my 17 year old.  'He ain't up on it like that', nor could he appreciate it from an historical perspective...his loss.

I am still rolling (slowly, but still, ya know) at the gym 3 times a week.  This week I added an additional 5 minutes on the treadmill.  Since I've been doing this, its a must for me to take an additional nap during the day and I sleep very deep...a few hours of sleep feels like the next day when I wake up.  My sleep through the night is still broken up, never more than 4 hours straight.  Sometimes I can get back to sleep, but on the nights that I can't I so wish I had my workshop accessible.  When ideas flow in the middle of the night and at the time they seem so fantastic that I just know I'm going to remember them, right!?  Well sometimes I'll write them down. :)

The colour is slightly off, but here is the piece from the previous posts.  You will see I haven't attached the copper wire ring.  Thank you to all the commentors who left suggestions on how to attach it.  I'm still pondering them. I'm leaning toward putting in two holes and using a flat washer painted copper instead.  I mixed the charcoal paint with gel medium and painted the four sides.  I've yet to decide how to hang it, either frame or mounted to a stretched painted canvas...but for the moment I'm considering it complete.

The learning lesson here: painted canvas is unforgiving when stitches have to be removed...so stitches are the language of committment! 

Here is an in-process close-up of the next 6"x12".  This is raw and rough.  My current book and the one before present information/perspectives about The Slave Trade during The Middle Passage.  The raw and rough feel to this could possibly be a manifestation of what I'm carrying around as a result of reading Lose Your Mother by S. Hartman and The Slave Ship by M. Reidiker.

this marketing thing

if you look over at my sidebar under the heading literary matters, you'll see that i'm reading 2 books on art marketing.  the stanfield book I just cracked open and I'm about 1/3 through the other and not only have I not been that ambitious around selling work, but I'm questioning IF i want to be.  my goal is to sell some work and last night I asked myself how much would make me happy annually...and I thought 500 then boosted it up to 1500 because I thought I'd like to sell enough to pay for taking 1 workshop each year.  the huge change from not working in the last 4 years and the peace i made with this disability came by realizing i had the freedom to get into my own rhythms and thoughts and processes and didn't have to spend most of my waking hours in the service to others and that was okay.  Most of my adult life i held 2 jobs and sometimes 3...not to accumulate wealth but if you know anything about working in social services, no explanation is needed.  it was a big help when peter's company restructured and he went from salary to hourly allowing him to get paid for all the overtime and the last 3 years i worked i held only 1 job, many times the hours where very long but it still felt decandent to only have 1 job.  my parents were an integral part of helping out with picking up and feeding children and entertaining them but they have aged and their circumstances have changed as well and thank the lord my youngest is 17.

i had designated 2009 as a year to concentrate on marketing based on the notion that "if i'm a serious artist, i should".  for me, and i've long known this, the process of making is the I AM statement of my life.  i'm all about process!  my footprint, my archaelogical presence and identity. this is the celebration (sometimes bittersweet) i try to mark this blog by. 

this pondering about marketing has me asking how much time investment in marketing is required to sell 1500 annually?  does the time factor impede on anything else and how committed do i want to be?  can i recoup that amount by squeezing my budget (something i have more control over than the market) even more?  

the one word that triggered this line of thought was "career".  stanfield speaks of an "art career" and i shuddered.  i don't want a "career".  i don't want to run on such a traditional track.  what i do want, and this became clearer to me yesterday and i'll blog about in a few days, is a sense of artistic community (within myself and with others) and freedom and this is what i'm serious about.  possibly this is a throw-back to my idealistic leanings but all-the-more that is who i am.  being in exhibits serves the sense of community and if a piece sells that is a miraculous blessing!  my personality is more in alignment with the simple quiet peasant woman who continues to can jars of food when the her gardens and her neighbor's gardens are overflowing with abundance because she knows everything is just a matter of time ;) 

you know, there just isn't that many serious autobiographies/memoirs of women visual artists and it gets even narrower if looking for bio's of African American women artists.  It would be wonderful to frame my discussion within this body of literature...any recommendations?

Eat, Pray, and Stitch

Outside looks inviting with the soft blue clear sky and the soft brightness.  Based on appearance I could think it is pleasantly warm outside.  The temps actually read too-cold-for-Karen-to-be-out.  My goals today included 3 things; eat, pray, and stitch.  I've been successful.  While sewing on a binding I reasoned that what I do well in my quilts is create good backgrounds.  When I start I aim for the entire quilt to be an all over focal point (it has a name but I can't recall it at the moment but remember it from Lorraine Torrence's book on design) but and once it is finished I become unsettled thinking it needs a more easily read focal point.  Here is a section of the quilt that I scanned.  The entire size is 24ish x 30ish.  I placed a 1/4ish binding around it. 

Some options I'll consider is adding beads in blues, a couple of circles in metallic or light blue threads in blue, and words from the poem in larger lettering using Scribble paints in blueish/grayish.  Also on tap for next week is picking up my Janome Jem from the repairman (don't ask, sad story), and selecting some hand-sewing I can do here at home and practice some calligraphy on paper and working through the artist's workbook on marketing.   

For all who might be interested I've started a Calligraphy and Creative Lettering group on Creative Souls (see sidebar).  It is for anyone at any skill level who has an interest in the graphic possibilities of writing, script, by hand or digital.  Also, I started reading Cherryl Floyd-Miller's latest book of poetry, Exquisite Heats.  Cherryl is also a quilt artist and her blog is here.  A beginning review of the book has been started on by book blog (see sidebar), My Eyes Have Seen the Coming of the Word.

I'm just a simple peasant woman

so why do I attempt to multi-task?  No, I haven't completed a quilt; no, I haven't started Color & Composition with the Debbie Babin's Yahoo group; no, I haven't scheduled the PT for the sciatica (since its gotten somewhat better, trying to wait it out); no, I haven't photographed the rest of the quilts in order to complete my website; no, I haven't completed One Hundred Years of Solitude (have 25 pages to go and I don't want it to end...I'm really gonna miss the crazy Buendias and the village of Macondo)and I'm sure there are some other things I could answer no to...BUT, yes, I've discovered Ning (see my sidebar) and I love the sites for the complete integration of all social networking on the net; yes, I found a way to get the critiques of my work on the Fiber Focus site via the Awful Truth (for the thick skinned); yes, I've talked to 2 different men on making the sewing table from the plans I ordered from Keepsake Quilting (waiting estimates so I can yea or nay the idea); yes, I'm still in love with casual forms of Calligraphy as opposed to the highly decorative scripts; yes, I've discovered Photoshop Elements (came with the scanner but I wanted to learn its big brother Photoshop which I haven't done); yes, I'm enrolled in an online workshop, Creating Custom Digital Brushes with Gail Schmidt at Creative Workshop (another Ning group); yes, I've started one of the art marketing books; and yes I have a give-a-way and a trade!!!!

I have the Premier Issue of Where Women Create, a Stampington Publication:

 

I'll draw a name from a bag this coming Wednesday night from commentors to this post and announce the winner Thursday with a new post.

And I'd like to trade something for the book that led to the creation of the magazine.  What you ask do I want in trade?  I dunno...make me an offer here or via email at seamless_skin (at) yahoo (dot) com for something.  I'll announce what I chose from any offers that I might receive on Thursday...if I get nothing, it will go into the grab bag at the next LAFTA meeting.

 

And I like to unveil one of my stamps created in PSE...for me this is a big deal!  I call it "Do you remember when we were in Paris?"

Rocket Science here?

Whew! I'm whupped! Since Christmas I've spent countless slew of hours upon hours into days, nights building 2 websites...my first one was with homestead which I was fairly pleased with until my brother shared some web hosts he had been looking into...one being wix.com which I fell in love with and begin to get to work...I'll be deleting the one at homestead but if you get to this before I delete it, you can take a peek at http://www.seamlessskin.com. 

The one that I'm keeping is still not complete but because I've invested so much of my time, time that I'll can never get back, I'm deeming it blog worthy to share at this point.  Go take a peek: Karen R. Davis.  The pages that hold material are home, statement, gallery (sub pages 1 and 2), links (not working yet), contact, and a little bit in news. Nothing has been worked on in Postcards, Monochrome (the "e" doesn't show up on the button), and Poetry Series. 

Even though I worked with a template, it wasn't a simple drop in and click...I had to actually dust off some brain cells and think!  In my down time I focused on finishing up the book, One Hundred Years of Solitude...one of the most intriguing books I've read but also very convoluted.  Every area of humankind is covered in this book for which the author won the Nobel.  From beginning to end a lot of activity takes place on every page...couple this with the difficulty of keeping track of the genealogy of the characters that isn't easy and my mind barely has energy to walk around or open a window in my head to allow a cool breeze to blow through.  My spirit has been delighted though, but my brain is just being snarky, saying things like "so now, i guess you'll try to build a rocket next". 

Well, this sums up the ending and beginning of my old and new year!  If you have any comments, critiques, suggestions, what have you for my website...please let me know by commenting here or using the contact form on the site.

Peace,

Getting on with life

Am I one of the rare few who hasn't been glued to the Olympics?  Sure, I've caught some of it each day so far and have enjoyed watching, but its like I've caught an onset of adult ADD, not being able to sit and watch tv beyond 30 minutes.  Although, my reading has increased again and I'm loving Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard (for which she won the Pulitzer).  I have the gift edition which includes a cd of the poet reading the poems.  The enjoyment stems for poetry which has geography, history (both personal and collective) as propelling devices central to the work.  I'm a sucker for it, just takes me to the moutain top.  I listened to the cd for the first time on Friday with Ron and Crystal and it has since been a staple in my car, playing it loud with the windows rolled down (incoming throw back song lyrics:  diamond in the back, with a sunroof top, digging the scene with a ganster lean, woohoooooo) Crystal also informed me that Trethewey will be headlined at the Kentucky Women Writers' Conference which is where I was left floored by Jessica Care Moore last year.

The other book that has me mesmerized is John T. Campbell's Middle Passages.  The most effective and fun history class I had was at UofL, taught by a visiting Nigerian professor.  He had us to assume historical personalities and study their writings during a selective time frame for a staged debate with an opposing contemporary of the period.  We had to stay in role for a week or more, never being allowed to answer questions in our own voices but how we understood the assumed character would answer...well Campbell's book is written in a similar vein, making broad sweeps of historical data much more intimate, interesting and meaningful.  He discusses the back drop in which personalities lived, formed and implemented their ideas, contradicted themselves in the face of changing current affairs and how their lives may have or did rub up on their contemporaries.  I'm even thinking about writing the author a personal note to thank him for such a book.  It was one that I had checked from the library and noted it for adding to my own shelf and low and behold I found it at the HalfPrice bookstore along with the book on quilter Mary Bendolph's work...destiny, fate, I tell ya!

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Okay, when I'm stressed the one trait that irritates me, hugely shows up in my life: indecisiveness!  I hemmed and hawed over going to the bookmaking workshop this past Friday and talked myself out of it with the decision to put the money toward a large (for me) PFD fabric order.  I did make it to the Carnegie Art Quilt Network bi-monthly meeting on Saturday and showed the progression of the Poetry quilts and received some suggestions for forthcoming quilts in the series which I might or might not consider, but I appreciated very much the different perspectives.  I enjoy hearing perspectives of other artists and particularly non-artists which is why I like having my mother look over my work when I'm in the workshop or having my daughter ask why write on the fabric when I am only going to obscure the writing.  It falls under the heading "tell them so I'll know".

The indecisiveness showed up on Sunday as well...over visiting another quilt meeting.  In addition to the stress over a personal situation, I'm also home a lot less with my workshop being across town and trying to spend at least 4 days there for 20 hours worth of activity which translates into being there longer to get in 15-20 hours of activity that I deem significant and progressive.  I have two other things on the agenda for this week...attending Louisville Area Fiber&Textile Artists meeting and stopping by the headquarters of Embroidery Guild of America. 

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The scraps left over from the Poetry quilts will be turned into trading card, post card sizes up to journal size quilts.  I couldn't stand the thought of these scraps which I've bestowed special importance on, languishing in the basket with all the other peasant scraps.  Maybe this mini-series will be called New Lease on Life...or Born Again...or Second Chance Art or Reacquainted or Deja Vue or You Remind Me Of or (enough, we get it already!)

 

Daily Grind of Living Faithfully

I returned to my workshop on Monday as I'm committed to keeping the schedule...like Deb said in the comments...just do it anyways.  Grant it, I wasn't as productive as I'd hoped but I did manage to finish writing on the last panel for the 2nd top in the Poetry Series...I also experiemented with writing with acryllic inks...this sample was ironed after it dried and then wetted with lukewarm water...it bled which kinda surprised me since it is acryllic base.  I also prepared screens using the drawing fluid and screen filler.  The duct tape I use is 3M brand but I do not get a good adherence to the screen...I've tried a cheaper brand and had the same problem...I'm thinking about trying "artist tape".  If anyone has any other recommendations please let me know.  I'm rinsing the drawing fluid out here at home and will print with them (2) tomorrow.

Yesterday I was up to actually running the sewing machine so I sewed the panels together...re-sewed one seam 4 times...I found that I was more committed to getting the seam (it really needs to be straight in these related pieces) right than being frustrated over having to re-sew!  I couldn't believe how calm I was about doing this over and over...one of my more mellower moments for sure!  I also prepared the last of my cotton fabric for dyeing by soaking it in soda ash...it will be in the bucket until tomorrow.  I'm still uncertain about dyeing there or if I should rent out space for a day (20 bucks a day) at MACA to dye fabric...because I don't have that much I think I'm going to attempt to do it at the workshop since I have less than 5 yards and I'm only doing 2 colours, 3, at most. 

A few weeks ago I caught Alice Walker on a monthly tv show called In Depth that runs on booktv.org.  A 3 hour interview at her home in Berkley, California.  I've been told through the years that I exude an intense calmness but I've never seen myself that way...I do see Alice Walker that way and only hope to be able to express my inner voice with such calm and intensity as she...she definitely makes a strong case for meditation and writing practice.  Because I've been pondering motherhood, motherhood and being a poet/artist (something I've never resolved satisfactorily since I first began to question 27 years ago) I'm being led to read the books by Alice Walker's daughter Rebecca Walker.  I've never read any of her 3 books but would like to know her views on feminism and motherhood and to see if I can gleam any more understanding about the mother/daughter relationship...I have a quilt by the name of Faith of the Mother which examples marking time as a mother by my faith. 

I will be putting an update on my book blog in the coming week.  I started reading Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott.  Michele sent it to me with the note that she thought of me frequently while reading it and I've since thought of 2 friends frequently while reading it.  This is my first book by Lamott and I'm enjoying how she plainly speaks about the daily grind of living with the daily grind of living faithfully  I will pass it on when I'm finished.

Of course Jesus would water his tomato plant!  Oh, and thanks for letting me know that "sit a spell" was not a phrase peculiar to the peculiar south.  I don't know why I'm so fixated on southern sayings or even the origin of cliches but when I use one I question how it got started and where it came from.  One that I believe is peculiar to my family (me, a sister, and my great grandmother) is "whatsonevah" meaning "what so ever".  You must use it like like one big word interject the n sound and say the er as ah. 

 

.25

I'm reading two books on writing, How To Read a Poem and Fall in Love w/ Poetry by  Edward Hirsch and Writing Alone and w/ Others by Pat Schneider.  As I read them I'm not thinking about my own writing but my quilt art...over laying the ideas to how I perceive my work and my process of working on quilts. 

Hirsch spends the first chapter, 30 pages, passionately, almost orgasmic, stressing the intimate relationship between poet, writing, the poem, and reader.  Its the reader that completes the life cycle of the poem.  While reading the various ways HIrsch describes this relationship, I keep thinking that is what I want to achieve with my quilts.  It is the viewer who will breath life back into a quilt long after I've completed it.  In my eyes, I've yet to create a quilt that I think is wholely worthy of inhabiting another's soul but have come close with the the 2 pieces that make up the Liberation Quilts: Cilium 1 & 2.  Also, with the prayer quilt for my children and the 3 small quiltlets that I showed in the recent preceding entries I am proud to release.  Negotiating Territory was one that I was able to apply technical knowledge I'd learned on using value and designing an original block and I loved the concept behind the quilt's message.  These works I am happy to show publicly.  Other works are exercises for various ideas and techniques, such as the one above.

In Schneider's book, so far, I've fallen in love with her definition of discipline as less of a duty and commitment and more of being led by spirit and belief that the work is important.  Schneider writes: To be disciplined as a writer you need a compassionate and welcoming attitude toward your own work, and you need the support of others who value and call forth your writing.  She goes on to say: Failure to be a "disciplined" writer--whatever you may mean by that--does not mean that you are not a "serious" writer...Often the phrase (not a seriuos writer) is used by a critic or a teacher referring to a writer whose work they don't like...Anyone who cares enough to take a course or a workshop is serious.  There is no place for this kind of arrogance.  The desire to write is serious.

Schneider asserts that discipline begins with understanding HOW YOU work...the patterns that we employ to bring a project to completion. Also, that discipline is a matter of love and not duty...when you love a thing you make time for the beloved and the love is the root that drives us.

The other thing I find myself doing while reading these two books is thinking over the parallels of how I developed as a poet and how I'm wanting to develop as a quilter.  I do wish I could employ that certainty and confidence I had when I was younger without over thinking.  Now, I have decades of experience to reflect back on and I tend to not want to loose any lessons that will help me develop my sense of voice or a least a signature body of work. As a result, I could be guilty of over thinking my quilt making.  Maybe (Cherryl) its not up to the creator of the work to identify the voice or signature and time spent worrying about whether one has one or not is wasted. (?????)

Incoming thought:  I have no idea of what to prepare for dinner today...its cold and I don't want to go out and the fridge is pretty close to bare.  Last night we had cranberry tuna salad, cheeses, pears, apples, grapes, crackers, and wine.  It satisfied me and to my surprise Peter enjoyed it.  Ade had burger and fries which he prepared himself.  He will be 16 on Sunday.  He is the youngest and has been so slow to mature.  We keep stressing to him that in two years he will be 18.  Lord help!

AH! I got it! I have 2 cans of lentil soup...that with some rice and baked sweet potatoes!  Push comes to a shove and something will always turn up!

Peace

Comfort Reading

Textural Rhythms: Quilts in a Jazz Tradition. WOW WOW AND WOW! I've been hesitant opening this book because handling it feels like unlocking gold at Fort Knox! The book is so exquisitely beautiful and designed that I question whether I should wear gloves while holding it, test the temperature and humidity of the room before lifting the cover!  Additionally, this book introduces Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi's first work from her own publishing company and poses a huge challenge for what will be her 2nd publication from Paper Moon.

There are several essays and a poem in the first half of the book all addressing the interlocking of jazz and quilts.  I can't get through a paragraph without having a near holy ghost or holy ghost moment...I get so excited and provoked in thought that I have to stop and have a dialogue with myself...the ideas from the 3 essays and 1 poem deliver testimony to the power of the word! And then the quilts providing a visual testimony to the power of the quilt to transcend any narrowly defined concepts of African American art.  And together, the essays and quilts, are underscored by their relationship to JAZZ.  My own personal testimony speaks to the effect that this book moves my mind to further ideas...After reading the first 2 essays and turning the pages to the quilts, my mind begins to see snippets of a staged performance with a jazz orchestra, a poetic sermon, the quilts in the back ground and dancers, all being filmed.  Can't you see it?  Wouldn't it be fabulous?  I was introduced to many new-to-me quilters and discovered Carole Harris.  Of course I had to google her to find more.  What I love is expansiveness of black/dark fabric with the abstract, bit wonky, traditional blocks.  Two of Valerie White's quilts are included in this exhibit and I've seen these quilts up close and personal so I know how fabulous they are and I keep waiting for a website.  I find her trademark to be how extremely well she executes on whole cloth to obtain a pieced look! 

Another book that I've been slowly digesting is my own copy of Speak, So You Can Speak Again: The Life and Times of Zora Neale Hurston.  Ms Hurston's niece, Lucy Anne Hurston and controller of her estate put this fabulous book together in the likeness of a scrapbook that include letters that she has sent and family photos as well as replicated copies of her first written works. Even a cd of her singing is included.  In one of her letters to either Booker T. Washington or W.E.B. DuBois she suggest the creation of a National African American Cemetary that would allow visitors to reconnect, comtemplate, and reflect on our struggle...I was so there and high-fived Zora across our planes of existence! HA!

The third item that I've buried my eyes in is Somerset's newest quarterly journal, Artful Blogging! Yes, and entire publication devoted to Bloggers with online journals dedicated to visual art and craft!!!  Among all the bloggers ran the theme of creating connection, community, and friendships through blogging...and it struck me that communicating in this way allows for a more relaxed way of maintaining individuality, whether communicating to oneself or with others.  Even those who had disconnected from writing expressed how blogging either reconnected them to the written word or developed the skill of writing for self-expression.  I hope some of you artful bloggers will check out the journal and consider submitting. 

The next gem on my list to read is Kyra Hicks' Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria.  And then my time will be devoured by school preparation for my petites...Mo for college and Ade in the 10th grade...both start in 2 weeks. 

I hope to get my screen printing experiment on here soon...I used the drawing fluid/screen filler method which I liked but messed up the designed by improperly applying the screen filler (ran it over the screen too often and scraped off some of the drawing fluid...came from thinking "I got this" when I should have re-read the directions again...lesson learned and duly noted).  I like using the drawing fluid/screen filler, so more exploring with it is in my future.

Peace,