Seamless Skin

Making quilts marks time

In comments to the previous post, Karen made the suggestion of using shear fabric for the auditioned letters...I was thinking transparency in either a sheer or using (the brand of inks I can never spell or say but begins with a t and has the word sun in it) inks. 

 I also thought about having the letters cast shadows to create even more depth which I think would work because of the glowishness of the yellow in suggesting light.  To quote from my lil' brotha's critique, "no...hell, no" on the letters...he thought it was too pretentious.  But as he also reminded me, its all up to me in the end, and he is right because the last time I checked I was three times seven and then some.

After more time spent Saturday meditating on it some more, I temporarily decided to wait some more...how profound, uh?  But that is all I could do, so with trusting the process, I moved onto a new piece that I wasn't feeling until I added the whiteish lines and then that opened me up to add the faces...there is a line in the poem that goes: African ghosts cry in sunset hours.  The faces appear ghost-like and also embody communion/community with the multiple prints. 

  The metallic-ey green is just too heavy at the top so I do know for sure that this piece will be cut up instead of keeping it a whole panel.   The names you see in the bigger letters are names found in the cemetery where many of my mother's side are buried.  The underlying poem written on the cloth is about a visit there some 18 years ago.  I was newly pregnant with my youngest son then.  The poems, the quilts, the children all help me keep and mark time, I don't trust my memory alone. 

 

Unreality Check

Yesterday I drove to my brother's place.  The further I drove away from the city the expanse of commercialism faded away and gave rise to more God-made substances of land, trees, and dirt.  I felt my mind and body relaxing more. 

Sometimes I'm aware that I'm romanticizing living "in the country" and a simpler life but every time I visit Midway, a small left leaning liberal town where people wave and human beings actually still get on their hands and knees to paint parking lines.  Every body picks up their mail at the post office...utility bills are kept in a ledger and the racial balance is enough to give psychic comfort.

 

Similiar to Berea, the state's arts and crafts capital, Midway feels like an artist's town full of quirky locals.  Ron has been there going on 2 years and his stories fulfill my fantasy. 

The picture below is of downtown Midway...these are shops that depend on tourists stopping in or folks from Lexington getting away for a day.  I've noticed the shops change frequently.  Ron said the owners tend to be from "someplace" else and he is of the opinion that the shop owners that stay are in this for hobby and fun mostly.  The train tracks run right down the center of the street.   And I guess back in the day (original day) this must have been a happening spot right before entering into Lexington.  In my sentimentality I imagine this was a great undercover spot for abolitionists to gather and strategize about their cause...I have no evidence of that but it just feels like that kind of space to me.

  The building in the background in the picture below is a modern day looking apartment building that looks totally out of place.  It was built as an apartment building and still is an apartment building...this is so wrong in Midway where most of the buildings' original intent have given way numerous times to arrive at whats in them now.

 

In my fantasy, I imagine living there in this house

or this one

   

secluded somewhere in one of the rooms making great quilted art and wrestling poems from the tip of my pen.  Family and friends would begin to worry if I'm still lucid and sane because I never leave the house and its been years since they've seen me but they would know that I'm having solo shows throughout the U.S. which is a sign that I must not be too "off".  Somewhere around the age of 125 I would sit down in my comfy chair (the same one I got off of Craigslist back in 2008) for some hand sewing and drift off to sleep and never wake up.  The End.

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!)

 

Monday Warm-up

Mondays are for warm-ups...Every Monday when I return to my workshop after two, sometimes three days away, I still experience awe...I look around and see that everything is as I left it...waiting for me. I spend the weekends planning and knowing in my head what I'm going to do come Monday...but I arrive and each Monday I've asked myself "okay, now, what am I going to do?".  I take a deep breath and start where I left off...unlike the first few weeks were I did busy work (beading on Red) to get use to the schedule, the space,...all the while churning and kneading ideas over and over.

The Poetry Series really excites me...I mean really really excites me, but I'm also aware that I feel very reverent for the work, for the process. And today, after years of not writing any new poems, it came to me that I need to write a new body of work that speaks to the future and is more current.  Writing poetry was just as intense and physical as creating quilted art, conjuring feelings of awe, reverence, and soul breaking open experience when something is working and I'm one with it.

I was in the workshop today for seven hours taking breaks every two hours for about 15-20 minutes.  I started and finished 8"x10" piece called 725-Prerequisite Study.  It was to audition the quilting pattern and threads which I think will work very well for these pieces.  Its important to me that every layer speaks to "rememory".  I almost added a Sankofa motif but decided against it because the quilt itself is Sankofa.

Here is a peak at it...I'll show it in it's entirety after it arrives to one of the Pay-It-Forward recipients.

It maybe a small piece but it took a big mess to get it done.  I usually straighten up before leaving because it makes me have more clarity when I return.  But I was too tired and left the mess as is: