Focus, baby, focus!

I haven’t figured out how to evenly balance quilting with triathlon training yet.  I’m not giving up on establishing myself in my studio or on meeting quilty folks here, but I am giving myself permission to focus on the triathlon right now.  The triathlon is a limited time offer and quilting is not.  I plan to be able to quilt long after I stop being capable of tri training.  So if you don’t see me here for a while then know that I’m likely to be in the water, on my bike, or running along dreaming of all the quilts I’ll make.  I’ll share them as I can.  (And I will try to figure out how to get off the webring so I don’t waste anyone’s time!)  If you’ve a mind to – come visit me at Stronger Than Before and share that part of the journey with me.  As I am not a natural athlete, I could use all the encouragement I can get and I love connecting with creative, quilty folks even when I’m not quilting much myself.

Ciao.

Stuck (Again)

I keep not being able to go to the guild meeting!  I’ve only gotten to go the first night I joined.  I’ve either had a sick child or been out of town or had some other family conflict.  It’s very frustrating.  In so many other ways I’m able to mark out time for my goals – even with such a big, busy family.  But what I do (triathlon training, writing, art) is fairly flexible about when it gets done.  If “my” time gets bumped, I make sure it’s just repositioned on the calendar.  This doesn’t work so well with a once-a-month guild meeting!  If I can’t go, I have to wait weeks and weeks for the chance to go again.  October, November, December, and January all down the tubes.  Oh well.

Up date on my projects:  it’s been stop and start but mostly stop.  I ripped out all the quilting on the Mer Girl’s tail because it conflicted with her scales in an unexpected way.  I’m also not super happy with the raw edge applique.  I got the book The Art of Landscape Quilting by Nancy Zieman and Natalie Sewell which was only sort of helpful for the Mer Girl, but  quite inspiring for other projects.  I’ve been sketching and auditioning fabrics for La Vie En Magnolia.  Blue, purple, blue, purple?

I’ve been disheartened about not getting to go to guild because I haven’t gotten to meet quilty friends the way I’d hoped to.  I don’t feel anchored here in my studio or my projects or my quilting community.  It takes time – not just passing but time put into those things to have them develop.  Donna and John decided to give me a push in the right direction and signed me up for a class on improvisational art quilting.  Creativity boost and a chance to meet people who quilt during the day like I do – all in one.  Isn’t that a sweet present?  The class isn’t until March (the January session not having been filled) but I’m enjoying the anticipation.  So – on my horizon are the class and the upcoming Feb guild meeting.  Maybe this spring will be quiltier than the winter has been!

Peace.

Mer Girl

One of the reasons I’ve had a hard time blogging – is that wordpress (which I used to like) has changed its format for posting pictures.  Now I can either post a HUGE picture or a link when before I used to be able to post a small picture.  Grrrr.  I then get stuck trying to chivvy the computer stuff instead of enjoying posting about quilting.  Obstacles!  Anyway, I started working on a simple 8 x 11 format quilt journal page.  I wanted to do something, anything just to get to play with fabric.  I used a woodblock print of a mermaid and changed her lines so that she’s holding up a race medal.  I put a jog bra/bikini top on her to match her scales.  I used fusible web to hold her pieces in place and I don’t know if it’s still called applique if I use free motion quilting to hold those on permanently.  I’ve got some great little beads to sew into her hair and to make dangles for the bottom of the page.  I love her white on white (pale and fishy) paisley skin.  Her hair is shiny amber/auburn.  I’m going to put a tiny little bicycle tattoo on her right shoulder.  She’s my avatar for my goals this year.  I’ll post another picture when I get her further along.  Peace.

Journal Page quilt

Magnolia Seeds

I will try to get some pictures, but in my continuing obsession with all things magnolia, I spent some time yesterday examining the bright red seed pods coming out of their cones on the magnolia trees at the elementary school.  They had white strings attached to them.  I’d never noticed that before.  I’d also never seen the pods close up just before the seeds emerged.  Each seed window was turning pink and bulging out.  Then two fronds parted and the seed poked out.  It looked to me like a row of dancers with their hands clasped above their heads – with the seeds being the dancer’s heads peeking out from the arms.  I think I’d like to do a small series of quilts of the magnolia parts (leaf, bloom, seed pod) and which ever parts are not in the piecing will be the motif in the quilting.  (E.g. the leaf quilt will have seed pods and blooms in the quilting.)  I’d also like to do a small series of the phases – follow the bloom from tight bud through opening and into burned up, shriveled mess.  And of course I want to do a GREAT BIG magnolia blossom piece – but I want it to be monochromatic in purple (or magenta or blue).  Still thinking.  Still sketching.  Still writing.  Still observing.  No quilting, cutting, or piecing.  Sometimes my percolation time is long indeed.

That First Step Is A Doozy

Despite my best intentions, my quilt blog is perhaps the most neglected blog on the planet. It is only slightly less neglected than my quilt studio. I have had so little quilty goodness to report – and so many other life challenges that I haven’t seen my way clear to write about it. I’ve recently been reminded about baby steps. Baby steps are those tiny, teetering steps that are so celebrated when little ones take them – and so reviled when a big person tries them. In an effort to take joy in my process (instead of choking it into nothingness), I’m going to acknowledge my challenges and record my tiniest steps.

Challenges -

1) Moving 500 miles to a new state (good but hard)

2) Big, fat, horrid custody battle with the ex (bad, all bad)

3) Having 8 people under one roof (and sometimes 15 people, and for six weeks 9 people, yet soon only 8.)

4) Eastern Time Zone (It’s kicking my butt! Growing up in the far eastern edge of the Central Time Zone has set my body clock to surprisingly different expectations about light and dark and time. AND people here start things later or have them go later. Quilt guild meeting was still going at 9:30 pm! I had to sneak out. I wonder if I’ll ever adjust.)

Steps:

1) I did join a local quilt guild (but it’s HUGE and a little scary and did I mention they meet LATE?)

2) I bought myself a book on bead embroidery because I have long wanted to embellish my quilts and have had zero confidence in my hand sewing. Replacing buttons has been historically difficult to me – so teeny little seed beads were intimidating as heck. YET – I made myself just try. I sat one whole evening playing. Oh my happy artist baby – getting to play – having it be ok if the beads were all higgledy-piggledy.

3) I did FINALLY unpack my whole quilt studio. I haven’t quite got it set up the way I want it (because I have to save and build and engineer some) but the space is marked out, the fabric is out where I can see it, my tools and rulers and gizmos are all accessible.

4) I have started sketching some ideas for a quilt I want to put in the guild quilt show next year. That gives me enough time – and actually coincides with my triathlon training goals. For me running and quilting go hand in hand. If I’m not doing one, then I’m probably not doing the other.

5) I did immediately locate a wonderful, local quilt shop. I was even brave enough to go in, buy a few things, and introduce myself. Yay me!

Inspiration:

Right after we got here, I went with my partner to the NC State School of Architecture. She is putting together her portfolio to submit there for the Master’s program. While there, I saw a notice on the bulletin board looking for someone to be a marketing intern for a local artist. Then I saw that the artist was HOLLIS CHATELAIN! She is (and has long been) one of my very favorites. For a nanosecond I considered applying as a way to meet her. But – not quite the impression I’d like to give, really. “Hello – I would be the suckiest marketing intern ever, so you shouldn’t even think about hiring me, but I wanted to waste your valuable and probably limited time by finangling an interview in order to meet you. I just love your work.” Uh no. Still! She lives close by. She might give workshops. I might could meet her without having to wear a nametag that says STALKER.

I love it here. It’s a great place to take art steps of any size. Diversity is valued. Community is considered important. Art is everywhere. People are outside and together. My roots may be tentative tendrils now but I think eventually they’ll be deep and nourishing anchors here.

Peace.

That Back To School Feeling

I always loved that “back to school” feeling. The excitement of starting a new grade, being old enough to learn new things, having the chance to see my friends again – all of it thrilled me to the tips of my newly shod toes. Perhaps, though, the thing I liked best about the start of school was the clarity, the blank slate, the clean start. I hadn’t screwed up (yet). My system wasn’t messy. I was able to “track” everything that was coming at me (for the nonce). I know now that anxiety runs deeply throughout my family and that perfectionism is often a panic-born, coping mechanism gone amok. I look back and see that the fresh start of each school year was a time when I was momentarily free from the harping of my internal critic, a time when my perfectionism was quiescent. I had breathing room and hope and the chance to create a structure anew for myself that, with a little luck, would carry me through the rougher parts of the year.

My most successful classes all had one thing in common: I was able to devise from the get go a study pattern, note taking system, or mental structure for processing the class. No mental clutter had a chance to build up and I had access to my own understanding of the subject matter. The classes where I sucked wind were the ones where I ended up behind before I started, where I was given wads of information I couldn’t digest, sort, and understand fast enough. Once I started mentally piling things in corners, it was all over for me – I rarely caught up enough to do particularly well. Usually I didn’t do horribly, but I was left feeling frustrated because I knew that I could have done way better if I’d gotten into the right rhythm sooner.

I remember the intense “rightness” of my first week in Algebra II: I had the exactly most beautiful purple spiral notebook with pocket folders; I understood the expectations of the class perfectly upon reading the first syllabus; I never once doubted my eventual “A” after the first week of perfect 100’s on four homeworks and the first weekly quiz. I also vividly remember the sinking feeling I had the first few days of Chemistry. I had been looking forward to taking Chemistry for two years. I was fascinated by the articles on brain chemistry my grandmother had sent me. Chemistry and I were going to get along! Much to my dismay, my enthusiasm, electric blue notebook, new set of highlighters and colored pens for notes mattered not. The first night I eagerly read the first chapter in the text book. Baffled, I re-read it. Then I went back and read every word of the introduction to see what I had missed. I still had NO IDEA what the book was talking about. Frantic, I read the next two chapters thinking that they might give me information that would make the first chapter make sense. In-class discussion didn’t help and my classmates seemed perplexed by what I didn’t get. From the first day of that year – I had a mess of information that I had no way to process. With a tutor’s help and a natural penchant for memorization, I eked out a “B” but I was bitterly disappointed not to grok Chemistry. To this day, Chemistry feels like an undigested rock in my mental gut. (Do you think my brain has a gut?)

I am no longer in school, but I still yearn for that “back to school” feeling. What I struggle with now is that there are fewer opportunities for “do overs”. The obvious clean slates are rare. Yes, yes, every day is a new day (blah, blah, recovery talk, blah) – but more often than not each new day brings with it a continuation of a situation, event, or mindset that is already muddied, mixed, and has strings attached. My recovery, my commitment to my creative self requires that I reach through the inspirational, sappy talk – through the mixed-up, integrated mess that is daily life – to demarcate clear zones WITHOUT unhealthily compartmentalizing my self. It is such a balancing act!

Strive for excellence! And also, relax! Require integrity! And also, compassion!

Today, I realized that it might help me later on if I could “track” a specific project from beginning to end so I added a new category. I was tickled to have come up with such a potentially useful idea, right here at the beginning of my quilt blogging ways! It gave me a huge rush of that back to school feeling. I have a fresh start and enough time to develop just what I need to create a system that works for me. I want to cultivate that in all aspects of my artistic life. I have to keep reminding myself that I am the only one putting obstacles in the way of that!

Peace.

Wednesday 12:31 pm

They Don’t Last Forever You Know

Burned Blossom

Delayed by business appointments, art dates, and rain – I finally got up in the tree today. I did not find the luscious, glorious magnolia blossom I was looking for. I found a burned up, bug-ridden blossom mid-collapse. Sigh.

What ran through my head as I looked through the viewfinder was, “Feed me Seymour!” As I look at this picture now though, I have to admit this bloom is MUCH more interesting than your standard grandiflora at its prime. Interesting, somewhat scary, and waaaay less pretty. I was going for pretty. (I realize that there is an element of artistic immaturity in plain ole pretty. I don’t care. I LIKE pretty. I was going for pretty.) The somewhat scary threw me. The less pretty is making me rethink. The image is growing on me. I notice that it is not really as burnt and ugly as I first thought.

Strangely, the way the edges of the petals are curling in upon themselves reminds me of Edith Piaf at the end of her life (in the movie). She was portrayed as physically folding in on herself. (She’s seen throughout the movie as curved in some ways. Her shoulders are never really thrown back. The effect is just so much more pronounced at the end where she looks like her life is being sucked down and out of her through her belly button.) The way the movie was shot, there was layering and overlapping in the chronology. The story just didn’t unfold all at once and progress linearly. I don’t mean the film was told in a series of “flashbacks”. It was much more organic feeling than that. Parts of the story played out in their entirety and other parts were only glimpsed. You felt the whole plot was advancing but you kept getting different time perspectives. At the very end some elements looped back and you saw her again, young, in her prime. At the last minute, even as she lay dying, you learned something the story hadn’t told you yet – and that linked her disintegration back to her wholeness and beauty. THAT is why my pathetic blossom reminds me of the dying Edith of La Vie En Rose.

Clearly my blossom is not long for this world. Still, though – as the petals brown and drop away, as the bugs invade and the integrity of the blossom collapses – there remains magnolia-ness: that fragrance, the center fruit, a few last traces of ivory.

I’m drawn to doing something with this. NOT some schmaltzy “Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may” thing. I’m much more interested in a piece about appreciating the beauty that remains – if I can pull that off. I had to take a good look to see the remaining beauty for myself – so I don’t know what I’d have to do to pull off a piece that would merit enough looking to allow the beauty remainder to come to the fore. Therein lies a challenge, eh?

And, er, I still want the pretty magnolia quilt. Sparky, spark, spark. Purple magnolias, classic magnolias, burned up and dying magnolias… I may hate magnolias before I even get to the cutting of the fabric. (But I doubt it!)

Peace.

Tuesday, 7:37 pm

Blossoms, Interrupted

I still haven’t made it up the ladder to get my magnolia blossom photos. Instead I got to see the powerful movie “La Vie En Rose” about Edith Piaf. Despite a college degree in French language and literature, I really knew very little about Edith Piaf. I knew of her icon status, the bare bones of her “Cinderella” story, and of course I’d heard many recordings of her voice. The movie was astounding: disturbing and enlightening, fascinating and repulsive by turns, and extraordinary overall. The first time young Edith Piaf sings in the movie, she sings “La Marseillaise”. I would pay full price to go see it again for that scene alone.

After supper, Donna and I had an “artists date” (a la Julia Cameron). We went to Michael’s to get black and white paper and x-acto knives (my studio being already packed for the move!) We played around with the “expanded square” exercise suggested by Jane Dunnewold that we found in the current issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. Mine is a simple copy of one of the examples in the book. I needed to figure out how it worked before venturing out into my own design. Donna’s square, though, takes one of our favorite motifs (the sea turtle) and makes a beautiful expanded square. (I’m disappointed in the pictures because they show marks that you cannot see in person! Too bad I didn’t remember to buy a real eraser when we were getting supplies! In real life the contrast is sharp and the pictures look clean. These photos will at least give you the idea.) Also – I used to be have the option of putting a thumbnail picture in that was expandable. This morning I only seem to be able to put the title in. Click the title to see the photo.

exp-square-turtle.jpg

Expanded Square Geometric

Blossoms to follow?

Peace.

Monday, 8:01 am

Blossoms!

There are big, fat blossoms on my magnolia tree here – when I thought they were played out and burned up for the year! I have an appointment for the next few hours but as soon as I get back I’m going to drag out the ladder and my camera. (The blooms are 15 feet up in the air, wouldn’t you know!) I don’t know if it’s been the rain or the slightly cooler temperatures – but I am so grateful!

On Becoming A WIP

I’ve been thinking about where the transition point is (for me) between a quilt spark and a work in progress (WIP). I have thousands of sparks, a couple of flames, and only a handful of roaring campfires to show for it. I suppose that’s a normal ratio. The problem is that I have such hope in the spark stage that I have to avoid thinking about the spark’s chances or I feel defeated from the get go! I try to remind myself of how much I learn from the little studies, the sketches that end up in the trash, and the pieces that turn out completely differently than I expected. Sometimes a spark is fine as it is – without having to become something grander to be worthy.

But today I have a spark that I want very much to shepherd all the way through the process! I’ve been working on some ideas I have for a magnolia quilt. I love magnolia grandifloras. They represent the best of what is Southern to me. I love that they are a symbol of welcome here. They are also beautiful on a grand scale. I remember planting one with my father when I was four. Recently I drove by that house to see that 35 year old magnolia towering over the houses around it. They are glorious. Dark, shiny leaves. Huge, intoxicating blooms. Crazy, curly centers. Interesting, hard, brown seed pods. I find magnolias both inviting and overpowering. One of the things that drew me to the house we’re buying are the magnolias by the driveway. We have a “circular” drive – that is really a straight line going through our corner lot property. I suppose since it connects one street to the other, it’s a circle? At each end of the circular drive there is a magnolia. I’ve named them “Going” and “Coming” but we’re debating which is which!

These are pictures of them (click to see them larger). Once they are officially ours, I’ll get much closer with my camera. I can’t wait for Spring so I can take pictures of the leaves and blossoms as they unfurl. I’ve been sketching from some famous photos of magnolia blossoms. This photograph by Imogen Cunningham is a favorite of mine.

I am intrigued by the shadowing and the detail of the curlicues. For me one of the challenges of working with magnolia blossoms as a quilt theme will be the subtlety of the color. I am more comfortable working with lots of color and abstract designs. Also focusing on something so recognizable is something for me to think about. People have expectations about what magnolia blossoms “should” look like. I want mine to be identifiable as a magnolia flower but I also want to put my mark on it. As far as my quilt goes – I’m Mother Nature! I’ve been sketching petals and cutting up photographs in order to rearrange the elements. I’ve toyed with doing something monochromatic but not necessarily “magnolia colored” (although I want it said I love the candlit look of the flowers against the dark and serious green leaves). But what if I made my magnolia blossom in purples? If I worked very hard and got the subtlety of shading right, and the shape, and the details on the curlicues – but it was all purple? Would that read as “magnolia”? Would it be too Warhol? Would it be fun? Or disappointing? It doesn’t have to be that I do either the one or the other. I’m much more of an and/both kind of gal. Magnolias interest me enough that I could definitely play around with them for more than just one piece!

Here I am – all sparked up. And I begin to wonder when do the sparks officially catch the tender? When do my sketches, photos, cut up petals, etc become a work in progress. Is it when the scissors hit the fabric? Or are we already there? It doesn’t matter, really. It’s just that I have the leisure to analyze my process and ask questions about it. Whenever I do that, I start wondering about other quilter’s process. That’s where my head is today. Process and magnolias. And no fabric in sight.

Peace.