Ruth B. McDowell

I live in awe of Ruth B. McDowell. Her piecing is astounding. I’m not even a good enough piecer to understand half of the instructions she gives in her books. One of my personal goals is to become technically proficient enough to take a class from Ruth.

I love that she works with commercially available fabrics. (Don’t get me wrong – hand dyed fabrics are beautiful but I admire the amazing shading and detail she pulls out of fabrics that are available to me!)

Her quilted folks are inspiring – and I usually do NOT like people in quilts. Her pieced people quilts tell stories that are fun and inclusive. Her sense of play is refreshing and soothing. There is a quality about Ruth McDowell’s work that invites the viewer right in.

I know her flowers and vegetables are popular. I have to admit I don’t actually understand the draw to quilts of vegetables – but to each her own. Some people probably do not understand my thing about rocks. Ruth McDowell obviously does. This is the first quilt I will buy when I win the lottery. Until that happens, I guess I will keep spending money on every book she publishes.

Peace.

Electronic Sketchbook

There is a fabulous article about the value of keeping a sketchbook in the current issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. Images, textures, doodles, words, symbols – art scraps of all kinds can be added to your sketchbook to be mined later for quilt ideas. I love all of that. I LOVE to look at people’s sketchbooks the way I love to peek into studios. The only problem for me is that keeping a sketchbook doesn’t work for me. I end up frustrated with my drawings, losing the pictures I’ve crammed into it, wearing my shoulder out lugging it around, and on and on. The critical monkey voice inside throws this out at me as evidence I’m not a “real” artist. Can’t even keep a sketch book, so there.

I haven’t had any ammo to fight back with so mostly my response to that inner voice has been a weak, “Shut up.” In the last few days there has been a change. I’ve begun to realize that I have my own idea incubation methods and tools that are every bit as valid as the traditional sketchbook. I love taking my own pictures and the digital photography revolution has made that so accessible. In learning to take, store, and manipulate my own pictures – I’ve begun to rely on my trusty mac notebook (Veronica) to manage and protect what I think of as my quilt sparks. Yesterday I realized Veronica was an electronic sketchbook of sorts. Images, words, links to sites about techniques, tools, artists – I have it all right here. Veronica is every bit as easy to lug around as my old sketchbooks and since I’m a writer to boot, she does double duty. I do lose the texture of fabric scraps stuffed in between pages and the freedom to sketch my own designs but that’s not much of a loss to me. I’m way more comfortable sketching in my studio from ideas I’ve gone out into the world and brought back and by the time I get to the stage that I’m carrying around textured material, I want it all in the WIP’s basket or on my design wall – not stuffed in a book.

I don’t know what the elusive hallmarks are of being a “real” artist. I suspect that if I took the trouble to define them here and now and later achieved them all, that my monkey critic would still babble about not being good enough. I find that sad. Part of my journey is to look for ways to diminish the power of that joy-sucking voice. I love that the score for today is:

Veronica and I: +1

Screeching Monkey: 0

Peace.

Do What You Can When You Can

Quilts to follow soon someday.  It may appear silly to start a blog about my art quilt journey when I am in no position to quilt for the immediate future – but that’s part of the journey is it not?  So what if I have my studio packed up in preparation for a move of over 500 miles to a state I’ve never lived in before?  So what if even after the move I’ll still have five kids at home until school starts?  So what if I’m only at the very beginning of my journey as an artist?  What I can do today is incubate ideas for new projects, research new skills, tools, and techniques, and start a blog to document it all.  So that’s what I’m doing today.

Peace.