When I first began stitching on cloth, I heard this expression more than once….not everything is a masterpiece! It is quite a humbling statement and one that keeps this artist from taking herself too seriously. It has been however, quite a long time since I have had to repeat this phrase…until today. It all started with […]
procrastination
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
Change is coming. It’s in the air. Can you feel it? I can for sure, but not in the way you might imagine! I have been fighting with these two pieces for quite some time. They are about fraternal twins for the Wisdom Gatherers series. Why are these two works troubling me so? One thing I […]
musings about the muse…
The other night when I was awake more than asleep I gave considerable thought to shutting down my blog. My reasons were three-fold: I can’t seem to post on a regular basis anymore, do I really want to share so much of myself online and is it even read it anymore? We all have so […]
where have i been?
Where have I been? Good question…After battling eyestrain and migraine much of the fall quarter, I made some lifestyle changes, which thankfully cleared that problem. With new tinted grey Rx glasses for the computer. I cut back on my screen time, and when I was on the computer taking breaks every hour or so. I […]
three down, three to go…
For most of my adult life I have felt that older women hold the wisdom this world so sorely needs. As young as 30 I longed to visit “old folks homes” and ask them about their stories. Life intervened, I never had time being a working Mom and wife, to pursue the idea. Fast forward […]
is this actually December 32?
Well, aren’t I the tardy one? I try to blog monthly but seemingly missed December entirely. I know artists who blog daily, although I doubt anyone’s life is THAT interesting? Weekly is also a challenge I don’t need; monthly seems doable. And yet here it is January 1 and I missed out on December. Unless […]
scraps as a metaphor…
When I first became a quilter in 1999, after 25 years as a weaver, I joked that I chose the former as I discovered I could buy cloth already woven. What I really discovered was how taking a whole cloth and cutting it into pieces and then sewing it back together is really such a […]
the weary life of a studio artist…
I’ve been actively limiting my screen time for two reasons, both related to over-use & my body complaining. After a three day migraine caused by a “small” volunteer project for a non-profit organization; a database update that required three documents to be open simultaneously and transferring data from those three to another file online while […]
drowning in paperwork…
Never have I claimed to be a voracious reader. That would be my daughter! How could two lousy comprehension slow readers produce a kid who reads everything she can get her hands on? And if she can’t find it, she writes it! It simply astonishes me. No, I am the plod along, always distracted (multi-task, moi?!) eventually […]
Too Much Information…
I spent the morning sorting through my Inbox. Not my email inbox but my IRL inbox. Yea, it’s a holdout from my office days that I still have a real life inbox. This one has no sense of urgency however, but rather a place to stash papers I want to remember, revisit or read later. […]
high anxiety elixir…
It’s rather remarkable to me that in this time of high anxiety I have been prolific at art-making. It seems everyone I talk to or read about, including myself, is struggling with anxiety during these “uncertain”, “unprecedented,” “troubling “(insert an adjective) times. It’s remarkable to me that as my body reacts to living in these […]
the muse is back…
A weird thing happened on the way to the pandemic..my creativity came back. A lot of folks are saying theirs has completely dried up, they are filled with anxiety and/or the only sewing they are doing is mask-making. My creative muse has been MIA since my dear friend and project partner Marion died, nearly a […]
on saying something…
Now that the bathrooms are mostly done; the last custom glass shower door goes in tomorrow and the window shades in early February; I have rehung art, that had been removed for construction. I rearranged some pieces and relegated a couple to the basement gallery. I added to our lavender bedroom wall my latest acquisition […]
redefining creativity…
We are now four weeks into a projected timeline of 4-6 weeks for a double bathroom renovation. Always the optimist, but also a realist, I recognize that it will likely run 6-8 weeks. Yet I choose not to complain, as it truly is a first world problem to complain about one’s home being renovated! It […]
restarting the engines…
As many of you know my creative mojo aka the muse went south just before Marion died in April. It has gotten progressively docile this summer, and brought the realization that this is likely the first summer of my entire life that I have relaxed! What a concept. Lately I have had several days where […]
on ‘adulting’….
As I forge on constructing a replacement quilt for our queen bed, I have been thinking about ‘adulting.’ I often wonder about words or expressions that suddenly take on meaning to other generations. One of those is the word adulting, which I gather applies to any task one does that implies responsibility & discipline, which btw […]
year end wisdom
At the end of each year I make a list of goals and intentions, primarily for my artwork. This year I also made another list, in Notes on my phone. This bonus list contained all the things I NEED to do in the new year, or if not then, when? It was a list of […]
new bed quilt…
Last year about this time I admitted out loud that I should design a new queen bed quilt for our room. The previous one I made 15-16 years ago is terribly thin and faded, although we still snuggle under it with two blankets this time of year. I kind of thought that by saying it […]
‘gun it granny…’
After two weeks of delightful procrastination I finally got back to machine stitching my latest work today. Today I woke too weary to walk, after driving 235 miles in traffic yesterday. While walking may have been the best thing for me, I decided instead to pamper myself and stay home, do laundry (oh boy, now […]
and another bites the dust…
I had lunch today with yet another friend who is leaving the state. I felt honored that she contacted me to go to lunch just days before she moves. Last we dined in January she mentioned they would likely move north at the end of this year. In late January they drove up to just […]
back at it…
2018 has been hectic thus far… took a short trip, got bad news about a friend’s health, got the flu and battled that for two weeks, followed by nearly three weeks of digestive issues. Now hoping that I am on the mend, I am pondering my next creative steps. I decided to do a no. […]
on intentions…
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because to me they imply something needs fixing and one is bound to fail. Who needs that? I’ve spent the last 40 years shedding things that make me feel badly about myself. I need not conjure up new ones. Instead I prefer intentions, or art goals. What would I […]
what I learned on my summer vacation…
We chose the perfect week to take an Alaska cruise as it was hotter than hell in the SF Bay Area the first week of September. We were instead basking in the autumnal glow of the Inside Passage and Gulf of Alaska. Normally autumn in the Bay Area is my favorite time of year, but […]
this and that…
I got into the pool the other day. So how is this earth shaking news? I used to swim all the time, at least three days a week for nearly 20 years. Then in 2014-16 I had this inexplicable weird thing going on in my replaced right knee, where it would fill with blood, rendering […]
musings…
In 2012 right after my Dad died and I was recovering from my second knee replacement, I felt like I needed a lifeline. I had been ruminating for at least two years beforehand about creating a mixed media women’s art group. So I chose 7 regional artists to join me, and six accepted. One from my past […]
how long did that take you?
There are two very predictable comments made to any person who works with cloth and thread: My grandmother was a quilter and how long did that take you to make that? Today as I finished stitching #10 in the collaborative series Defining Moments I was reminded of the latter. I was reminded when the stitching of the […]
on getting out of my own way…
I have spent most of this day fighting the voice that tells me I must go downstairs (to the cold basement) and create two new thermofax screens to print cloth for #11. This sense of urgency is based on two things; that #10 is nearly completely stitched and with 15 more to go, time is a […]
…on documentation and dawgs
A few years ago I added an important form of documentation to the categorization of my work. I put together a 3″ thick binder, in chronological order, of all the work I have made since 1998. Initially resistant to the idea as I already have a website and hardcopy portfolio; the reasoning behind this was posterity. […]
odds and other things…
This month other than the collaboration it has been a bit of odds n’ ends… I have finished #8, which I have yet to photograph, in the 25 pc collaboration and am in process of designing #9. I am loving this series so much as it continually challenges me in how to express each […]
studio purge…
Like several of my friends I got bitten by the TIDY bug and have done my clothes, most of my office and now taking a quick break from the collaboration to do the studio. The most important thing to mention off the top is I do not like clutter so I’ve continually sorted the studio […]
