Another Exciting Class...

Last week my quilt guild had its monthly class, and I fearlessly jumped in, ready to learn new stuff and push my envelope. It was taught by Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer, an artist I'd never heard of before taking the class, but hoo, boy... was I glad I took the chance. DH asked the usual questions as I was packing up fabric and supplies the night before, "What's THIS class about? Who's the teacher THIS time? Why do you have to take THIS particular class?" My answers were less than informed, and, once again, he just didn't get it. But that's part of the fun for me... leap before you look... hold nose tightly and cannonball butt-first off the high dive... dash in headlong with eyes wide shut... you just might learn something wonderful. And I did! The class was about curved piecing where we used a quick and easy method of slicing through two layers of fabric and reassembling them to create gentle curves and a sense of flowing lines. While I've done a lot of curved piecing in some of my quilts, this was a new and more expansive method, and creates an entirely different look than other methods I've tried. Because the class was large, and cutting space and irons were at a premium, I only got about halfway through my project, but I'm looking forward to finishing it, and am already planning to do a few more pieces in this style using other colors. Now that I know the fundamentals, and will have my big work table, my own iron and my stash nearby, I should be able to haul ass on the next few quilts! The best thing... this is a perfect use for the tons of gorgeous hand-dyed fabrics I've bought over the years from Judy Robertson at Just Imagination.

It Happens To All Of Us...

Feeling a bit like chunky David, Martin and I have begun working at offloading some of our lard. We've stopped drinking (can you believe that???), we're eating muuuuuch better as well as much less, we're taking walks of at least a mile 5-6 times a week, Martin's working out with weights and I'm doing aerobic dancing. Talk about culture shock! I'm exhausted, Martin's crabby, and we're both frustrated! Not much is showing up on the scales yet (why do we Americans place so much importance on the damned scales???), but I have to admit I FEEL better - even though I'm tired, I'm feeling more alive and finding it easier to get up at 8:00 in the morning instead of 11:00. I get so much more done every day... imagine that... and can even say I've taken a self-esteem boost (badly needed). My creativity has gotten a much needed jolt, though I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the fact that I recently dumped a job that was draining me of every ounce of emotion and creativity I had. Well, nobody has ever said losing weight is easy, but, for the first time in memory, we both feel totally committed to this endeavor. If that doesn't help us succeed, there's no hope!

Ugh...!

This butt-ugly combination of fabrics was presented to my quilt guild as the fabrics for this year's challenge. I think we received them in June, and, since that time, they've been hanging on one of the design walls in my studio while I look at them every day and wonder what in hell I'm going to do with this ghastly mix. I have until November 1 to decide what to do and get it done. Today I finally came up with an idea after looking through a Ruth McDowell book. I'm going to take a bunch of other butt-ugly fabrics in my FQ stash (f.q.s which came to me by way of swaps in which I never should have participated, but once in hand I just couldn't bear to part with because they might be just what I wanted some distant day). Well, that day is here and I'm going to combine all these B-Us and create some fabulously ugly, giant, garish Ruth McD-style flowers. They'll be perfect fodder for experimenting - I've never tried Ruth's method of making flowers, so this is the perfect fabric to use, since I don't give a flying fig if I waste any!

Hidey Hole

Now that the weather is cooling down (finally!) the cats are beginning to search out cozy spots to spend the night. Although his seventeen pound bulky self barely fits inside, Domenico has staked out the kitty cube as his sanctuary.

Another New Kid in the Family...

Here's our World Wildlife Federation adoptee for this month - a Douc Monkey, who comes from the tropical forests in China and Southeast Asia. As usual, they're endangered due to habitat loss and illegal pet trade. Doucs are considered one of the most beautiful of all primates because of their brilliant and striking coloration. There are three species of Doucs found in the Greater Mekong - the red-shanked (like our guy), the black-shanked and the grey-shanked. The Grey-Shanked Douc is one of the world's 25 most endangered primates. Some interesting stuff: Like all monkeys, Doucs are social animals and live in groups. Their remarkably long tails, which, in some cases, are as long as their entire body height, are not prehensile, but are used solely for balance. They are aerial specialists - very agile, frequently making breathtaking leaps of up to 20 feet - pushing off from a branch with their feet, leaping with their arms over their heads and landing feet first on another branch. They live most of their lives in the upper and middle canopy of trees, rarely descending to the ground. Perhaps for this reason, they don't drink water, but acquire needed moisture from their food. I really like the face of this critter - he looks so Zen - very wise and content. He lives on the organ in my studio, and keeps me calm when my practice sessions get hairy.

Big Brother Love

Lucia has been feeling fragile ever since the arrival of the new kittens... perhaps because she feels a sense of competition in the "Cute" department. We're doing our best to assure her she doesn't have to worry about being out-cuted, but she isn't convinced yet. Fortunately, big brother Domenico is always on hand to comfort her.

Wow! Dig this Solanum lycopersicum...

This monster arrived in today's veggie box - one pound fourteen ounces - the biggest tomato I've ever seen. It has a ways to go to beat the heaviest tomato ever (7 lb 12 oz, grown by Gordon Graham, of Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986), but it'll make enough tomato sauce for a decent dinner for the two of us tonight. With the going price of organic tomatoes at $4.99 this week, this sucker would have set me back almost ten bucks!
Did you know tomatoes are also called "Love Apples"? That comes from the French, 'pomme d'amour'... leave it to the French to come up with a romantic name for just about anything. How about, "Wolf Peaches" - that 's the meaning of the word "lycopersicum".
More facts you shouldn't have to live without:
-Tomatoes are fruits, not vegetables
-Tomatoes were long thought to be poisonous, because they're members of the Nightshade family
-Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes
-Tomatoes were grown by the Aztecs in Mexico who called them "xitomatl", meaning "plump thing with a navel"
-There are about 7500 varieties of tomatoes
-Tomatoes, along with zucchini, are one of the most common garden fruits grown in the United States. and, like zucchini, have a reputation for outproducing the needs of the grower.

Ah... isn't Google wonderful...?! I'm allowed to waste time today because I went to the ophthalmologist this morning and had the eye-dilation thing done, so all I can do is sit in my dark computer room and wish I were outside in the bright sun watching my tomatoes outproduce my needs!

Happy Birthday, David!

Today, over fifty enthusiastic friends got together in an afternoon of fabulous food and wonderful music, to celebrate the 90th birthday of one of Vallejo's most amazing citizens, David Koven - Artist, Philosopher, Anarchist, Writer, Photographer, Outspoken Radical, World Traveler, Connoisseur of Fine Music, Poet, Mentor, Cook Extraordinaire, and Co-founder of Berkeley's Walden School. David has been a true hero in my life since we first met in the Vallejo Artists' Guild fifteen years ago. He single-handedly dug himself out of a poverty-stricken childhood in one of New York's toughest neighborhoods, to become the most civilized man I know. He is truly a Renaissance Man, and I'm so proud to call him a friend.

donnio, Vallejo's Numero Uno portrait photographer, did this poster, which exemplifies the true David...

Lost In A Sea of Cute...

There's nothing like a herd of new kittens to liven up the place and distract us from doing anything useful! Nothing much has been going on here this week except for a whole shitload of kittten-watching.


While we kitten-watch, the kittens bird-watch...

Yoda only thinks he's a kitten... It's been hot again this week, and this is his way of staying cool.

Fantastic Class!!

Susan Shie, one of my art quilting heroes, was in California this past weekend and taught a class at my guild, East Bay Heritage Quilters. It's been almost ten years since I was lucky enough to take a class with Susan, so I was ecstatic when I found out I'd jumped off the waiting list and into the class! It was two days of solid fantasmagory! We journaled, painted, sewed, let our inner child run riot, and just generally celebrated. Each day the class chose a theme and did our painting based on the theme.
On day one, the theme was "Tomatoes". My piece features my tomato-killer cat, Sarah and our three new kittens, LaVerne, Maxene and Patty. Whenever I buy tomatoes, or pick them from the garden, I can't leave them unprotected on the kitchen counter for a second, or else Sarah will chomp into every tomato in sight. She isn't satisfied to attack just one - she has to massacre the lot of them. My fear is she will teach the little ones her "skills".

The theme for the second day was "Dreams." My painting depicts my "dream" garden - a garden of peace where there's enough food for everyone, enough flowers to decorate the world, and everyone gets along, including the cats and birds. On day one, I experienced the paints running and the color going outside the lines... sometimes waaaay outside the lines. I know this is no big deal, and is perfectly okay, but I wanted to experiment with using thicker paint and applying it to dry fabric, instead of sloshing water all over the place. Because it took so long for the paint to dry, I didn't get the picture finished, but I'm going to heat set what I have, and then forge ahead.

Both of these pieces are in the earliest stages, with lots more work to be done - journaling, quilting, embellishing, and other stuff I haven't even thought of yet. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to work with Susan - I learned so much! I'm already looking forward to the next time I can take one of her classes. I just hope I don't have to wait another ten years!
NOW...HERE'S THE BEST PART...
I was able to buy a Susan Shie Original!!!
It's just the painting and I get to finish it - sew it, bead it, embellish it, quilt it, add a border, whatever I want!! How cool is that? Here it is... Saint Quilta and her Studio Blessing.

Another Fun Field Trip...

Today I attended an open house at Schoenstein & Company pipe organ plant. They recently moved their operations from their tiny San Francisco facility to an enormous new plant in Benicia, about ten miles from where I live. Hundreds of people attended, and we noshed on wonderful food while wandering about the 30,000 square foot state-of-the-art factory. A new, two-manual, 17 rank instrument bound for St. James Episcopal Church in New York City, is just about ready to ship, and was available for "open console" where anyone could sit down and play this magnificent instrument. The ranks of pipes were not enclosed in their chests yet, and thus were exposed, enabling guests to walk among the ranks of pipes, and experience the sound of the organ from the inside. And what an experience it was - quite earth-shaking in several instances, when a couple of show-offs let it rip with some bombastic Bach!

The console was set up in the main assembly shop, just in front of the erecting bay housing the pipes.

The erecting bay, complete with bridge crane, is 42 feet high and enables Schoenstein to build any size instrument.

Ever been inside the business end of a pipe organ? It's damned, fraggin' awesome - especially when someone's playing the instrument!

Today's Laundry Helper

Domenico

Gerald, Elvis, Ralph and Lucia await their turn to "help"... Lucky me!

Like Pulling Teeth...

The plaintive question, "What's wrong with those people?", has probably been asked by church organists ever since the invention of the church organ. "Those people", of course, refers to the members of the congregation, and the "what's wrong" part refers to another question... "why in hell aren't they singing???" With regards to singing in church, I've always been a strong believer in the old saying, "He/She who sings, prays twice." Now, I'm not a praying woman, but, nevertheless, I feel raising one's voice in praise of The Eternal One is one of the most uplifting and energizing things a person can do. I've always been a big fan of Anglican Hymns - I love their British Swagger, wonderful melodies and lofty words. I like Gospel music too, but the only church jobs I've had have been for predominately white congregations, and, another "true-ism" among church organists is that trying to get a bunch of white folks to sing anything even remotely resembling Gospel is a waste of time and energy. The newest music I've been obliged to play in church is something called "Praise Music." This stuff is schlocky crap. I can hardly stand any it, but I play it because I'm paid to play it. I do try to give it my best effort, and have to admit, every once in a while, I find a rocking piece that I come close to liking - as in Jesus Is The Rock and He Rolls My Blues Away.  Most white folk actually like that song, and sing it as though they mean it - some, amazingly enough, even clap, switch their hips, snap their fingers, and jive a little. For the most part, and most of the time, though, no matter what I'm playing, I feel as though I'm pulling the congregation along by the nose through lukewarm taffy. After last Sunday's attempt to lead the congregtants in an up-tempo song, I was inspired to create this journal page:

 

Baby Congratulations Card

Now, this has got to be the coolest piece of mail I've received in the 43 years since I received the last card of this ilk. It came from my friend Susan, who constantly amazes me with her creativity. This is actually a postcard, and it really did come through the mail... arriving totally unscathed! But... the coolest thing - look at the stamp... it's a legit stamp, and it's got Susan's mug on it!! I've heard you could do this, but I've never seen it. I've GOT to find out how!

New Family Members

I'm sure there are those who will say we've totally lost it, and, maybe we have... but, lost or not, we've done it again - we've rescued some more cats. Our population now stands at 24... an even two dozen... that's a nice number, wouldn't you agree? We always name our kids after musicians, and this trio of lovelies are named for the gorgeous and hugely talented Andrews Sisters.


Patty


LaVerne


Maxene

Field Trip

Yesterday I went to San Francisco to see an exhibit of glass art by Dale Chihuly at the deYoung Museum. Only one word applies here... "Overwhelming"! The sheer volume of the artist's work is mind-boggling, but the work itself is so imaginative, colorful, unique, varied, fanciful, extravagant, and yada, yada, yada! Behold...


A 200 square-foot forest of glass...


This vase is over 3 feet tall...


These flowers are two feet wide...


These bowls are three feet wide and two feet deep...


Dozens of 3-5 foot glass rods embedded in a tree stump...

More...

A row boat full of glass globes...

Another row boat filled with amazing gee-gaws...

How would you like this six-foot chandelier over your dining room table?

Overheard being uttered by a dumpy dowager, as she swept by them without a second glance: "Oh, these are just ordinary vah-zezs..." Who needs taste when you're a dumpy dowager...

A neon jungle...

Last, but not least...

The Christmas Tree/Channukah Bush of my dreams!

This 25-foot tall structure is illuminated at night - sure wish I could have seen that, though it was plenty impressive in daylight.

The Color Purple

The weekend prompt for The Art Journal Group was to pick a color and make it the subject of a journal page. Purple is my favorite color, and I probably have more purple fabric than any other color, so it was an easy choice for me. I've concocted a mix of my favorite things - cats, aardvarks, flowers, a Day of the Dead skull and a Sacred Heart. It was hard to call it finished without adding a few beads and some glitzy stitching, but my UFO bin is still overflowing, so I have to move on!

More Basil! YAY!!

Today's Riverdog Farm veggie box granted my wish for more basil, and also included these beautiful little Orange Blossom and Early Girl baby tomatoes. They'll all dance together with some angel hair pasta and chunks of fresh mozzarella for tonight's dinner. (Oh, yes, and a glass of Smoking Loon cabernet!)

Music of My Hands

Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor is a fiendishly difficult work I've dreamed of playing since the first time I heard it decades ago. I honestly believe The Master was seriously honked off at someone when he wrote the piece - the Fantasia is a violent, gnashing collection of more notes than it's possible to count, and the Fugue goes like a bat out of hell as it rips over the keyboards, with a pedal part that would give Michael Flatley a run for his money. All of that aside, it's one of the most glorious organ works in the entire repertoire, and I lust to be able to play it!
A recent journal "prompt" from the moderator of my online Art Journal group, was to create a journal page using our hands as the subject. So on my page my left hand (always the most difficult part for me to learn) is effortlessly spewing out the notes of the fugue motif and I'm really playing the piece! Ah... maybe one day...!

First Bug Quilt

For the past month I've been a member of a Yahoo group working with this book. It's a fun book, full of ideas, exercises, examples, and links to art quilters' websites, and, even though I've made art quilts for almost a decade, I'm discovering new ideas and ways to think about designing and constructing my future art quilts. The group is studying one chapter a month, and I, and most of the other participants, will be making a small quilt every month utilizing techniques and methods discussed in each chapter. Each of us chose a "theme" for our series, and I chose "Bugs". I've never worked in a series before, so I'm looking forward to the challenge. Below is my Chapter 1 quilt. Though it's difficult to see, I made my first attempt at free-motion machine quilting, and it came out really well. Like the organ lessons, this is another example of "why did I wait so long???!"

Happy Birthday!

My husband celebrated his 58th birthday last week, and this is the card the cats gave him. They claim to like what I've been doing with my journal pages, and said it was okay for me to make one for his card. Since, unlike dogs, cats can experience color, I made it as bright as possible, using a piece of fabric I hand-dyed for the background.

Goodbye, Tony

Today I was privileged to play for the funeral of Tony Cenotti, the husband of Fran, my friend and co-worker. Tony came from a large and loving Italian family, and lived a typical Italian Larger-Than-Life life, filled with boundless love and joy, family, friends, and 21 years of service to his country in the Air Force. Today one of Tony's daughters talked about her father's philosophy of life, which pretty much parallels my own, and lifted my sorrow a little:
1. Love passionately - that includes family, friends and food!
2. Be proud of your family and your heritage.
3. Be Positive, and remember to smile a lot.
4. Don't be afraid to use your imagination and to be creative.
5. Be a good listener.
6. Love animals and be kind to all living things.

Tony with his his "baby", Fancy.

Two Timer

As an very amateur orchid grower, I'm always ecstatic when one of my orchids blooms a second time. Despite advice from the pros to always buy from a "reputable" source, I buy my plants on the cheap, usually from the supermarket nursery department. Of course, the supermarket doesn't have a clue about names, so there's never a reliable tag in the pot - thus I have no idea what this plant is. Not to worry, it's beautiful and that's all I care about. Back when I first started this orchid addiction, I brought home more than one plant in full and glorious bloom, only to have it never bloom again. Disappointing, but I accept that you usually get what you pay for, and move on. I got lucky this time when this kid outdid itself and gave me four flowers - up from two the last time it bloomed.

Aren't these just incredibly cool?!

I booth-sat at the Solano County Fair today for my quilting guild, and, wandering around the art exhibits, found these fabulous masks. No information about where they came from... a crafts class? a club? a school art class? Dunno... Anyway, they reached out and grabbed me! Wonder if something similar could be rendered in fabric??? Something to add to my ever expanding projects list.