Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Looks like a quilt!

Ethereal~

John Lennon

The Peace Fountain

Noah's Ark

Our day in the city -Saint John the Divine Cathedral and the Peace garden next door. So hard to capture all of the beauty and creative energy.

Acts of Faith

I spent yesterday afternoon enlarging Bailey picture in order to put her on my easel. I will look at her for a week or so then take her down and do a painting on either canvas or wood. I will trace the outline--it will be big 45 inches!!- and don't know yet about what else paint wise, some oil some encaustic(if i do encaustic, I have to prepare the ground with hide glue and whiting, six or seven coats of real gesso, sanded between each application, an act of devotion) some pallette knife. I will paint her while she is away for the month of July. I used to think it was somehow cheating to trace but if I continue to listen to those voices I will not get anything done.
The faith part comes in because it is hard for me to believe that I remember how to paint. This comes at the beginning of every painting that I do-a panicky feeling that I won't know how to proceed. I am reading the book that Ted Orland sent me called "Art and Fear', By Ted Orland and David Bayles. I am absorbing some of it. Am I dense or is there just so much in this book.Both! In the book, they talk about perfectionism, "To require perfection is to invite paralysis."and "To demand perfection is to deny your humanity, as though you would be better off without it. Yet this ordinary (and universal) humanity is the very source of your work..." I do battle with the disease of perfectionism.... and also the fear that if I am a painter then I am like my mother, who is lost and crazy, and a painter. These are not fears that scream at me, but they are like a small trickle in the backround. Just enough for me to consider doing other things instead. Things that make more noise than the trickle, I cook or eat or shop or read blog after blog after blog.
If I just show up in the right space, ready to do the work, the faith part will work. I play loud music, too, in my studio , to obliterate the trickle of doubt. Dar Williams, Joni Mitchell, Indigo Girls, James Taylor-I refuse to call them oldies. And I invite angels to sing along.

The Clematis is blooming in my yard. I planted it and it was three years before it had even one flower. They do not like to be moved I hear. It was defiantly barren. I nurtured, I built a wall around it, I weeded and gave it a trellis. Finally one year, one flower appeared. And every year since there have been more and more and now it is a beautiful thing to behold. And so -faith indeed.

Redbirdwatch

The nest is in the lilac bush behind the fence. We have only seen one baby cardinal. The papa on the clothesline is guarding his offspring, making loud clicking noises to warn the cat. The cat on the ground is impervious.The bird does not know that the cat is too fat and lazy to hunt. Since this photo was shot, the baby has learned to fly and has been spotted in a bush on the other side of the yard so we don't worry about him so much.
I have been so sick with this damned bronchitis/sinus infection that I have been able to accomplish nothing at all. I have drifted from sewing room to studio to visit my works in progress but have no energy to do much more than think about them.
I hate being sick.
Today is my Katy's 16th birthday. Katy is my bi polar baby.Hers has been a tortuous path, fraught with peril. I don't write about her much, to protect her privacy, but sometimes I feel that I should share my experience more. I have asked her if I could write about her in my blog and she has replied,
"Let them read the book."
Funny girl.

Happy Birthday Katy

Basil Rex

How to burn your house down

I have not painted in a couple or four months. My studio is packed with stuff for painting, wax painting, stained glass supplies, paint thinner, and my husbands tools which also have some flamable items, different spray varnishes, glues--- ach du liebe!!
Any way I am in there, music is blasting, the sun is out and all is good and in order! Did I mention saudering irons, turpentine, varnish and a grill for melting wax--
I am on my third painting and I smell something burning: faint at first, my daughter couldn't smell it at all, but then it got stronger and i started feeling the saudering irons and the paint griddle to see if they were hot. Nope. Did I misplace a saudering iron or an encaustic pen-leave something plugged in?? Of course the worktable is in front of the electric outlet and the cabinet which holds sheets of glass in in front of that and all the leftover tiles from the bathroom are in front of that so I begin to move stuff--calling for help from my dd and dh to come and move the flammable liquids and help me move the boxes of tiles and the books and the table. And be quick about it! Panic!!!
But the smell was coming from the other side of the room.
Now if you will direct your attention to the model peonies which are precariously perched on my husbands workbench, you will notice a mirror to the right of the mason jar. This mirror was reflecting enough sun through the window to ignite the wood (which is a piece of a cabinet whose shape I liked, and kept) in the window. This piece was actually on fire.
Now if the house had burned down and they did an investigation, they would undoubtedly blame the flammable materials and/or the heated tools that I use. I doubt any one would blame the mirror.
Well the verdict is that I am going to rearrange my studio and get a fire extingusher in there and secure the chemicals. And the mirrors.
So now I will clean the studio, which I have been wanting to do for quite a while. And I will paint more to make sure nothing burns down.

Chaos and Order

I have moved most of my sewing stuff from my son's old room to the table in order to allow him to clear out all of his pre college crap, take what he wants and get rid of the rest. We have a tiny house. I am ruthless. It ocurrs to me that I did not have this to deal with when I got out of school because I had already been on my own since going to boarding school and did not have any place to go back to. So when it comes to my kids I expect them to take their stuff with them when they go. I haven't got the frame of reference which allows for them leaving their unwanted stuff in my space.
I moved a dresser full of stuff out onto the front porch for him to have and now he says he does not want it. Well it isn't going back into that room now ---no it is not---I am going to put all of my sewing stuff back into the room and it will be mine forevermmmmwwwhahahaha. There is also a bed in there and I want to move that out as well but I may leave it there for the occasional overnight traveller. Or maybe not.

My yard is peaceful and pleasant in June. The recent rain has made it so lush and green! I love bulbs and annuals because I don't have to replant every year. The only seeds I will plant are for sunflowers which will bloom in August and September before it all turns brown and gray again.This view is more than half of the back yard. Small and plenty.

rain and more rain

been a week of problems and I wanted to post a nice picture but blogger will not let me! anyway it was a nice picture of my yard which has been soaking up the rain and loving it even if the people who live here feel sun deprived. maybe later I will post some pictures. Any way I have been too beleaguered to do art. to sew, but i did cut out the pieces for a diaper bag that I am making for a gift. and i hope i can get it done this weekend.

Thirteen Moons Gallery Artists

Thirteen Moons Gallery Artists
And this one!
Also from Rayna's blog.

Book Club Reading

"The View from the Studio Door" is by Ted Orland. I haven't begun it yet beause I do not have it.I am sending check today. Melanie Testa is hosting discussion group on her blog which is linked in the title of this page.
Lately my chorus of inner critics have been having a party in my head. Their names are Not Important, Too Old, Too Fat, Too Sad, Nobody Cares, Fatigue and Unworthy. Not Important and Unworthy are twins but they are not identical twins. They are especially loud when it comes to writing and painting-and really really loud when when I entertain the idea of publishing or --be still my heart--selling my work.
So here is my plan. I am exposing them. They hate the light. And I am going to try to be indifferent to their raucus and clamourous intrusion. I plan on playing music and books on tape as a first line of defense.
And daily practise and taking care of myself and most important I am going to .....what ? I don't know yet. That is why I am here, to figure that out. Writing about the chorus is a way to route them out. Sometimes they surprise me when I become aware of how constant they have become. Can I eradicate them? Silence them? Or at least minimize their influence? That is the plan.
Yesterday when I posted the poem, I felt very vulnerable and almost did not share it. Too Sad and Nobody Cares were working on me. But I put on my armor and posted away. I am ready to fight for my art.

Memorial

maybe there is no such thing as
enough time to grieve the truly grievous loss
never a time that you will not stumble into the inevitable pocket of memory that you thought (you dreamed you had buried it)
stumbled into the for last time and would never have to do it again
and again the earth opens and you remember

driving
a winding road on the east coast in 1962
in summer
in the back of a vw bug in your pajamas
the scent of beach roses hovering in the night air. you
counting street lights
on the way home from the drive in

you should be sleeping but the material in the back of the vw is
too scratchy
and it is too much fun to be out this late any way
way way past bedtime
way past

in the past I would swallow this bitter pill,
the waking up to it,the knowing of
this memory of june, carried on the scent of a fragile rose
in the early summer on the beach

bitter bitter winters to follow
still unthinkable

what stops you in your tracks is that the memory is so clear and yet so distant
you can almost be there if you close your eyes and

if the world would just stop

just for a minute
and let you go back
just to be there in that time

when you knew what it was like to know that the world was going to be like this forever
and if you wanted something with your whole heart you could have it.

maybe it doesn’t matter if you are fifteen or fifty
if the earth opens up that way
you fall
and you are in that place at the same time as you are actually walking along
and it is always a surprise
because you had long since forgotten that you had ever been that way

that innocent
and there it is
almost reachable and always irretrievable

it was just a rose, just
a reminder
memento mori

Beach Rose

This is a Beach Rose. I don't know the real name. They grow wild along the mid Atlantic and north Atlantic coast. Their perfume is divine.You can make tea from the rose hips.
When I was a kid growing up in Rhode Island we use to take drives along the shore where the great mansions stood and these roses grew in hedges along the side of the road. The aroma wafted in through the car window as we meandered along the roads.
This particular rose is an uninvited guest in our little garden. It has been trying to grow for a couple of years and this year I just left it to see what would happen and lo and behold there were blooms and this wonderful rose emerged and more will follow-and they are red! How wonderful. And the smell transports me right back to the back seat of a nineteen fifty six volkswagon in 1960 something.

Triangles for the wedding gift

Here is my Name and Claim project for the next couple of days-to tame this pile of fabric and paper and make it into a pile of squares. It has taken me a while to engage in this project, but I have the time and energy to work on it, so now is the time!
Today my plan is to trim and remove the paper from the pile on the right and attach them to the pile on the left to make blocks like the pile on the top. Well maybe not all today. I have about seventy one blocks to assemble before I can put the top together. If I use the quilt as you go method, I can assemble the blocks in sets nine sets of nine then use a single row as a border and it will be eleven blocks by eleven. This could work! The wedding is August 11.

Another small thing

Love this little Kimono from Kumiko Sudo's book, "Kokoro no Te". It has given me some peaceful stitching time, driving back and forth to hospital where my daughter is being treated for her bi polar disorder.
We have made the drive several times since Friday when we took here there. So many things going on. I have not written or thought about it deeply, just putting one foot in front of the other. I do not have to understand everything. That is the hardest part for me, always needing to understand the whys and wherefores.
Sometimes I just have to trust the process. I still ask though. Maybe the problem is I am just too adept at recognizing when I am being led around in circles, when paradigms collide and no one really has the answers but it seems important to believe that they do.
So that is where I dwell these days in that world of chimera and mirage. Which drug will work? Which part is behavioral and which part is neurobiological? Who knows what and is there really any one who knows anything? And what is it fair to expect? from her from me from them?

A few small blocks

A few blocks to add to my pile. Demands on my time and energy have made these little sweet blocks the only ones I do. For now I am only doing what I want to do. I will get back to my bigger commitments as soon as I feel like it will be fun and not a drain or obligation. How is that for being selfish! Ha! I worked very hard to reach this level of selfishness!

Rugby

Perect day for a Rugby Tournament! The girl is my Jen. She was spectating only! Fun to take pictures as they roll by!

Round Robin

I have been diligently working on my Round Robin this week in spite of one crisis after another. Nothing earth shattering, just a crushed fender-so my fault -and the usual torment of teen agers testing and testing. You can see that I cannot get far enough back to get a decent picture, but it will have to do for now, until I stitch the border on and I can move it to a bigger spot!

Spring has sprung

Flowering bushes in my yard. Altho we have a tiny plot, we do love to fill it up with flowers. It is a perfect spring day. I have been for a walk and done lots of Things that Need to Be Done. The rest of the afternoon is mine with which to do whatever.

A Few Little Things

Here are the things I finished today.
And a poem which I wrote in my car this morning.

God traces a path through
the sightless dark, through
the pitiless cold
and timeless configurations

God brushes away doubt and
impassable obstacles and says
"Let there be love."

The title of the book I have used for machine embroidery is " Vanishing Act, Machine Embroidery on Soluble Fabrics" by Jan Beaney. It is a very good resource if you are interested in this kind of stuff. It was a gift from My Secret Pal. I have visited their web site(click on her name) and they have alot of really cool books there to look at.

The messenger

I finished a new tote today. It is called a messenger bag and it is an Amy Butler design to which I have added a loop and a side pocket for scissors.It is a great size to haul all my applique stuff and maybe a book or journal and some pens... The fabric is an older Ralph Lauren pattern, which I used to make valances for my cottage. I loved that I made it using the material that I had, and the history it has for me. The lining is a Waverly plaid which I used to make slipcovers for a friend, who has since dissapeared in the swift currents of time.
The tulip is a volunteer that grows in my Lilac bush every spring, in the shade, in between the branches. If you don't know to look for it, you will miss it. I have no idea who planted it there. One year it just appeared.

Birthday Card

Card for my youngest daughter, made in Photshop Elements from my photographs.

Treaures

www.brecklingpress.com

These are the things I carry with me. (that reminds me of a very powerful book about the Vietnam War, called'The Things They Carried" By Tim O' Brian.)
The green block is a cutwork pattern by Tilde Binger and the bird is part of a bigger pattern by Shirley Bloomfield. They are intended to be a part of a larger collection of four and a half inch blocks ala Jane that I am composing in my mind. In the mean time I have done six and have all the resources I need to make a couple hundred-thousand? more with no repeats.
The little sewing kit is a composite of designs by Kumiko Sudo
from her book "Kokoro no Te, Handmade Treasures from the Heart", and a Wild Thymes Pattern Co. pattern for a wool felted sewing kit #406. The ladies at the Applique Society meeting had another one of Kumiko Sudo's books about folded origami fabric flowers. Her books are treasures. grab them while you still can! I plan on using all of these resources again. In fact they are almost as addicting as small blocks. Also hidden in my kit is a small Kimono from her collection. I want to make them all!
Today at five I am going for my bi annual mamogram and sonogram, chasing dowwn the cysts that like to park in my boobs. Ususally what follows is removal and biopsy of these little buggers. I had four removed last year. As long as they keep getting them out before they turn nasty, I keep up the chase.For those of you who are so inclined , wish me good luck!

The Appliqu�Society

The Appliqu�Society
Spent the morning with some new friends at the Nassau County Chapter of the Applique Society. This was my first actual meeting since last October when I joined the main group. There is alot of talent out there and I am such a newbie. I hope to learn all the tricks soak up some of the expertise. Ah well I aim high!
I met friend Linda there and she showed off her sweet baby quilts! Later during lunch I got to look at her Dear Jane blocks, which are exquisite! handpieced and perfect. She says they are wonky but they are really amazing and not wonky at all. Well I am inspired, to say the least. I guess I had better get to work on my Dear Jane. I am mezmerized by Jane Stickle's blocks. I am kinda sorta toying with the idea of starting over and adding applique blocks. Or making an all applique sample or maybe a thirties version-well there you see the problem: I just cannot decide. I will come back to this topic I am sure.
O yeah, Hanne tagged me and asked for six weird things:) Only six?
hmmm
I am a fanatic reader. I have been known to read a book a day.
I Love Origami
I like staying home more than going out
I hate shopping except for fabric and art supplies and books-well I guess I dont hate it that much
I don't drink or smoke at all
I am a morning person....
pretty boring huh? But I am never bored!!

Weekend stitches

I lost my needle case which was actually a Starbucks gift card holder from Christmas,
which found its way into my kit (dh later found it in the couch)
so to make a long story longer I went into my sewing room and was attacked by my ufo's,
which resulted in my climbing up on a stool to retrieve my box of wool scraps with which
to create a new needle case-which is really just a small folded piece of wool, a little bit
bigger than a match book. Then, In said box, I found a pattern that I had purchased last
fall to make a sewing kit with wool, and I had actually started it, but put it aside, in the
box , then put the box up on a shelf, out of sight out of mind. So in the long honored
tradition of sewers everywhere, i sat right down and ripped out all the previously done
work and re sized the patterned and began again. Three hours later, dh dragged me away
to take me out to eat since he refused to eat pizza for another meal. I am liking the new
needle case which has grown into a sewing kit and I hope to actually finish it in a day or
so.
Then I really must get to the wedding quilt I am making for my oldest child who is to be
wed in August.

Shower Invitations

I spent a good part of yesterday making these invitations for Jen's shower. I want to say Jen and Jason but he says he doesn't want to be there, so it will be Jen's day. All Girls:) I made about seven versions of the Glasgow Rose, in ink and watercolor pencil from pictures that I have of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's works. I have used the rose motif several times in my own decorating efforts. The window is one.
Any way, I have all of the first set of invitations addressed and made out and then I decided to make them myself. Now I am satisfied.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Sonnet cxvi

The munchkins

Yesterday we went to visit our nieces, Lydia and Erica, and took a drive to Greenport where the carousel was ridden and pizza was eaten and a good time was had by all. It was perfect spring day. Doesn't get any better!


We found some really neat puzzles for them that had paper doll like cut outs and they were a big hit! The dolls and clothes were wood shapes with magnetic backings so that you could stick the clothes and shoes and gloves and of course tiaras on the dolls. Then when you were done, you could but them back into their spaces like a puzzle. where were these things when I was a little girl?

flight

boys dream of flying
tracing a path in the sky
studying the trajectory of birds and stars and leaves aloft
thinking
if only
I could do that too

boys jumping off
of cliffs
of trees and barns
falling in a heap of broken bones and belief

to try again
with wax and feathers and balsa
cloth and string and wire
and wishes
pedaling furiously into the wind
still pointing their dreams at altitude

not to be nearer to God nor angels nor death
but exhilaration
silence
freedom from earthly weight and want
from need

always falling

and always thudding home to earth
the mother
the female
needs

we all have some of this in us
this inclination to be other
perhaps it is what makes us human
we look at our feet and want to fly


martha
bilski 4.06

Beads-click here

I bought this book Bead Creative Art Quilts by Nancy Eha from a link on Ami Simms newsletter. It is a wonderful book and I can't wait to get started. I have a couple of projects in mind. I am going to assemble my diamonds from the Linda Franz books and do some beading on them. I have been waiting for the right inspiration to get my diamonds together and this book has provided just the right dose. But first I will practise on another journal quilt page that I have prepared. Hmmm may be time for a trip to the bead store. Maybe I will see what I have first...chances are, there are some beads around here somewhere.....
This group of diamonds is set with pictures that I took from our beach on a September day a couple of years ago. It was one of those sunsets that you wish you had your camera for and I did! Right now it looks kind of un finished, but I think it will come together nicely and beads will be a great addition.We shall see.

Recital in Potsdam

For those who are musically inclined, here is the program for my son's recital. He was awesome! Of course I did not have my camera and so must wait for other people to give me photos, hint, hint.The recital was taped so I will be able to listen again in the future. And of course there will be much analysis and critique-the musical Monday morning quarterbacking.
Alex was beaming, surrounded by friends and family, and was soaking up all of the good will he so richly deserves.
I did a little drawing and a little stitching while Mike drove us the eight hours to Potsdam. I wish we could have spent more time in the area but the drive alone takes two days both ways. The town has some wonderful architecture and some buildings made with some kind of locally quarried reddish pink almost but not quite terra cotta looking stone.I did make one tiny skectch of a corner in town.
I tried to do some stitching in the car on the way home. It was bumpy and I kept losing my scissors and I did not have the much used toothpick tool, so it was slow going, and I didn't manage to finish any blocks but I did make some progress. Bumpy rides do not make for good sewing. Or reading.
I bought a couple of chairs at a place called Hoss's in Long Lake Ny, one Adirondak chair and one twig chair.For my dolls. I am collecting more chairs than dolls. We also bought an Audobon Society book to help us identify US East Coast birds. While we were driving home a hawk with a mouse in his mouth nearly flew right into our windshield as he was lifing off. We were going seventy miles per hour and he flew right over us. Missed us by a foot. Swoosh!

Woman of the Bible Blocks

These are my blocks partly sashed so far. The are from a quilt designed by Carol Honderich who I "met" on the Dear Jane list. I started the blocks last summer and resumed a couple of weeks ago. We are doing a block a week and reading chapters on each woman as we go. The book we are using is called 'Women of the Bible' by Ann Spangler and Jean E. Syswerda. The group has grown into four Yahoo lists and I am now in synch with group four and hope to stay caught up this time.So far we are still in the Old Testement. It is such a nice quilt!!!

creature comfort

Katy and Basil