Negotiating Territory

The reception for Form, Not Function was pretty amazing.  The live jazz band over looking the main floor where the exhibit is located made it very festive.  It was a very crowded affair and very sociable group of attendees.  I forgot my camera but several folks said they would email pictures of me standing by my quilt.  I'll make several trips to see the exhibit before it goes down and will comment afterward...tonight, I could only walk through a couple of times due to the heat generated by such a large group...but my first impression was the colour intensity of the overall show...vibrant, deliciously vibrant!

(you may click on the image to enlarge it)

Just Chillin'

Its been a peaceful undemanding Sunday.  The rain and the light gray overcast adds to the sense of peace. Mo made us breakfast this morning of pancakes and bacon and Ade has spent the day washing his clothes and working on a paper about global warming.  Peter has spent the day resting and working on the network and I even sat and watched a bad movie entitled "Birth" with Nicole Kidman.  I think it was attempting to be an "art" film.  The only redemption was seeing Lauren Bacall who played Nicole's character's mother.  My family has fired me from my Netflix duties because of a string of "weird to them" movies that I've ordered the last few months; BUT I'm not relinquishing the Netflix password so I'm still in charge!

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For dinner I'm going to keep it simple...salmon croquette, green salad, rice or baked sweet potatoes.  It is nice to have the kitchen table clear once again so we can sit down and eat like "civilized people" as my mother would say.  Peter spent yesterday reorganizing space and now I have a niche to work without being heavily intrusive into group space.  My work space is a card table facing the balcony.  To the left I cleared knick knacks off  a book shelf and placed art supplies on it. 

Those 2 books on the right side of the table are gifts from Deb.  They are thick and short and just feel so good in the hands.  One is a theasaurus and the other is a dictionary.  Because of how they fit so well in the palm of my hands and the wonderful text, I want to take a more thematic approach.  Here are some pages I worked on today-

  This one (on left) I'm naming after my brother, Upfromsumdirt, that is his inner persona like Karoda is mine.   

And this one (on the right) is in progress.  I'm going to add a window under the text and an element that ties together both sides of the pages.

Peace and Blessings, 

Nerves

Last year at this time I was working through the book Color and Composition and just generally piddling around to keep my hands on cloth.  Late fall of the previous year I had finished this quilt which to that date was the largest quilt I had created based on previous postcards.  Afterwards I didn't know what to do with myself.  Its been the same rhythm this season as well.  Writing poetry was the same also, winter was my down time, my questioning time, my doubt time.

Yesterday I was undecided and jittery. I had the urge to sew.  Sew blue fabrics specifically.  I didn't want to cut any fresh fabrics and I didn't have enough "blue" in my scraps.  What to do, what to do...I put the sewing machine back up and pulled out an altered book.  It was easier and silenced my critical voice which was a little bitchy yesterday.  Of all things she was worried about the opening reception this coming Friday for Form, Not Function.  Hair, makeup, wax eyebrows, that dress is over dressed, and pluck those damn chin hairs! That bitchy critical voice...anyway, I kicked her to the curb and worked on these pages...

 

The first one I did on the left shows up how unsettled I was in the use of the writing and doodles. The writing says what I couldn't communitcate with an image..."To create Paradise one must know Magic.  In order to know Magic, one must walk with elephants and dance with the sun.  In order to dance with the sun and walk with elephants, one must make love with imagination."  I was thinking about the nature of Paradise (its in the title of the book I'm altering) and how it has to be a place on the inside of ourselves. 

The second page on the right I was settling down and this page is more reflective of what I like and seems to come closer to communicating the concept of Paradise.  Its unfinished...something needs to be added in the upper right...not sure if it should be a design element or more colour or both.

Here are 2 older pages that are completed.  Household chores are calling.  Peace.

It is written, so shall it be!

Maybe I'm a rebel without a cause but a part of me just wants to take the advice of Ray Charles and "just make it do what it do" and roll right along with time, taking opportunities as ways and means allow and not set or overthink on goals. 

The goals I set for myself in 2006 I achieved 75% of them...joining organizations and submitting to shows.  I have basically the same goals for 2007 with the addition of attending IQA Festival...attend LAFTA and Sankofa meetings and maintain memberships in organizations, submit to 4 shows, make 4 quilts with dimensionals 36 inches or more, attend 2 major workshops, attend IQA-Houston, and at least one month of studio time at MACA.  These are the biggies for me. Going to Houston is my moutain, the rest are hills that will stretch me but goals that say "managable" if I stay focused.  What really helps me (and I use to teach this in workshops) is to ask myself each night, "what am I going to do tomorrow?" and then upon awaking "what am I going to do today towards my goals?".  Its when I don't ask myself these questions that I allow too many detours with my time. Asking these 2 questions also keeps my goals active in real time versus "far-off" time. 

I've already registered with a weekend workshop with Hollis Chatelain that is being sponsored by the state quilt guild.  The other workshop I want to attend is in Durham, NC and is being taught and organized by Juanita Yeager and although it too will be more involved for me to make it happen, last year's symposium was such a halleluia baptismal experience for me that I just cannot imagine not going again.  It was shortly after this that I rented the 2 months at MACA where the knowledge crystalized and rooted and I created Negotiating Territory which was accepted into Form, Not Function. 

Paducah was ex-nayed off the list.  This one was difficult.  Its become an annual retreat for me and my sister Deborah but this had to go if there was any chance of getting to Houston.  She plans to make the drive with me to Houston and hopefully our other sister Jackie will join us.  A few years back Deborah and Jackie wanted us to take a cruise.  I didn't and still don't have an interest in taking a cruise...I just don't see the fun in it but Deborah was teasing me a few months back that  I'd probably go if it was a quilt cruise. lol...it would still be a hard sell, I think.  I keep looking at QSDS workshops or something at Arrowmont...but I'm thinking for 2008 these will be on my list.   

On the lighter side of goal setting I want to master Photoshop (which I abandoned last year), keep altering books, (I had to take down my makeshift studio, a fold down table, to allow for the Christmas tree but tomorrow my table goes back up!), doodle in my sketch book daily, continue to understand colour, and do several dye weekends at MACA.  Thats really it but that is really enough...but I still want to let life "just do what it do" day by day and roll along and hang on and be happy.   

Ahhh, speaking of happy, we went Christmas day to see The Pursuit of Happyness and although it is a 2 hour film I think Will Smith and the actress that played his wife (I believe she was the actress who played the ghost in Beloved) did an excellent portrayal of day to day "struggle" and it was refreshing that it wasn't glamorized or stylized in contrast to Hustle and Flow.  I liked Hustle and Flow, but it was much more poetic.

But life is good and no matter what, I'm going to keep hanging in! Peace.

 

 

I finally have found my people!

(click the link) Karen's People!  I'm going hooommmmmmmmmeeeeeeeee!