A Brief Post

1. I picked up my camera yesterday.

2. Prep for TG and Christmas (even though I keep my participation in the "shopacalypse" to a minimum) took a great deal out of me and I'm not feeling well.

3.  Been in bed watching a lot of tv (mainly fstv), looking at pictures, some reading, some computer time, listening to music and meditation.

4.  I have insominia, its a seasonal thing, with winter being the worst.

5. My daughter got her driving license.

6. I've made up my mine about the workshops...the summer one with Juanita Yeager, and the one in the fall with Benn/Morgan.

7. I'm waiting for warmer weather and the season to change.

8. Its Kwanzaa time! 

Spring Green (its a Crayola crayon colour)

A big ole fat thank you to those who shared in the joy of my announcement.  I've already began to shuffle around my goals making myself nutso...thinking maybe I should make "this" priority over "that"...frustrating how joy and clarity are so definitive one day and the next day is full of questions.  I just really want to maximize the opportunities to the fullest.  This winter will probably seem like the longest one ever!  I will not get down and dirty until winter is over...the weather has to warm up for me to be in and out daily.  Which means any readers here will go around and around with me as I attempt to nail down what I'm calling level 2 of my goals until winter has ended or nearly ended. 

Level 1 is certain...the studio time and the workshop with Juanita Yeager...but I'm going round and round with deciding on the Claire Benn/Leslie Morgan workshop at the Crow Barn...IF I do not take this workshop then the back-up plan is to take the 2 days with Bob Adams at QSDS OR attend the fall workshop with Caryl Bryer through the state guild.  The Benn/Morgan workshop would require me to come with my own ideas and not enter the workshop as a blank slate which has the highest appeal for me personally...BUT since I'm also great at learning through books coupled with the extended time in a studio space...I know that my own ideas would work themselves out slow but sure. My thinking is to order their book, Breakdown Printing, paired with the resources I already have and just go for it and save money for something else...oh, can anyone tell me the difference between Breakdown Printing and Deconstructed Printing?  Either way I decide, I'll be fine...and I have to say, these are great issues to have if I have to have issues!

Spring Green is laying on my kitchen table from when the grandboys where here weekend before last colouring their little hearts away.  This was one that didn't get put back in the box and has been rolling around on the table for a week and a half.   

So Much Joy

(above: Holiday postcards)

In  2007 I've learned that I love the processes for surface design and I tend to like expanses of cloth versus cutting it up into small pieces to reconnect.  I have at least one workshop lined up for next year that will cover surface design and one self-driven one, but there are 2-4 more I'd like to take also.  One of them is filled already with a waiting list and I'm number 9 on it.  I'm going to send on the wave of prayer a deposit (non-refundable) for another one.  The 3rd and 4th one I'm taking a wait and see approach. Also lined up for 2008 will be at least 4 months of studio time with 3 of them continuous.   

Here is my agenda for next year:

1. Continue working through Complex Cloth

2. Work through the DVD on Deconstructed Screen Printing by Kerr Grabowski

3. Take a Surface Design workshop with Juanita Yeager

4. Rent studio time at MACA

5. Renew SAQA membership, KHQS, LAFTA, Sankofa, & The Quilting Show.

6. Produce 4-5 quilts that I feel super-great over.

Additional Wish LIst:

7. Workshops w/ Bob Adams, Hollis Chatelain, Caryl Bryer Fallert, or Claire Benn/Leslie Morgan (putting it in the hands of God...actually putting it all in the hands of God)

8. Improvisational Printing, Breakdown Printing, Painted Quilts, and Finding Your Own Visual Language are the only textile books I'm going to commit to buy next year.

A few posts down I wrote of waiting on some news. IT IS OFFICIAL! None of this quilt dreaming would be possible without the funding from Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist's Enrichment Grant!  I woke up one morning, a few days before the deadline back in early September, with the knowing that I deserved to ask for the funding to support my work and spent the entire day pulling together my proposal.  It was liberating to feel that strong and dedicated about what I want to acheive, without doubt.  Also, its such a blessing and great honor to become an extension of the vision and mission of the Foundation.  Its vital for an artist to say "I AM" before she can expect anyone to say "THOU ART"...get it, thou ART...okay, so much for my attempt at being clever.  But raise your ice cream bowls (mine is filled with a pomegrante sherbert) in celebration with me!

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Gerrie asked me what I was going to do when I ran out of numbers for naming my posts...ummm, not sure.  I've enjoyed the numeric titles though and could always go into negative numbers. Maybe I could create something like the dewey decimal system for my blog titles???? ummmm. The way I use to do it before my count down begin...(called camera repair place today...yada, yada, yada, and yada...Friday is my 3rd newest deadline)...what was I saying?  Ah yea, my way of naming my post was to excerpt a phrase or play off a phrase or idea within the post.  Maybe I could take a part of speech...say use all adverbs, nouns, etc to name my posts.  Maybe I could use the name of coffee beans, or kitchen gadgets, or recipes...it might take awhile for visitors to my blog to figure out what was going on.  For example, if I named my post, Toaster Oven, and there is no mention whatsoever of anything related to the title....ummm....or how about this for post titles...naming them after a colour.  I could start with Periwinkle, the next one could be Indigo, and so on...That idea I like and maybe I could tie it into the actual content of the post itself.

Well, I'm not sure what I'll do next for titles, but this is (possibly) the last numeric post (I think).

I'm looking forward to next year and the past few days I've turned over the possibilities and what I want to do (God willing and if the creek don't rise, hehehehe).  I've rearranged some of my plans and had to eliminate some (really not a bad problem to have at all!).  I'm going to wait a few weeks to write them out when they are more solid...but one of the goals is to participate in SharonB's Take It Further Challenge.

I've wrapped up my end of the year/beginning of the year anxiety over changes healthcare.  As of the first of December, medicare A&B will provide health coverage.  I've spent the last month weeding through the extended coverage options for prescription drug coverage and its obvious that "simple" is not in the government's lexicon.  But I mangaged and came to a decision 3 hours ago.  It feels good to have put the decision to rest and I don't even feel uptight about it...I've released it and have let it go.  Come what may, it will work itself out to my good!   

.02

 Back in the summer I started another visual journal.  I don't keep them with any regularity, but this one has been the most fun so far after deciding to abandon doing this for any specific purpose.  Images that inspire, doodles, experiments, colour play, just whatever, goes into it.  Of course I guess if I have to reference something this would make it difficult to find. Ahhhh, but come what may...I'll just roll right along.

My drawing skills are close to non-existent but it is one of those things I keep promising myself to take more seriously...I have all these things I want to learn about...wines, coffees, photography, etc.  My wish lists are endless.  How about yours?   

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Tuesday was a very important day for my brother also!  He received noticed that 3 of his pieces have been juried into  The 14th Annual African American Art Exhibit.  The juror was Kevin Cole.  His work is very multi-dimensional and architectural.  When I've tried to work with lots of colours in one piece it overwhelms me and makes me dizzy, but I can look at the work of other artists who do so and feel the vibration...sometimes rhythmic and sometimes jarring.  My brother's work is very rhythmic.  Congratulations Mudman!

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The wait is O-V-A-H! OVAH!

but if you read this post before I changed it then you know what I was waiting for...but it my state of over enthusiasm I posted prematurely before I read the entire letter so I had to delete the news here.

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sigh. I'm playing a waiting game to hear some news coming via a letter.  I've been anticipating this letter since Friday.  It didn't come today so I made a phone call which relieved me of most of the anticipation.  The address was wrong so hopefully I'll receive it tomorrow.  The anticipation has been so intense that not hearing about my camera (a week overdue) is a small matter. I made a promise to myself that I will not jump the mail man tomorrow.

The was some random sewing I did today using scraps only.  It kept my mind occupied and not thinking about anticipated news.  The colours and the prints made it exciting to sew.  Thats my hand writing  and a stanza from one of my older poems on the center fabric which you might recognize from the quiltlets some post below.