Painting Quilts and Politics

I painted two other quilts, one here, before I left the workshop on Monday to return home.  I believe its finished but I did bring a blue bead stew home with me, just in case its not. 

Shortly after the notion popped to paint the quilt, I thought of the Kemshall's title, The Painted Quilt.  This morning as I was having coffee with this quilt, I remembered Denise Furnish, a local artist, who paints on found quilts.  And then there is the High Priestess of painted quilts, Faith Ringgold!  If you happen to know Ms. Ringgold personally, tell her I'm waiting for the serious autobiography of her life!  As I've searched in my library and at Amazon, I've concluded that there is a serious void in autobiographies of women visual artists...where are the Arnold Rampersad's for women visual artists?!

Previous

Current

One of the exercises Laurie Doctor had the class do was writing black on black.  So I applying that to stitching I'm playing with hand-stitching black on black.  The back is acryllc felt.  The center square is a double layer of silk and silk organza that I'm scanned the writing exercise from the calligraphy class onto.  I'm going to try wrapping this around stretcher bars...the size is 14"x14"

My next entry, sometime before Sunday, will be share my impressions of the Form Not Function...so much great work year after year, sure would be nice if a catalog was for sale for this annual show!

Peace,

Impeachment off the table and now single payer healthcare...Sen. Baucus' reasoning made no damn sense!  This is where President Obama needs us to make him accountable as he, himself, requested!"  Healthcare Lobbyist sure know how to spread the "love" in Washington, don't they?  This will have to be a grassroots efforts yall!

An Open Letter to Obama From Alice Walker

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear.

Read the full letter.

a short bio

  the above had me chanting "trust the process".  this should wash out to a transparent gray.

  tombstones added...something else has to happen to make it more coherent...not sure if it will be a panel or be cut up.

  the start of something new

A few days before the election this is what I was doing.  I been going fast (for me) and furious since returning from the Crow Barn. 

Last Sunday I attended a performance and exhibit-Dear Felicia: A Soldier's Manual for Birds and Angels, a collaboration between poet-scholar Estella Majozo and painter Joan Zehnder.  Ten minutes into the performance tears started strolling down my face and held a steady stream through most of the 60 minute performance.  The writing was a series of letters to a female soldier while examining the poet's reconcilliation on her son's decision to join the military.  I don't know why I responded with tears...maybe because I know her son and remember when he was born, maybe because Estella is a close spiritual friend...maybe it took me someplace with the battles for my own children.  I remember how personally traumatized I was when this war first started as well as other acts by the Bushit administration.  Since then I've tempered my politics and opted instead to reach inside and pull out the artist in me as a way to stay sane. 

Monday I felt a little fatigued but opted to go out for breakfast and then down to my workshop.  Tuesday came the scratchy throat, body aches and arriving with my 17 y.o son to the polls at 5:45 with a 45 minute wait in the early morning chill .  Couple this with the excitement of watching the results and numerous telephone calls and it all got the best of me...yesterday I felt like I had one foot in the grave and made a doc's appointment which confirmed the pnuemonia I already diagnosed. 

I'm sitting here typing this post to past the time while waiting on a home health nurse to arrive-this was the option I chose instead of being hospitalized.  I'm holding the line wishing I had a glass of wine.

As far as words from me on Obama's win I'm elated and taken with his role in history and have not felt this way since Mandela's release from prison (which I also had pnuemonia then).  For what I want to say, I'm not ready.  I'll be processing for a long while and am not sure I will do so here.  I'm thinking about starting a blog to document my reactions to the Obama and first family's role for the next four years. 

Kinetic Energy continued

I wish I had taken a photo of my packed to the roof and from side to side with all the supplies of Valerie White and mine...of course heading from Louisville the kudos for packing it all in belong to our men but hey, we didn't do a too shabby of a job packing to return home. 

The fact that I shared this time with Valerie and Juanita, in its own unique and delightful way, was a socially creative phenomenon!  I mean what are the chances that we all would take the same workshop and all 3 of us, uniquely different in style, would come away feeling the workshop was incredibly worth every single moment!

This past week I've had what I would call one productive day in my workshop.  I adjusted the height of one of my folding table to waist level and will use it as a work bench.  I switched the position of this table and the cutting/ironing table and am looking for a cheap-to-free rectangle wood kitchen table to place the top of the cutting/ironing top onto...the folding legs that came with it are too wobbly.  And I'm leaning toward ordering this for my sewing machine.  On the same day I made the adjustments I took the dye stocks that where in the fridge during the 7 day power outage and tried them out...so far the one I tried showed no signs of diminished colour.  So I'm going to try to use them up dyeing painting shades of greens, yellows, and reds.  Instead of selecting a panel of each colour for creating complex cloth for the remaining quilts in the Poetry Series, I'm going to create multiples of 5 of each colour and then work on them and then select 1 of each colour to make up the panels in each quilt. 

The weekend has been spent resting so I hope to have at least 3 productive days this coming week.

Phoning for Obama/Biden

Friday morning Petra and I headed to one of our favorite spots for breakfast:

  I tried something new:

 

(I prepared my own version of this for brunch today...two fried eggs with sauteed seasoned steak and tomato-pepper relish on top, hash brown casserole and sourdough toast.)

We called those on the registered Democratic list for the city of Indianapolis...there were a lot of disconnected phone lines and unanswered calls due to the time of day we imagined.  The few I spoke with of the 150 calls were mostly enthusiastic for Obama.  I spoke with one undecided who was leaning toward McCain but after he saw the debate he was questioning if it was the right thing to do with him being a teamster and all. I did my best to affirm him redirecting his vote :)  I came across a few crabs who firmly stated they where strong for McCain and not to call any more (to restate it pleasantly). And one woman yelled that it was none of my business (again restating it pleasantly) who she was voting for.  Alrighty then, moving right along....

 

Here I am with Kenya who works in the office:

The next time I go back I'm taking my 16 year old son.