Signature Magazine

March 31, 2007

Signature Magazine, a regional life-style magazine, has just come out with an issue that features our art….nine pages long!

I was surprised, but happy that Karen Culp wrote a nice article after our interview. She wrote down some ideas for quilts that I forgot I had until I read the article. And we had three separate photo sessions with Bob Linder, so there’s lots of great pictures. Even Mochi made it into the story.

Here’s my favorite, a wonderful photo of Russ working in the studio. I hope Bob remembers to give us copies of his photos!

Filed Under media | 12 Comments

Debris Deadline is Now

March 30, 2007

You wouldn’t think it, but this newspaper headline is enough to strike fear in the hearts of homeowners, because it mean the end of free city-pickups.

In a terrible ice storm last January, branches cracked and trees fell everywhere in my neighborhood. And this is a neighborhood that loves its trees, so we’ve got an especially lot of them.

For the last two months everyone has been piling the debris in their front yards, waiting for the FEMA-assisted city pickups. I think it’s going to cost the city 24 million dollars to pick it all up.

For a month you couldn’t see the houses because of the huge beaver-like piles of debris. Unfortunately, we’re on a private street, so we don’t get the free pickups.

We’re at the mercy of all the storm-chasing tree companies from all over the country that flock to the lastest disaster site. I was tempted to use The Lawn Ranger because I like his name, but instead we’ve been hauling stuff to the burn site on a trailer for weeks.

Having a new pair of red galoshes makes working in the yard more fun. And stylish. And now that the grass is greening and spring is springing, it’s even better. Even the baby trees are starting to sprout eggs.

But we’re all still sad about the fallen giants that lay around everywhere. I was riding my bike, and spotted this unusual one in a neighor’s lawn.

A couple of days later, I got home and, “Hey honey — Look what the cat dragged home!”

I guess this artist who lives at my house saw the giant and decided to save a slice or two, probably for some mysterious sculptoral project.

Filed Under disaster | 5 Comments

Dr. Funk

March 27, 2007

Last week I was kind of down in the dumps, in a funk. So I called my doctor, Dr. Funk (by strange coincidence his name is the same as my symptoms), and I told him that I thought I had broken my Funny Bone.

Dr. Funk gave me several recommendations to get me back on my feet:

More exercise - -so I’ve been riding my bike in the mornings, enjoying the spring air and flowers.

More music of a cheerful sort – my current favorite is Swedish pop band Komeda’s “What Makes It Go?

More caffeine — even though it upsets my stomach, a little french press or green tea frappuccino makes me downright cheerful!

Filed Under drawings | 7 Comments

New Subscription Buttons

March 27, 2007

I’ve just added two ways for you to subscribe to my blog. Enter your email address in the FeedBlitz box on the right to receive updates by email. Or use the BlogLines button to set up and add PaMdora’s Box to your reading list. Either way it’s free, your email address will remain private, and you can un-subscribe at any time.

Filed Under technology | Leave a Comment

Thanks for the votes!

March 26, 2007

Well, at least my fabric didn’t get wet…. It would have be heck to wash, dry, and iron all this again.

Thanks for all the votes in the FiberArts magazine studio contest! FiberArts emailed me that I won in the Best Stash category. Actually they’re the ones who made up the categories based on the submissions I guess.

They’ve asked me to write a small tidbit for an announcement in the summer issue. Although I wrote poetry in a former life, my stash is not something that I wax poetic on. But I finally thought of something and sent it in. We’ll have to see if they use it…

Seems like I’ve been doing lots of writing these days. Here’s a post I wrote last night for my local group blog.

Beside writing, these days I’m also trying to learn lots of new software, and it’s making my brain sore. I got a new RSS reader called NetNewsWire for the Mac that I really love. Now I’m better at staying caught up on blogs. Also, I love this MacJournal — it’s great for organizing all different sorts of information, and I understand they’re going to come out with a WinJournal.

Photo organization systems are what’s really giving me a headache though. I still love Picasa, and it’s running great in Parallels. But because we have approximately 2000 slides and 4000 photos that will have to scanned and organized, I’ve been test driving Aperture and the new Lightroom. Each has something good, but I wish they’d get married and have a baby, because I’d really like a hybrid of the two!

Filed Under media, technology | 6 Comments

A Strange Email Tale

March 23, 2007

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the e-mail box….

I was working on a list of all our fine art books that were damaged in the flood — looking up the cost of replacement on Amazon, when I got a message from Ebay. “You have not paid for this item…”

Something silly I had bid on late at night for no good reason other than it reminded me of this sculpture by Claus Oldenburg. The Ebay seller was very nice, but would like to be paid. So I quickly sent an apology, explaining that it was my mistake. Although I’m not always the quickest to answer email, I try to always be friendly, to put some human personality inside those little black and white text boxes.

Holy cow, the person on the other end of the text box turned out to be an art-quilter, and she sent me to her website. Holy cow! Does the work look familiar? It’s Joyce Carey, the cover artist for Robert Shaw’s famous book The Art Quilt! What a weird coicindence that I had just been looking up that very book and Joyce’s imagery was fresh in mind.

The world is a weird and wonderful place, with all kinds of magical connections waiting to happen. Now I have another new friend!

But now to get back to spring cleaning, because I need to get this flood stuff out of here and back to making art. I had read on the internet that to dry books you should fan them out upright on a towel. Too late I read that you’re also supposed to alternate that daily with pressing the books flat so they’re not so wrinkley. Lesson learned, but now all those books are real fat, and we’re going to have to get wider book shelves.

Filed Under disaster | 5 Comments

Goodbye Old Roof

March 20, 2007

It was a beautiful weekend here. There’s nothing like few sunny warm days to get your spirits up. Over the weekend, we had the old roof completely torn off of the front part of the studio, since it had been damaged by the ice and extreme cold during the January 07 ice storm.

It was quite an ordeal — noisey, and a real mess, but I was totally happy with thoughts of getting the front offices sealed and dry, so we could start the interior repairs. Happy to say, “goodbye old roof,” as it left in truck for the dump.

But now I’m in a total funk because it rained about two inches this morning, and water came in everywhere, even places that hadn’t leaked before. Apparently they weren’t done sealing all the seams and trim on the new roof before the rain hit. It looks like it’s going to be long, wet spring.

Filed Under disaster | 5 Comments

Sewn Glass

March 16, 2007

If you’ve never heard of sewn glass, you’d better check out Susan Taylor Glasgow’s website. Her work is a wonderful combination of art, craft, color, form and humor. I especially enjoy the way she incorporates advertising text in her pieces — something I do also.

I love putting text in my work. Sometimes I don’t think people realize how much the written word is part of our everyday environment. We tend to tune it out, but if you look afresh, you’ll see writing everywhere as part of our urban landscape — on the street, in our kitchens, on our desks…

I have a collection of old objects and magazines with advertising images and text like this. But now since I’m in the clean-out-due-to-flood-disaster-mode, I’m taking a hard look at what I really want to keep.

Yesterday I found this old glass knife. Not sure but it may have come from my grandmother’s house. I think I’ll send it to Susan. It seems right up her alley!

Filed Under other artists | 4 Comments

The Q word

March 12, 2007

Remember last spring when I was posting a lot from the Grounds for Sculpture, that place with the gorgeous galleries and crazy peacocks running around on the lawn?

I probably wouldn’t be exhibiting there, except that I used the dreaded Q word during Russ’s installation for his group show last spring. When I said something about my art, the curator said, Oh, I didn’t know you did art also.What do you do?

Quilts, I said, contemporary cartoon-like quilts. And she was interested, because at the time she was looking for artists whose work derived inspiration from the “Domestic Arts.” This is the name of the second indoor exhibition space at Grounds for Sculpture, which was founded on the grounds of the New Jersey State Fair. So I made a fabric portfolio and sent it to her…

2007 is the tenth-year anniversary of Grounds for Sculpture, and to celebrate this, the curators put together a show called Reminiscence. When I saw the lineup of other artists, I was a bit intimidated, but GFS picked eight of my quilts for the four-month exhibition.

Some of the other artists include Lia Cook, who I just saw a piece in the latest FiberArts magazine, and Leah Poller, an artist and curator who has done the One Hundred and One Bed series. There’s also Jil Weinstock who does amazing things with zippers. And I was a little disappointed that Karen LaMonte didn’t end up part of the show — I really wanted to try on one of her glass dresses.

But I just now learned that Susan Taylor Glasgow — sewn glass artist, will be part of the show, and holy cow! She’s from my home state, only about three hours drive from here! It’s a small world indeed.

The exhibition opens May 12 and runs through September 23, 2007.

Filed Under exhibitions | 4 Comments

Support Art Teachers

March 11, 2007

This is a T-shirt Russ often wears at sculpture installations. Although Russ and I aren’t teachers, we’ve always done what little we could to support art teachers in our area — things like giving poster board for school art exhibitions, helping facilitate school art exchanges with other countries, and when school budgets are being cut, helping run a campaign for a friend to get on the school board and support the arts.

So even though our studio is not in top form, when the Missouri Art Education Association still wanted to tour the studio last weekend as part of their annual conference, we worked hard to make it good for them.

I was pleased to find out the teachers worked with all ages…grade school through college. After the tour, we attended their banquet, met some great folks, and it was fun to read through the schedule for the whole weekend — tons of workshops to inspire creativity and introduce new techniques to take back to students.

There were 470 teachers at the conference this year. These conferences are good for the teachers, especially some who are the lone art teacher in a school, or even for several schools, since some budgets are so low teachers travel to two or more. What I didn’t realize until talking to several teachers is they feel like they are last area in schools to encourage creativity in our kids. Other curriculum teachers are working so hard to get ready for tests that are now mandated by the government, that they no longer have time for any creative learning projects such as pen pal exchanges with other cultures.

My reaction to this was surprise and sadness. How do kids deal with this kind of rigid environment? Since I was a kid who started in a non-traditional school atmosphere and had a hard time dealing with the transition to public schools, it was only the special and creative projects that helped me hang on. It seems inevitable there will be more dropouts and rebellion — and on the other hand, the loss creativity and innovation in our kids is something our country will severely regret.

Anyway, try to support your local art teachers. They need all the help they can get!

Filed Under uncategorized | 3 Comments

Okonomoyaki Party

March 9, 2007

Our local PBS station replayed The Art of Quilting yesterday at noon, so Uncommon Threads had a lunch party celebrate.

Our newest member Christine hosted the party and made okonomoyaki which is a family-style Japanese dish, sort of like a big pancake filled with cabbage, meat, and shrimp, and topped with okonomoyaki sauce and nori (seaweed).

Since she was preparing Japanese food, I brought saki for a little toast. Didn’t get many takers on the saki, but the Asahi in bottles was popular.

Filed Under uncommon threads | 3 Comments

Art Teachers Tour Studio

March 8, 2007

Last week really did turn out to be a scrabble to get ready for a tour we agreed to months ago. The Missouri Art Educators Association had their state conference in Springfield, and one of the professional development tours was to visit Russ’s public art and studio

The only problem was Russ’s metal-working area was still full of water-damaged stuff. Actually, I shouldn’t say that, the other problem was, our front offices are now missing ceilings, carpet, and furniture. Looks like a bomb went off up there.

But the teachers still wanted to visit, so we got to cleaning — actually it was a good motivator for me to roll up my sleeves and start to deal with all this stuff. Trash it, salvage it, replace it — what to do with each item? Yuck. I think the decision-making part is more tiring than the physical work, although whenever we get ready for a big event, I usually get blisters on my feet no matter what shoes I wear because there is so much space to cover.

But we did pretty well, and Russ has a new work-area set up in the back warehouse. My studio is pretty much back to normal (except for water stains on the pin-boards), so that part was easy. The teachers were thrilled, cheered at the end of the tour, and invited us to their lunch banquet — which for me was rather eye-opening in terms of the state of education and creativity in our schools. More on that later, I’ve got lots of news saved up…

You may have noticed I haven’t written in a week. I’ve been working late every night getting all my old blog moved over to WordPress, and it was a bear of a job. I couldn’t find a way to import all 300 posts over the last two years, so I had to cut and paste. I still need to work on my sidebar, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to move all your comments, but I hope to be better at responding. Just leave me your email in the address box when you comment, so I can! (it doesn’t get published.)

Filed Under sculpture, studio | 3 Comments

Signature Magazine

Debris Deadline is Now

Dr. Funk

New Subscription Buttons

Thanks for the votes!

A Strange Email Tale

Goodbye Old Roof

Sewn Glass

The Q word

Support Art Teachers

Okonomoyaki Party

Art Teachers Tour Studio

PaMdora's Box

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