Quilt Hag

2007-12-31T09:24:00.000-08:00

Today is New Year's Eve and a day of reflection. The obvious reflection is that I have not posted in almost a year. My goal is to use this in connection with my web site so that will not need so many update as work and life events take place.

This past year has been one of change which is a good thing. I am now working outside the studio/home 3 days a week. It has really been helpful on many fronts and a good thing to be around a completely different group of society and make me a more fully rounded human being. I am by far the oldest person at my work and in a totally different stage of life as all the others. It is very enlightening to be with a diverse part of humanity in terms of age, economic status, and ethinicity. Another benefit is forcing me to be more focused during my time in the studio and as I expected, am getting as much work done as before. Also, it is fun to make a paycheck which is sort of a giggle.

Today is reflection and organization day. Tomorrow, New Year's Day is a day to work in the studio with complete focus. My theory has always been that how you spend New Year's Day is how you will spend the rest of the year..........let's see how that works out.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-07T07:13:00.000-08:00

It's a New Year and as always, cannot manage to post regularly. It is a time for evaluation of the past year and looking forward to the new one. It was a good year for me personally but the tragedies others faced make it impossible to judge as a good one in general. Between natural disasters and the war in Iraq that is taking so many of our children/sons/loved ones, it is hard to celebrate our personal good fortune.

2005-10-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

Posting on a regular basis still eludes me............Now I have a need to refocus on my work and make my plans for the rest of the year and into the next one. This has been a successful year and one of many life changes.

What I do the next three months will determine the direction of my work for the next year so special attention must be paid. Complicating matters, one project already determined must be completed this month so I must focus, focus, focus............

This year has been interesting on the blogging front........while I cannot seem to get a blog written every few months, many in the quilt world have discovered it, embraced it, and are totally possessed by it. Competitive blogging seems to be the rage. Their daily posts include pictures and accounts of all of their thoughts and schedule of activities. Then they have to read all the other ones from their "blog group" and comment on those...........All this makes me realize that I am just not a good sorority girl. I am more comfortable in telephone conversations with a couple of my good friends and my daughters, where I can be totally myself, for better or for worse and not committed to a daily activity that takes my valuable time.

I have always looked at it as a way to express some views or just "journal" online instead of my paper one.........to get things off my chest, to review my life issues from time to time, and help with focus in general.....................but hey...........thats just me.

Still concerned about our Country's lack of leadership, the made up war in Iraq, victims of recent natural disasters and our lack of competetent response, and now the Supreme Court.

Better go make some art...................

2005-04-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

Still can't get my act together to post on a regular basis. The exhibition was a great success with the art center getting considerably more attendance than usual. I got lots of positive comments and the whole experience was good for the ego. When you work everyday in a solitary manner, its good to get it all together and have your work validated.

The news has been so depressing, especially the Terri Shivo stuff and now the Pope is clinging to life. I understand that as soon as the Pope dies, Michael Shivo will be charged with his murder.

I have been in the studio every day for at least 10 hours. Lots of good things are coming from my efforts. Life is good

2005-02-13T09:30:00.000-08:00

The exhibition looks like a success and its good to have that over..........its a lot of work to get it all together and you are always anxious until the show is up and the opening is over.

The political front is starting to get scary and a bit encouraging at the same time. I am so hoping that all of our kids come back from Iraq soon. We need to get them out of harm's way. The scary thing is that Bush feels so empowered right now. In Texas the expression "big hat, no cattle" applies. The scary thing is that GW's people have told him that he does have the cattle. That is a horrifying thought. The encouraging thing is that now the news reports are coming out about the manipulating of the press and all of the memos that show that the war was bogus. His approval level is dropping and I think in time will continue to do so. The thing that continues to confound me is how the Christian community continues to support him when he continues the big lie, gets caught at it, our troups continue to be killed and the situation does not improve.

What do I know.........I'm just a grandma.

2005-02-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

I had promised myself that starting with the first of the year that I would post on a regular basis and am just getting around to it.

The past few weeks have been consumed with getting up my exhibition in Lewisville. I have a show at the Visual Arts League gallery which will be up through March 13. Its very exciting.

Have been really bummed since the election and trying to not think about important issues and concentrating on doing art. That has actually been quite productive and in the process of having a good amount of work done.

Lets see if I can get back on track and do a better job of communication.

2004-07-20T07:29:00.000-07:00

Have not posted for a while which is good and bad. It means that I have had some interesting things going on. The best thing is that I have some interesting art going on right now. I am going to have a solo exhibition of my work next spring and some important juried exhibitions are also coming up soon. That may sound like a long way off but when you make quilts, the process is quite more labor intensive than some mediums even considering that much of the work is done by machine.

The exciting part of this is that I have returned to a way of working that I have done for most of my "art" life but have not followed lately. That is working in a more improvisational way. I have a series going that I call "childs play" and some of this new work has grown from that concept. I am playing with color, design, fabrics, and all my favorite things.

Basically, right at this moment, I am living my dream.

2004-06-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

Lots of family stuff going on for over a week if you count the cooking and cleaning.......but it was worth it but now back to the real work........in my studio. Hope this rain starts to clear up..its getting a little depressing to be this wet every day.

Lets see a little sun.........please God

2004-05-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well.........I must say I had a very interesting comment to my last post about the SBC strike. Seems someone failed to see the irony in my editorial comment.

What a great holiday weekend.......lots of happy events taking place and I am getting to stay home most of the weekend and work in my studio which is my favorite thing to do. How lucky am I?

2004-05-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

It was interesting to see the news here in Texas about the strike against SBC by union workers. Their issues seem to be health care and job security. Seems to me if they really wanted to keep their jobs they could just move to India.......there are plenty of American jobs over there. Wonder what the immigration situation is and how hard it is to get a work permit in India?

2004-05-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Hoping to get lots of art done this weekend. There are many distractions but I must stay focused. I am hand quilting a quilt and have not done that for a while. I forgot how slow the process is and how tender my fingers are but the result will be well worth the effort. The good thing is that there is no deadline for this piece and can work on other things to break up the process.

2004-05-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

Have been very busy for the past few months and just getting back to my blog. Since last posting I have been to a big quilt show in Kentucky and DH and I just returned from a week in Santa Fe. The Santa Fe trip was great just for the inspiration and a chance to be around like-minded people for a few days. The art is so inspiring and you really get a chance to see the work of so many talented artists.

Now back to reality and hope to spend my summer making my art. The first task is to plow through some paperwork in addition to finishing up house and yard work. That stuff never goes away.

2004-02-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

I am constantly amused by threads/conversations that occur on one of my lists of quilt artists. For over a week there has been a discussion going on about teachers in our profession and whether they are good or bad teachers. There is one group that wants to kick ass and take names, another group that wants the information really as a point of gossip, and then the teachers themselves and show promoters that hire these people for their services. So far with a couple of minor exceptions the line has not been crossed with the first group that wants to make their choices of the unfavorable teachers named and hopefully the discussion will end before that happens. A lot of the teachers are members of this list which is about 2500 people but most of them are lurkers and their membership in the group is unknown to most. Many of the list participants have chimed in to name their favorites and many on that list may be there because of their popularity rather than ability. There is the possibility here for at the very least some hurt feelings and the possible loss of earning and professional standing because someones very subjective opinion. While I do think people should express their opinion it should be first taken up with the offending instructor or the director of the venue where the supposed inept teaching occurred.

2004-02-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

Have had a couple of distractions but am basically getting some work done. When you work alone and and have lots of solitary time your mind can really be active. I do keep a tv on while working and the mindless chatter keeps me sort of focused and also keeps me up to date with world events. I have noticed not only on some blogs but on the news lately movements for and against the war efforts in Iraq and around the world. It seems that with all the primaries going on around the country there has been lots of Bush bashing and the news organizations like to offer equal time to the other side and after all, they are in the entertainment business and a good debate can produce some good sound bites.

After listening to all of this I have discovered the complete answer to all the world's problems..........The problem is all those people that want peace....whats their problem anyway? They are followed closely by those crazy environmentalists that are always bitching about clean air, water, drilling for oil and saving trees. We need to eliminate all the peace advocates and the environmentalists. They could all be sent to that base in Cuba and not allowed to see any lawyers and be kept there indefinitely. Then we could invade all countries that do not like us and have assets that we want.........of course we would have to kill all those people but they are evil anyway. The beauty of this plan is we would have all the stuff we want from everyone and the only people left would be us and all our friends.

Halliburtin could have the franchise on all the worlds oil supply and could make all our energy policies like they are doing in this country already. The main problem might be the defense industry.......they might not get so many lucrative contracts with so much peace in the world............I'll work those details out in my mind before all this gets finalized

2004-02-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

had really hoped to get more than 4 hours of quilting yesterday on a quilt that I am working on. I have several others in the works but this one is taking much longer that anticipated. This quilt is being all done on the machine as are most of my quilts these days. I am really anxious to start on a hand quilted/stitched piece.

Hopefully today I will get at least 6 or maybe more hours in. A perfect day is when there are no distractions and I get at least 8 or 10 hours to devote to my work. A perfect week is getting to do that 7 days straight. That does not happen often enough.

2004-02-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

art and life goes on............. have not been good about my blog but hope to do better. Its a job to balance my creative life with family, friends, and household duties. I do belong to a very good group called Quiltart that has about 2500 members. It does get somewhat tedious at times when some people like to talk about way off topic subjects. Sometimes I think some of them do need to keep a journal or blog for themselves to have an outlet for their thoughts.

This is a busy time of year in the Quilt and Art worlds. Lots of shows and exhibitions around the country and here in Dallas. An exciting time of year...........

2004-02-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note this morning to introduce myself. I am an artist that makes quilts. The image that most have of quilts and quilters are the little old lady that sits around the quilt frame with other little old ladies making a quilt to cover a bed. In my case, the former is true and the other part is a myth. The quilt world is one of those sub-cultures that unless you have had some reason to be exposed through family and friends most people do not know it exists. There are huge quilt shows around the world and groups of people, men and women, old and young, that speak this special language.

My daughter, grlinabox, has been on my ass to get this blog started so today I am giving it a go and see what comes of it.

Quilt Hag

2004-01-26T09:27:00.000-08:00

This is my first post on my first day on Blogger.........we'll see where the journey takes us.