And to skip back to the first in the sequence….and then in order.  Taken from the living room side windows and (the last one and the one above) the porch, looking west over the lawn and the big meadow below the stone wall/hedgerow…

Pinch me… I really get to live here?  Where’s the best place to live on Earth?  MAINE!

While heading out to lunch one day from class, one of my students pointed out a building across from the library (where the workshop was held) because she had a piece in the SAQA / Studio Art Quilt Associates regional exhibit!  On my day off between the two teaching jobs, I got to hang out with an internet friend whom I finally got to meet in the real.  Sherri D. took me to the exhibit and a few other places, so let’s  begin with the SAQA exhibit and Georgia’s  fabulous small piece!

Butterfly by Georgia Manning Lewis

She used many surface design techniques on the background and has been doing some wire-work for 3-D shaping.

The first piece I photographed in the exhibit is for my friend Kathy, who loves birds and makes wonderful bird quilts.  So Kath…here is an Arkansas wren for you:

Studio Wren by Sheri Marshall

I loved the stunning simplicity and calm of this piece:

Shamrocks by Ruth Ann Yax

I hadn’t realized that Arkansas is right next to Louisiana and, hence, close to the Gulf.  This artist is from (I think) Mississippi, where the BP oil spill wreaked so much environmental damage.

Guardian of the Gulf by Sarah Scott

A trip to China (according to the blurb card on the wall) was the inspiration for this garden-inspiring quilt:

The lotus by Darlene Garstecki

The artist made this quilt as a mourning quilt after his mother passed away.  On the card he noted: “We used to walk a road in North Carolina and talk.  I have since thought that maybe the words we spoke were captured in the trees; and if I was very quiet and listened very hard, I would hear the words falling back down on me, as I walked alone.”  …… I so love that thought…..

The View from the Road by Murray Johnston

On the other side of the building, I spotted these small kimono which (if I have deciphered the enlarged photo correctly) are by Judy Tipton Rush–really stunning quilting:

Judy Tipton Rush's pieces in the gallery store

The building is a craft/arts center, and had this gorgeous light fixture (I don’t even want to know how much it was for sale!…. and it’s not like there would be a place for it in my house!)

Way cool light fixture

And I’ve been having fun in my working sketchbook/notebook of ideas messing around with collage and magazine pages, so I really enjoyed these two sets of mixed media collages by Kathy Bay.  From looking at the photo closely, I believe they are acrylic paint plus paint on paper that she painted (as opposed to “found” papers).

Crayola Land by Kathy Bay

By Kathy Bay, these remind me of icebergs

Now, of course, I wish I’d taken photos of ALL the quilts, but at least you have a sampling! Enjoy, and I promise to be back without such a long gap between posts!

The finished sketch/lesson

This lesson was “from the mountains,” so my garden filled in!  I chose fiddlehead ferns, a sure sign of spring in Maine, and the tightly furled (and opening) leaf buds of the beech tree.  As I wrote to the class:

I just adore the beech leaves, how they cling so tenaciously to the branch throughout winter, only relinquishing their hold when new growth finally forces them off and to the ground.

I’m posting a photo of what I sketched, but alas I waited too long and things kinda wilted, so I picked a second branch so you can see the long, slender, tightly furled leaf bud.

What I sketched, slightly wilted (with a strong afternoon sidelight and long shadows from the window)

Beech sprig on my closed laptop

I really liked Jane’s page with the two rectangles of leaves and the background of larger leaves and paint coloring the page around the boxes (not shown…in the lesson). I tried to do a similar tint/wash on this, but think I might better have stopped before that step. I was tired of plain backgrounds, but think this painting-in-back would be more effective if I had multiple smaller boxes/windows for the composition rather than this view. I included one photo of how *I* flooded in color: dampen section, add dots of thinned color, blend with a flat brush.

wet into wet....

…..I ended up with stronger blots of color than I wanted, tried to lift, then got sorta yucky rubbed areas. I do think I may want to use a less wet approach on this paper and then make myself a “mixed” journal of both mixed media and watercolor papers, or just suck it up and pay for a large watercolor paper journal period.

I DO like my “photo corners” tho! And it is curious that I, who adore vibrant color, am having fun with more subtle colors… AND (drum roll! ) I managed to remember to take photocopies of just the inked drawing for possible “other use.” What a concept…my brain was engaged!  Here’s the inked page (draw in pencil, draw in with ink, erase pencil) and the page with the greens and browns added, but no background wash.  I think maybe I should have stopped here, but so it goes.  Turn the page, try again!

The inked outlines

At least with my current skill level, I think maybe I should have stopped here and not added the wash of color in the background

Anyway, here ’tis. Now for lesson 5 and back to lesson 3….. Constructive criticism is most welcome and appreciated!

The same applies for all of you…. should I have stopped

At the end of the day in my Tame Fussy, Fiddly Threads class

I flew down to Arkansas on Sunday, connecting in Boston, Mass. and Charlotte, N.C.  As things go it was uneventful, but I must say I loathe air travel any more!  I swear the thing that will eventually convince me to stop  teaching is airports and schlepping of stuff!   That said, it was wonderful once I arrived!  I was met by Sherri D., a friend from a small internet group.  When I booked the job, neither she nor I realized I was coming to HER guild!   So I got to meet her hubby, son, and spend time with her having a couple of happy meals there.  They even sang their Renaissance Faire Celtic songs for me!

On Monday, I gave “The Decorated Quilt” lecture to a full room (always more fun!), and in the afternoon I taught an intro to machine quilting class.

Because this was only a half-day workshop, we didn't do as much with the walking foot on, but I did have them stitch a circle and learn how to make parallel lines without marking. Then we dove into free-motion designs.

Lookit the heart-feathers on the right... I showed them how to mark a spine and guidelines, then wing it to make feathers... I just love that she was willing to give it a go and not be intimidated!!!!

I can't believe this student got so much done in such a short class! There were a couple ladies that, I can tell, are really going to take off with this!

The next day was the full-day class about threads that some think of as cranky threads!  As usual for my classes, I begin with a “slide”/digital presentation that covers the “must know before you start” stuff, and also keeps me on point and not wandering off into fun but time-consuming stories!  After all, I want them to SEW!  Because using fused fabrics to do things in all my classes would be hopelessly dull, I introduce some new stuff in some of the classes instead.  Here, as an alternative to sewn or fused leaves, we stencilled these leaves with Jacquard Lumiere textile paints (you can buy them at craft stores sometimes and from www.dickblick.com always).  I encourage students to use my patterns but re-design the layout or branch out completely on their own. I was thrilled with the results!

Aren't those colors amazing? I love how she varied the tones within sprigs of leaves

Here's how we begin: cutting a stencil out of freezer paper, then ironing it to black fabric. It looks so-so at this stage, but when they start peeling the paper off they are SO excited!

I WISH my photo were a tad more in focus! This lady used my gingko leaf pattern to make her leaf shapes, and I love how she streaked the gold onto the green...fabulous!

The subtle tone on tone black this student brought for the class is awesome for this project. She placed leaf shapes into a starburst pattern and decided they looked like flowers...isn't this gorgeous?

Luckily, program chair and absolute HOOT Evelyn C. suggested photos, so we all got together (including me in the photo…I’m kneeling on the right) and actually got photos of what everyone did! That’s the photo at the top of this post….. Can you tell we had fun?  After class, three of the ladies took me out to dinner at a local BBQ joint, Lindsey’s….OH MY!  I had chopped pork bbq, greens and potato salad, and was introduced to my first (but I hope not my last) fried pie.  It’s like a turnover…. think pie crust, dollop of (in my case) peach pie filling made from scratch, crust folded over to make a half-circle and crimped together and fried.   YUMMM!

Next:  a day with Sherri and Hot Springs Village Quilt Guild.  The HSV day is today, so I had best get my suitcases…we hit the road in about 20 minutes!

Usually, I like to thoroughly pore over a book, reading and evaluating it cover to cover.   This spring is sufficiently busy, however, that I didn’t want to wait, especially since Lark Books (the publisher) was kind enough to send me a review copy.  The interviews with the profiled artists are nicely in depth, and I feel the questions responses give me a much better feel for the artist and how this work brings out their individual response to art and the world around them.  The artist profiles are roughly grouped into the same categories as the galleries.  For example, Ginny Eckley’s work–which often features birds–is just before the birds gallery.  Organizing the book in this way helps the viewer really see how the “voice” and hand of the individual artist are revealed despite similar subject matter.

This is a book I know I am going to want to savor over an extended period, and one which I will return to in the future.

I’ll be teaching in Arkansas for the QUEST guild in Little Rock then the Hot Springs Village Quilt Guild this week!  I’m home for just long enough to do laundry, then off to attend a workshop on dyeing silk.  I’ll post when I can!

End of the Championship Match....ELI WINS!

AND you better believe I am shouting as loud as I can!   We are so immensely proud of Eli…. there was a lot of pressure on him to do well this season (mostly from himself but so many others believed he could be a champ, too), and he was strong physically, mentally, and emotionally!  Eli won the Pine Tree Wrestling League State Championships, 138-lb. weight class today with an undefeated season! Eli is the first kid since 2003 (when Eli was in kindergarten) to win a State title from the Camden-Rockport Middle School (Oliver Bradeen in 2003 was the last–he went on to be a three-time runner up to State Champion in high school, too).

Here is a YouTube video of Eli’s Championship match.  Camden-Rockport coaches Paul and True are just to the right of the screen, the Bath team coaches are just to the left of the screen.  Eli is in red, the Bath boy is Justin Johnson, in blue.  (If you want to see it full screen click in the lower right of the embedded video to enlarge; press Escape to return to exit full screen mode).  FYI…at about 5 minutes in, you’ll see a break in the action.  The Bath kid tried a move, but Eli held him tight; when the Bath boy went down, he got squeezed and it hurt, so they took a medical time out.  Fortunately, he was OK.  Then after they resume wrestling you’ll hear me say “come on that was 7 seconds”–the scoring table forgot to re-start the clock!  The refs realized they had been wrestling enough time, so moved the clock forward to 2 seconds left, the match re-started, then  Eli  got the win officially, score 9-1, which is considered a “Major Decision” (i.e. by a big margin).

With forfeits and exhibition matches (4 of those, two with 145-lb kids, two with 131), Eli finishes his season at 34-0!  WOW!   I am totally impressed, and especially at the comments of the other adults.  After his first match, the REFEREE complimented him on his takedown.  During the course of the day and after Eli won, other coaches congratulated Paul (dad and Asst. Coach) and True (coach) on how good a wrestler he is, and how nice a kid he is, too!   Can you tell I am absolutely popping with pride?

This may be my favorite photo I've ever taken of Eli wrestling...it really captures the speed of the action, the strength and determination of the athletes!

MAJOR THANKS to Paul for the incredible amount of time he has given to CRMS over the past seven seasons, first with Joshua and now with Eli, and the time and devotion to honing Eli’s physical abilities and mental outlook, to True Bragg (coach) for what he has given not just to Eli but to the team over the years he  has been coach, and to Eli’s practice partners and the other coaches from the area who have helped Eli.   We are so blessed to live in a wrestling hotbed that, more than anything, is a welcoming (to us folks from away!), warm, caring community that takes care of and celebrates its own.

Here are some photos of the championship match:

The opening whistle sounds!

Eli dominated the match from start to finish, with one brief (scary for mom except it was over so fast) blip in the third period

As Eli said -- it's hard to do anything is someone grabs your ankle, hence using the move!

Look at the stretch on both boys! They need strength, flexibility, speed, mental agility, mental toughness...

End of the Championship Match....ELI WINS!--it's worth repeating again here GRIN!

Two happy and now-relaxed coaches!

Photo is a tad blurry, but I like it anyway...Eli (L), Paul (back), True (R)

Eli adds another bracket sheet to his room... Bath kid is next, and 3rd place with white ribbon. Congrats to all!

Paul looks at Eli's first place medal--the middle spins around

I cajoled the kids who went into a photo when we stopped at McD's on the way home. Far left is Elvis B. who also made it into the States, Coach True, teammate E., Eli, Paul behind Teammate H., and jovial chatterbox teammate T.

Thanks to the teammates who were able to attend today.  We’ll see everyone we hope at the end-of-season potluck on Wednesday at the school.   WOOOHOOOOOHOOOOOO!

CONGRATULATIONS ELI!

On the way home from exercise class at the Y in Camden, March 29th....

Approaching Hope Crossing (i.e. downtown Hope, Maine)

The willow hedge on the lower part of the driveway

The willow tree near the "corner" of the driveway. I love how the branches first flush yellow-green in spring, then the buds begin to swell and, here, catch the snow

home, looking uphill from the lower part of the driveway. One of these years we will paint and get rid of the awful dark brown on the house, but it doesn't need painting yet. But how did we get so lucky to live somewhere so beautiful, again?!!!!

At least it truly is beautiful.  And it will melt.  SOON.  We actually have a crocus that bloomed a month early in the garden, and the iris greens are already coming up!  I’m ready for this to be the last of the white stuff until next fall!

Tomorrow/Saturday the 31st:  State Wrestling tournament…send “good wrestling, good referee-ing” thoughts for Eli!

I also thought those who surf in regularly, and did so before I announced the giveaway on various large lists, should get a special thanks, so I’ve picked another person from those first nineteen (who commented before March 27), and Number 2 (!!!) Bev in NC  will be getting my Pomegranate Notebook pattern (or any of my patterns of her choice).

Thanks for participating!

In wrestling with 8-person brackets, the rule is that if you want to end up in the championship match (for first and second place), you need to win two before you lose two.  So here’s Eli’s first match:

First match, ended in 30 seconds with a pin. It happened so fast I had barely hit "On" on the camera that I didn't get any video....

I managed to mess up the photography, alas, despite doing test-runs last week.  I brought out the GOOD camera, the DSLR Nikon and I really need to spend more time learning how to make it do what I want!  But I got some good shots.  And I took video…or so I thought…on my everyday digital, but I had taken it off Video and put it on still photo during the week and forgot to switch it back.  So this first match ended so fast I didn’t get a chance to correct my error.

Second match:  this one took a little longer.  Remember there are 3 periods in wrestling; in middle school the first period is 2 minutes, then 2nd and 3rd are one minute long.  In high school, matches are 3 2-minute periods; in college, it is 3-2-2-.

Second match: PIN! At 1 minute 31 seconds in the first period.

At least I got a really good photo…. the point of the match is to win.  A great way to win instantly and end the match is to pin the opponent’s shoulders to the mat.  That is why Eli is “T”‘d off on the kid on the bottom—you get the best leverage being chest-to-chest (Eli is a little far over) and at right angles–like a T–to the kid on the bottom.  The Ref is using the hand with the red band to smack the mat to show Eli (in red…the other kid has on the green ankle band on his rear leg, but it is hard to see because he’s wearing tights under the singlet) wins by fall (pin).

Next:  the championship round against a kid from Hermon, whom he had not wrestled during the season.  This boy was also–up until Saturday–undefeated, but had fewer matches than Eli.

Murphy's Law lives at wrestling meets. No matter WHERE in the gym the parent is, the ref is ALWAYS immediately blocking the parent's line of sight to their kid as here. By the way...we LOVE this ref. He is one of the best in Maine, and happens to head up the Ref's association. He is fair, compassionate, understands kids, and when ref-ing--even when the kids make mistakes--takes the time to instruct ant teach while making calls. He's "the bee's knees!"

Here is a few moments earlier in the match, but a better shot:

Eli nearly gets the Hermon boy in a "cradle" for a pin. Alas, the Hermon boy got Eli in an illegal headlock which the ref did not see, so Eli had a bit of work to get out of it. He did, but the match went into a second period. In the photo above he is just about 2 seconds away from pinning the boy 30 seconds into the second period.

Three matches.  Three wins.  Three pins.  Still undefeated.

The "Win" hands-up went up and down so fast I missed it, so here the refs are checking with the scorekeepers and Eli is running his bout sheet back to the head scoring table after the win.

Eli, as winner, gets to keep the bracket sheet which shows who wrestled in the weight class, with him as Champion:

Eli on the winner's stand! Alas, the camera was having trouble metering with the bright window behind and I missed the shot with the other 3 boys up there....

ALL the kids on the team wrestled their hearts out and did their coaches proud.  One other kid, Elvis B., won his weight class, so he and Eli will continue on to States on March 31.

L to R: Coach True Bragg, Elvis B. 124-lb Champion, Eli at 138-lb Champion, and Asst. Coach Paul Smith (aka dad); photo taken in the high school wrestling room.

The other great news came on Sunday with the results of the Western Regionals.  The winner was the boy from Bath, whom Eli has beaten in each of his three head-to-head matches with him.  So there is a chance for Eli to win states!   Paul reminds the kids that you are one move away from getting pinned by someone you have never heard of, though, so Eli will have to continue to keep his focus and determination.    Stay tuned for results next weekend.  No colds or injuries allowed between now and then!   The Bath kid will have hometown advantage, as the State Finals will be wrestled in Bath, but we know Eli will excel.  As a friend told Eli, TOTAL DOMINATION on the mat!

Incoming Tide by Winslow Homer (from Maine!), from the US National Gallery of Art

The U.S. National Gallery of Art just launched NGA Images, an online resource to view and USE portions of their collections.  Here is how they describe it:

NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 20,000 open access digital images up to 3000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.

Astonishingly and wonderfully (this is one of the things the U.S. Government does so well), the artworks no longer under copyright are FREE for you to download and use and enjoy (just be sure to make sure you read their terms of use).   Thank you to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation which made this wonderful resource possible!  And thanks to Uncle Sam for doing this.

One of the most popular paintings in the collection is Leonardo da Vinci’s Ginevra de Benci.  The painting is relatively small, even with the frame it is smaller than your typical college-dorm poster.  And the detail is phenomenal…you can see individual hairs on her forehead.  Just imagine, he and this young woman lived over 500 years ago and there she is, still alive for us today in this portrait!

Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo da Vinci

And one of my favorites is Gaugin’s Fatata te Miti.  When I was an undergraduate at Georgetown University, I would every now and then take my books and hop on an “even 30′s” (32-34-36) bus line which ran from Wisconsin Avenue, NW in Georgetown down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House (the street was open to cars  then) and down to the National Gallery, and sit in one or a couple of the galleries to do my homework.  I could look up between paragraphs or assignments and just absorb all that incredible art!

One of my favorites, Fatata te Miti by Gauguin....just LOVE the color!

At least as astonishing as NGA Images is GoogleArt or, more accurately, The Art Project powered by Google.  All I can say is HOLY COW!   WOW!!!!!!!!!!! This resource lets you explore museums around the world and you can zoom in so close, the photography is so phenomenal, you can see brushstrokes and small cracks in the paint!!!!!! I mean, you can see details that you’d need to be standing 6 inches away in real life to be able to see that well (and I expect in many of the museums you’re not allowed that close!).

Just SOME of the museums on GoogleArt are

• The Museum of Modern Art (New York City),
• The Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)
• The National Gallery (London)
• The Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)
• The Versailles Museum (Versailles)
• The Uffizi Gallery (Florence)
• The Hermitage (St. Petersburg)

I mean you’d need to win a BIG lottery to be able to travel to just these museums let alone all of them.  And to be utterly greedy, I hope that as more and more of the repositories of our world heritage bring their collections online, they will become a part of this phenomenal resource.  And the Art Project not only lets you see the artwork, but the museum spaces, too…. oh sigh drool dream!  It’s like you are standing in the rooms…..sigh, drool, dream!

In this image captured from the site (and gosh I hope that is OK to have done!) you see Les Vessenots à Auvers by Van Gogh.

Van Gogh's Les Vessenot à Auvers in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid

If you go here, to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Spain, look in the lower right for a slider bar that allows you to zoom in.  You can SEE THE BRUSHSTROKES and daubs of paint….

Zoomed in to see the individual brushstrokes and daubs of paint

Have I said recently how much I love the internet?   WOW.  And remember…not my fault if you forget to pick up the kids after school or make supper <GRIN>  HAVE FUN surfing the web!