Today I have, alas, no pictures to share, but boy do I have two AWESOME links to share that are art quilt and textile related!  The first is about antique indigo…the actual indigo!  The second is about katazome artist Karen Miller.

First, Isabella Whitworth makes incredible silk pieces in the UK which you can see on her website, here. On a recent post to the Dyers’ List (a listserv for folks interested in dyeing fibers, both cellulose like cotton and protein like wool–to sign up visit this site). She mentioned that she had recently been to an indigo symposium in the UK and was able to see some pieces of contemporary cloth and yarn dyed with indigo that is over 360 years old!!!!!! The indigo was retrieved by divers from a shipwreck that dates to 1641; one expert was given some, and dyed the pieces. Totally flippin’ amazing! Click HERE to go to that particular part of Isabella’s website.  And after you’ve done that, be sure to check out Isabella’s gallery pages….sigh….lust for cloth…..inspiration!

The second treat is thanks to Gerrie Congdon, who is an artquilter, dyer of cloth, awesome gramma, and many other things besides, and relates to Karen Miller. Karen Miller is a West Coast artist who specializes in katazome, a dyeing-out-but-not-if-she-can-help-it art from Japan which in one cuts stencils (meticulously, using many, MANY hours) by hand, applies rice paste, then dyes / prints fabric. Karen was recently profiled on an Oregon PBS program which you can find (thanks for the link Gerrie!) at Oregon Art Beat.

For my Friday Harbor and West Coast readers, you may be intrigued to know that not only is Karen a marine biologist / scientist by training, but her parents (or was it her grandparents? I met her at the Assn of Pacific Northwest Quilters show years ago and the details are a bit fuzzy now) helped establish and get-going the U. of Washington Marine Labs at the edge of the harbor that lends its name to the town of Friday Harbor in San Juan Island, Washington. Way cool! I think she sometimes teaches at Coupeville Arts Center on Whidbey… if I were still on the island, I’d be there for a workshop!

If you love learning about fiber, old fiber arts, and contemporary artists, treat yourself to some websurfing and visit all of these links. I’m going back, and I could watch Karen’s segment on Oregon Art Beat many times (as soon as it was over the first time–all 6+ minutes– I immediately hit play again!).

ProChem is in Fall River, Massachusetts, the town literally on the edge of the state next to Rhode Island (to get to ProChem from the highway you drive through a few blocks of a neighborhood in Tiverton, RI). My dad was born there in (get this!) 1899, and no, that is not a typo…he was OLD when I was born, nearly 59!

Anyway, lately I’ve been taken with pictures of falling down houses here in Maine. This burned out shell on Shove Street in Fall River, maybe 2/10 of a mile from ProChem caught my eye every morning as I drove in to class (the motel is in a neighboring town). On the way home on Saturday afternoon, I finally stopped to take pics because I knew I’d really be sorry if I didn’t. The picture above is of an outside staircase, that went from the sidewalk to what presumably used to be the main living level of the former house.

This next picture is of the old basement /ground level. I love the old arched doorway to the stairs curving up… from the way it is made, I am guessing these were inside stairs to a back or side entry.

Here’s a picture of the charred window frame and old plastered stone wall:

And finally, to help you place things, a wide angle view of the arched-doorway wall and the house next door. It is VERY close…less than ten feet so I’ll bet it was scary for the owners of the new house when the old one was going up in flames!

It is that glorious time of year again, when the air is crisp, the leaves are on fire, the sky is screaming blue (alternating with stormy gray). I don’t know if autumn is my favorite season because I was born in early October (yep, I hit FIFTY this month…. don’t feel a day over early-30s except for my knees!), or just because autumn is so spectacular. After retrieving two quilts from a local quilt show on Monday, I took lots and LOTS of pics on the way home. The one above is one of my favorites…. as usual, I love the close ups. I totally love the sharp contrast of the nearly-black bark and the bright oranges and reds. I’ve been really inspired by some of Dijanne Cevaal‘s recent quilts of treescapes (click on her name, which will take you to her July 2007 archives and scroll down to July 15 and 7), and after the Week 2 dyeing class with Carol Soderlund, think I have several TreeScape quilts in my future!

While on the way down to the quilts, I spotted this tree and, on my return, pulled over for the first of a series of road-side Driver’s Seat Snapshots:

Then there was a whole string of glorious shots (all from the car! I WAS careful and pulled over to the shoulder, etc). Here’s one of turning leaves–I love to see the progression of color change from the treetop and tips of the branches, flushing back towards the trunk.

Then of course there are the startling silhouettes of branches laden with red, the deep shadows of the northern woods behind:

Here is a wide-angle shot, not so pretty, but it gives an idea of what the roadside looks like on Route 90 in Warren and Rockport:

Here is a glorious massing of red:

And a portrait of a young, understory maple:

And another:

Even the gas station had glorious shots. The best priced gas is at the independent station at Tolman Pond on Route 90 in Rockport. Here is a major zoom picture of the trees on the far end of the pond (in the West something this large would be called a small lake!):

As I took the picture of the diesel pump, a guy asked me if I was focusing the camera. I said no, taking a picture. He allowed as how he’d never seen anyone take a picture of a gas pump before, but I think it makes a good photograph. Who knows, we all know I’m slightly deranged (said in a John Cleese voice, please! “Deeee-Ranged!”).

October 9-13 I took Carol Soderlund‘s Color Mixing for Dyers II at ProChem in Fall River, Massachusetts. Long time readers may remember that I took Week 1 last year and blogged about it here (1), here (2) and here (3). The large square in the last blogpost actually ended up being the focal fabric on Side 2 of Koi! (Here for that link.). Well, here is a tease from our second day: color wonderfulness, a.k.a. fabric in the washer:

And here is a full shot of the washer:

I am getting ready to lecture and teach in Manchester, NH, on Friday and Saturday, so will leave the “full” blogging about this wonderful week until next week, but will have more goodies and eye candy for you in a couple of days. Until then, hope you enjoy the color.

Keep on sewing!

The last three pieces hanging at Zoot are two “trees” pieces and the White Flower. This first piece was made for the “Changing Perspectives” challenge; the idea was to present something from a different perspective, or something that made you change your perspective. “Looking Inward” appears to be a night scene, perhaps with the aurora borealis. In fact, the two images are scans of my retinas; my eye doctor shared and gave permission for me to use the scans, which I manipulated in Photoshop Elements to change the colors (the red – green default for the examination equipment was a bit scary!) before printing onto fabric.

The quilt has hanging sleeves on both long edges (it is 14×24) so it can be hung as we would expect to see trees, or as the trees actually imprint on the retina: upside down. Here’s a detail:

Camden Sunset is another of several small quiltlets featuring a photo transfer of a beautiful winter sunset; I snapped this shot less than a quarter mile from our home.

Finally, White Flower is a piece I began for the Frayed Edges Grid challenge (see here for more). I liked this piece, but it just didn’t seem finished with just the white portion–it needed more. So I made another piece for the Grid challenge and mounted this white satin, painted, and heavily beaded piece. The green stamens are satin-stitched chenille stems which stand out from the surface. Overall size is 13×17, the white panel is 7×10 inches.

And here’s a detail of the center:

As with the other pieces at Zoot, these three are for sale. Looking Inward is $195, Camden Sunset is $165, and White Flower is $225.