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Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

New Joshilyn Jackson book…The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

If you liked gods in Alabama or Between, Georgia you’re in for a treat, especially if you are an art quilter. Joshilyn Jackson, author, mom and quilter, has written a new novel about an art quilter, inspired by the irrepressible Pamela Allen. Joshilyn has blogged about the new book, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, here. And you can read Joshilyn’s blog, Faster than Kudzu, here. And to see Pamelala’s creative mind at work, click here and here.  After reading Joshilyn’s intro to the book in the blogpost, I think I’m gonna be booked for late September… READING time!

In the meantime, I am reading and LOVING Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story.  I am normally not a fan of horror, though I quilt like fantasy and some (non-techy) sci fi.  This book isn’t really a horror story, though it does have its scary  moments… perhaps all the more scary because they are so close to possibly being real.   It is a novel about an intense  love story between Lisey Landon, widow of a famous and successful novelist, and her late husband.  Personally, I thought King’s On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft was a 200+ page love-letter to his wife; it is about writing, but it is also about a deep and enduring love between him and his wife, author and poet Tabitha King.  Lisey’s Story is dedicated to her, and is an even longer love-letter about a love that extends beyond every day life.  So now I need to get back to doing (and finish!) the paperwork for various teaching gigs next year so I can escape to the back porch while the nice weather lasts and keep reading Lisey’s Story!

Maine Botanical Gardens, sculptures part 1

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

The sculpture at the Botanical Gardens is as wonderful as the hardscape and the landscaping, and is exquisitely placed. As you approach the entrance to the visitors center, one of the first sculptures to greet you is this woman and owl (there was a sticker on the tag, so it seems some pieces are for sale, like this one, and others are permanent installations):Woman and owl

There has been a bit of talk over on Rayna Gillman’s blog about working in a series as well as on the SAQA yahoo group. Well, I’m one of the “don’t think I could do a series” types (as in I don’t want to!), but after seeing the woman and owl and this next piece by the same artist, I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, there *might* be a chance of a thematic sort of thing…..

Raven Girl

One of the pieces that most captured me was this yellow-orange blown glass flower / reeds / whatever was in a large pond near the entrance and large open grassy areas (where weddings happen, we are told)…. Kate and Kathy weren’t nearly as enchanted as I was… I took gobs of photos of it:

Glass Flower

On the way down to the river, you come around a bend and see this glorious glass orb. We don’t know if it is solid or hollow, but it appears to be made out of sheets of glass. Even on an overcast (ok, just finished raining and still drippy) day, it was lit up, and when the sun is out the photos of it make it seem to float. The siting of it on a mound above the path is perfect:
The orb

I’ll share more photos of sculptures in a few days.

Maine Botanical Gardens, hardscape

Sunday, September 16th, 2007

Last Monday (gosh…a week already? It has been, as usual, a crazy busy blur of a week) I met two of my fellow Frayed Edges at the opened-this-year Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor (north of Portland, south of Camden about an hour plus a bit). The gardens were incredibly inspiring, so I’ll just share a bunch of photos.

As you approach the entrance to the visitors center, this glorious stone wall (and Maine has many!) greets you, with a bit of garden sculpture in the mid-ground on the right. I’ll do another post on the sculptures around the grounds in a few days….

“S” wall near entrance

This is the “zen” or meditating area. Frankly, I never slow down enough to even THINK about meditating… my life seems to be on permanent fast-forward. But the steps and stonescape up the hillside are gorgeous:

Meditating Garden hardscape

Part of this Zen area is a path that to us looked like a strand of DNA:DNA path

At the bottom of the hill is the river / fingerling of the bay, with a typical Maine vista:Wharf/Dock

And on the path back was this glorious stump…how can you not love those colors and textures?Fungus on stump

Then there is the tracery of tree roots

:Tree roots tracery

And the beauty of a stump atop cracked rocks:Stump and cracked rock