Another surprise during my last trip to California was at the retirement community where my mom lives, Smith Ranch Homes in San Rafael, California. On the lower level, they have monthly art shows in the corridor from the Grill Room (a lunch cafe / restaurant) past the mail room to the lower lobby, shop and beauty parlor. In February, they had textile/fiber art, including an art quilt! Some of the pieces were quite modern and abstract, some representational, and many were interesting. Here are some of my favorites, starting with this glorious piece of art cloth (all pictures are clickable to enlarge, most include the tags with the name of the piece and the artist, but alas am not sure they can be read! I tried!):

Here is another piece I particularly liked, made of discharged fabrics fused or otherwise adhered to the black background:

The “kimono” was fun, too… made of metal I think, with glass affixed– the piece on the far left was cloth and encaustic (I think)….

All in all, it was interesting, nice to see fiber art, but a bit lacking in color! I remember one purple woven piece, and an interesting face made of denim worked punched-rug style, but as loyal readers know, I’m ALL about COLOR!

Here are some of the other pieces I liked. This one is fairly 3-D:

This one is copper foil applied to the background with thin strips of copper sheeting or copper tape wound around the piece:

The one art quilt needed a bit of help in the hanging sleeve department and the quilting was fine if uninspired, but the threadwork to make the 3-D flag was intriguing:

and a detail of the flag:

All in all, I was happy to see fiber / textile art being shown, but apart from a denim piece (a portrait, worked in hooked rug style) and a woven in purples and greens, it was rather lacking in color…. and loyal readers know, I LOVE COLOR! I’m hoping to be able to afford a major dye-fest when the weather is warm this summer to indulge that vice <GRIN!>… stay tuned!

A thousand years or more ago, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was young, I attended San Domenico School. The school is not so much larger in terms of students, but my oh my the opportunities for those kids! The lower school is now co-ed, tho the high school is, for a while longer, still all girls (I think there are plans to change that in time, and I’m OK with it!). I’ve been able to donate my piddly little donation every year, while Mom was able to endow a music scholarship for the outstanding classical music program; in another time and era, mom probably would have loved to be a professional musician, but as a child of the Depression, earning a living came first and foremost. All photos in this post are clickable to view larger in a new window.

Sure wish I’d been that talented back then and then had the next 30+ years to improve on that foundation!

On my recent trip to California (by the time this publishes on the blog, I’ll be back for the last one, to get mom moved to Maine!), Mom and I were able to attend the Virtuoso Program concert. In the Faith France Lobby next to the auditorium, there is always a wonderful art display, this time by the students of the Upper School (high school). I am always so amazed…. and wish I could take the classes with them! I think the photo above, of the pomegranates, and the one below of the tree are my favorites:

Here’s a picture of mom with the two girls who currently hold her scholarship…one is a violinist and I think the other is a cellist:

Then here is more of the art:

My friend Jacquie the QuiltMuse sent me this and of course I had to share…. I used to live in DC and one of the highlights of the newspaper year was when these definitions would come out…. they are ALWAYS hilarious. Just goes to prove that bureaucrats and politicos (well, some of them) DO have a sense of wit!

Here is the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. —-some of the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
3. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
4. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
5. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
6. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
7. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
8. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
9. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
10. Decafalon (n): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
11. Glibido: All talk and no action.
12. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
13. Arachnoleptic Fit (n): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
14. Beelzebug (n): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
15. Caterpallor (n): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.

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The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent, (n) An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Camden (Maine) is fortunate to have a wonderful Teen Center which is open free of charge to 5th through 12th graders here. It is mostly enjoyed by the middle school kids and younger teens (and it happens to be located a short walk from the middle school), my oldest son among them. They have had a fun fund-raiser the past year or two at least, and this year I got to be a part of it. Folks donate chairs or stools, which artists of various sorts then gussy up for sale at the auction. When I went, there weren’t a whole lot of options… I wanted to do something larger than a stepstool, so this tall stool was about it. Alas, I forgot to take a picture of it in its initial dark brown stain, which I sanded. I then painted it with the same aqua that I used on my new fabric shelves (shelving seen here — note, all photos are clickable to view larger).

Then I got out my craft paints, selected as many fun colors as I could find (bright blues were gone, and the fuchsia, alas, was solidified beyond using…sob!). The palette above is lovely, don’t you think? Here is a view of the chair while being polyurethaned (and does anyone know why my craft paints might have smeared a bit when coated????):

And a view of the front when done:

And the back:

And a close up of the seat (that light spot in the center is just that, a light / reflection):

Near Fort Cronkhite, on the south end of the beach, is Point Bonita. The point juts out into the water forming a corner of sorts between the bottom of the headlands, which head east to the Golden Gate, and the northward turn of the coast which goes beyond Fort Cronkhite up the coast to Point Reyes and more. When they started to develop the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, they opened up parts of the headlands that had previously been forbidden territory housing missiles and (later) falling down bunkers. On the headlands, there is the Point Bonita lighthouse (trust me…it’s out there….also, these photos are click-able to become larger).

At a certain point, the road becomes a one-way, narrow, twisty, white-knuckle driving experience of breathtaking beauty with the sunlight nearly blinding you reflecting on the water. Luckily, there was no one behind me, so I was able to snap these photos through the windshield…with emergency brake ON! The first part of the one-way road is a VERY steep downhill; as you look over the hood of the car, all you see is the guard rail and the ocean beneath…the drop-off is SO steep that you couldn’t even see grasses!

And to offset the sheer magnificent beauty of this scene, was this sign near the roadway that crossed the lagoon: