I finished On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. The first things I learned are that for all that he writes creepy books (which personally are not my thing), he writes well, he cares about his art, and above all he loves his wife and family. Although this book is about writing / being a writer, in many ways, this book is really a love letter to his wife (Tabitha) of what must be at least 30 years, and it is wonderful to read. It is also a fascinating glimpse into the life he lived as a kid (poor, very poor, no dad, hard times). And for all his success, I can’t fathom why if the man is this funny he doesn’t write more humor…I was laughing out loud, a lot…Paul kept looking over at me saying “are we enjoying our book?”

King is writing about writing fiction, but just as easily the words could be applied to any creative effort or art form. For example:

p. 64 “my belief that good writing can be simultaneously intoxicating and idea-driven”

p. 74 “Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

p. 76 “The story remained on the back burner for awhile, simmering away in that place that’s not quite the conscious but not quite the subconscious, either.”

p. 114 and 118: “I want to suggest that to write to your best ability, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work. …… common tools go on the top. The commonest of all, the bread of writing, is vocabulary. … You’ll also want grammar on the top shelf of your toolbox.”

(note from Sarah: the same thing applies in art quilting…you learn the techniques, how to work with thread and cloth and machine and imagination, learn design and color…these are all tools to be applied when you hit a snag or are running with an idea)

And from pages 120-121 which have LOTS of marginalia as I was reading:

“Vocabulary used in speech or writing organizes itself in seven parts of speech (eight, if you count interjections…When these rules break down, confusion and misunderstanding result. … these strings of words begin with a capital letter, end with a period, and combine to make a complete thought which starts in the writer’s head and then leaps to the reader’s.”

And from my notes in the margin: what is the visual equivalent or a sentence / paragraph? Is there one? Is visual art supposed to communicate clearly in the same way as language / words? What is our visual vocabulary? Is there a visual grammar? How does it differ for representational versus abstract art?

On page 121, King continues by quoting William Strunk (remember Strunk and White?): ” ‘Unless he is certain of doing well, [the writer] will probably do best to follow the rules.’ “

and further down the page King adds in his own pithy way: “Grammar is not just a pain in the ass; it’s the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.”

The next layer down in the toolbox is ” those elements of style”…BINGO! (that’s on p. 129) And here is a phrase he wrote about writing, but I think applies perfectly to Kathy’s art (her blog is Studio in the Woods):

p.133 “it is possible to overuse the well-turned fragment (…), but frags can also work beautifully to streamline narration, create clear images, and create tension as well as to vary the prose-line.”

To which I would reply…So what is our “grammar” as textile artists / art quilters ?..Is it the ability to handle and manipulate the cloth, batting, thread, and anything else that goes onto a quilt (paint, beads, fibers, whatever)… what do you consider the fundaments of our trade?

And I’ll make this the last for this post (though there are many more):

p. 135: “Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.”

YES! in quilts, the cloth, the thread, the vision migrates from inside my head to the cloth and takes on a life…

My bottom line: even though I’ve never been drawn to his books, I like the guy. And since I like the series on USA-tv The Dead Zone, which is based on one of his books, I may actually read that novel (but steer clear of the really creepy ones). And I’d like to say thanks to him for loving his wife…seems like he’s been a good husband and a good dad, and that counts more than anything in a bank.

who asked two questions. Since $&*)(+*^ blogger now sends most comments to me as “no reply” I can’t reply off-line! So here goes, and hope these may be of interest or use to the rest of you (thank you again for surfing in…I’m always amazed that folks actually DO surf in regularly! THANKS!).

Why did I switch to a Mac?

–I was sick of Norton anti-virus programs the suck up memory and slow down the computer to glacial
–my son has an Apple G4 through his school, and I wanted to be able to know my way around his laptop (Maine has an AWESOME program–laptops for EVERY 7th, 8th and 9th grader in the state, and working their way up the years in high school as the program progresses… the idea is that EVERY Maine student will be prepared for life with computer skills no matter what their family’s financial or educational background…way cool!)
–Apples are good for art type programs, and I think the Apple Version of PowerPoint will be much easier for me to use for teaching / lectures (she said, optimistically, hoping that someone will HIRE her to do this!).

Was the quilting in my Tree and Wall quilts on a long-arm or HSM?

It is ALL done on my Janome 6600! I love LOVE LOVE this machine! It has a larger harp area and handles ANY thread with ease. With the extra space (about 2 more inches horizontally, an inch or a bit more vertically) it is SO MUCH easier to manipulate the bulk of a quilt. I’ll try to post pics of me at the machine in a week or so. There are some of my set-up back in May or June Archives…when I was working on the Tableau / Nativity quilt if you’re inclined to browse the archives. But I’ll post some new ones for fun before too long.

OK…. finished jury duty today (yeah!) so going to run quilt a bit before the kids get home and chaos ensues!

a Weather Report from Camden, Maine:

Yes, that is MINUS temps. At 8:02 a.m. this morning. Outside temperature was minus 5 Fahrenheit (for my non-US visitors, zero Celsius is 32 F, so minus 5 is 37 degrees colder, or about minus 20 C). With the wind chill (we had a breeze blowing pretty much all day) it was minus 9. Our HIGH temp for the day was Seven. Yes, Seven. I have been in colder weather –once– about two winters ago, at night, but I’ve never had such a cold day. I am grateful for a weathertight home, enough income to heat it (well, the downstairs), and a toasty woodstove and quilting! And yes, we did go out…to wait with Eli for the schoolbus, to head to the Y to work out, and later to collect Joshua after school. At 7:02 pm it is currently One degree Fahrenheit. Not including wind chill.

a mail report (neither cold, nor sleet, nor gloom of night…):

Well it was a blockbuster quilty day for me in the mail: Quilting Arts has now gone to six issues a year (and this is the one with the Tim Gunn interview), New Zealand Quilter (perhaps some of the best art quilts in the world are to be found in its pages–it is easy to subscribe on-line here with using one’s US credit card…the currency conversion is automatic–click on the link at the bottom of the page to go to a secure page for ordering), the show catalog for Maine Quilts 2007, Keepsake Quilting catalog, a check for the sale of a small art quilt, and the biggest surprise, an invitation from Clamshell Quilters in Damariscotta (about 45 minutes south of here) to have a quilt or two in an invitational special exhibit at their first-ever quilt show, this coming October. OF COURSE I will, and will donate a pattern as a door prize, too!

and a quilt update:
Remember The Wall and the Tree blogpost? Well, I’m now quilting…This photo is what the back of The Tree looks like so far.

Along with the gratuitous kitty pictures, because she is sweet, has many toes, follows me around the house, keeps me company, and loves to share the milk for my tea. First, it’s bath time:

then just a lick will do:

Yeowza what a day…. even if the promised snow was a feeble 3 inches instead of the promised (and wanted) 6-10 inches! I was skeptical but optimistic when my “order tracking” for my new laptop said FedEx would deliver it today, a holiday (for those not in the US, it is Martin Luther King day, a federal holiday). But when the FedEx guy arrived…and only in Maine and maybe Alaska and Minnesota would someone arrive in 20 degree weather and snow wearing shorts…he had TWO packages. And since I’m evil, I’m going to make you read to the bottom for the best part. First, this came:

What is that you ask? That is the styrofoam packing for the inside of the box with my MacBookPro which arrived, fresh from Shanghai, China (where it left on Thursday!)!!! And of course the first thing I thought when looking at that styrofoam: gee, I’ll bet that would make a great rubbing plate for Shivas and for printing on cloth….

Yes, here is my new baby:

I have decided to NOT try to switch everything from my PC to the Mac immediately. I really, REALLY want to finish The Tree and The Wall quilts first, plus have jury duty again on Thursday, and maybe next week, too. But I DID get the laptop turned on, e-mail set up and internet working (and heavens be praised somehow the laptop “found” the wifi in our house and did the hard stuff leaving me to be surprised and happy I didn’t have to “set up” anything to connect!!!). Of course, this decision is AGONIZING, but…..

One thing that will help the transition a LOT is this:

My friend Lisa Walton, of Sydney, Australia, (She is an art quilter and fabric dyer..website here and blog here where she just posted some awesome fabric she just dyed) bought a Mac laptop on her last day of a nice long vacation in the US last November. While she was in Barnes and Noble she spotted this book and told me about it (since she knew I too was thinking about getting one). BOY is this going to help! Thanks Lisa…and as soon as I figure out the how / what / etc., we can share projects and WiPs (works in Progress) live over the internet–brave wonderful new world!

Then there was the other “expected” surprise….

at long last the envelope confirming my conversation with the Executive Book Editor at AQS (which happened on Dec. 12…a date marked on my calendar): The OFFICIAL CONTRACT to do a book on ThreadWork with AQS!!!!! It will be about using thread on the surface of a quilt: applique, decorative-stitch and free-motion “embroidery / embellishment”, and quilting, all by machine.

To say that I am elated is an understatement of EPIC proportions! I’m doing the happy dance all over again! I can scarcely believe that it is true, but I have the paperwork to prove it! I need to call and talk to someone about dates, but I’m guessing the book will be out in time for Fall Market and Festival in 2008…WOWIE ZOWIE! Call me ELATED! So I guess I’d better stop blogging and Get to WORK! WOOOHOOOOOOO!

Well another week has evaporated…I know I was busy all week, but it seems to have vanished anyway! I finished one quilt over the last weekend…even got the hanging sleeve on! It may look familiar, since I did a series of posts in September featuring the postcards. This is a way to give a fabric postcard (or series) a bit more substance:

I quilted a background (about 14×28 inches) separately. First, I placed the postcards on the background so I could mark around them in chalk and mark where the slope of Mt. Fuji ended. Then I could mark the quilting lines that connect the mountain slopes. In the foreground / bottom area, I quilted more hills just as I did in the cards, then added “cloud” quilting in the top area. Finally, I stitched the four postcards to the surface of the background quilt. I really like this way of displaying a series of cards!

I also finished reading “On Writing” by Stephen King…yes, the one who wrote Carrie and Cujo and various other ghastly stories, lives up near Bangor, part-owns the Boston Red Sox, and is the owner of the only Maine-owned radio station WKIT (which has cool rock music…stuff that isn’t bubble gum pop 40…neat stuff that you don’t hear other places, along with some hilarious stuff like –during deer season– the thirty-point buck, sung in a vaguely French-Canadian accent as “de tirty point buck”….you gotta hear it to believe it! Oh I LOVE the internet…here’s a link to it on Amazon, with a brief clip…sometimes crass but hilarious! OK…further surfing has led me to this site, which I can assure you I would never have visited otherwise… click here then look for the link to play the entire song…but be warned it is a bit crass at points. Ahem. We all have our tacky moments…this is one of mine, but it makes me laugh!). Hmm…I’m getting chatty so think I’ll save King for another blog post…but it’s a good book!

And I began work on a quilt for the FiberArts for a Cause “Reverse Auction.” (An aside–to see the FFAC page, look in the sidebar on the right for a button and click on it) I am REALLY happy with how it is turning out…as a tease, here is an early glimpse. I had wanted to do a nude, just a thread painting, for the FFAC, but Virginia told me someone else was doing one, and I didn’t want to do the same thing. That night I dreamed that I was to do a quilt about a Maine stone wall, so I figured that was a sign and a decision. These walls are everywhere…it’s rocky around here. Here is my neighbor’s “fence”:

I decided to make TWO similar quilts…. they will be called : A Sense of Place: The Wall, and A Sense of Place: The Tree. The smaller of the two (20×27 inches) will go to FFAC, the larger (about 30×28 inches) will maybe go to shows or maybe just go up for sale, or maybe hang in my studio until I can part with it (as I said, I’m really liking these two pieces!). Here are the two on my messy design wall:

And here is a closer picture of the larger of the two, the one on the left:

And here is a subsequent picture showing the beginnings of the branches:

Stay tuned for further pictures!

And today I gave a talk on Thread to my local guild chapter, The Coastal Quilters. We had some fun show and share and a good crowd…maybe I’ll blog about that later in the week, too! Betty…if you read this, may I share the photo of you and your quilt? And Carrie Hedstrom, don’t know if you’re reading but I’d love to include yours, too…wish I had snapped more photos of the other sharing!

If anyone is in the vicinity of Nobleboro, Maine, on Saturday, I’ll also be teaching Machine Applique at Mainely Sewing! The phone is 563-8445. OK, that’s enough of this and that for tonight! Back soon with more.