‘found’ house

‘found’ house, a photo by dee at clothcompany on Flickr.

A little pieced whimsy, made over the winter, then whitened in the exploration begun over at Spirit Cloth… there was no house, and then there was. Once I saw it, I couldn’t NOT see it.

There were two letters for a while, too : “ve”. The central white square had been a presser cloth for some transfers. The “v” fell off. Now there is only the “e”.

If I ever figure out PSE11, I’ll share before and afters. Keep getting a black screen. Ach.

morning glory

Crystal Lake on Sunday morning

bluebells!!!

found heart

ligularia up and at ‘em

microclimate and reflection

Mr. Jack

sidewalk and rail shadows

It is worth mentioning that while we were away, a little thing called Spring was also in progress!

why / why not?

It scans like a poem of horror:
 Sandy Hook, The Twin Towers, Virginia Tech,
Boylston Street, Watertown
the number of lives lost mattering less
than the geography of home –
‘the Marathon Bombers’
pinned to the calendar irretrievably

it’s us now

‘He was not very good’
said Son #1 of his wrestling.
‘She had been by that boat many times,’
said Son #2.

it is us, now

Driving past Aurora days earlier,
we wondered where Columbine was.
Tourism of extreme violence?

Out West, “Guns For Sale”
situated right next to “Baskin-Robbins”
in an ordinary strip mall.
How glib to think: violence happens elsewhere.

(Never mind Sandy Hook)

In Poco and Mama’s, there it is
right above the specials:
“Our thoughts and prayers are with you Boston.”
We want to shout
in a crowded plaza the next morning:
“We are from Boston!”

Endless looping of
CNN footage at the airport
itching at the eyes, scoring the mind.
Delays, images on the screen,
make getting home seem impossible.
No wonder the future gets tagged

‘unwanted’

again, by the fragile.

We land and drive west out of Boston,
the familiar places are not.
A ghost town welcome.

The rotary that spirals off
to Watertown, usually chaotic
with drivers jockeying for position,
is deserted. Completely.

The road home spooky.

After the capture (they found him! he’s alive!),
and sleeping for twelve hours
there is some sense of relief, but
not really.

Why that eight year old? Why at the finish line?
Why that foreign exchange student or that rookie cop?

And then there is the matter of the pocked future.

It can help to employ
a practice. Try it: Ask,
“Why not?” after you ask: “Why?”

The shame, the loss (why?)
of a young man gone
so terribly wrong (why not?)

“Kinda quiet, athletic, relaxed and likeable” could describe
any number of our sons. Why him
and not them? Why not?

A friend works at MIT,
another lives in Watertown.
We knew exactly where the tape
described the neighborhood, just off
of Mt. Auburn.

Why here – so close and so personal?
Why not?

Why use the event to confirm visions of a bleak future?
Why not?
Why such horrible and random violence?
Why continue with anything, with say, hope or cheer?
Why not? Why not?

But now another topic forms.
Not connected, but really, deep down connected,
like so much else.

treasure

home sweet home

After a touring colleges in two cities, flying through two additional cities because of missed connecting flights. After watching hour after mind-numbing hour of CNN. After learning that our bags were elsewhere. We were happy to drive home to Newton. Even if the shit was still hitting the fan one town over. Even if our town was under a ‘shelter-in-place’ order. Even if the house reeked of dog when we walked in. Even if the news continues to startle and shock. We are home.

chipped white; frayed ecru

I had to laugh at myself yesterday.  For a few days, I have been traveling up and down our staircase with a yogurt-container filled with Oyster Bisque paint, happily covering over chipped paint, smears, and — horror of horrors – even dirt that could have been removed with a little elbow grease.

Then it hit me.  I’m whitening the stairs.

After months, and more months, of wanting to do this, planning to do this, hoping to do this, and NOT doing this, the exploration of white* just let it happen.  One stair at a time.

As for the shrunken and distressed muslin curtains, which I made when we first moved in here, I no longer feel compelled to replace them (with curtains made with PRE-WASHED fabric). I am loving that gap. Look how it allows the light to glow through! I am loving the darkened rim of the hem. And I am especially loving the holes where daily life and sun have worn the fabric through.

I am not even trying to understand why I love the worn curtains and am not loving the chipped off paint on treads and balusters. I don’t have to be consistent in these matters, do I?

*in the ‘What-If’ online class over at Spirit Cloth

P.S. This is my 500th post.  Am I supposed to celebrate?!  500th post, and second EVER, from my laptop.

Glitches, patience, and white as an attitude

Please notice that I am not ranting.  I am not. Even though the tree and fence above could be a visual for me and our technology problems of late. Think: “Upgrade”.

The Black Screen of Death, which was not the Black Screen of Death really, but more like a Coma Interlude, occurred multiple times yesterday. Eventually the system restored itself each time, but not without freaking me out. “Walk away from the screen, Ma’am!  Walk AWAY from the screen!”  What choice did I have? Days of not posting here or for my online class have me feeling a tad crazed.  And now the taxes are REALLY, really due.

The good news? Scary glitches and slow processing are making learning a few simple tricks on the new Photoshop Elements seem like a piece of cake. And more good news: I managed to finish Schedule C this morning in spite of it all.

Back to quilting.  Less screen time invariably means more sewing, which is also good news, I might add.  Continuing with white, white, white for the Jude Hill class I’m taking over at Spirit Cloth has been productive. Interesting. Lots of white to share. But not now.  I took a small intermission from white to construct the little row of houses below.

The formulaic nature of this design means they are relaxing to make. And yet, each set is different enough from every other to stay interesting.

The tiniest chips of fabric can be employed for this project (“Oh-oh!” you say with dismay. “You mean I can’t throw them out?!!”)

This drawing came after the cloth construction. It gave me this fun idea of a multitude of paths running to and from the doors.

The original impulse for ground and sky fabrics lies just above the drawing, and here is where I want to suggest that this project — though full of pink, blue, rose, lavender, rust, and indigo — bears a relationship to white. If you can stand to — keep reading!

The ground is that wool challis I’ve talked about before. The sky is a piece of a vintage silk from a deconstructed handmade bodice.  The colors worked and they were the very first I chose. They were the INITIAL IMPULSE. The circuitous route back to the original choice got me thinking about white as a process or a state of mind.  Specifically, about white as pure expression.

I fiddled.  A Lonni Rossi broccoli fabric had potential but was rejected for being too literal and for adding visual clutter.

This shibori sky, suggestive of aurora borealis, was also too much.  Stars, also too literal.

This started the return back to the original choice.

Here, I shrunk the scale and added a moon. The moon stayed, but the scale was revised back to original premise.

Here I am back to the original sky, only now with the moon, and a much too busy foreground.  Departing miles from the original feel, it looked like I was trying way too hard and furthermore, the woven-strip foreground would have prevented stitching all those paths, and they intrigue me.

  Now, almost there.

And back.

So, what if “WHITE” is purity? What if ‘white’ is an original impulse? The original set of colors? The original thought? I’m not suggesting that refining ideas and radically departing from an initial idea are not essential and exciting ways to create.  I AM suggesting that there may be times when sticking with that First Thought (in this case a pairing of challis and silk) might be just right.  A way to honor an intuitive and spontaneous creation.

You can find more of these row house quilts here.

Still can’t open PSE 11

So I’m posting a couple of pictures from my phone.

The picture above began with a purple sky and green horizon.  To continue the play with white, I cut away most of the sheer purple, and have been hand appliquing patches of very different whites (and a little green!) all around.  It has totally changed the feel of the landscape.

This small piece (6″ square?) was a gelatin print – made eons ago.  The muslin that I used for that batch of prints is extremely tough, so after a couple of brief hand-sewing sessions, I took it to the machine.  Can’t wait to share how this little row of houses looks backlit!

The close up below is from a SoulCollage card called “Speed”.  It’s not done yet.