Wow has time whoooshed by faster than the usual blindingly-fast disappearing that it usually does!  I’ve returned from a fun teaching trip to two guilds in Arkansas, a visit with an internet friend, gone to a 5-day dyeing silk workshop in Massachusetts, attempted to get caught up on paperwork (but not the accounting…UGH), and launch into Eli’s track season, his last sports season of Middle School… it is hard to believe in 5 weeks or so he will be a Freshman-at-the-end-of-summer!   So I guess I’ll start with the oldest news first:  Little Rock!

While heading out to lunch one day from class, one of my students pointed out a building across from the library (where the workshop was held) because she had a piece in the SAQA / Studio Art Quilt Associates regional exhibit!  On my day off between the two teaching jobs, I got to hang out with an internet friend whom I finally got to meet in the real.  Sherri D. took me to the exhibit and a few other places, so let’s  begin with the SAQA exhibit and Georgia’s  fabulous small piece!

Butterfly by Georgia Manning Lewis

She used many surface design techniques on the background and has been doing some wire-work for 3-D shaping.

The first piece I photographed in the exhibit is for my friend Kathy, who loves birds and makes wonderful bird quilts.  So Kath…here is an Arkansas wren for you:

Studio Wren by Sheri Marshall

I loved the stunning simplicity and calm of this piece:

Shamrocks by Ruth Ann Yax

I hadn’t realized that Arkansas is right next to Louisiana and, hence, close to the Gulf.  This artist is from (I think) Mississippi, where the BP oil spill wreaked so much environmental damage.

Guardian of the Gulf by Sarah Scott

A trip to China (according to the blurb card on the wall) was the inspiration for this garden-inspiring quilt:

The lotus by Darlene Garstecki

The artist made this quilt as a mourning quilt after his mother passed away.  On the card he noted: “We used to walk a road in North Carolina and talk.  I have since thought that maybe the words we spoke were captured in the trees; and if I was very quiet and listened very hard, I would hear the words falling back down on me, as I walked alone.”  …… I so love that thought…..

The View from the Road by Murray Johnston

On the other side of the building, I spotted these small kimono which (if I have deciphered the enlarged photo correctly) are by Judy Tipton Rush–really stunning quilting:

Judy Tipton Rush's pieces in the gallery store

The building is a craft/arts center, and had this gorgeous light fixture (I don’t even want to know how much it was for sale!…. and it’s not like there would be a place for it in my house!)

Way cool light fixture

And I’ve been having fun in my working sketchbook/notebook of ideas messing around with collage and magazine pages, so I really enjoyed these two sets of mixed media collages by Kathy Bay.  From looking at the photo closely, I believe they are acrylic paint plus paint on paper that she painted (as opposed to “found” papers).

Crayola Land by Kathy Bay

By Kathy Bay, these remind me of icebergs

Now, of course, I wish I’d taken photos of ALL the quilts, but at least you have a sampling! Enjoy, and I promise to be back without such a long gap between posts!

What a concept… blogging about art on a blog named Art and Quilting in Camden (and now Hope, Maine, too!)….

Last year, I found myself with unaccustomed time on Christmas day and did a collage that soothed my soul and fed my need to create.  This year, I hoped to do the same but was instead happily busy with family and food and joy!  So I decided to make and keep some time on New Year’s Day for art… I think this is something that needs to turn into a tradition!

This year’s collage got a jump-start when I popped into Camden National Bank in mid-December and they had give-away calendars…those little ones that make a triangle stand on your desk and have photos.  The theme for 2012 was “Images of Maine.”  Perfect!   The 2012 collage turned into one about Home in Maine for me….

My January 1, 2012 collage

From time to time I also troll through magazines that are headed to recycling and cut out words and tear out pages with pictures I might like.  So this time I found this catalog (Title 9) where they use REAL (very athletic, on the young side, ages early 20s to 40 ish, trim and fit…sigh) where one of the models was Sarah…  for each one they had asked them to fill in (or their creative catalog person got REALLY creative) questions, including “Most At Home”–her reply, “in Maine.”  And her friends call *her* the Energizer Bunny, too!   Too fun…so of course I tore that out and modified a couple answers.  I used the Jan. 1 date from the calendar, and seven of the photos, plus others from my stash.

The big photo on the left page is of downtown Camden — our local “hub” which is a town of under 6,000 — decked out for Christmas.  I love the torn edges, but also liked the perforated bits so kept some of those.

My collage from Christmas 2010 is in here, and it was interesting to compare… that one has words like Back from the Brink, Coming up for Air, Jo ahead….Jump,  Saga, Family, It’s all a balancing act.  Certainly tells the story of where I was.

2010 year-end collage

I used aquarelle pencils an small squares (1 inch) of color cut from magazines, and it is more colorful–I was trying to brighten up my life and my pages.  This year’s is much more peaceful… the chaos has, I think, finally ended.  It’s all about “home in Maine.”   Anyway, after looking at that one I then thought The “Winter’s End” page that I added to this year’s might be metaphorical as well as literal…..It’s time to begin anew, to create and to revel in life!

It’s nice to have time and folks with whom to share!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As you might gather by the gap in my postings, it has been another busy week with both art and soccer (keep reading for the art part)!  Eli is in the final week or two of both league soccer and school cross country, with the championships for the latter last week, and….DRUM ROLL and MAJOR HOLLERING please…. ELI WON!   Yes, Eli won the Busline Cross Country Championship (Class B) on Tuesday!  Close on his heels (literally) was his best friend Ben, who came in second.  Both Boys and Girls teams won with undefeated season for the second year in a row (ya think Coach Morse is doing a fantastic job or what?!!!).    That was followed on Friday by Eli winning the Winthrop Invitational Cross Country meet, a course with lots of hills–best of all, they were competing against seven or more teams they had never raced, including the Class A Champion Cony Middle School Team AND he did it setting a new course record!  And to everyone (at least from our area) utter delight, both boys and girls won the team championships too!

And they're off! Eli is the arrow on the right, his best friend Ben W. on the left, and a passle of other middle school boys. This photo shows maybe one-third of the runners!

Eli crests the last small hill before heading into the chute and the finish line at the midcoast Maine Busline League Cross Country Championships

Eli WINS, with Ben close behind.... wow!

In August, I came across a bit Jane LaFazio posted on FaceBook about a sketchbook “On Location” class she is teaching online via Joggles.  Very uncharacteristically for me, I signed up on the spur of the moment, and I promise I’ll get caught up on blogposts and share with you the great stuff I did.  THEN she had a new class on Mixed Media Journals starting in October.  I really want to get in to the habit of using journals for my art, so I signed up right away.  Here is part of the first lesson:

The lesson was using water-soluble pen; first you sketch (well, I sure do!) in pencil, then ink, allow the ink to dry, erase the pencil and then "wash" the ink to shade. Here's the outlining.

The pitcher with *complicated* kitchen utensils (that spaghetti scoop was hard!) and my sketchbook. A while back I'd heard that drawing eggs is good practice in seeing shadows, so what is why the eggs on the spoon rest.

The two sketches. I've finished the page but haven't taken a picture (get with it Sarah!), so will do that later. Anyway, I'm reasonably pleased.

Now we’re off to the soccer league playoffs for all of Sunday, then more cross country and soccer next weekend and the following one….

As usual, crazy busy, but looking for a brief reprieve soon….

On Sunday, there was a Fruit and Fiber day at Hope Orchards, down at Hope Corner (across the street from the General Store).  I decided that I really need to begin exercising…after about 21 months of being a pudge, it is really getting to me, and life has settled down enough that I can re-focus.  So I asked hubby if he would pick me up if I walked the 3 miles to “town” (an intersection in rural Maine qualifies as a town).  The answer was yes, as long as it isn’t when the Patriots play!  So I went before 4!
It was GLORIOUS!

Then Paul came rushing in one morning and said quick, you gotta see this sunrise (at 6:30 a.m.), it may be picture worthy.  It was!

Hubby on the porch off the living room, but the camera metered on the sky...erk

Then I figured out how to get the camera to take a picture the way I was seeing the sky…WOW!

OH MY! Worth getting up to see this!

All this week I have been on a rip and a tear to clear the last things out of the storage unit that held mom’s stuff.  When she moved here in 2008, I rented the unit for things that wouldn’t fit in her small 2-room place at Quarry Hill (assisted living).  Since she was still kinda with it, I didn’t feel like I could sell it off or get rid of it, because I wanted to have it to give her if she asked for something (painting, memento, etc).  Last summer when she moved to one room in the memory loss unit, had to rent a second (kaChing) unit.  Emptied the second one about a month ago.  This one, before I started liquidating things about a year ago, was full, front to back, floor to near ceiling.  This week it had two large pieces of furniture and 31 BOXES of books I had to sort through.  After selling some to an antique dealer (as reference books), sending some off with a used book store guy, more donated to the Camden Public Library, and yet more to Goodwill, this is how the unit looked at 3 p.m. yesterday:

Hallelujah! The great emptying is DONE!

When Paul’s dad died, there was an “estate sale lady” that basically took care of selling everything off from the house, took a percentage, donated the rest, and we cleaned out the house.  Nothing like that here so it was dribs and drabs to liquidate things.  I have promised my kids I will do my best not to depart this earth and leave them with so much STUFF!

This morning, the drippies have arrived:

Even in heavy mist (the weather station said it was raining tho it was really just wet air)! it is beautiful here...this was about 7:10 a.m.

And this glorious view off the other side of the kitchen porch/entry:

The back 40 (well, OK, maybe the back 4 acres), and I really need to clean up the flowerbeds for winter!

AND, drum roll, this week we modified the membership at the Y to include me, and today I began!  I will NOT regain that weight!  I will NOT be a pudge!  I WILL get healthy!  Now…off to play as a reward to myself…taking Jane LaFazio’s mixed media journal class at joggles.com and can’t wait to get started on this week’s lesson!

After a week with quite nippy temperatures and the first frost, we’ve been given the gift of a glorious Indian summer weekend here in Maine.  Highs in the upper 70s (and even above inland I expect), lows in perfect sleeping weather.

The view from our porch late this afternoon. Some trees are losing leaves, but we still look mostly green... trees are turning, but nowhere near peak yet

Today was a grand day with a Coastal Quilters meeting after dropping our younger son off for his first 5K run.  The run is a fundraiser for the High School (graduating class maybe?), and coincides with Homecoming, and is open to adults, teens and middle school kids.  Eli’s Cross County coach, Jim Morse and one of the coolest teachers EVER on the planet let alone here in Camden, ran, as did Eli, his best friend since first grade B. W., and the top girl on their team J.R., also in 8th grade.  Well… just before the meeting began I got a call from the hubster with the results:  Mr. Morse won by a goodly margin.  Two college kids came in 2nd and 3rd.  Eli and B.W. came in 4th and 5th, respectively, and J.R. was the fastest female and in the top 10!  WOW!

Since Paul and Eli were at the high school watching games, etc., I decided to putter in town and have lunch (a rare treat!) at my favorite eatery, Marriner’s Grill.  I got a small table on the deck overlooking the harbor:

Camden Harbor from my seat on the deck at Marriner's Grill, my favorite diner

While waiting, I continued this wonderful book I’m reading called True to Life:  Twenty five eyars of conversations with David Hockney, by art critic (and really insightful writer) Lawrence Weschler.

A fascinating read, besides which Hockney is pretty cool and interesting

Given that I’ve put on a few pounds this past summer, the choice of BLT (Bacon Lettuce and Tomato for those not in the U.S.) and fries with diet cola was not exactly smart, but it sure tasted good!  Deborah…lookit!  I actually took a picture of my food before I snarfed it down!

A good meal: diet drink, fattening and tasty food, and a good book!

After that I went home, walked the doggie for 2 miles, then sat to start this week’s lesson.  An online class at Joggles.com, Sketching and Watercolors in a Mixed Media Journal with Jane LaFazio   began this week.  I know I’ve been promising what I did in the last class with her, and I will post, but decided I’d actually try posting what I’m doing NOW (and not months ago) when I can.  The hope is that I will make this journaling thing a habit AND improve my drawing skills.  The first lesson was to sketch an everyday object,  using a Tombow pen (a water-soluble ink… draw in pen, then use a wet brush to spread the ink to create light and shadow).  I decided that my laptop is definitely an everyday object, and since it is a Mac and Steve Jobs died this week and I love the quote I used, I’d sketch that:

R.I.P. Mr. Jobs. Thank you for changing our world.

Well…. I discovered that it is challenging to deal with a LOT of flat surfaces, omitting excess detail, and still find some shading.  Especially when the laptop and screen are mostly shades of gray, making the diffused shadows even more difficult.  I’ll try another, more textured something later, but for now…first the outlined-in-permanent pen version:

Used pencil to get the proportions and lines mostly right, then inked with a Pitt permanent pen, then erased the pencil

Next I added the gray (dark) Tombow and washed with water ….   I am not certain that we were supposed to use the permanent pen for this lesson, but I wanted to include some text and for the outlines to not blur, so I decided I would anyway.

The page with a quote from Steve Jobs, showing the Apple home page

And the sketch and laptop:

I simplified some, omitting some desktop icons and extra open windows.

All in all a wonderful day.  And since it is almost suppertime, I guess I’d better get off the computer (thank you Apple for making a great system!) and go think about dinner.  Maybe.  Pass me a white zin, first, please!