QSDS part II

Ran out of time last night before I got all the photos uploaded.

This fascinating cutwork is called NOTAN and Jane had us work with it as a design exercise. Judy's notans are displayed below:

Kevin W brought some of his fantastic hand dyed fabric:

Contact Kevin at vacub@hotmail.com if you would like some information on his fabric.

Home for QSDS

Wow, time flies. I have been home since Saturday, and am just now uploading photos from QSDS.

I was not able to take as many photos as I wished, but thanks to Kevin W and Judy R for sharing their photos.

I attended Jane Dunnewold's Archetypes for Artistic Inspiration in Columbus Ohio. There were 18 of us in a very large classroom:

Everyone had a design wall and this is what mine looked like

I HATE to FLY

Flying used to be fun, but not anymore. Since September 11, it is just a pain in the patooty.
Every time I have to take my shoes off in the airport, I get p.o.ed. I can understand security, but that seems excessive to me.
I arrived in Columbus an hour late, due to storms between California and Chicago, and then realiezed that the name of my rental car company was not on the Priceline.com rental receipt that I had printed. By this time it was 11 CST, and I was annoyed again. Went to all of the rental car companies (Luckily there were only 7) and finally found my rental car.
Found the hotel without any problem, and crashed.
I got up the next morning, and hit the museum trail, even though I had a killer headache and my eyes were constantly watering. Guess that it was the pollen, as things certainly are greener than they are in Albuquerque!
I hit the Columbus Museum of Art and saw a great show called the Optic Nerve about OP art from the 60s. Great show, but it closes tomorrow. With my headache, some of the pieces throbbed! Not sure if that was intentional or not. Got a great quote from a 1964 show that I will share later. After having a great, inexpensive lunch at the museum, I went to the Franklin Park Conservatory. They had ikebana arrangers on site, and some great bonsai (one of which is supposed to be 350 years old!). They have lots of Dale Chiluly glass and drawings, plus butterflies, birds and some amazing plants.
Class started this morning, and Jane Dunnewold, as I knew she would be, is amazing. The work is tough, but I expected that also. I seem to be farther along than some & behind others. But that is to be expected, as it is a very large class, since it is a master class, you are expected to work self directed. No pictures as of yet, but by midweek we will be printing, so hopefully we will have some pictures.
We had a walkaround last night, and saw some amazing art. One of the most interesting was the Making Marks class. It was marks, drawings, holes punched in paper, but in the most awe inspiring manner ever. They are offering it again next year, and I am tempted to come back just to take that course.
The weather has been great, went for a walk this AM and plan on going again in the morning.

Picasa Collages of my work

I just discovered that Picasa can make collages, so I put these together to show samples of my work at QSDS. I am still working on getting all my photos organized, and still working out the kinks in Picasa. Click on images for a larger view

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Last of the Archetypes

This is one of the archetypes that I struggled with. It is SABOTEUR, and I really had a time with it. I ended up using quotes, as I did not see any images that really grabbed me. SABOTEUR is in Sixth house, occupation and health.

MAGICAL/INNOCENT CHILD is in my Ninth house, my house of spirituality. I am a Unitarian Univeralist, so we are rather childlike and let each person choose what they wish to believe. We also believe in an interdependent web, with all things connected.

ADDICT is in my Fifth house, my house of creativity and good fortune. My collage is rather dark, but that is not really indicitative of my creative outlook. Must work on this one also.


STORYTELLER is in my 7th house, the house of relationships, and boy, do I have stories! This is the one archetype that I did not expect to come up in my final eight, but it fascinates me. This collage is not finished, but will be a continuing work in progress.

I have not finished the balance of the archetypes: artist, gossip/networker, and prostitute. I have some images, but not enough to be indicative of anything.

Two more archetype collages

This collage depicts GODDESS, which is in my eleventh house, my relationship to the world.
I drew a goddess card from a deck that I have, and came up with Eagle Woman, a very ancient native american goddess. She typifies valor, majesty, renewal, accuracy of sight, spiritual aim and the ability to soar to great heights. She holds vessel in her hands that nourishes, recieves, contains, emblematic of different strenghts that are part of being woman born.









This is my collage for MENTOR which is in my second house, my relationship to the land. I wanted this to be low key, but with meaning. But also grounded in the black and white of reality.

My archetypes

I have worked on my archetypes for Jane Dunnewold's Archetypes as Artistic Inspiration class at QSDS. I am posting several of the archetypes that I have picked, with my collage impressions.


This was the first collage I made after picking my 12 archetypes. These are hand carved stamps and depict SEEKER, my eighth house archetype. This one makes sense to me, as they are stepping stones! I glued the stepping stones down, and the quilted (on the machine) a meandering, non-linear path that crosses it's self several times.

This is my HEDONIST piece. I wanted a lush, luxurious look to this, and gold always indicates that to me.

The quote reads:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, throughly used ut, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming WOW! what a ride. (Unknown)

Sounds very hedonistic to me!

This is a piece of fabric stamped with hand carved stamps and then overpainted with red. As I was going through my stash, this just said VICTIM to me. Vicitim is in my first house, and I am having a bit of a problem working with that.

Memory Boxes

My sister has asked me to post some memory boxes that we have worked on. Here they are.

This is a box that I made for my son in his father's memory

This is a tryptich I made for my sister

A folded box made by one of my students

above is closed and below is open

Memory box made from an old jewelry box

Spirit box made by my sister

Inside of sprit box

And my infamous flower power spirit box

Scott Reunion, 1921 or 1922

I spent the weekend at my Mother's house and while looking for sheets to change bedding, I came across a photo album of my grandmother's Onie Scott Clayton. This was one of the photos that fascinated me. The baby in the middle of the picture is my uncle Charlie Clayton (who is now 85!). He is being held by my grandmother, and unless he knows who these people are, most of their names are lost to the past. We were able to identify 18 of the 42 people in the picture, and have no idea about even most of the children. I feel such sadness when Ancient Ancestors go uncelebrated. I am a mixed media artist and often use old photos in my art work. I wonder about these lost relatives, knowing that at one time they were someone's mother, brother, sister or father. Just for your information, the old couple sitting down are my great grandparents, George and Eunice Scott.

For something lighter, Baby Cakes has taken over the suitcase that I am packing for QSDS.

OH NO, the baby birds are missing

We have had terrific winds today from the southwest, and when I got home, the baby birds were nowhere to be found. The nest is empty, and there were no obvious small dead bodies anywhere, so they must have blown completely away. I am very sad, but I gave the plant a good watering.

Anyway, so instead of baby bird pics, I will post pics of the two furry aliens that I live with.
I had a piece of freezer paper rolled up on my cutting table and Baby Cakes (aka Pancake a la Amber!) crawled in. Of course Fuzzy Bucket could not let this intriguing new thing alone, so here they are:

Batik Circles of Life is finished!

Since it had been some time since I had finsihed anything,

it feels good to have finsihed something for myself.

This quilt is for the daybed in my studio and

goes extremely well with the

faux paint job that I have.

It is almost full sized (custom size for the daybed)

machine pieced and all hand quilted.

Monday Holidays in the summer are great!

Ashley, Amber, and their grandparents

(my sister and BIL) took off for

meteor crater this morning. We had a

leisurely breakfast, I packed them off,

and then I had a fantastic morning.

I always forget how much I

enjoy the mornings in the

spring/summer/fall.

I am usually not in hurry to get anywhere

(work, appointments, etc) and can just laze

around and enjoy a second cup of tea.

The birds are chirping, hot air balloons are

hovering on the horizon and the cats

(having come out of hiding from Ash and Amber all weekend)

are avidly watching the chirping, swooping birds.

Life is good, and now I am going to spend the day

working on my archetypes for my class with

Jane Dunnewold at

Quilt Surface Design Symposium

The Girls come to visit, baby birds, etc

I bought a gorgeous lilac geranium. It was in a hanging pot, and I had the perfect place for it. Hung it up, and within two days, a mother bird had built her nest and there were three eggs in it! I did not get a chance to take a picture before they hatched,

but here they are two days post hatching.

Here are Ashley and Amber admiring the new baby birds.

Here is a copy of my wall hanging "Foremeothers" in honor of the women in my family. It will be exhibited in several shows over the next year. Of course, I left shipping it until the last minute, and it cost me over $ 50 to send it overnight to California.

The poem is written by my talented sister Erva, and the photo of my mother, sister and I was taken by our adopted daughter/sister/niece Gracie (who is the mother of the next generation of women Ashely and Amber)!

New Mexico has had an unusually wet year, and on the way home tonight there was a gorgeous rainbow on the ground. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera and by the time I went home and got it, this was all that was left. Still beautiful, but only a minor portion of what was there 10 minutes before.

Good grief, the quilt is not even finished yet and it has been co-opted by Baby Cakes. Of course, she thinks that she owns the place anyway, especially the studio. I spent this weekend finishing the Crown Royal comforter and putting the binding on the circle quilt above! Since the weather was cold and windy, it was the perfect weekend.
Next weekend four friends and I are treating ourselves to a weekend at Ojo Caliente Spa! Lots of lazing around and massages, pedicures, etc. I can't wait!

Crown Royal comforter

This is the third quilt that I have made from the purple flannel-like bags that Crown Royal is sold in. The colors are much more vibrant in person, but it was a gray overcast day when I took the picture. 9 patch blocks made from the bags are set off with solid gold and purple flannel blocks and this huge comforter (over 116" square) is tied with gold string. A quilt this size always reminds me why I like to work on smaller art quilts!

The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering

Watch the video athttp://www.standingwomen.org

The women of Ohio, U.S.A., call upon the women of theworld, from day-old babies to our most senior elders, to stand with us on May 13, 2007, to save the world.
Our project is based on Sharon Mehdi's book The GreatSilent Grandmother Gathering. If you don't know thestory, a summary of the original version is on thewebsite www.standingwomen.org (you can also read thestory at the end of this email).
If you think it is appropriate, please send this message on to all of the women throughout the world who you think might like to join us. We will be standing for the world's children and grandchildren, and for the seven generations beyond them. We dream of a world where all of our children have safe drinking water, clean air to breathe, and enough food to eat. A world where they have access to a basic education to develop their minds and healthcare to nurture their growing bodies. A worldwhere they have a warm, safe, and loving place to call home. A world where they don't live in fear of violence--in their home, in their neighborhood, in their school, or in their world. This is the world ofwhich we dream. This is the cause for which we will stand.
If you share this dream, please stand with us for five minutes of silence at 1 p.m. your local time on May13, 2007, in your local park, school yard, gathering place, or any place you deem appropriate, to signify your agreement with this statement. We ask you to invite the men and boys who you care about to join you. We ask that you bring bells to ring at 1 p.m. to signify the beginning of the five minutes of silence and to ring again to signify the end of the period of silence.
During the silence, please think about what you individually and we collectively can do to attain this world. If you need to sit rather than stand, please feel free to do so. Afterwards, hopefully you and your loved ones can talk together about how we can bring about this world. See www.standingwomen.org for more details and to register your commitment to stand with us. The website is in 15 languages and links to a YouTube video. We hope to see a 24 hour wave of women and men all overthe globe standing to save the world.
******************************
Sharon Mehdi wrote a wonderful short story for her five-year old granddaughter, The Great SilentGrandmother Gathering that has inspired us. A quicksummary of the story is: A busboy who worked in a café whose window faced the public park noticed that two grandmotherly looking women had been standing in the park all day without moving at all and without talking. They were dressed up in their Sunday best and were just staring at the town hall. He asked the other patrons in the café what they thought the women were up to. They speculated on a variety of things. Then, a five-year old year who was in the café spoke up and said "One of them is my grandmother and I know what they are doing. They are standing there to save the world." All of the men in the café hooted and howled and laughed. On his way home the busboy decided to ask the women what they were doing and sure enough their answer was "We are saving the world."
Over dinner that evening the busboy told his parents and he and his father hooted and howled, but his mother was totally silent. After dinner, the mother called her best friends to tell them. The next morning the busboy looked out the café window and the two women were back, along with his mother, her friends, and the women who had been in the café the day before. All were standing in silence staring at the town hall. Again, the men hooted and howled and said things like "You can't save the world by standing in the park.That is what we have armies for," and "everyone knows you have to have banners and slogans to save theworld--you can't do it by just standing in the park." The next day the women were joined by the women who were in the café the day before and a number of their friends. This brought the local newspaper reporter to the scene. He wrote a derisive article about the women. The day after it appeared, hundreds of women showed up to stand in the park in silence. The mayor then told the police chief to make the women leave because they were making the town appear to be foolish. When the police chief told them they would have to disperse because they didn't have a permit, one of them responded that "we are just individuals standing in our public park and we are not giving speeches or having a demonstration so why would we need a permit." The police chief thought about this and agreed with them and left the park. At this point 2,223 women including the mayor's wife, the police chief's wife, and one five-year old girl were standing in the park to save the world. The news quickly spread and soon women were standing all over the country. The story ended with women standing in every country throughout the globe, standing to save the world.
See www.grandmotherbook.com.
We received this from Peggy Holman, who got it from
Karen McCarthy Casey
Inspired Action
10946 NE Seaborn Road
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
206-842-3017 WA949-294-3062
assisting the creation and renewal of just,compassionate, sustainable community

According to Sharon's Peace Pilgrimmage Blog, here's how the whole thing started: Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Spontaneous wave of heartful intention
Dear friends of The Great Silent GrandmotherGathering, Something amazing is happening!!! Here's what I know from a few of the emails I've received in the past week:
1. Deb Ballam, Associate Provost for Women'sPolicy Initiatives at Ohio State University and a group of women from Columbus, Ohio were so inspired by The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering they created awebsite (translated into 15 languages!), a YouTubevideo, and 20,000 postcards and are blanketing the globe --literally! -- with a message asking women and men to stand in their local parks at 1 p.m. on Sunday,May 13, 2007 -- Mother's Day. Seewww.standingwomen.org.
2. Teena Booth, a television screenwriter who works inHollywood and lives in Arizona had the same idea at the same time and created a website inspired by the Grandmother story, asking people to stand at 1 o'clock on Mother's Day. Please see her most compelling website at www.standintheparkforpeace.org.
3. Linda Merryman, a convener of the Millionth Circle Initiative inspired by Jean Shinoda Bolen's book, linked up the two women and made sure news of theMother's Day event made it onto the Millionth Circle website. Linda emailed this morning to say already she's gotten word that Millionth Circle will host a Gather The Women of South Florida Mother's Day event. (See Linda's poignant letter about standing inAshland to help save the world at www.standintheparkforpeace.org)
4. Justine Willis Toms, co-founder and co-president of New Dimensions World Broadcasting, whose weekly in-depth interviews are heard on National Public Radio, will announce Deb and Teena's events in the March NewDimensions Newsletter and will call for people to stand at 1 o'clock on Mother's Day(www.newdimensions.org).
5. A woman from British Columbia who was representative to the 5th Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations and is part of a grassroots grandmothers-to-grandmothers campaign to help women in Africa, wrote to say she and a woman from India are organizing a Great SilentGrandmother Gathering on the steps of the Parliament Building in Victoria, B.C.
Please tell your friends and groups. And please consider standing, if only for a few minutes, at 1 o'clock on Mother's Day, May 13, 2007. Maybe, just maybe, this spontaneous wave of heartful intention will be the tipping point.
With love and hope.

"Work like you don't need the money, dance like no one is looking, and love like you have never been hurt!"
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Happy Easter

I spent several hours creating a dozen of these eggs. I have made them for years and have never had any problems. That is, until last night. Luckily, I had put 6 of the eggs in a carton to take to friends who were going out of town today.

When I got up this morning, the remaining eggs looked like the picture above. Two of them are cracked, the top left egg has two letters eaten off, the middle bottom egg has three letters missing (who knows where??) and two were untouched. One of my two cats (most likely Baby Cakes, as Fuzz Bucket is not smart enough to do that....) had a good time playing with Easter Eggs! So back to the drawing board.

These eggs are hard boiled, names are created with alphabet pasta, glued on and then painted.