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!