Came home tonight from my mother's and realized that I did not have a card or present for my friend Pamela's birthday (which is tomorrow!). I was looking through my stash, and realized that these are her colors, so made a wallhanging for her.

Now I have to come up with a unique way to give it to her, as I don't have a box either!

Overall size is 6X9"

Shrines

I recently completed three shrines in honor of my nephew, Ben. I created these for his mother and sisters as a memorial.

Quilter of the Galaxies

Quilter of the Galaxies

From our fragmented bodies and souls
You gather remnants
to stitch into the pattern of the Universe.
Piece together the scraps
of our lost dreams and apsirations:
that, transformed by the magic of your skill,
You bring into being the New Creation:
Maker of all that is,
Thread that draws us through the needles eye,
Fabric of our Hope and Joy
Amen

Mary Kathleen Speegle Schmitt, Seasons of the Feminine Divine

beautiful Video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=obH3wByguhw

This is beautiful, but you have to read very quickly in spots!
Happy Friday

Memory Boxes

These are how my memory boxes start out. I make a blank shrine, then cover with photos that you send to me. These will be painted black.

See my previous blog in June to see some finished memory boxes. I have made one for David (about Larry) and some for my sister.

Note the cat that thinks she owns the place in the background! She has to be in the middle of everything!

http://nmcreatrix.blogspot.com/2007/06/memory-boxes.html

The Declaration of Humanity

I declare that I am a Spiritual Being, an essential and eternal part of the Soul of Humanity, one and indivisible.

I declare that I am a Human Being whose rights and security ultimately depend on assuring the human rights of all people on Earth.

I declare that I am a Child of the Earth, with the will and awareness to work for goals that benefit the entire community of life on Earth.

I declare that I am a Healer, with the power and purpose to heal the many forms of divisions and conflicts that exist on the Earth.

I declare that I am a Protector, with the knowledge and the responsibility to help the Earth recover her natural harmony and beauty.

I declare that I am an Activist, with the commitment and the ability to make a positive difference in my society.

Dr. Ilchi Lee

Quote Junkie

I am a total quote junkie. I collect quotes and use them in my art when it is appropriate.
I subscribe to a Quote of the Day service which I recommend highly.
http://www.qotd.org/subscribe.html is where you subscribe.
Today's quotes (in celebration of Friday the 13th) are about luck.
I am sharing the following:

You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats. - American proverb

It's bad luck to be superstitious. - Andrew W. Mathis

People naturally fear misfortune and long for good fortune, but if the distinction is carefully studied, misfortune often turns out to be good fortune and good fortune to be misfortune. The wise man learns to meet the changing circumstances of life with an equitable spirit, being neither elated by success nor depressed by failure. - Siddhartha Gautama, 563 - 483 BC

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. - P. J. O'Rourke

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. - William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616

Have a lucky Friday the 13th!

Feeling Blah

I have stayed home from work 2 days (very unusual for me...). I think that I overdosed on sweet, juicy apricots! Anyway, while I was looking for something else, I came across this:

Quilter of the Galaxies

From our fragmented bodies and souls You gather remnants
To stitch together into the pattern of the universe.
Piece together the scraps of our lost dreams and aspirations:
That, transformed by the magic of your skill,
You bring into being the New Creation;
Maker of All That Is,
Thread that draws us through the needle's eye,
Fabric of Our Hope and Joy
Amen
Mary Kathleen Speegle Schmitt, Seasons of the Feminine Divine

Memorial for Mike

I lead a ceremony tonight for a friend's husband who died suddenly on Friday. I have a book of Unitarian memorials, and gave her the book to see if something was suitable. Since they did not attend a church regularly, they were having trouble gettting someone to come out and officiate. I told Bets that I would read the service, and it turned out to be a very fitting tribute. We had several candles, one for Mike, one for community, one for love, one for thanksgiving and one for memory. Individuals lit floating candles in a large clear glass bowl after sharing their memories of Mike, and everyone thougth that it was exactly what the occasion called for.

He was only 69, but in generally poor health, and Bets will be lost without him.

Furry Aliens that live with me

The younger of my furry aliens (a.ka. Fuzz Bucket) loves
the printer. Whenever I am printing she comes dashing in
to see the printer working. At least she is too big to try to
climb in the printer output tray (she did try that when she
was smaller)!

Fabric that I bought in the last month

Not all of these fabrics are from QSDS.

This first piece is one that I have had for over a year.
I plan to use this in my Egyptian Artifacts series.

I only bought a yard, and wish that I had bought

the entire bolt from the Gypsy Lady in Mountainair, NM

This gorgeous combination is a purchase from the Albuquerque

Fiber Arts Fiesta, painted in shimmery shades of copper and gold.

These fabrics are all ones that called my name at

QSDS! Can't resist those batiks!
I visited the St. Teresa Treasure Trove regularly,

and made my deposits there!





This a gorgeous hand dyed fabric

And another- not my usual color scheme, but it

not only spoke my name, it yelled BUY ME, BUY ME!

This is a unusual hand dyed piece that I bought from

Contemporary Cloth that should be able to be worked

into my Egyptian Artifacts series

Notan Exercises

Jane Dunnewold suggested that we do one notan a day for a period of time (she did one a day for a month). This is my first and second daily notans. Interesting art form.

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

.

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