Inspired by Dog Blog

Happiness is...clearing a really big project off your desk, to free up the afternoon for art! Oh, and did I mention the sun is actually shining, and the swank new moniter for I got for Valentine's Day is now hooked up...

My muse came in on a parachute today. No, really I was looking at Michael Wertz's Dog Blog and Wig Blog. It's been a while since I've checked his site, and now I see he's working on a new one, 100 Special Things. I love his style, and his idea to use a blog to experiment with new techniques. Maybe I'll start doing a drawing a day... yeah, right!

Uncle Tomoo

My yoga teacher says that we should dedicate our practice each day to something. Usually I have no idea, but yesterday I dedicated mine to my great-uncle Tomoo.

I learned Tuesday that he died in his sleep. He was the second oldest in his family, my grandmother was the oldest. He, like the rest of my father's family, was born in California, but was interned during WWII in Arkansas.

Although my grandfather, grandmother, and father stayed in the midwest after the war, the rest of the family returned to California. Uncle Tomoo was a pharmacist, and his drugstore was in the middle of J-town in San Jose. It had a soda fountain and a lunch counter where people would eat sandwiches and hamburgers, or just sit around, drink coffee, and gossip all day.

Uncle To also had a garden in back of his house with a real lemon tree. When I was a kid I always thought that was something magical--since I was raised in the midwest, I thought lemons only came from the grocery store.

What Did I Buy?

Now that I'm back in procrastination mode, I thought I would spend some time listing things I bought while I was in New York.

1. Twenty-two different polka-dot fabrics at B&J Fabrics. Plus two batiks and a Japanese ikat.

2. Several art books:

• Christo and Jeanne-Claude by Jacob Baal-Teshuva
• Raw Vision: Outsider Art Sourcebook
• A book about Howard Finster 1916-2001
• Artists & Prints: Masterworks from the MOMA
• Ruth Duckworth: Modernist Sculptor

3. Technically I also bought these in NY, but I actually I looked at them at the museum and then went back to the hotel room and ordered them to be shipped to my house because I was tired of dragging books and fabric all over the place:

• Tim Hawkinson, catalog from the Whitney
• Red Grooms, The Graphic Work

4. Original art from the Art-O-Mat machine in the basement of the Whitney. It reads Contents: One original, all natural drawing by temperamental illustrator, Ashley Holt, shredded beyond recognition with a toy surprise.

5. A warm hat at the American Folk Art Museum. Necessary for walking around Central Park in freezing February.

Last Days in New York

Finally back home after many delayed flights, I'm trying to decompress and absorb all the art we have seen. Unfortunately my appetite still doesn't realize that I'm not walking 40-50 blocks a day...

We spent Saturday traveling to Dia:Beacon, a huge museum that's about an hour and half by train from Grand Central Station. A revamped factory, it opened in 2003 to house the Dia collection of art. No photos allowed. My favorite was the Andy Warhol room, but the Richard Serras were impressive, and the Michael Heizer was powerfully creepy. Overall I loved the warm feel of the "daylight" factory museum, but probably won't return since the exhibits are permanent. Above is an 'illegal' photo taken inside a Serra spiral sculpture.

Russ had been spending each evening taking photos of The Gates after dark, something he really has a talent for, but I was too thin-skinned to venture out in the 17 degree weather for several hours.

On Saturday though, we met some friends from Springfield for a quick visit of The Gates, and then had dinner at a Korean Zen vegan restaurant on 32nd Street called Hangawi: a vegatable shrine in another place and time. I had some weird salad made from a root flown in specially from Korea. The food was great, and we finished off with yummy little rice mochi cakes dusted with coconut.

Sunday was our last day, and we entered Central Park from 72nd Street on the west side. We climbed to top of Belvedere Castle to look out over the park.

More Art in New York

Feb. 22, 2005: I added some art links that I just found to the post below.

Another great day in New York. Russ had meetings, so I was free to roam around on my own.

I visited the American Craft Museum (now the Museum of Art and Design, but I like the other name better) for a really nice exhibit of Ruth Duckworth's ceramic sculpture. The only thing that bothered me was, every one of her pieces was called "Untitled." I once had a poetry mentor who told me to never leave a work untitled. He said it would be less likely to be published since editors like to put titles in the table of contents. I was wondering how you would even catalog art without names. But Ruth has such a rich vocabulary of forms that I guess names are really unnessary.

Then across the street to the American Folk Art Museum. It's a tall and skinny museum with a rustic facade, right next to the MOMA, so I stopped back there again and bought some more heavy art books.

Richard Heinrich is a sculptor on the board of ISC, and he hosted a cocktail party for the board in his studio/home in Tribeca. Of the few apartments that I've visited in New York, his is the one I would most like to live in. He has a whole floor in his building with several bedrooms, an open living room with a big skylight and wood stove, a very cool kitchen, and a really big sculpture studio right off the living room. I found this on-line interview with Richard Heinrich that shows more of his work and studio.

Then we all went downstairs to the Della Rovere, a restaurant on the first floor. During dinner Charlie showed me his photos from Vietman, Cambodia, and Thailand. I had thought Mary and Charlie were forever lost in the Tsunami of 2004 since they were on a two-month Asian trip when it hit. But happily they are alive and well and ready to host a curry party in Chicago to show off their thousands of slides and photos.

Anti-Christo (Tiny Gates)

For those of you who haven't had enough of Christo's Gates (and maybe those who have) here's a link to an artist's installation called The Somerville Gates. Never having been to Somerville myself, I was told that it's a densely populated place so the scale of the project is somewhat different than Christo's.

NYC Garment District

After messing around far too long with my blog because the archives weren't working right, I took off to explore the NYC Garment District. I seem to make every trip I take into a mission and this time it was to find fabric.

This is not new. Last fall I took a cab all the way across New Orleans to find the only quilt shop in town, and I wasn't disappointed. The woman working there told me, "We like bright colors here" and she was right.

Today I had polka dots on my mind, and so I took off walking with Paula Nadelstern's list in my hand. I knew I was getting close when I saw the big button.

I already knew where I was going, but stopped into the big button kiosk to see what they would say. "Most dense concentration of fabric stores in the world is right on that block, 39th street between 7th and 8th." I would later find out they were right, but for now I walked in the opposite direction because Paula says on her list that she always starts at B&J.

I'm glad I had that list. B&J is on the second floor of a non-descript building called the Fashion Center and there's no way anyone would suspect it was there. Twenty-two polka dot fabrics I found that I liked, so it was just a matter of getting them cut.

Next it was off to explore the most densely populated block of fabric stores in the world. I walked by dozens of stores but didn't have time to go in any, not that I wanted to. I was already happy with my polka dot collection, and so I hailed a cab to get to the MOMA.

The Museum of Modern Art has been completely redone, and for all the hype, I was a little disappointed. The architect has designed the building to "disappear" behind the art, but I thought they could have used a few bright quilts on some of the blank walls! I also got cold feet whenever I had to walk across one of the many catwalks with glass walls because my fear of heights kicked in in a major way.

I liked the Architecture and Design floor and made special note of some hanging methods for displaying rolls of fabric. The print gallery that I had read about in the NYTimes was excellent, and so was the fact that I could take photos of some world-famous paintings by some of my favorite artists such as Chagall, Kandinsky, and Gaugin.

Over all though the MOMA lost out, because I enjoyed the Tim Hawkinson show at the Whitney much more.

Visiting Christo's Gates

Yesterday we experienced Christo's Gates in Central Park twice. Once before a lunch with the ISC, and then second time, after dark.

In between we visited a fantastic exhibit of Tim Hawkinson at the Whitney (with a quick trip to the basement to buy something out of the Art-O-Mat machine), stopped by an Antony Caro gallery show, and had dinner in the back room of the Pearl, an oyster bar in Greenwich Village.

I've got more photos and comments about of all these things, so please visit Experiencing Christo's Gates.

Landing in LaGuardia

We left Springfield early this afternoon. Springfield is not necessarily a metropolitan mecca, but it's the third largest city in Missouri. What I don't like about it is it sounds so bland and there are something like eighteen Springfields in the country, so I always have tell people which city and state I'm from. I'd prefer to live in a city that just has one name, like Denver or Seattle or Chicago.

Springfield's claim to fame is being the hometown of Bass Pro Shops, John Ashcroft, and most importantly, Brad Pitt. Even my Japanese friends are impressed with that fact.

With this frame of reference, you can imagine that the airport is not huge. For convenience I would prefer to take a jet out of Springfield rather than drive to Kansas City or St. Louis, but today I was sorry because the plane was very small. Propellers instead of jets. No overhead bins. And the seats were so tiny with no armrests that I would have fallen out if not strapped in with the seat belt. Worst of all, the tiny little steps to the plane folded up inside the doorway. I felt like I was riding in a sofa bed.

From St. Louis, the next plane seemed so luxurious. I slept most of the way, but woke to find us in a holding pattern above LaGuardia Airport. I don't think we've ever landed here after dark. It was beautiful, and I regretted that my camera was in the overhead bin.

It was strangely quiet with only the tuneless hum of air rushing against the plane. As far as I could see were burning clusters of lights of silver and gold with an occasional ruby red glow, like night jewelry trembling between the dark sea and sky.

Then everyone whipped out their cell phones, and I knew we were back on the ground.

New Web Address

I've moved my blog to a new web address:

www.pamdora.com

Please visit me there!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's a valentine I made today--no, actually I started it a couple of weeks ago. Then I stopped because I thought I would give Russ a drawing I'm working on called "The Garlic Eaters." Then I decided he might not think that was very romantic (but really it will be in a strange way.) So I went back to the always successful, I Love You Heart theme. Here's a closeup:

This is different than the way I usually work, but I'm really interested in doing more drawing with the thread in constrast to the colors of the fabric. This is rainbow Jean-Stitch thread which is fun to use.

I also got inspired looking at blogs to practice writing, and actually now I can write better with the sewing machine than I can with a pen. I have horrible hand-writing, and I get a cramp in my hand after I write two sentences, which is why I like to type.

Leaving for New York

Well, I hate packing so this blogging addiction is a great distraction. Here's what I want to pack: yoga mat, two laptops, digital drawing tablet, art magazines I haven't read at home, camera gear, collapsible duffle bag for spontaneous impractical purchases....yikes, that leaves no room for clothes!

Russ is going for the ISC spring board meeting, and I'm going along for the ride. The International Sculpture Center hosts conventions and publishes Sculpture magazine, so they've scheduled the meeting to coincide with Christo's Gates project in Central Park. We have certain scheduled activities to attend, but I'll have a couple of free days too. Here's a list of what I want to do, followed by a rating of how much I want to do it, versus the probably I will be able to:

1. See Christo's Gates. want to 100% - likely 100% (already scheduled for Wednesday)

2. Go on a tour of the remodeled MOMA. want to 98% - likely 100% (already scheduled for Wednesday afternoon)

3. Stay in the hotel, order room service, and catch up on sleep. want to 89% - likely 2%

4. Vist the NYC Garment District using Paula Nadelstern's guide. want to 99% - likely 87%

5. Visit Dia:Beacon Museum. want to 58% - likely 99% (already scheduled for Saturday)

6. Go to a really cool yoga studio or spa-like place. want to 53% - likely 1%

7. Go gallery hopping with True and Pamela who always engineer group activities for the ISC spouses and who will have already researched what's showing. want to 95% - likely 93%

8. Go shopping and buy some fabulous clothes like I can't find here at home. want to 69% - likely 32%

9. Go to SpamAlot which opens the day before we arrive, because I'm a big Eric Idle and Monty Python fan. (I thought it was funny, but don't download his FCC song if you are easily offended.) want to 87% - likely 3%

10. Get lost in NY when I'm trying to do something like go to the NYC Garment Distrist by myself, trying hard to look cool and not like a small lost person from the midwest. want to 0% - likely 86%

Speaking of shopping, I saw this quote yesterday:
Only one day of shopping left before tomorrow.

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny

Well, that answers that question. I was wondering how I would like working this small, but didn't really like it. This it called In Bed with a Bad Cold, and it's only 14" x 9". I had all kinds of trouble figuring out how to finish the edges without a binding and kind of made a mess of it. I should have waited for Melody to tell me how, but I had to finish this tonight.

Alternative Wedding Cake Toppers

While I'm on the subject of weddings, I saw this yesterday in a Giant Robot Lounge discussion about alternative wedding cake toppers. Giant Robot is a kind of a hip art and culture Asian-American magazine. The lounge discussions crack me up, and I like to drop in once in a while when I'm feeling stodgy. I also love the name.

Giant Robot is where I first learned I had the dratted Asian Flush syndrome, a hereditary maybe allergic reaction to alcohol. I'd say two out of five times when I drink, I get really red all over my body, which is embarressing but bearable. What's not is the heart palpatations, shortness of breath and rapid pulse. Which really puts a damper on my aspirations at living the bohemian artist's life--normally I'm kind of quiet and low-key, but you should hear me after a couple of glasses of wine.

Bad Cold WIP

Here's what I worked on this afternoon, the In Cold with a Bad Cold quilt for the Keiko show. I'm having a hard time working this small, it's only 14" x 9". When I drew it, I tried to create a simple image, but as usual, I want to put in more little stuff, like the lamp, spilt orange juice, and discarded banana peel.

Wedding Photo Teaser

When Melody asked me to post photos from my wedding, I thought great! Then I remembered that was back in the olden days before there were digital cameras. So I have boxes of photos, but none on my computer.

I got out the photos, had a few chuckles, and thought about scanning some which would be a good idea since some of them seem to be fading. But then I remembered my mother is coming to town tomorrow, and I have loads of other things to do before we go to New York on Tuesday

So I posted this photo collage by Steve White, the arts editor at the Springfield Magazine who did an amazing job with a jumble of photos we gave him for an article last summer.

At the top you can see where I get my inspiration for PaMdora. In the middle are a couple of shots from the wedding. Behind it all is handmade paper made by an artist pal, Tracy, for our wedding invitations which were filled with my cartoons and sewn together by guess who, Russ. That was in my pre-fiber-artist days.

But scanning those old photos is definately on my to-do list for the future, so think of this as the teaser...

Rock Climbing Wall part 2

Well here's a photo of me really climbing the wall today at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. I made it to the top again, and only bashed one knuckle resulting in a little blood, and only slightly strained the muscles in my mouse forearm.

But I was totally shown up by Ralph, the mayor pro-tem, who's in his seventies and had never climbed the wall at all. He got so excited at the ceremony that he ripped off his suit jacket, traded shoes with someone else, and climbed the wall still wearing his tie. He's always like that. He was a paratrooper in WWII, and periodically likes to go jump out of airplanes like at the Normandy anniversary last summer, so I don't feel so bad. I just hope I'm that energetic when I'm 70.

Fear of Heights & Weddings

Ever tried climbing up one of those manufactured rock-climbing walls? I never have until yesterday.

I serve on our regional Parkboard, and although I'm not really into golf or softball or tennis, I am kind of a cheerleader for alternative things in our parks, like the skatepark, the dog park, and now the rock-climbing wall.

Yesterday I got a fax of the agenda for the ribbon-cutting ceremony, and when I got to the part that said, "then Pam climbs up the wall to cut the ribbon," I thought I better get to the gym and practice.

With the help of a couple of kids working at the gym, after six tries I got halfway to the top. The hard part isn't the climbing, the hard part is I'm afraid of heights.

I was the kid who was scared jumping off the high-dive. The second time I tried, I was terrified. The third time, my swimsuit dried in the sun, and I had to push the other kids off the ladder to get back down to ground level.

My only other significant jump from a high place was at my wedding. Russ, being the eccentric romantic that he is, had proposed to me as he was jumping from a cliff at Tablerock Lake. This cliff is called Battleship Rock and it can be 20-25 feet from the water depending on the lake levels.

So we decided to get married on that cliff, and our friends and family could attend the wedding in a small fleet of pontoon boats. I hadn't planned on jumping off the cliff, but standing on hot rock in the June sun in a full wedding dress for 45 minutes waiting for a flock of pontoon boats can really change how you think about things.

After about 15 minutes the water below started to look really nice, and after about 30 minutes, I was glad I had put a swimsuit on under the wedding dress, just in case...(and here, something borrowed, something blue had a special meaning.)

By the time our short ceremony was over, I was really ready to peel off the wedding dress. I still hesitated at the cliff edge, but Russ grabbed my hand, and together we took the plunge.

Every anniversary for the last 15 years he asks me if I'm going to jump again. I always say, maybe next year. But tonight, I did go back to the rock wall and this time I got to the top THREE times!

Which reminds me, someday I'd like to do a wedding quilt. There's all kinds of funny stuff I could put in the background, like the Celtic band on a slowly sinking hand-made raft, the surprised look on the summer kids just out for swim, my nephew on a rock ledge singing an acappella wedding song...

In Bed with a Bad Cold

Here's a drawing I did tonight in honor of all my friends who have a bad cold. Maybe I'll try to make it into a small quilt for the Keiko show.

Photos: Hanging the Show

I'm finally getting around to posting photos from the gallery show. It was a snowy February morning, but we got off to a good start on the first floor after hanging Lucy Silliman's huge quilt. These wonderful photos are all courtesy of my "magic with the camera" husband Russ RuBert.

Gallery manager Laura Lacey hangs one of Rosemary Claus-Gray's gorgeous sheers above a lighted case.

Rosemary shows me her small pieces that she has shrink-wrapped on matboard. Of course I had to buy one and can't wait to frame it.

Gallery owner Steve Dlack takes a break on top of his ladder to watch everyone else.

Emmie Seaman hangs her tornado series. She did this series after a tornado destroyed much of her hometown last year.

I sort out some smaller quilts to hang in an alcove. There were lots of interesting spaces within the gallery to use. To my left is Emmie's "divorce" quilt, and in my right hand is a piece by Diane Kelsay.

After filling the first floor, we moved to the lower level. We had 72 quilts and used every bit of space we could.

Getting goofy in the basement. It took eight of us working seven hours on Wednesday, and we weren't completely done by the end of the day...

Photos: Artists' Reception

Lettie Blackburn points to the first sale of the show. After the newspaper article came out Thursday morning, people started coming into the gallery right after lunch. This piece actually sold before the reception.

You can see along this wall of the gallery that we had several smaller quilts framed. Laura also mixed other media with the art quilts to show people how our quilts could be hung with other types of art.

Since Lucy Silliman (center) drives from Kansas to our group meetings, the reception was the first time we met her husband.

Throughout the evening we did some demonstrations of machine quilting that were very popular. Here I'm working on a small piece with lots of bright hearts--since it's February, I have valentines on the brain.

We had around 200 people attend the artists' reception on Thursday evening, and after it all here's a tired but happy Merrilee Tieche and Lettie Blackburn.

Photos: Gallery Cloud Nine

The First Friday Art Walk fell on February 4th and on the second day of our show. Actually this was planned. I'm still wondering about the timing, but still think it was good to have the Artist's Reception the night before. Although most of the out of town artists couldn't stay over for Friday, I think it was better to have two nights of events to help build the buzz.

Things started early, the director of the art museum always hits events early, but through the night, I heard he was sending people in off the street to see my Sushi quilt. Above you can see a couple of young guys studying it. Wonder what they're thinking?

On Friday we also had live music, as most of the galleries do wine, food, and some do music to try to spice up the event. Behind the musician is one of Lucy Silliman's monster quilts. (my term for big)

Throughout the night I heard many wonderful things. That the display was arranged nicely to draw people through the exhibit. That the art made people smile. That it was one of the most interesting gallery shows in Springfield ever!

The head of the art and architecture department at Drury University even asked me to do a solo show at the new Pool Art Center next year. How exciting and terrifying! But I've already thought up a name for it...

I can't list all the people who came, but I'm so grateful to everyone who did. In the center of the photo is the Mayor. Of course, I take yoga at 6 am with him and his wife in the basement of his downtown law building so I've been SUBTLY reminding them for a month to come see the show. He's talking to our city manager who is ecstatic about the crowds downtown that night. We also had many family, friends, artist pals, art profs, business friends, kids of friends, twenty-somethings, and bar flies....

One woman even showed up with her work in progress. She had read the article in the paper and wanted to show me "Pies and Pets," a self-portrait of herself with the title embroideried right on the quilt. Well, that's not so different from what I'm doing, is it?

I wish I had thought to have Russ get a portrait of every artist in the show. Here's a great one of Susan Leslie Lumsden in front of one of her quilts. She's also having a solo show at City Hall this month, so we're really saturating this town in fiber art!

First Friday is usually popular, but we were lucky to have an unseasonably warm evening. With twelve galleries participating it's sometimes hard to get around to every gallery, but I'd say by the way the gallery was jam-packed all evening, everyone made it to the Hawthorn that night, probably between 400 to 500 people over the three hours. Several people told me they were coming back when it wasn't so crowded so they could see the art!

Before the night was half over, gallery owner Steve Dlack was saying to me, "We are going to do this again next year right? The annual fiber show!...."

Musical Me

Well, I'm not sure I get it even after Diane's lengthy discussion of a meme, but I guess it sort of like playing "tag, you're it!" So here goes:

1. What't the total amount of music on your computer?
Which computer?--my desktop, none. My art PC laptop, none. My clamshell Mac iBook that I use for email, 1.97 gigabytes, not because I download a lot of stuff, but because some of it is handme down file-sharing, but most is my cd collection that I sampled onto the computer so I could load onto my iPod.

2. What was the last CD you bought?
Out of several that I can't remember, the significant one is Indigio Spirit. The lyrics are sad sometimes because many songs are about slavery, but the music is mesmerizing, and I like music that puts me into a trance when I make art. So if I find a cd like that, I play it over and over while I work.

3. What was the last song you heard before reading this message?
Well, shoot, I started listening to Indigio Spirit while writing this, so I guess I'm on "Babes in the Jukebox" right now.

4. What are five songs that you listen to often or mean a lot to you?
Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet
UB40 - I Can't Help Falling in Love with You
Cat Stevens - Wild World
Barenaked Ladies - If I had a Million Dollars
Tom Petty - Into the Wild Blue Yonder
Moby - We Are All Made of Stars

5. Who are you going to pass this baton to and why?
Sorry Diane, no one. Maybe I'm just lame at this blog thing, but I don't really know anyone to send it to that hasn't already gotten it. I don't read a lot of blogs. I'm sitting on the couch in my sweats, wiped out from the last three days. This morning after the First Friday Art Walks, I slept late, practiced yoga, went back to bed and slept all afternoon. Maybe tonight I'll try to get up the gumption to go out to dinner!

Great Press

Well I tried and tried from home, but since my knowledge of html is pathetic, I couldn't figure out how to put this link on. For some reason, the blogger interface is different on my mac at home than on my pc here at the studio. Anyway, here's the link to our newspaper article about the show.

Hanging the Show

Yesterday we spent a LONG day at Hawthorn Gallery hanging the 70+ quilts for our show. Everyone pitched in a worked together beautifully, but still by the end of the day, my brain felt like the snow on the road home--like cold, gray mush.

One humorous moment at lunch at the retro Gailey's Breakfast Bar, Merrilee and Lettie doing impressions of Lettie's husband. Since Lettie has only been making fabric art for a couple of month, the phenomena is completely new to him. He came into her studio that was strewn with scraps of fabric and said, "Well this looks like a perfectly good hobby run completely amuck!"

Later I'll post some photos of us hanging the show that Russ took. Once again, I reap the rewards of his Christmas present--a really nice new digital camera with lots of lenses and doo-dads that keep showing up in mail, even though it's way past Christmas...