Bemused, Boggled, and Bedazzled

It’s been over a year since I sat down to write anything here.  Life got squirrelly, and then it got busy, and then the habit of writing went away.  It’s amazing how quickly that happened.  After awhile, I no longer felt guilty about not writing.  But now that has passed, and I am back – hoping I have something to say.

Lately, we have been involved in the Great Studio Clean Out.  (I say “we” because my most dearly beloved has been helping out from time to time.)  Bags and bags of stuff have gone straight to the dumpster, and more bags and boxes have gone to other folks who might use the contents in their work.  And I am far from finished.  My goal is to lay hands on everything in the studio (and assorted storage places around the house) and make a decision:  keep, donate or toss.  The most I have been able to accomplish so far is to be able to actually see the floor of my studio, but a little bit every day ought to get me through it.  The bad news is that this could take months!

I find that the hardest decisions to make are the ones that involve things that I paid goodly amounts of my hard-earned money to acquire.  (Of course, some of the easiest decisions are those that start out with “what the heck was I THINKING??”.)  And then there’s all that stuff that was given to me by someone else that I have never figured out what to do with.

Also on the agenda this week is a full revamp of my long-neglected website.  Although the bulk of this work will fall to my most dearly beloved, I have a couple of pages of assignments for writing up information for him to use.  When all is said and done, there will be a lot more pictures of my work, including several new galleries, and everything should look much more coordinated.

In the meantime, I need to get out and take care of some errands.  We stayed away from the Black Friday shopping uproar yesterday, but today I really do need to go to the grocery store, pick up a prescription, drop off some art, etc.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving!  Cheers! my little chickadees!

Larkin

Once upon a time . . . okay, it was just last November . . . I took it into my head to have my salt and pepper grey hair highlighted with blue. And not just any blue, but electric blue. So I went to Cliff, my hairdresser, and he applied enough chemicals to do the job. Various folks have been asking me to post a picture of the finished product, and in fact, the day of the great transformation I came home and had my husband/photographer/ webmaster do a head shot for me. It started out rather blue-violet, but after a couple of weeks, most of the violet was gone and I was left with a good strong blue. Worked for me. At any rate, I have enjoyed this thoroughly, and will probably do it again just before I go to Santa Fe in March 2009. So for all those who have been waiting for this, here it is.

Smile, my little chickadees!

If you are expecting me to really answer that question, I am very sorry to disappoint you.  I don’t have a clue what the new year will bring.  I never have.  Oh, I have some things on my calendar – I know where I will be teaching and when – but as for the shape of my year, I really don’t know.  It’s a mystery.  And in some ways, I like it like that!  Without a little mystery, life would be a sterile, boring, all-too-predictable thing.

This is the time of year when people set goals, make resolutions, plan their attack on the year to come.  And these are worthy things to do.  I will be doing some of that myself over the weekend.  (Never one to rush into things, I delayed the planning process to a time when I know I can carve out some uninterrupted hours.)

My point (and I do have one) this morning is that amidst all the planning and resolutions and goal setting, we need to remember to be open to mystery and magic,  serendipity and surprise, blessings and beauty.  We need to keep our hearts, minds and senses open and available to receive what the world would have us experience.  There’s nothing new to this idea – artists, writers, explorers of all sorts have been doing it for millenia.  But as we become more and more bombarded by the “shoulds, musts, have tos, gottas”, it becomes harder to choose simplicity and wonder.

I don’t claim to have all the answers.  I’m not sure I have ANY answers.  What I do have is a wish for you – that among all the rushing and planning and doing, you will find some mystery and wonder to delight your eyes and heart in the coming year.

Blessings to you, my little chickadees!

Remember the old Sonny and Cher hit?  Oh sure you do: “And the beat goes on, the beat goes on.  Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain.”  Okay, maybe not.  How about Cole Porter:  “Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom as the jungle shadows fall.”  Hmmmmmm.  How about the Anvil Chorus?

Well, whatever background accompaniment you care to conjure up, we have been listening to contractors and plumbers all week as they rip and tear and saw and hammer to get down to the studs of a bathroom with leakage problems.  Unfortunately, the bathroom in question is on the other side of the wall from my office, which seems to magnify the noise like an echo chamber.  I have taken to ingesting pre-emptive aspirins for the headache I know will materialize.  At last the tearing out is complete, and they have started to put things back together.  I have no idea how much longer this will last, but the noise level should be down a few decibels next week.

One good thing about the destruction of the bathroom:  the noise has driven me out of my office and down to my studio for some fabric fussing and fusing, and I have finished several new pieces to take to Raven Rocks.  I also have a few small pieces that I will be offering here in the not too distant future, so stay tuned.

That’s all for now, my little chickadees!    Larkin

Oh, my poor neglected blog.  I feel just awful about leaving you alone for so long.  Well, okay, not THAT awful.  And I have been busy.  And I have been on the road teaching.  Okay, that’s enough excuses.  I’m back, however sporadically it might turn out to be!

The biggest news is the opening of a new art gallery here on beautiful Whidbey Island at the Greenbank Farm.  My friends Windwalker and Mary Jo have moved their gallery from downtown Langley (where the rents are astronomical) to the farm (where things are a bit more reasonable) into a lovely space that was once an antique store.  Their place is the most recent of three galleries now in place at the farm, along with Rob Shouton and the Artist Coop Gallery.  Also in the building is a great cheese shop, a purveyor of fine wines, and the Greenbank pie shop.  Mmmmmmm.  It doesn’t get much better than that!  The Raven Rocks Gallery has their grand opening November 7 from 5 to 8 p.m.  For more information about the gallery and the artists who will be showing there (including me), please visit their website.  And if you live in the area and need more enticement to show up, that’s the same weekend as the Whidbey Weaver’s Guild annual sale, also at the Greenbank Farm.

In the meantime, we are enjoying the crisp night air that comes with Fall in the Pacific Northwest.  The wool coats, hats and gloves have come out of storage, and the summer clothes have moved into the back corners of the closet.  We know the rainy season is upon us, but those clear cold days that come around from time to time are a real pleasure.

Be well!

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Christine from Abbey of the Arts, an enterprise devoted to the connections between art and spirituality. She found me through a mutual connection at the Grunewald Guild where I will be teaching a couple of classes this summer. As a result of our conversations, she asked if she might use an image of one of my journal quilts in the June 2008 issue of “Presence” an international journal of spiritual direction, of which she is the art director. I got my advance copies yesterday, and was delighted to see that another friend of mine, Carla McConnell has an image of her work in this issue.

At any rate, Christine also asked if I would be willing to be interviewed for her blog. Apparently she posts an interview every Wednesday, if possible. I agreed, and the interview was posted this morning, along with several pictures of my work. Please stop by to read the interview and let me know what you think. I tried not to sound like a doofus, but I have been known to stick my foot in my mouth from time to time!

Hoping you are enjoying Spring!

There is a twice a year quilt show in my town. It lasts only a weekend, and is on the smallish side, as quilt shows go. This morning there were 71 quilts to be seen. Out in the competitive quilt show world, these quilts will never get a ribbon, never cause anyone to gasp over their astonishing technical prowess, never make anyone decide to take a class to learn how to do it. But they are the most beautiful quilts I see all year.

Every Thursday, a group of women, mostly aged 60+, meet at Trinity Lutheran Church in Freeland, WA to make these marvelous quilts. They are double bed size, made of 12″ squares of an amazing variety of fabrics, all of which are donated. Anyone who walks in the room is given a task. If they don’t know how to run a sewing machine, they can measure and cut squares. If they are limber enough, they can work on tieing the quilts with colorful yarns.

When the quilts are finished, they are hung over the pews in the church sanctuary for one weekend so everyone can see them, lean back on them during the services, and enjoy their bright colors. Next week, they will be shipped to Lutheran World Relief to be distributed anywhere in the world where people need a little comfort and cheer. They will end up on the ground, hanging from trees, wrapped around several shivering children and maybe a pet or two. They will be used up until they are nothing but tatters. But the love will remain.

If quilt shows gave out ribbons for quilts with heart, every one of these quilts would have big fancy rosettes on them.

Now the quilters are out of fabric. And they want to get back to sewing on Thursday. I’m going through my stash tomorrow afternoon and will take some over for them. If you are doing some studio cleaning this spring, and would like to consider supporting these women in their work, please contact me and I will give you the shipping information. Quilters are the most generous people in the world, and so I thank you in advance for doing what you can.

Hugs, my little chickadees!

After a couple of weeks on the road, I have landed home again, and am comfortably ensconced in my recliner, waiting for the chicken soup to warm up.  Yup.  I’ve got a bug.  I must have picked it up in Portland where I was teaching at the Bead Expo, and it bloomed in Texas where I was visiting my friend, Linda Minton.  When I’m in charge of things, everyone who comes to take a class when they are sick will be required to wear a mask!  Dang it!  It’s just not fair to the rest of us!  Okay, end of rant.  I’ll put the soapbox away and be right back.

I had a great time at the Bead Expo, spent far too much money, met some really wonderful people, and brought home some treasures.   It seems I have as much fun chatting with my favorite vendors as I do in the classroom.  Hmmmm.  Wonder why that is?

Then it was a quick drive home, dump the suitcase, do some laundry, re-pack and off to the airport.  (I really do need to have a word with my scheduling secretary about these fast turn-arounds! LOL)  It’s a long flight to Houston, but worth it to be able to spend time with Linda.  She had coaxed me into coming down for the big antiques festival in Round Top.  So off we went to the hill country for a few days.  Well, holy smokes!  I have never seen so many antiques (and faux antiques) in my entire life!  Linda is becoming the Queen of Rusty Things for her assemblage art,  so we were keeping an eye out for interesting shapes.  I was looking for old postcards and portraits to print on fabric for collage purposes.  (I figured I’d better not get anything I couldn’t fit into my suitcase.)  We also found some stone cabochons to use in our beading projects, and a few just-for-fun treasures.  I came home with a porcelain badger made in the USSR, that was just too adorable to leave there.  A badger!  Who knew!

After a couple of days scouring for antiques, my cough was getting worse, and we decided to go home to Houston a day early.  Good thing, since a storm moved in and we would have been cruising in the rain.  So, back to town and, after a stop at the video store for a stack of movies, we settled in for some beading and quiet conversation.  We went to lunch with Sharon Dixon on Saturday, which was lovely, and a little shopping at a quilt shop and Hobby Lobby, but mostly low-keyed it until it was time for me to fly home Sunday morning.  It would have been great to do some more running around and maybe pursue a more active artistic adventure, but Linda was the perfect hostess and tailored the visit to my waning energy level.

So, now I’m home and trying to catch up on email, snail mail, and all such things.  But at the moment, I think chicken soup and a nap sounds pretty appealing.

Cheers, my little chickadees!

The opening reception for the exhibit at the Latimer was a grand success and lots of fun. I arrived early and watched the folks on the reception committee set up food and drink, and then the artists started to arrive. We had the Passle of Passionate Portlanders (Gerrie, Terry and June) with their loyal Posse (husbands) in tow, and the (Whidbey) Island Girls (Jan, Beth and Arlene) with their entourage! All of them submitted to being interviewed before the exhibit opened at noon. The Latimer received a grant to have a CD made to document six shows, and this was the last one they had funding for. The CD will play on a small TV set in the hall during the exhibit so visitors can hear these ladies talk about their work.

Changing our clocks caused a bit of consternation, when the expected crowds didn’t show up at noon. But by 2:00, the place was rocking! Toward the end of the opening, a number of board members showed up, and I had the opportunity to talk with them about the exhibit and how it came about. (I learned from Laurie that they have an almost all new board, so they were on a learning curve.) Then at the end of the afternoon, it was time to do my interview for the CD.

I had taken a few pictures of the exhibit before it was open, but was too tired to do anything about it last night. I’ll see what I can do about that when I land home. In the meantime, both Geri and Terry have posted pictures on their blogs:

http://www.gericondesigns.com/weblog/

http://andsewitgoes.blogspot.com/2008/03/its-good-to-be-green.html

And here’s the link for ordering the CD that Van created of the entire exhibit:

http://www.larkinart.com/exhibits/latimer/index.html

“It’s Good to be Green” is hung and looking fabulous at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center.  My friend Karen and I arrived at 9 a.m. to meet the “hanging committee”.  Two hours later, we were done and headed down the road for lunch at the Blue Heron French Cheese Factory.  The “lighting guy” was due later in the day to adjust the overhead lights to better show the work.

The exhibit looks great, and the committee had nothing but compliments for both the visual impact and the caliber of the technical aspects of the work.  Hooray!

Karen and I spent the rest of the day driving in the rain to investigate the variety of discount book stores, an antique mall, and the Goodwill!  Then we went to Safeway for provisions and had dinner in our motel room.  It’s going to be a quiet evening of books and beading before we venture out tomorrow.  Hopefully we will have a little better weather.