Sunday, May 29, 2016

chimpanzee alter ascomycetes

“Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty 
that feed the soul… Seek solitude,”     Delacroix  


What a handsome little guy!


Just got back from the studio, yeah, that's how I spend Memorial Day.  I went early and stayed until 5 and wouldn't be home yet if I didn't have to clean up my act to go out to dinner tonight!  I got major stuff finished and lots of quilts cut up for the pile.  
First, I finished my June offering for my Collaborative Artist's Book group-  It's all dry and sealed in an envelope that I will drop it in the mailbox before I leave.  It's a few days early but I didn't want to be pushed for time when I get back in 2 weeks-  I can always work on the July entry then! I printed the crow onto Japanese cotton, then added the branch and leaves fussy cut from a batik that's probably as old as I am.  The theme she picked was 'birds' so I used my favorite bird, hope she likes it.
Almost chair height!  
I cut up 4 more quilts and some had to have leftover pieces joined together to make a 24" square so I probably added 10 new squares to the sono tube.  The total is now 16" high (the top of the tape is labeled 18") so I'm one-quarter of the way up.  Already I cannot lift or separate the layers, all I can see of each piece are the corners. I am getting excited to show the crit group and hear what they will have to say.  Actually, I'd like to hear what YOU have to say too.

I am charging through the pieces I know I don't care about, then holding a few back if I need actual quilts to display so I don't think ALL of them will be wrecked.  Have to hold back a few that might sell.  Today I started the Jornada del Muerte pieces, finished one and still have the second to go:
  These sprung from a scary drive across the White Sands Missile Range with the gas tank on empty.  I got on the car roof to see if there was ANYTHING in sight besides  some huge white long horned steer.  There wasn't.  I got six squares from the first quilt on the left, 6 more will come from the second since they are 8' long.There were supposed to be 4 pieces all together and hung in a circle you would go inside of, but I burned out after two:  16' of quilt doesn't have a lot of places to go!  Stopping was one of my more 'informed' decisions.  Sigh.









Jim Denevan, a chef and land artist based in Santa Cruz, California, creates temporary drawings on sand, earth, and ice that are eventually erased by waves and weather. These drawings range in scale from smaller beach compositions to large scale land works the size of a city.  Jim's artwork is performed primarily outside in California but also many other locations around the world.




This goes for quilts too, except for the typewriter part!


2 comments :

Janet W said...

I find your cutting up quilts project horrifying and fascinating and brave. But the Jornada quilt. Oh, no! My son-in-law just finished four years of a post doc there. He loves that place and would have adored that quilt.

Anonymous said...

I agree that its a fascinating project. Curious if you are stacking them in chronological order that you made them?
Then you would have a quilt line through time, or an archaeological quilt stack to represent 40 years of quilt making.
It would also bring in another dimension for the viewer at they may see trends of color, style or changing interests over time.

I have often reflected on my own quilt/art making as marking time, as in "oh i was working on that when..."

A really interesting project, Rita