This morning I woke up knowing what the quilt needed.  I went to the studio and laid out 2 borders, one inside and one around the outer edge of the quilt,  using brown ties. I wasn’t feeling well and  fell asleep in the afternoon.  As I woke I saw a deep pink, then the word magenta came to mind.  I saw and smelled the Crayola Crayon.  It was my favorite color.

Back in my studio I traded the brown ties for the deepest pink I had.  Now I’m ready to piece it together.

The only thing I knew this morning, when I got into my studio was that I wanted to make a quilt.  I had no pictures or colors or designs in my mind.  So I just started looking at my fabric and pulled out colors from the boxes and patterned pieces from my shelf.  I started by piecing together a small rectangle, placed it on my floor then found pieces to put around it. This one wore me out.  It’s small, but I get tired just looking at it.    Maybe it’s too busy and needs a few more quiet places where the eye can rest.  I’ll know tomorrow morning when I can see it for the first time again.

Well, it’s 8 potholders and 1 streaming piece later and I’m afraid my Ginghers are not cutting so well.

So I took  Jean’s advice.   She left a comment letting me know I could send the scissors back to Gingher to have them sharpened.   Thanks Jean.  I Googled Gingher and now have more information than I can ever use about those scissors.  It costs about $7 + shipping.  Tomorrow I’ll send off my scissors and hope I didn’t ruin them by trying to sharpen them myself.  While they’re away, I’ll use my back up shears.  They seem to have done well by the sharpener and if they dull, I buy a pair of Fiskers till I get my Ginghers back.  For everyone who asked, the sharpener is a Fiskars. (Gingher also has a sharpening stone you can find on their website.)  Izzy was good enough to pose with the Fiskars Scissor Sharpener packaging.  I know if I go into a store knowing what the packaging of  product looks like, it’s easier for me to find.

I may not be as excited as I was two days ago, but I’m thrilled to finally have a place to send my Ginghers and am once again grateful for the internet and the people it puts me in touch with, for making me wiser in the ways of scissors and sharpening.

Potholder Quilt on it's way to it's new home

I was in such a fowl mood today, (although I must say I felt a lot better after seeing all the responses to the yesterdays post. If we can connect with each other over sharp shears, there’s hope) I think I’ll write about yesterday……

…..Yesterday, I finished my potholder quilt and went to the Cossayuna post office.   When I came in the postmistress was saying to the customer in front of me, ” I thought her husband said he’d divorce her if she brought home any more kittens.”  The customer said her friend didn’t care, she was taking the kitten and he could divorce her if he wanted too.

Then I got the rest of the story.  The customer had taken in a stray cat which was pregnant.  One morning she woke up and the cat was lying on her bed nursing  6 black kittens.  The woman said her husband snores, so she didn’t hear anything unusual during the night.  “I know it’s  disgusting, ” she said, “but the kittens and bed were so clean, even the afterbirth was gone.”  She threatened to bring a kitten into the post office hoping the postmistress would take one.  Then she confessed that she really wanted to keep them all.

I’m hoping the next time I go to the post office there will be a box of kittens.  Not that I want a kitten, but I wouldn’t mind cuddling with one for a few minutes.

Freida and the sacred scissor sharpener

This is one of those blog entries that I either have to write really well about or have a picture of a cute animal to make interesting to most people other than myself.   But I’m writing about it anyway, for one of the the same reasons I make art and have a blog, in the hopes of connecting with someone else.  Sometimes it’s many people, sometimes only one person, and sometimes it seems I’m the only one who gets it.   But I do believe there are other people out there who understand the idea of getting really excited over something that is really very mundane.

Of course, sometimes the passion or excitement a person conveys is enough to draw people in.  When I was in school, one of my classmates was passionate about Jeeps.  I had never thought twice about Jeeps before meeting him, but by the end of the first semester, I found myself looking at Jeeps and telling Mike about it whenever I saw one.

So, about 20 years ago, my mother bought me a Gingher Shears for my birthday.  This was very special.  My mother used to sew when I was growing up making clothes for my sister and me , curtains for the windows, costumes for plays and Halloween.  For years, she used a dull shears, never buying a new one, or getting hers sharpened.  When she bought me the Gingher, I knew it was one that she wanted, but wouldn’t buy for herself.

A few years ago, when I started making quilts, my Gingher quickly dulled.  I guess I inherited my mothers aversion to a sharp pair of shears and put off getting mine sharpened until they would not longer cut.  I asked around at fabric stores and hardware stores, but I couldn’t find anyone to sharpen my shears.  I finally bought a cheap pair of scissors and kept up my quest for a sharpener.  Last week when I went to JoAnn Fabric to get some supplies I thought I’d try again.  The woman cutting my batting said “I don’t know anyone who sharpens scissors, but we use this.”  She held up a  piece of black and orange plastic about 5 inches square and 1 inch deep.  I asked if they’d work on my Ginghers and she said “I don’t know, but they work on these”  She held up her orange handled scissors.  I was a little reluctant being a bit of a snob about my Ginghers that didn’t cut, but for eleven bucks I thought I’d give it a try.

Well, it worked!   I kissed the black plastic sharpener and cut and cut and cut.  Then I sharpened my cheap pair of shears and my antique scissor that should cut thread but didn’t…. until now.

Now I don’t think  my excitement over finding a scissor sharpener can compete with Mike’s passion for Jeeps, and I’m not even sure how long it will last.  Once I get used to being able to sharpen my scissors whenever I want, it’s possible the whole thing, sharp shears, scissor sharpener, and the immediacy of it may become mundane to me too.   But right now, just thinking about it makes me smile.  And if this is one of those things that only I get, I can always call my mom, I have a feeling she’d understand.

What the heat looked like while working in my studio this week.

After hanging the Gallery 99 show yesterday, Diane and I  went to see Joyce’s studio.  It’s a few blocks from the Theater in an old shirt factory  (which is also the name of the building) that has been turned into artists studios and galleries.  The building also has yoga, acupuncture, and some unique shops.

The Shirt Factory is like so many buildings that have been reclaimed for creative use.  It has that lived-in industrial feel.  It smells like something creative is happening.  A mix of  paint and incense.  There are flyers and invitations in the stairwells and each door reflects the art that is being made behind it.  It has the feeling of a busy building that is closed for the day.  The artists are rarely there at the same time, so there’s always a feeling of the  expectation of their return or the room recently closed up.

Joyce shares her studio space with 2 other artists.  She works in many different mediums and she had 3(I think, I may have lost count)  different series of work going on at the same time.  Hanging on her wall was her latest completed series of three dimensional collages using birds as a symbol for freedom.

She’s been working with one of the potters in the building making what look like large ceramic beads that hang from sticks looking like they have a purpose we should be familiar with.   She wants them to make some kind of sound and I have no doubt that she’ll figure out how to do it.  Joyce also paints, in the past it’s been mostly abstract, but recently her paintings are becoming representational.

Her studio had the feeling of an organized and busy mind.  A comfortable and focused place.  I’m hoping to show some of Joyce’s work in the Pig Barn Gallery in the spring.  No doubt she’ll have a few new series going by then.

Diane, Joyce and I got together to hang the last Gallery 99 show at the Charles Wood Theater in Glens Falls.  The play is “Hello Out There” and the theme of the show is teenaged angst in New York City.  Gallery 99 has been a success, they sold 9 pieces from the last show.  I was drawn to the maryjanes by Kate Austin-Avon and the water color of NYC by Russian born artist Ludmila Gayworonsky.   The opening reception is Friday July 22nd and the show runs through July 30th.

The next Gallery 99 show will be in February in one of the empty store fronts in Downtown Glens Falls.

Deer bones on spindles on my windowsill

I got a message on facebook the other day informing me of a juried art show for fiber artists.  It was coming from and Eva Capobianco, an artist I had assisted 20 years ago when I was in school.

Eva was making a sculpture for a show on Staten Island NY where she lived.  I lived on Long Island and I remember the drive was a long and traffic filled one, but I didn’t care.  I was happy to work along side an artist and learn what I could.  I don’t remember how many Saturdays I went there, but I do remember we got to know each other because of the time we spent together.  I remember being nervous about working with Eva, I was so unsure of myself.  But  she was  nice, down to earth and easier for me to talk to than most people.    And I remember seeing the finished piece in the outdoor sculpture park although I don’t remember if I went to the opening or not.

One conversation we had, stuck with me over the years.  Eva was talking about how she loved the movie “Field of Dreams”.   I didn’t like the movie at all, but didn’t want to say so.  Then she told a story about how she had a friend who never wanted to disagree with her because she didn’t want to hurt her feelings, she thought it was mean to disagree. Eva said she didn’t understand that and thought it was fine to disagree.  For me disagreeing always meant arguments and anger, yelling and hurt feelings.    I wondered if Eva sensed my discomfort about my reluctance to comment on the movie and that was why she told her story.  Either way it stayed with me over the years and kept Eva alive in my mind.

So when I saw Eva’s name I skipped over all the details about the juried show and sent off a quick message telling her who I was and wondering if she remembered me. When I looked at her website I was surprised to see two  sculptures “Ceremony” and “Ritual” using the same deer bones in way similar to how I had used them on an alter on my window sill.

I love that!  Here’s someone I barely know and haven’t seen in 20 years and at some point in the past couple of years we were doing the same thing.  I think it speaks of our oneness.  Of our connection to each other as humans.  It’s like having what you think is an original idea, then reading that same idea in a book someone wrote 100 years ago.

So check out Eva’s site, she also does some innovative needle work dealing with marriage equality.  You can even buy a note card of one of Eva’s needle works and send it to Barack Obama in support of Gay Marriage.

These are both details from a streaming piece called “Building a Center”.  I’ve decided to make enough pieces for a show in the Pig Barn Gallery.  I’m not sure when it will be, it depends on how long it takes me to make them, but I’m thinking sometime in the spring or early summer.  I have 2 other shows planned first, a Functional Art Show, Columbus Day weekend and a show dealing with the stranger side of familiar stories in the Spring.

My streaming pieces are an effort  to pull from my subconscious, to try and tap into a hidden part of me and allow it to come  organically.  I often start these pieces with a figure, then allow the words and images to come.   I really have to get out of the way for this to happen, and I suspect with practice it will come easier and, or be more genuine.   Straight from the source to the fabric without my interference.

Many people have encouraged me to do more of these pieces, but it was Mary Muncil who gave me the idea to do a show.  We have plans for Mary participating in the exhibit, although we haven’t figured out the detail yet.

I have no doubt  it will all come together when the time is right.