Yesterday I woke up and said to Jon, ” Do you think I’ll ever go back to my studio?  I haven’t been there in almost 2 weeks because of the show and right now I don’t even want to go back.”   He reassured me that, of course I’d want to get back to work and I was just cranked and tired from the show.  Although, at that moment I couldn’t imagine it, I believed him.

So this afternoon, I eased myself into the studio.  More than a month ago I got an email from a woman asking if I would make a quilt for her husband out of his Harley Davidson tee shirts.  I don’t take many requests for quilts, but this one sounded like fun to me.  We met at Gardenworks and she gave me a big plastic bag filled with her husbands tee shirts.  I was expecting a bunch of black shirts and was pleasantly surprised when I peeked in the bag and saw they were all different colors.

I had been thinking of the quilt all morning and by the time I got into my studio I was excited to get started.  I cleaned up my pre-show mess, vacuumed my rugs (I hate vacuuming, but it must be done)  and dumped the plastic bag of tee shirts on the floor.  Oh, there was a lot of them.  I picked them up one by one, chose one side (many of them had images on both sides) and folded the shirt so  the picture was showing and laid them out to see what I had to work with.  A little overwhelming?  Slightly, but then I started to move them around, it’s like hanging a show, I thought, maybe I should call Diane.

I slowly got into it.  Moving them around, refolding them to create different shapes, looking for fabric that would work in between them.   I haven’t come up with a design yet, but I did accomplish something.  I know I need to cut them into different shapes, and that they shouldn’t all go in one direction.  And now, I have them in my head, so until I go back to work with them, I can rearrange them in my mind and come up with different patterns.  The next step is to start cutting,  suddenly I can’t wait to get to work.   I guess Jon was right (but don’t tell him I said so, I’ll never hear the end of it) about my getting back to the studio.

My white sheep looking for her flock

I’m still coming down from the show.  It’s definitely a high and after finishing the paper work yesterday Jon and I decided to take today off.  We had plans of taking a walk at Merck Forest, having lunch in Manchester, maybe buying a pair of hiking sandals (with my spoils from the show) that I’ve been eyeing. Then coming home and relaxing.

But then Daryl called, he was coming with more sheep to graze for the summer and he had another one for me, a white Border Leicester this time.

Getting them off the trailer was  pretty easy.  Daryl separated my sheep from the rest and I shook some grain leading them into the back pasture while Jon and Red kept them from bolting.   Daryl told me that she was a great sheep and she put up a fight as his son John pulled and pushed her into the front pasture where my other sheep were.

Great, maybe, but not friendly, she wanted nothing to do with me, I couldn’t get near her. She ran to the gate looking for the sheep she came with and called out to them.  They were too busy eating the fresh grass to respond.  We left her to settle in with her new flock.

When we came back a bit later, checking on the new sheep, Jon looked up and just above him, on the stone wall of the old barn foundation, my white sheep was looking down at him.  She had somehow gotten into the back pasture.  Before we could even think, she jumped off the wall and joined the other sheep.  We checked the fence for holes, found none and decided she must have jumped it.

We got out the grain again, got all the sheep into the barn then put a harness on my white sheep and moved her back into the front pasture.  She ran up to the Pole Barn where Tess and Suzy and Socks were, but our donkey Lulu, kept chasing her out.  So we moved the donkeys into the back pasture and had Red do some herding hoping the four sheep  would bond.  We left  them huddled in the Pole Barn.

Tonight, as Jon was leaving for his Writing Workshop, I tucked in the chickens and checked on my sheep.  It was still hot out and the bugs were swarming, I felt like a donkey,  shaking my head, twitching my legs and using my hat like a tail.  Inside the Pole Barn were my three black sheep.  I scanned the hill side then went into the back pasture.  There was my white sheep, right where she wanted to be with the flock of sheep she came with.

I’m beginning to wonder what Daryl meant when he said she was a great sheep.  But I have to admit, I do admire her.  She’s not  typical , she has spunk and personality and goes after what she wants.

Suzy and Socks with the new sheep

Remember my ooh ooh potholder?  Well, here it is in it’s new home with Sally in Ohio.  And in good company it seems on that red wall.

"The Power of Ritual" by Jon Katz

Well, here it is just like I promised,  The Power of Ritual, the photo of Red and the sheep that Jon took last week.  It’s for sale and after much discussion with many people, there seems to be a demand for the print in a larger size.   So I’m offering an 11×14 pint for $70 + $8 shipping

I take checks or I can email you a paypal invoice.    If you have any questions or want to send a check you can email me at maria@fullmoonfiberart.com.

For a signed photo of The Power of Ritual printed on 11×14 stock for $70 + $8 shipping use the Pay Pay button below.

 

 

I know no one wants to see a picture of my messy desk, but I’m just being real.  Besides driving my mother home, this is where I’ve been all day.  Going through the receipts and sorting out the numbers and trying to get the artists in the show their money as quickly as possible.  (alright, it’s true, I did go to the Salvation Army on the way back from dropping off my mom, but it’s a really good one and I only spent about a half hour there and I got some good stuff).

So I haven’t had a chance to do most of what I wanted to do today including writing something meaningful about the show and putting the terrific photo that Jon took of Red last week, up for sale.  But I promise to get to it all tomorrow, (I’m not planning on going out tomorrow and there are not thrift stores in Hebron).  So don’t give up on me,  come back then and you’re sure to see a better photo than my messy desk and read something  a more interesting than this. (That shouldn’t be hard to do)

That's Diane behind the table where she spent most of the weekend selling art. And there's Red loving everyone.

I’m truly too tired to do more than post a few pictures and say that the show was wonderful and thank you all who came and have been following on the blog.  You can see more photos on Jon’s blog.

Cartoonist Ray Favata and Photographer Geroge Forss

Photographer Kim Gifford, Poet Mary Kellogg, my Mom and Jon

  Well, here it is, beginning with Lenore, a tour of Anointing the Goddess. If you’re coming to the show, see you in the next couple of days, if not, you can get a glimpse of it here.

Jon's Photos and Diane Swanson's watercolor

Kim Giffords photo collages, Donna Wynbrandt's watercolor. my pillow, and Joyce Zimmerman's mixed media collage

All the artist's are represented in this photo

Kim, Donna, me and Diane

The East Wall

Joyce and Donna's work

Back to the beginning, end of tour

   Cheryl b. by the Sea is the winner of the Judy notecards. Congratulations Cheryl.  Well, that’s the last note card give-a-way for now.  Tomorrow is the Anointing the Goddess show and I’m ready (almost)  and excited about it.  So if you’re coming, see you tomorrow or Sunday.  Thanks for being a part of the notecard give-a-way.  And if you didn’t win, don’t give up hope, there will be more chances to win in the future.

Diane got to the farm at  8:30 hoping to beat the heat, it was cool for a while, but not for long.  We  placed all the art around the gallery and stared at it.  There’s so much we both said, where do we begin?  Now I remember that the same thing happened  at the last show.

This seems to be the way it goes, I stand there gawking at the work, my mouth hanging open and Diane gets moving.  She starts picking up pictures  0rganizing them into catagories.  It’s not a logical process, there’s no formular to getting it done.  Once I see Diane  going, I join in.  We both begin organizing them  by color, or subject matter or shape and size.  We work together well because we share an aesthetic (although I couldn’t begin to explain what it is)  and we move quickly, not agonizing.   We cull the pieces that don’t fit into a catagory, making a pile near the door.

When we hang the first picture, it starts to flow. When one of us is unsure about something the other one is sure, we don’t debate it, we trust it.   The first picture is a starting point and we move out from there one wall at a time.   We decide height and spacing and how straight the piece is by eye, we don’t even think to bring a tape measure or level. Diane places the picture and I hammer the hook into the wall.  It’s an organic process and when we’re done we look at it and don’t know how it happened.  We see similarities in pictures hanging next to each other that we weren’t consciously aware of.  By now our brains are fuzzy and we know we have become useless.  Time to stop.  I’ll  make small adjustments and finish up the details tomorrow.

For more details about the show go HERE.

  It is a hot hot day. Almost up to 100 degrees in Manchester Vermont where we met Kim Gifford for lunch.  Then  we went to the parking lot and she gave us 4 bags of her framed photo collages for the show and some great Pug note cards too.     Kim is also a writer and is taking Jon’s Writing Class, so we spent much of the lunch talking about Kim’s Blog Pugs n Pics and the new blog she’s now working on.  Then we went to see Carolyn, the owner of The Image Loft to pick up Jon’s Photos.    We actually had much more fun at Carolyn’s that you see in this photo.  But I promised I wouldn’t post the other pictures where there is much goofing around going on.   Anyway, Jon Prints look wonderful.   Now we’re back home lights off and fan blowing, listening to the dogs pant.  The good news is it’s supposed to cool down for the weekend.  Sounds like perfect weather for Anointing the Goddess.

So please come to the last show at the Pig Barn Gallery this weekend from 11-4 Saturday and Sunday.  There’s more information about the artists and places to stay and things to do in the area, as well as directions to the farm here.

And don’t forget to check out Donna Wynbrandt’s new blog where she’s posted some of the new work she just finished for the show.