Art in the Mountains

Today we headed north to LA for a day of beauty.  One should always take one’s artist out for a date when one can (thanks, Julia Cameron!).

We drove up highway 405 to the Getty Center, perched atop a hill in northern LA, overlooking the valley. It was a clear day, and the visibility was great.

From the moment you park your car at the Getty Center (underground, so it stays nice and cool while you are there, and leaving no blot on the view), it is clear that they have done everything right. There are beautiful gardens and sculptures as you leave the parking garage to hop on the tram to take you up the hill to the galleries. The site sits on 750 acres that were purchased thanks to a huge amount of money left by J. Paul Getty, a very wealthy oilman who also collected art. He left his collection, with enough cash to buy the property, build a number of beautiful galleries, research and conservation centres, an auditorium and an absolutely gorgeous set of gardens, and NOT CHARGE ANYONE TO GET IN!   We paid $15 to park. That’s it.

His substantial and wide-ranging collection of art is mostly housed here, and includes Illuminated manuscripts, paintings from many periods, bronze and stone sculpture, photographs and decorative arts.  He wanted people to see it and appreciate it, and so he made it as accessible as he could.

Architect Richard Meier was chosen to design the Getty Center in 1984. He made sure that natural light would illuminate all the painting gallery spaces. The overall design is based on 30″ squares, which occur everywhere on the facades of the buildings, in a stone called travertine as well as in modern aluminum.

The Museum Entrance Hall

Very modern, yet it also gave the impression to me of a castle with drawbridges, which would protect the collection inside.

The South Promontory desert garden overlooking LA

Everywhere we looked, there was a beautiful vista. The site really is spectacular, and made moreso by the beauty of the design.

I loved the gardens. As much thought had been put into them as anything else on the property.  The Central Garden was designed by artist Robert Irwin.  He had us enter it via a serpent-like path back and forth across a rushing stream. The stream ends in a waterfall that enters this pool.

400 flowering azalea plants create the maze. Surrounding this pool, the pathway winds through roses and dahlias (they were beautiful!) and many other flowers.  No straight lines, just like in nature.

I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the idea. I shall leave you with two more pictures: one of a sculpture Rene Magritte did the year he died: 1967. It is called Delusions of Grandeur, but I think it should be made into postcards for Women’s gyms around the world.

Delusions of Grandeur by Rene Magritte

The other picture is of a piece inspired by a small botanical drawing of a beetle from the collection. The modern artist blew it up to gargantuan proportions, and attached it to the wall using a HUGE t-pin through the body of the beetle.  It is what holds the piece to the wall.

This is taken from the second floor - can you see the t-pin?

That’s all for now.  My “inner artist” has been fed. Till next time!

Islands and Mountains

We’re on the road again – this time, for two months.  We’ll hit California, Nevada, Utah, London Ontario, Texas, Kansas and Missouri before we head home at the end of October.

It’s a lovely time to travel.  Just after Labour Day, and much of the holiday traffic has gone back to school or work. It started raining just as we left Victoria – summer’s over there, so we have to go where summer is still. Alas, I’ve had to leave about half of my tomatoes still on the vine, green.  Tragic.

Our first night was with our friend Mary Bywater Cross on Lopez Island. She’s the one who wrote two wonderful books about quilting: Treasures in the Trunk (about the Oregon Trail) and Quilts of the Mormon Migration. I wrote “A Quilt and a Kettle” about one of her stories.

This first day was not a long day of driving.  Mostly, we sat on the ferry!  It was coincidental with the Lopez Island Artists Studio tour, and we visited Gerry Newcombe’s home and studio to see how he makes his cast glass masterpieces. You can see them too at www.gerrynewcomb.com.  There, he fully describes his process to make these one-of-a-kind masterpieces. Lovely.

Before we settled into Mary and Newman’s beautiful spot for the night, we took advantage of an oyster and champagne tasting at a local farm.  Yum!  They also raise turkeys, chickens, and pigs at the farm, and there were lots of new piglets running around.  Cute!

Three of about 20 2-week old piglets with one of the moms

Mary and Newman have a lovely house by a lagoon, and have rebuilt the deck to incorporate some quilting patterns. 

Then we hit the road, heading south. A night with our friends Mary and Dusty and Dorothy in Salem OR (great new game of Apples to Apples, Mary!), then back on the I-5. When I left home, I was wearing long sleeves and long pants.  As we got closer to California, I started peeling off layers.  It was hot and summery.

Wrightwood California was our first gig. It is up in the San Gabriel mountains north and a bit east of LA. Beautiful area, with lots of tall pines, friendly people and clear air, at least the day we were there.  It is bushfire season and there is a huge one burning just east of there. The day before had been smoky, but it was lovely when we arrived. We didn’t see any fires, but there was lots of activity by fire fighters in evidence.

We were very well received by the Pine Needles Quilt Guild. What a great group!  It’s my favourite size of quilt guild, about 50 members, because everyone can get to know each other.  Wrightwood seems to be a very close-knit community.  Everyone said hello to us with a smile as we walked along the street.  In the winter, it’s a ski area, but this time of year has a slower pace.

The next morning I taught my Reverse Applique class to about 10 students. Three of them were very keen girls, two of whom didn’t have much experience with the sewing machine.  Regardless, they still produced beautiful pieces!

My youngest students

Yesterday we drove down to San Marcos to enjoy a week off.  We’ll head north again in 7 days to sing in Palmdale, and do an applique class for them. In the meantime, we’ll get some work done (hexagons await!), do some sightseeing and connect with some friends in the area.

Ricky Tims Super Seminar

I spent an action-packed weekend in Lynnwood Washington with Ricky Tims, Libby Lehman and Alex Anderson – oh, and 500 other quilters.  It was the Ricky Tims Super Seminar, and I learned everything Ricky knows (and quite a bit that Libby and Alex know) about quilting in 2-1/2 days.

It’s revolutionary, really. Most quilting teachers can handle about 20 students at a time, working on one quilt technique, with everyone trying to keep up. There might be class handouts. There might be a finished project at the end, but usually it’s just another addition to the pile of UFOs in the sewing room.  With the Super Seminars, it’s different.

It all happened in this room.

There seems to be no limit to the number of people who can attend, first of all. There were almost 500 people there at the Lynnwood Convention Center (handily located just across the parking lot from a Hancock’s Fabric store). We started and finished exactly on time, no matter what was happening, and during the 2-1/2 days we learned about:

design
colour
“Caveman” style quilts
“Convergence” quilts
“Rhapsody” quilts
Flip and sew paper piecing
Precision Curves Piecing
Kaleidoscope quilts design and construction
applique
quilting by machine, including trapunto
Ricky’s famous piped binding technique with or without scallops
Hand quilting from Alex
Ribbon thread work from Libby
Reverse machine applique from Libby

Whew! Happily, we didn’t even have to take many notes while we were inundated with all this information: the class syllabus is excellent (including pictures of quilts and how to do the techniques), so all we had to do was take it all in.  There were Power Point presentations as well as demonstrations at the machine — all projected on big screens so we could all see clearly, better than we would if were all clustering around the machine in a small class. And QUILTS!  Ricky brought many of his famous quilts with him, as did Libby. Alex had a few of her quilts too. We went back again and again to look more closely at them, as we learned about how they were constructed.  And on the side, there were lots of small samples of the techniques, not finished, so we could see them in progress.

This was a really impressively organized event. Ricky’s (and Justin’s)dedication to detail meant that everything the three of them use in their quilting that was mentioned in presentations were available to purchase there. Including Bernina sewing machines!!! (All three of these teachers are National Bernina artists.) There were lots of Ricky’s hand-dyed fabrics and stabiliser, Libby’s threads, Alex’s books. The people who bought a sewing machine at the event got them all personally autographed by the three teachers. There were autograph and photo opportunities.

Ricky signing autographs

AND Ricky still had the energy to give us a lovely concert too. He is in Nashville just now, mixing his new Christmas CD, which sounds like a huge project.  I’m not surprised: Ricky thinks big. But how does he keep going? He must have been exhausted at the end of the seminar.

I would highly recommend this seminar to anyone who has an interest in learning new quilting techniques.  There were many seasoned quilters in the audience, and likely some newbies, but everyone was satisfied at the end. It was worth every penny.

Did I have fun?  YOU BET I DID!  I went down with friends from Victoria and we did some “retail therapy” on the way. But on the way back, we were shopped out, believe it or not, and our heads were very full. 

Now — in the next week before we leave on tour again,  how much of this can I use before I forget it….

Creativity and Simon Cowell

I’ve had a lot of people say to me after hearing the performances: “You are so creative”!!! because I sing, write and quilt too.  As if they are not creative themselves.

One of the things I’m happiest about in my life is that I’ve had the luxury of being able to indulge myself with my creative whims. It hasn’t always been the easiest of choices, in terms of financial security or being able to do things I wanted to do, but I’ve always made the decision to follow my creativity, where it leads. I guess it all boils down to: when I’m 95 years of age, will I look back and say “I wish I’d done……”? I always ask myself that when I’m faced with a big decision.

Anyway, following your creativity is like stepping off a cliff sometimes, and sometimes it’s like wrapping yourself up in a favourite blanket (or quilt). It just fits. Or it’s the scariest thing you’ve ever done. Usually, I don’t get nervous anymore, except when I’m premiering a new song on stage. In front of an audence of more than 50… But long ago, I learned that being scared or nervous isn’t a bad thing. Ask any performer about adrenaline and they will say it’s there to help their performance. To give them the energy they need to do what they have to do. Yes, it can be crippling on occasion, but usually it is your friend.

So stepping off a cliff, so to speak, as a creative person, isn’t such a bad thing. In my classes (both teaching singing for 25 years and teaching quilting just recently), I’ve encountered many people who say they just can’t do something. Their minds get in the way. Their inner judges line up and scream at them that they are not allowed to do it. It’s like having Simon Cowell living inside your head all the time. My job, as the teacher, is to figure out how to get him to leave, and let us get back to work. To give permission to my student to be creative, to play, to loosen up. I think this is very healthy, and I believe this approach has helped me deal with lots of things in my life.

It’s what keeps me going, trying new things, learning more about the things I already do.  Sometimes you can’t do it all yourself.  I’ve joined a songwriting group here in Victoria. Every two weeks we get together to talk about writing songs, discuss what makes a song work, critique and challenge each other.  Quilters do the same thing – quilting challenges have stretched many quilters to do outstanding work.   Deadlines are good too, I find.  Usually I book my time in the recording studio BEFORE I’ve finished writing all the songs I want to record.  It helps keep me focused.

When I lived in Calgary in the 1990s, I bought the book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I did her exercises over a period of 12 weeks, and at the end of it, I had written more songs in that period than I ever had in my life before.  I had also worked my way through lots of garbage that kept getting in the way of my creative expression. It really worked. I should do it again.

She suggested two very important things:  first, keep a daily journal. She calls them “morning pages” and they are to get rid of all the mundane things that are life, but don’t always make great art.  Three pages, that’s all. Every day.

The second things she suggests is to take your “Artist” out for a date every week. A museum, a walk in the woods, a coffee at the corner cafe, where you let yourself see the world as a creative person. Listen to the conversations around you, notice the interactions, the colour of the floor, the design on the ceiling. Smell the coffee. And the roses, if there are roses.  Re-awaken your senses.  They will lead you to creativity.

What about you? How does creativity fit into your life? And how do you keep it flowing, amid all the rest of the things going on?

Geysers and River Tubing

We’ve just returned from our short tour to the US. It was a combination working/playing adventure.

The day after our concert in Lincoln,  I taught the Reverse Applique class again – twice. I continue to be amazed at what my students produce.  They all have such different ideas on how to use the technique.  Here are some of their pieces.

A Mardi Gras Inukshuk

 

And these were all done within a 3 hour period!

We left Lincoln somewhat reluctantly – we’d had such a good time there — and headed home, via a couple of stops with family.  On the way back to BC, we planned to drive through Yellowstone.  On the way, there just happens to be a great quilt shop: Big Horn Quilts!

Outside Big Horn Quilts in Greybull WY

 I hadn’t had any time at all up to then to do any retail therapy in a quilt shop, so I spent a bit of time there.  They have such a great selection of stuff.  They have been affected, though, with the recession, and their stock is not what it used to be.  Everyone awaits the return of economic confidence so we can get shops like Big Horn Quilts back to their previous level of greatness! (That being said, they are still a WONDERFUL place to stop. If you’re passing through anyway.)

I hadn’t been to Yellowstone Park since I was a child, when my mom had a close encounter with a bear at the campsite. When Dad and I returned to the tent trailer, we found her, electric frypan in hand, claiming she stared down a bear who wanted her chili con carne! The bear, clearly, did not win that fight. John had never been through Yellowstone before.  A place I had been that he had not?  Unbelievable!

If there was a tourist in the area, they were all with us at Old Faithful when she blew. And she blew within the 10 minutes-give-or-take that we were promised by the park rangers.  How do they know?  I guess that’s why the geyser is so famous.

Old Faithful

 I’ll tell you what though:  I don’t want to be there when the magma underneath Yellowstone decides to blow.  Although the area has not seen any serious activity, apart from the geysers and hot springs and mud pools, for many years, one day the whole shootin’ match is gonna blow, and blow big.  It is still very much an active volcanic area.  And virtually the entirety of Yellowstone Park is contained within the caldera of the volcano.  One day… and hopefully not soon….

We headed north and west from Yellowstone through Montana to visit John’s sister in Fort Steele BC, and his daughter in Oliver. Sara always has great adventures for us to partake in when we visit her, and this time was no exception. For starters, we picked some organic blueberries in the morning, so we could get really really hot.  Then in the afternoon we put our bathing suits on to go tubing down the Okanagan River. 

I had never been tubing before.  It’s a great thing to do in shallow rivers – you need something to keep you afloat, and it’s amazing how hard those rocks can be on the part that sits below the inner tube!  It was wonderfully cool in the water.  We saw herons, dogs, the odd person on the bank, but had the river to ourselves.  John paid the obligatory donation to the River Gods: our car keys! Somewhere, there must be a collection of car keys that people have lost in their travels down the river. Ours are there too.  Small price to pay for a wonderful afternoon.

With car keys - the before shot!

So, loaded up with fresh blueberries, pickling cukes and beef, we headed home after a wonderful (and quick) trip south. We’re home for a month before we do it all again!

Lincoln Nebraska, home of quilts. And ties.

We have had a wonderful day here in Lincoln. We started the day with a guided tour at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum, built in 2007 thanks to many, many personal donations. It all started when quilt collectors Ardis and Robert James were looking for a museum to hold their significant quilt collection.  No one would guarantee that the collection would stay together.  This is how museums often work – they take an entire collection, keep what they need to complete their own, and sell the rest to other museums.   The James’ did not want their collection split up in this way.

Both of them are from Nebraska originally, and they heard that the University of Nebraska had an interest in their quilts. The International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was formed in 1997. Their original gift was 950 quilts, plus a substantial pledge of financial support, in order to create this amazing building and centre for historical quilt research.  The new building was opened last year (2008), and it’s absolutely beautiful!

Do you see the white sculpture at the entrance?  It is meant to represent the threads we find on our sewing room floors! It’s neat to sit inside of, too.

The first floor entrance gallery is a room full of computers.  There’s a display of quilts from their now quite substantial collection that is projected at life-size onto a screen.  Very high-definition pictures of their quilts.  Computer terminals will allow visitors to design their own quilts, select fabric, etc, and e-mail them home (or to their grandmothers!). I could have spent the whole morning in that room alone.

On the second floor, the exhibit space. We saw some absolutely wonderful quilts — a show of crazy quilts, the “special mention” award quilt from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (the maker didn’t win because the judges were more traditionally inclined than the show organizers. All the same, this quilt best represented the theme.)

On the third floor are offices, a reading room, and conference room. Also, more quilts on the walls, made by Hortense Beck from Nebraska. She started quilting at 60 years of age and, with her interest in history, decided to reproduce some of the most extraordinary quilts in America. Many of them are in the IQSC collection, but are not taken out to show very often. Because of Hortense’s work, we can see these quilts. And they are extraordinary — applique and tiny quilting stitches.  Hortense is still alive at 90 something, but not quilting anymore.  She has left a significant legacy.

There are so many stories contained in this building, I was delighted.  We had the chance to meet briefly with the curator, Carolyn Ducey, and I hope to continue the contact with her. And return one day to see some more quilts!

We sang for the Nebraska state quilt conference this evening, and it went very well.  We were VERY well received, and I think many of them had no idea what they were in for! They sang along and did the “choreography” in “Shop Hop” very well.  We loved them!

Before the banquet was over, we were asked to look under our chairs.  Nothing under mine, but John had an envelope under his.  Many quilters were wearing ties, and whoever had the envelope at the table got all the ties from that table!  John has been very happy with his “new” life as the Singing Quilter’s Husband, in that he NEVER  has to wear a tie.  Adjacent tables found out that he had won the ties from our table, and soon ties were coming in fast and furious from everyone else.  I don’t know if he got all the ties from the entire room of 300 people, but he certainly got a lot!

and directions for making a tie quilt.  John has made two quilts to date.  Perhaps this will be his next…..  I did get this picture of him, though, wearing one of the ties — you may never see this again!

John tied

After we finished, it was pyjama night.  (The hotel was worried about this….) And show and tell.  Tomorrow I’m teaching two classes of my machine reverse applique. Hopefully I’ll have some new pictures of students’ work.

We are having lots of fun here in Lincoln.  We’d like to stay.

Knitted Chairs

I’ve just found a new blog that sounds really neat. It’s about knitted chairs and you can look at the blog here: http://knittedchairs.wordpress.com/ 

I’m writing a new song about Stealth Knitters, or Yarnbombers, also called “yarnstorming”, where knitters, under cover of darkness, go out into the community and cover stop signs, fences, trees, or cherubs with knitted garments.  Think about a line of fence posts all covered with knitted hats. Think a bicycle’s body warm and cozy inside its  bright yarn jacket.  You get the idea. 

So the idea of knitted chairs appeals to me.  There’s even a pattern on this site!

We are now in Wyoming, and are planning to arrive in Lincoln Nebraska tomorrow, after our third 10 hour drive in a row.  We are READY to arrive at Quilt Nebraska!  Happily, we’ll have a day to orient ourselves, and do our show on Friday night.  Teaching all day Saturday, then we’re back on vacation.  Oh, and then we have to drive home again…..

Hot!

Tonight we are in Boise Idaho. We had a long drive today from our last night’s show on Whidbey Island.  It was really interesting to sing for the Quilters on the Rock guild.  They meet in the St. Mary’s Catholic Church hall, and it all started at 6pm with a social hour.  We had driven up from Salem Oregon that day in the heat, and hoped to get on the 2:15 ferry over to the island. Alas, no reservation, and it’s summer in the San Juan Islands – LOTS OF TOURISTS! We were one of the last cars on the 3:45 ferry, and made it in time to grab a bite to eat before the show.

The place was packed.  Someone came up to me before the meeting started and said “you must be really good; we’ve never seen so many people at a July meeting!” Everybody sang along, and laughed along and even did some of John’s fancy “choreography” for the song “Shop Hopping”. At the end, they gave us a standing ovation AND lots of people came up to tell me stories they thought I should write songs about.  Many of them were really good, too.

One story was about her husband. He was at work one day and noticed another man who had some threads on his shirt. He approached him and said: “Your wife’s a quilter, right?”. The other fellow said “Why, yes she is — how on earth did you know?”

Then her husband brought their vacuum cleaner in for servicing. The vacuum cleaner repairman said to him “I see you’re wife’s a quilter!” He answered “Why yes, she is — how on earth did you know?” (of course, the vacuum cleaner guy then turned over the vacuum to show all the colourful threads wound around the beater bar – elementary, my dear Watson!) 

Don’t you think this would make a great song for John to sing?  I wonder what other things would give away the fact that someone’s wife is a quilter? Square holes neatly cut in his shirts? Pins embedded in his feet? (OUCH!)

We drove through 95 degree F heat today.  Thank goodness for air conditioning!  There was lots of construction on the highways.  A fellow also waiting for the ferry yesterday said it’s all the Stimulus Funding being spent.  At least the highway construction workers are working! 

 Tomorrow we have another long drive. We’re on our way to the Nebraska state quilt show in Lincoln. We sing there on Friday night, and I’m teaching two classes on Saturday.  It should be great fun.  In the meantime, I’m getting lots of time to work on my little hexagons. Maybe I’ll get this project finished on this trip!!!!

A Quilt and a Kettle

“A Quilt and a Kettle” is the name of a song I wrote several years ago, based on a story in Mary Bywater Cross’ book:  Treasures in the Trunk: Quilts on the Oregon Trail. It’s the story of a young couple, Allan and Rachel Bond, who married and soon after headed out with a wagon train from Indiana to the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  It’s recorded on “A Quilter’s Embrace”, my second quilting CD.

Along the way, Rachel found a usable soup kettle that someone had thrown out of their wagon train when it got too heavy to keep.  She kept her sewing supplies in it as she walked, and she made a quilt as they travelled.  I love the story.

Two years ago, when we were last in this area, we stopped to visit the Bond family cemetery, near the Eugene airport.  We saw a wooden spoon that Rachel had used for years in the local museum.  We found out as much as we could.  But today I met Viki, the wife of one of Allan and Rachel’s relatives – a great-great (?) grandson. There is a family poem that was written about 50 years after the migration, detailing the entire journey.  Viki is going to copy the many-page poem as well as some other family information about the migration and send it to me. 

I LOVE ripples like this from songs I’ve written.  It has happened with many of my stories: the Rajah quilt, the Changi quilts,the Peshtigo fire quilt, and others. One day I must sit down and write it all up, maybe in book form. But when do I do that and stop researching?  I never know when I’ll find out something new. 

We stopped with Mary Bywater Cross on the way down to Eugene, and she was very helpful with another song I’m writing now, about the Panguitch quilt walk in Utah.  Mary has become a friend through my writing songs from her stories, and I value her opinion.  She has a wonderful way of spotting  a moment in a song lyric when I really don’t know what I’m talking about, and I’m making it up — and can tell me some history that will fill out the song in a constructive way.  Thanks, Mary!

Our performance at the Emerald Valley Quilters Guild was fun the other night.  A few firm fans (including two who drove up from Florence, on the coast), and a lot of new ones.  Today I taught a class in hand applique, using freezer paper in three different ways.  Viki told me at the beginning that she considered “hand” sewing a four letter word.  At the end she said I have almost made her into a hand appliquer.  I’m delighted.

High Relief Carving and Going to Nebraska

I want to show you how the wood carving I’ve been doing is turning out.  I’ve removed much more of the background with this version (still the same piece of wood), which gives the bear a much more lifelike look.  It’s still not finished, but it’s much closer than it was.

And what fun!  I’ve ordered the “real” piece of wood for the sign I’m going to make for John’s daughter, and it should be awaiting our return from our 2-week tour we’re about to embark on.

We’re on our way to Eugene Oregon, Coupeville Washington, and Lincoln Nebraska for their state quilt show.  I’m really looking forward to seeing the new Quilt Museum in Lincoln Nebraska, the new home of the American Quilt Study Group collection.  I’ve heard great things about the new building.

So I’ve been practicing up my songs, and emptying out the fridge for another (short) foray.  It’s the height of summer, so our travels should be wonderful, even if the roads are full of tourists…. We don’t consider ourselves tourists, of course! But we might slip in one or two touristy things as we go.