Super, over-the-top, great news

If you've been following my sporadic blog posts over the last several weeks, then you might recall a bit of hand wringing about photographing my work and trying very hard to prepare a submission for membership in a juried artist group. Well today, much to my shock and surprise, I received an e-mail informing me that I made in into the 25-member Art Cloth Network (http://artclothnetwork.com)! Nobody--and I really mean NOBODY--could possibly be more shocked than I am. I read the e-mail at work and almost had to leave for the rest of the day because I was just about silly afterward.

I'm little conflicted right now. I know that if I need my art to be validated in order to function as an artist, then I'm in for a seriously bumpy ride. However, at this stage in my development, a little validation goes a long way. What I got today feels like a lot of validation and a big step forward. I'm looking forward to connecting with the group through their online member space, then meeting many of them in person at their next meeting in New Jersey in September.

I have to give credit here to two people who I think helped make this all happen: a friend and mentor (whom I will allow to be anonymous in this instance unless she chooses to out herself) encouraged me to apply; and Dan supported and encouraged me. Thanks to both of you.

Wow! What a day.

Silly self-analysis

Rayna posted a thing on her blog on Thursday. It's this site that you go to, answer about 10 questions about your personal preferences (don't worry, it's not bedroom stuff), then it tells you what punctuation mark you are. Rayna is an exclamation mark. Big surprise (heavy sarcasm). Here's the site if your interested:
http://www.blogthings.com/whatpunctuationmarkareyouquiz/

Curiosity (silliness) got the better of me and I answered the questions. Heaven forbid that I should be something as cool as an exclamation mark. No, I am a colon. It sounds dirty. As punctuation marks go, I'm rather fond of the colon, but I would never think to describe myself as one. Here's what the site said. It's somewhat accurate. Ah well, sometimes you just have to play the hand you're dealt.

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren't concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren't subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Yes, I am married, no matter what you say.

Both houses of the Maryland legislature are again considering ways in which to provide some measure of civil rights and legal protection to those of us in non-traditional marriages. (See, there I go, I’ve already used the word “marriage”.)

There is, of course, a simultaneous effort to amend the state constitution to deny any and all recognition of same-sex relationships. HR1345, "Maryland's Marriage Protection Act," currently includes the following lovely statement:
ONLY MARRIAGE BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN SHALL BE VALID OR RECOGNIZED IN MARYLAND. THE UNITING OF TWO PERSONS IN A CIVIL UNION, DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP, OR OTHER SIMILAR RELATIONSHIP SHALL NOT BE VALID OR RECOGNIZED IN MARYLAND.

I want to share with you something that my friend Howard sent me today. It’s the testimony offered by Maryland State Senator Richard Madaleno (District 18) before the Judicial Proceedings Committee at the first reading of SB290, “Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act”, of which he is a sponsor, and which seeks to repeal a previously passed discriminatory law. It’s short, to the point, and wonderfully written.

Now, I admit that I have a strong and unyielding sense of right and wrong about this issue—one with which some people disagree. Plain and simple: I am married to my partner, Dan. Our families, friends, and the majority of our faith community recognize our relationship. We deserve equal protection under the laws of the state and country in which we live. Senator Madaleno expresses these thoughts very well. It's worth a quick read.

February 14, 2008
SB290 – Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act
Sponsor Testimony

I come before you today to ask that you give SB290 a favorable report, and in doing so, grant my family, and the families of thousands of our constituents, the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Until this bill is passed, Maryland will remain a state where some families are at risk of being torn apart not because they lack the strength of commitment, but because they are invisible in the eyes of the law.

This bill is simple. It reiterates that no religious denomination will ever be required to recognize, perform, or bless any marriage that is against its beliefs. At the same time, it provides full equality under the law for thousands of same-gender couples in our state- couples like Mark and me.

With marriage, we can live our lives secure in the knowledge that we have the same legal rights, responsibilities, obligations, and protections that you enjoy.

Without marriage, I am at the mercy of doctors, nurses, and security guards for my partner to gain access to me in a hospital.

Without marriage, all of our financial planning and savings could be wiped out by inheritance taxes if one of us suffers an untimely death.

Without marriage, we live in a state of legal limbo that exacts a significant emotional and financial toll on our family, our children, and ourselves.

Without marriage, instead of security, we have fear. A fear that is always there. The fear that at the moments we are most vulnerable, afraid, and alone, our state could step in and take everything away from us – just because we cannot have a civil marriage.

That even one family lives with this fear is bad enough. But it is not just one family – not just my family. Thousands and thousands of Maryland families live with this fear.

And when that fear is created by the laws of the state itself, that is untenable. And just as untenable would be for this General Assembly to turn its back and do nothing.

At the same time, as important as the legal rights and responsibilities associated with civil marriage are, they are only part of the story.

Many of you know Mark, my partner. “Partner.” We had a church wedding seven years ago, and in the eyes of our religion, our families, our friends, and in my heart, he is my spouse. But under Maryland ’s civil law, he is a legal stranger to me. He is just “my partner.” Even that term cheapens our relationship. It makes it sound like we are in a business. It is a badge of dishonor I must wear every day, whenever I introduce Mark to anyone or even talk about him to someone who does not know us, because my state refuses to grant us civil marriage. I would never ask any of you to relegate your wives or husbands to being only your partners.

Without full and equal civil marriage, Maryland makes sure that thousands of its families never forget that they are outsiders. That they are not quite equal.

Our state and our nation were founded on principles of fairness and equality. These principles are timeless; unfortunately, their application has not been. Yet every generation of Americans has held out their hand to some who had been left out of the promise of equality – held out their hand and brought them fully into our civil society, saying, “You are not the other. You are us.”

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first state court decision to overturn the laws banning interracial marriage. In its decision, the California Supreme Court wrote “human beings are bereft of worth and dignity by a doctrine that would make them as interchangeable as trains.” As a friend observed, when you are denied the freedom to marry the person precious and irreplaceable to you, it is not like you can just catch the next one.

Our country also has a long tradition of recognizing the difference between civil law and religious law. In that respect, I seek common cause with each member of the Committee. We all agree that each of our religions must remain free to define marriage as it so chooses. That has always been the case in Maryland, and this bill ensures that that will remain the case. None of us wants to live in a nation where the civil law dictates the tenets of our faith.

Just as importantly, we should not allow the teachings of a religion to dictate the civil law under which all of us must live. Some religions do not recognize divorce and subsequent remarriage. Some religions do not recognize a marriage unless it is performed in the name of Jesus. Others don’t recognize a marriage that is performed in the name of Jesus. Some clergy will not perform or recognize marriages between people of different faiths.

But our civil marriage law is rightly blind to our rich diversity of often-conflicting religious doctrines. Civil laws, unlike religious ones, apply to everyone, regardless of faith. That is why we do not allow the many different religious definitions of marriage to determine the definition of civil marriage.

With the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Act, Maryland can end an injustice against thousands of its citizens while respecting the critical independence of our religious institutions.

This bill represents the best ideals of Maryland, and that drive to live up to our ideals is the story of America.

A couple new pieces

I worked on these two pieces last weekend. I'm happy with the way that they turned out. The only downside is that they're printed on raw silk noil that I had left over from a workshop. It's nubby and rough and has a hand like a cheap, worn out gym towel. I don't have any idea what I'm going to do with this cloth other than look at it, since I can't stand to touch it. OK, I'm being overly dramatic. It's just not to my taste. Let's just say I won't be making boxer shorts out of it and leave it at that.

The piece on the left was printed in 2 layers, processed, discharged, then overdyed with golden yellow. The one on the right painted and screen printed in several layers, processed, then overdyed with golden yellow while stuffed in an old stocking to produce a few random highlights.

It rained here yesterday. Rained, and rained, and rained. We had 3" of standing water in the garage. Dan was not happy since that's where his newly acquired vintage Buick is living. The basement leaked a little, but the studio area is in a high spot so all's well on that front. I love this house, but they just didn't know much about waterproofing basements in 1941.

The sun is out today and I've got all sorts of plans. Let's all have a great Saturday and shake off the winter blahs.

Thoughts on Bultmann

A word of caution to my friends who are most interested in reading about my artistic endeavors, this post might not be for you. Then again, if you are interested in Christian theology read on.

This week for EfM I was reading about the theology of Rudolph Bultmann (see this Encyclopedia Britannica page for a nice summary). This wasn’t my first exposure to Bultmann, whose work comes up frequently in the EfM New Testament class. However, the deeper discussion in this year’s course on contemporary theology really struck a cord. Bultmann was a proponent of demythologizing the Bible, particularly the gospel stories—reducing them to their essential meaning, rather than dwelling on the detailed events of Jesus' life. The idea here is an existential one. Bultmann’s point (as I understand it) is that the gospel stories are mythical in nature. They're stories told and arranged in such a way as to speak to the people of the time in which they were written about their place in creation and about their relationship to the divine. They were written and read within that cultural setting, just has they are read within the cultural settings of today. As such they might mean different things to different people. What I find meaningful in Bultmann’s ideas is that to understand the text we need to understand the reality of the time in which it was written. Who wrote it, why, and for whom? What did they believe and how did they envision the cosmos? That's the existential part. In addition to what the stories might have meant to the people of the time in which they were written, my experience gives meaning to these stories for me. This makes a great deal of sense to me. It’s liberating. I don’t have to obsess about whether or why Jesus cursed a fig tree and made it wither. I’m not saying that none of the stories about Jesus’ life are true; far from it. I think there is great "truth," in them. But I'm also comfortable with the idea that some of the "facts" might be left over from a different time and make less sense today. They might even get in the way of some of the truth.

In the class discussion a couple of folks noted that myths are grand tales of the gods, and that the Bible stories don’t fit that mold because they are too “folksy”, therefore they must be more than myth. Someone suggested that we use the term “folk tale” instead, which almost touched off a riot.

For me, “myth” is the correct word and I do not believe that it trivializes the essential truth of the gospel stories or devalues them. The problem here is that modernism relegated myth to the realm of fiction and fantasy because it was not based on scientific observation and measurement. And I guess that’s the bottom line: I’m a post-modernist. To demythologize is not to whittle the gospel stories down to the verifiable, observable, repeatable facts of Jesus’ life. There aren't many left when you do that. For me, to demythologize is to look beyond the literal for the essential. It is the essential truths that exist outside of human time—things like loving others, caring for and defending the disenfranchised and oppressed, welcoming into your life those who are different, and valuing our relationships with God and with other human beings more than with objects. While the “factual” elements of the gospel stories are most meaningful in their original 2,000 year old cultural context, the essential truth of the stories endures.

After 3 1/2 years of EfM, the great Ah Ha moments are coming less frequently than they used to. This was a good one and I wanted to share it.

Doubts, so very many doubts, and yet...

I took photos of every length of cloth and finished product that I could lay my hands on over the last week. The result? Well, I suppose it's predictable. The camera gives a distance and an objectivity like no reducing glass ever could. As I work to assemble my portfolio (or at least the beginnings of one) I'm struck that some things that I thought were just so-so perhaps are better than I thought, and that some beloved pieces are kind of just there--nothing special. I'm struggling with that little voice of self-doubt that says, "Just who DO you think you are? What are you playing at here?" I'm proud to say that for the most part I've be able to answer with a defiant, "Shut the f@#$ up.

It's reassuring that the stuff that I like the most is generally all from the last few months, so I think that means that I'm growing--hopefully getting better.

Here's a recent piece with which I am happy.

These two are workshop pieces that I love in person, but up on the wall they look unfinished.

The one on the left has definite quilt potential. It needs some embellishment and some black detail, but I love the uncomplicated deconstructed squares. The piece on the right is on silk habotai. I think is beautiful in person and has such great drape. I've thought about making it into a scarf. However, this might fall into the "boyfriend" category. Jane Dunnewold used that term in a workshop to refer to that point in the life of a piece of art cloth when it's just too cute and friendly to give up. You sort of have a crush on it and quake at the thought of doing anything that would change it. But, then it's time to move on. We'll see.

As if photographing and critiquing my own work isn't sobering enough, I've also had to work on a resume. Hey, no problem. I've got an 18-year career in publishing and project management under my belt. That, however, has nothing to do with my fledgling career as an artist, the resume for which amounts to, "studying hard, working as much as I can, and need to start showing my work." Of course the footnote has to be, "Everybody's got to start somewhere."

Day of rest? I think not.

It's been a busy weekend. It's Sunday night and I'm basking in the warm and comforting realization that I don't have to go to work tomorrow morning. It's funny to be in my mid-40's and still experiencing that sinking Sunday-night-and-I-have-to-go-to-school-tomorrow feeling.

Dan and I are just back from dinner with my parents, sister, and nephews. It was a belated birthday dinner with the family for both of us. Mom did a good job of keeping secret from me that the surprise guests were my uncle (her brother), aunt, cousin and her daughter. I haven't seen them in over a year so it was a great surprise and a real treat. My cousin Erin was born when I was 18. My sister and I are her godparents. I remember her falling asleep on my chest when she was a tiny baby. Now she has a 3 1/2 year old daughter. How sobering is that? So not only am I old enough to be Erin's father, I suppose I'm old enough to be Graces grandfather. ...let's just not think about that.

I've been scrambling for a few days to get photos of my work taken and organized. I'm starting the year off with a bang by applying for membership in an art cloth group and by submitting for my first juried show. I don't know if I'm getting in over my head. I'm just going to forge ahead until someone tells me otherwise.

In taking these photos I've realized that I have some good cloth, but a small inventory of completed pieces. Of course that raises the question of what is complete and is cloth complete without becoming something else (the answer can be yes). I think I have the beginnings of a portfolio coming together. If I'm going to be honest though, I think it shows potential rather than great achievement. I'm very happy with that and can't realistically expect more at this stage. It's nice to have lots of room for improvement!

I'll try to post a few images over the next couple of days. For starters here, in it's absolutely final form (except for a label) is the piece that I have decided to title, "Teach us to pray". Hope you like it. The inspiration was a string of prayer flags that I saw hung between trees at a church retreat last fall.

Early Saturday, the last day of my 44th year

It's Saturday at the end of a lonnnng week. So, why did I wake up at 6AM with no hope of going back to sleep? Hell if I know.

Dan and I went to our local brewpub for a little pre-birthday dinner for me, since he leaves for the Detroit auto show early tomorrow morning (on my actual birthday--I'm pouting). Our friends Vicki and Mike met us there, which was a nice little surprise. The beer was good, but the forgettable pizza might be partly to blame for my early start to the day.

Due do a little schedule malfunction, the anticipated meeting with my spiritual director didn't happen yesterday as scheduled--we're delayed until later this month. However, it wasn't a total loss. Just as one does an extra-good job of brushing and flossing before a trip to the dentist, I tend to spend some time organizing my thoughts before a direction meeting.

The last time I met with Margaret we spent time talking about life in general terms and about our shared wonder at the demise of Advent. (It's hard to watch and wait in comparative quiet with Santa Claus breathing down your neck and a million Christmas things to do.) For yesterday's meeting I was going in with my courage screwed-up to deal directly with the perennial topic at hand: priestly discernment. (Um... if you're new to my blog and need to catch up on this topic, you might want to read a couple of the posts tagged "discernment/ministry".) This is where I am in my discernment distilled down into sort of bullet list/timeline:

• I grew up attending church.
• I wandered away during college, but never lost my faith, just my practice.
• I went back because I wanted more than a general sort of abstract experience of God.
• The Episcopal church's 3-part balance of scripture, tradition, and reason offered me a way to explore my faith that I'd never experienced before.
• I've sent the last 8 years reading, studying, and participating in a vibrant church community.
• In that time I've also felt an increasing sense that I am supposed to be doing something different or more with my life. That's a totally inadequate expression of what the church most often refers to as "Call." Have you ever had the experience of hearing a clear voice saying something to you just as you drift off to sleep? It's something like that.
• I've spent the last two years in conversation with priests and my director talking about this sense of call and about my thought that it might be a call to ordained ministry.
• In that time I've never felt that I was willing to lie, cheat, steal, do whatever I have to do to be a priest because I want it more than anything else in the world. I know that's dramatic language, but the point is that I have been been consistently tentative about this. Not tentative about the sense of call, but about priesthood.
• Along the way I've had some very illuminating experiences that caused me to step back and look at the course of my life and own the fact that I'm an artist. My most vivid memories are of painting, drawing, sewing; of museums and great colorful walks in the woods or the desert. I've heard that great cooks have taste memory. I'm beginning to think that I have textile memory.
• Trusted and respected friends have suggested to me that there might be a middle way between ordained priesthood and some sort of life as an artist. That might be true, and I've spent more than a year contemplating that.
• I've never spoken to a single person about my discernment journey who has not made the observation that when I talk about art my voice is strong, quicker, brighter, and my body opens up. Discussions about ordination are quiet, tentative, halting, and tight.

So, where does that leave me?

• I'm not going to be a priest any time in the foreseeable future, or a deacon either, for that matter.
• I don't know if I'm ever going to attempt to make a living as a full-time artist, but I know that developing as an artist is important to me and that's the path that I'm on today. That's what feels right; that's what feels like a response to the call.
• I've been building up to this conclusion (not the right word) for some time how. All the while I've been hoping for sense of closure, but there isn't one. How do you tell your friends that you're considering ordained ministry, then turn around and say, "Well, maybe not."?
• There is no closure here. There's only making course adjustments and moving forward with God's help.

If you made it all the way to the end of this post then I congratulate you for persevering through my stream-of-consciousness brain dump, and more importantly, I thank you for listening.

Have a great day. The sun is shining here in Maryland and it looks like a day full of promise.

A busy start to the new year

Our trip to Rehoboth Beach to celebrate the New Year marked the end of a full week of travel. It was a very pleasant visit with friends and we really couldn't ask for a better way to start the year. Now, after being back at work for a week Dan and I are both pooped.

Last Friday he had Lasik eye surgery on both of his eyes. It's pretty amazing. He went from just about legally blind without his glasses to about 20/40 after a week of recovery. He just got temporary glasses today and can finally see well enough to drive for the first time in a week.

Last weekend I managed to squeeze in a few minutes to revisit the last piece of fabric on which I was working. On December 29th it looked like this on the print table.

After steaming and washing it became what you see below, which is nice but weak by comparison.

Last Saturday it became this. Considerably better and much more complex, but now I think it's on the verge of having value problems. I've overcome the problem with what I considered to be weak colors, but in the process I've lost the highlights. I feel as though it needs another layer, which might be embellishment or applique, but possibly some discharge. For now it needs to rest for a while.

I suppose I could use a rest as well. I'm meeting with my spiritual director tomorrow morning. That's always a good thing. I can't explain exactly why. I don't know if she understands everything about me (though she's one of those folks who always seems to know more than you think), but she "gets" parts of me that some other people don't. It's refreshing and comforting to have a person in whom to confide my deepest spiritual uncertainty and my occasional sense of being lost and adrift. I feel as though things are on the move again. Something's afoot, if you will. I've just come through several months in which I've felt that not only did I not know where I was going, I wasn't even sure that I really wanted to know. Now I have a sense that the clouds are lifting. More about this in another post. For now it's bed time.

Before I end I must say thanks to Judy who bestowed upon me the honor of a "You Make My Day" award. It was very sweet and it make MY day (Thanks again Judy!). Check out her blog. She's an artist, a person of faith, an observer of life, and an avid blogger. I wish I could be that devoted to my blog.

It's good to be home for a little while

Dan and I returned late this afternoon from our whirlwind holiday tour: 3 days with family and 2 days in Philadelphia for Dan's birthday. The family visits were all great. For the first time in close to 20 years Dan's mom had all of her children and grandchildren under the same roof at the same time. There's a good bit of family history behind that, and it appears that's where it's going to stay--behind. So, it was a good and meaningful Christmas.

Yesterday we celebrated Dan's birthday with a trip to the Barnes Foundation just outside Philadelphia, then had his-and-his mani-pedi's before heading off to dinner at Alma de Cuba. It was a lovely indulgent day. The Barnes has a great collections of Mattise and Cezanne, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I can't say that I share Dr. Barnes' obsession with Renoir. In fact, I could probably live entirely without Renoir, but it's all just a matter of taste.

As promised, here are pictures of the two pieces that I was screening on Christmas Eve. I wished that the colors had remained so wonderfully saturated after steaming. I'm hoping for a some time to work on them tomorrow and I hope to post in-process and after pics. I think my loss of color occurred because I screened insufficiently strong dye paste over areas where I had deconstructed dry screens with clear release paste, which acted as a resist. I've done this with more success before, but in those cases I must have used much more concentrated dye paste. Live and learn.

Both of these pictures were shot on the print table, before the pieces were dried, steamed, and washed, The piece on the left lost the most color. Many of the circles remain, but the colors are very muted. The piece on the right retained most of its color because I was screening over wax resist, but nothing else was on the fabric.

Merry Christmas

I'm feeling much better. It's Christmas morning and I'm taking a 5 minute break for a quick update. We've had a couple of busy days. Neighbors dropped by on Friday night for drinks. Saturday night we had our annual holiday dinner with two other couples. This year I skipped the traditional standing rib roast, which I don't particularly care for, in favor of filet mignon with a Pinot Noir reduction--very nice, fast, and easy. Sunday we had dinner with my parents.

Yesterday I devoted almost the entire day to printing. It was great. I did two yards of cotton. Once is a deconstructed printing of circles. I have pictures of how great it looked before I washed it. I ended up with something entirely different. Most of the wonderfully strong colors are now pale pastels. I'm disappointed to have lost something that I loved on the print table, but what I got looks like it will be a great foundation on which to built something else. The other piece is overlapping blocks of color printed on top of soy wax applied with my new tjap. It's pretty and happy, but it also needs more layers. The camera's packed away, so pictures will have to wait until later this week.

Last night we went to church and didn't get home until midnight. In recent years the Christmas Eve service has become Christmas for me. It's a time that's completely out of sync with the rest of the secular season. It's entirely focused on the reality and the meaning of Christmas for Christians: the belief that God's love for humankind is so great that it manifested itself in human form at its most vulnerable, as an infant.

This morning we're off to New York to be with Dan's family for more celebration.

Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope that however you celebrate the coming of light into the world during this dark time of year it is marked by family, friends, laughter, and love.

...and now it's my turn

Everyone else is sick and now it's my turn. I'm not really miserable. It's more like that run-down, can't-think, feeling that things just aren't right. I can't stand this in between sort of thing where I can't really do anything but my mind's just active enough to want to do something.

The holiday entertaining goes into full swing starting at 7:30 tonight. We have engagements or plans of some sort just about straight through New Year's Day. Some of it will be time spent in New York with Dan's mom, brothers, and families, which will be very nice, but also a lot of stimulation for me right now when what I really need is down time. We're stopping over in Philadelphia for a couple days on the way home to be by ourselves and celebrate Dan's birthday.

I've got to hurry up and get well. There's lots to do and being sick isn't on the list!

Cool new toy, now I just need time to play

Just received a box of supplies from Dharma Trading, which included a little indulgent gift to myself: a new tjap from Indonesia. With all of the holiday mayhem I have no idea when I'm going to get to use it.

The prayer flag piece (see Dec 6) is faced and just needs a label and rod pocket to be officially done. I'm not posting any more pictures of it until I can actually make time to take a decent one. I've also got to come up with a proper name so I can stop calling it "the flag thing."

Have I discovered a blogging "don't"?

The blogging thing works for me, more or less. I even like the idea that sometimes people read what I write and even comment on it. What I don't like is the fact that it reveals my imperfection as an editor of my own writing. As with my private journal, I find it interesting to read what I've written days, months, or even years after the fact. It can be a great stepping off point for refection. That is, unless I find that I've published grammatical errors and typos for all the world to see!

So, since I'm not a great proofreader, I suppose I need to:

• Not read my own stuff; or
• Forgive myself for not being perfect; or
• Be prepared to make occasional corrections.

Just what I needed: another growth opportunity.

I didn't know you could do that

I love my thermofax machine. (For a very short description of what that is and what one does with it see this site by Karen Stiehl Osborn). This is just about the best thing that's happened to screen printing in years. It's so much easier than preparing and burning photo silkscreens.

As noted on Karen's page, I've always been told that the screen material needs to go through the machine with a photocopy because it's the carbon on the surface that causes the plastic screen backing material to burn away. That's all well and good if you've got a photocopier or laser printer in your studio, which I do not. On a lark I tried running a test piece of paper painted with black tempera paint (Pearl Paint) through the thermofax. And, what do you know, it worked great. Charcoal works too. The charcoal seems obvious--it's carbon. The tempera paint was a surprise. I don't know if there is carbon in the black paint, if something else is making it work, or if other colors would work. I'm just happy it works!

I made the screen below by making a quick gesture drawing with tempera paint in a dental syringe. The printed fabric is built on top of the result. The fabric is a bit too cute for most of my purposes, but it was fun to paint. I think it might turn into the lining for a scarf.

Pre-holiday madness

I'm ahead of schedule this year. In other words, I've already had my pre-holiday meltdown over the fact Dan and I have bought into the whole "Christmas machine". This year we're actually trying to do something about it (the machine and the meltdown). We're trying to scale back the gift-giving, and the insanity of holiday baking has been axed in favor of NOT gaining 10 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Years. We decided to do our annual end-of-year/holiday letter and send it along with holiday cards. God bless Dan: we wrote the letter together, he bought the cards and stuffed and licked fully 90% of the envelopes. (Why can't they make envelope adhesive taste like something good--something like single malt scotch).

The crazy organizing spree has wound down. The clutter is definitely feeling a little lighter. The sewing room's even clean enough to work. I'm trying to balance my time between printing and sewing. When I concentrate too much on one I miss the other. Though to be honest I could probably print cloth until drop.

The piece that I kept overdying earlier over the summer has turned into this, as shown in my post from September 16.

It sat for a while, but has finally turned into a piece about prayer flags, inspired by a community craft project at a church retreat. (Wikipedia page on Prayer Flags). The photo below shows a corner of the piece, which I'm still quilting. The "flags" are all raw edge pieces stitched only along the top. If you click the picture you can see some of the quilting detail and get a better look at the flag construction.

I'm pleased with the way this is turning out. I'm also surprised and delighted that I've got two pieces in work now that I think are worth showing. It's a first for me to have one; let alone two.

Therapeutic cleaning or a manic fit?

I never really know where a cleaning fit comes from. Over the years I've come to recognize that they're often linked to a need to control or organize some part of my life in order to balance out the feeling that another part is out of control, or perhaps just beyond my control. I took a "vacation" day on Friday because I have unused leave that I need to burn up. (That's a topic for another post.) I thought I would get in some good studio time, but I needed to tidy up just a little bit first because my work space was a mess. The sequence of events that followed is too circuitous to retrace, but somehow it led to cleaning out the attic, shredding old financial records, rearranging the storage in the studio/office (such as it is), and beginning to load our entire collection of CDs into iTunes. So far I've filled two large trash barrels and the recycling bin. This is a good thing. Sometimes these cleaning jags amount to little more than putting things away, but don't really lighten the load of accumulated stuff.

As I've been cleaning I've been continuing my meditation on lines. While we were in Philadelphia I took pictures of things that were catching my eye. It was all linear.

I've always loved street grates. As a kid I remember being afraid to walk on them because I thought I would fall in. Now, they're just enticing patterns. The shot of the buildings is intriguing too. My photo collection is full of numerous similar frames. The color of the buildings, the strong angles, the clarity of the sky, the value range, and the irony of the sign for "Parking" of which you can only see "Park". This street was hardly a park.

I've been doodling the middle of the two frames all week. I started out with careful sketches, moved on to things with lots of crosshatching, and finally ended up with rapid gesture drawings. These feel really good. I'm going to try exploring that a bit more.

Philadelphia Craft Show weekend

It was a whirlwind trip, but every second of it was fabulous.

We started out at the Snyderman-Works Gallery for the Nancy Crow exhibit called, "Crossroads: Constructions, Markings and Structures". I'm not sure what to say. It was energizing. I really need to go back and visit it several more times, but I'm going to have to rely on the catalog for that. Many of the pieces are similar to the linear designs that appear in her recent book and to the striking piece featured on the gallery postcard (below).

Other pieces, which I was told are newer, were black and white (or muted tone) geometric line work. They're wonderful compositions (some whole cloth) that clearly evoke traditional pieced patterns but have the spontaneity of something from a sketchbook page. The show also includes a number of other screen printed and monoprinted pieces. I don't feel a strong desire to copy or reinterpret any of Nancy's work, but the graphic quality, the strong linear design, the color choices, and the amazing command of value were inspirational. I've got some new ideas.

So, with a head full of all of this (and after a 2+ hour car trip) we needed a little lunch before venturing into the craft show. Dan and I have been going to the Baltimore ACC show for a few years and have also become regulars at the Smithsonian craft show. This was our first Philadelphia Museum of Art show. We both came away impressed with the quality and the variety of the work. It was a great show. Not too big or too small, and most important of all PLENTY OF FIBER. We got to see a few old friends and meet some interesting new folks.

As usual the Darwall booth was a feast for the eyes--all color and texture. Through our friendship I've been able to pay close attention to his work for a number of years. It's fascinating to watch it change and evolve.

Karen Henderson was showing some of her amazing weaving. If you've ever been to Peters Valley and made the dusty drive on Thunder Mountain Road out to the fiber studio, then you would instantly recognize the colors of the woods and the wetlands in Karen's work. They're simultaneously peaceful and fascinating.

I was also impressed by Marcia Derse's booth. She was showing lovely small quilted pieces made from her own hand dyed cloth. On the pieces that I spent the most time with I noted that she leaves her edges raw, rather than bound or faced. She also presents the finished piece attached with Velcro to a natural wood frame. With a little overhang the piece appears to float on the wall. I love the look. I've never seen this approach to finishing before. Perhaps others are doing it, but it was my first exposure.

There was also excellent pottery. For me the highlight was Akira Satake's slab-built vessels. He said he forms the slab, allows it to partially dry, applies white porcelain slip to one side, let's that dry, then manipulates the slab. The way he described it he lifts it over his head and smacks it on the table to fracture the slip. After that comes the formation of the vessel, more glaze, etc. The result is striking. It's organic. It reminds me of birch trees or, in some cases, the pattern left in the sand by receding waves. Here's a picture. Yes, it sitting on our dining room table. I should have my credit card propped next to it! It was not a purchase that either of us intended to make, but it was one that I knew I would regret not making. It's just phenomenal. In the photo you can see Hilary inspecting the new addition to the decor.

I've got snap shots of bit and pieces of the city that I'll save for another posting. I came home thinking about lines--the lines in Nancy Crow quilts, the lines in Akira Satake's pots, the lines in the street grades, the lines in the iron work of the fire escape outside our hotel room window. There's something bubbling there--drawing lines with dye, screening lines, stitching lines, tearing cloth, strip quilting, lines that don't line up......

A dry spell

A dry spell. That's all I can think to call those times when I stop writing. I go through these same cycles with my private journal. Once, after writing almost daily for over a year I just stopped. Sometimes it's because I get too close to something and would rather run away than face it. Other times it's because I just need a break. I tolerate these spells, and yet I'm always painfully aware of them when they're happening.

So, why haven't I written a word for precisely a month and a day? I'm just not sure. This time I think it's mostly because I've been so busy with work and other things. It's been all I can do to sneak in time to sew or print. Writing has taken a backseat. Now I'm starting to get the feeling that the writer in me is tired of sitting in the back of the bus.

For these last few weeks busy has included course work for my last year of a 4-year extension course called EfM--Education for Ministry. It's adult learning at it's best: lots of reading and discussion, but no tests or papers. In 4 years you cover a survey of the core seminary curriculum, without the preaching, field education, and the like. The first year of the program is Old Testament (mostly Torah and the prophets, with a bit of wisdom literature). Year 2 is New Testament. Years 3 & 4 are church history and contemporary theology respectively. It's a nice overview, but how much of Hegel and Kierkegarrd can you really pick up by reading one cursory chapter on each. Anyway, a night of reading and a night of class effectively kills 2 nights out of the week from now until early June.

I also somehow managed to accept the "opportunity" to co-chair the Rector Search Committee at my church. Our Rector left over the summer. Now that we have an interim in place, this Committee is conducting a search for a new permanent Rector. It's sort of like an executive search only many more people are involved, it takes 12-18 months, and it's a lot of volunteer work. And I said yes to this because...?

Just so you don't think life is all work, I must confess that I've been having some fun. Dan and I spend last weekend in New Jersey. Friday/Saturday we were with Dan's brother, our sister-in-law (Omie) and our niece and nephew. It was Omie's birthday so in addition to the family celebration, she and I slipped away for a couple of hours in Clinton. We went to see Kerr Grabowski's show at the Hunterdon Museum. It was fantastic. The show was called "Art To Wear". It should have been called "Art to Die For"--or may dye for. I'm always amazed to see work that I instantly recognize, something that bears the mark of the maker in a way that's unmistakable without being cliche or repetitive. In this case you look at the work and say, "This is Kerr's".

I desperately need a new camera that takes something besides fuzzy pictures, but you can still see even in these mediocre shots that the show was amazing.

The weekend ended on a delightful note. Sunday, on the way home Dan & I stopped to visit Rayna Gillman & Marty and shared a delightful little brunch. "Come by; I'll get some bagels" turned into a banquet. She was such a wonderful host, and we had great fun sharing art and telling stories. I'm smiling as I write this. It really was a great visit.

This weekend is equally full of promise. We leave early tomorrow morning for a whirlwind visit to Philadelphia. Dan is being so indulgent. We going to see the Nancy Crow show at the Snyderman gallery, then heading off to the convention center for the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. It only occurred to me after we'd made the plans to check the lineup of artists and I was thrill to see that we get to visit with our friends Randy Darwall and Brian Murphy. It should be a blast.

Progress on all fronts

All of the computer swapping and rebuilding is finished. I can see great patches of the desktop and I'm cautiously optimistic that by week's end it could actually reach a state that one could honestly call tidy.

I had the day off and it was a great one to spend indoors. It's just not supposed to be 95 degrees in October. It's was lousy weather to be outside, but it was also perfect weather for discharging--HOT. I worked on three pieces with thickened thyox (and a good many drops of sweat). You could practically see the stuff working as I was applying it. Everything is still drying on the clothesline and it's took dark to see outside, so no pictures until later this week.

On a completely different topic, I heard a very interesting sermon yesterday. The two points that remain with me are:

• That we should periodically assess how much our life reflects our values; and
• That our creeds--those doctrinal statements of belief for which people has died for centuries--need to be considered thoughtfully.

For example, the opening words of the Nicene Creed, "We believe" are most recently translated from the Latin word, "Credo," which can be read as "to believe" or to "trust in." We've lost touch with that latter meaning. At least I feel that I have. On some level, "believing" is about acknowledging facts, while "trusting" requires an element of faith. Taking it further, I would even say that in the post-modern sense it's possible to trust in the essential truth of something even in the absence of all facts.

So, in what do I trust, and am I living my life in a way that reflects that value system? I'm not going to answer that question here and now. Suffice to say that I feel that I've still got room for improvement, but I'm working on it.

I have to give credit where it's due, the sermon was by The Rev. Martha Wallace, the new interim rector of St. Andrew's, College Park. So far she seems like a very good addition to our community.