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Simple Contemporary Quilt

Tessa leaves for college just about a month from now! I think all of us have a mix of emotions - we're incredibly proud of her and excited for all the opportunities she will have; but we'll miss her like crazy when she goes.

Today she finished the art quilt we've been working on for her dorm room. It is a modification of one of the patterns in Valerie Van Arsdale Shrader's book, Simple Contemporary Quilts.

Tessa chose all the fabrics, cut the pieces, made the sandwich, and did the quilting. My contribution was to inspire confidence, fix the sewing machine, and reassure her that if Laura Ingalls Wilder was making her first quilt, she'd go ahead and guess at it just like we were doing. She loves it and I'm way impressed with her skills.  

Esprit d'escalier.

The French phrase 'esprit d'escalier means 'the wit of the staircase', and usually refers to the perfect witty response you think up after the conversation or argument is ended.

People often wish they could improve their computer skills, or develop abs of steel. I wish for a Teflon spirit and a quicker command of the comeback line. Tessa suggested that we put together a "comeback dictionary" for me. Any suggestions?

I ran errands in town today. It was pretty awesome.

 

And yes - these were shot on the same day. Another great Montana vanity plate post can be found here. 

Cherry This.

Our cherries are ready but this year we don't have a buyer. We belong to a cooperative that agreed to an exclusive with the Monson Fruit Company.

But it's only "exclusive" if Monson wants the fruit. They can decide at the last minute that they don't need it, usually the week before harvest, and leave the entire Flathead Valley scrambling to find buyers at the last minute.

And they do. Two out of five years we've had the orchard this has happened to us - 10,000 pounds of fruit fell to the ground. But we're actually on the lucky side - we only have 150 trees. Some folks have almost 2,000. 

So this will be the year everyone gets a bottle of my famous cherry vodka for Christmas. And next year, we've decided to go organic - better prices, more buyers.

Wedding Dance in Minnesota

I found out the other day that, in the State of Montana, ordinary citizens [like ME] can performing legal wedding ceremonies. If anyone asks me, I'm definitely going to do it. And I'm definitely going to make it a stage show. Here's a little something to lighten your morning - just because.

Alexander McQueen: Spring 2009

It used to be that when we talked about haute couture we were talking about one-of-a-kind pieces, hand tailored under the personal supervision of a designer. If you've seen the film, Valentino: The Last Emperor, you know what I'm talking about. Five seamstresses all crowded around one mannequin, hand sewing sequins for eight hours a day, complaining about the "poor" quality work of the expert seamstress standing right next them.

Not anymore. Designers like Alexander McQueen are using innovative technologies to enhance their collections. McQueen'sSpring 2009 spine suit, pictured below, is a favorite of mine.I like the way the structure of the suit brings out the dimension of the spine print.

 

This wood grain jacket is another good example of how McQueen is using digital prints on fabric.

McQueen has also been experimenting with digital laser cutting machines to create a series of elaborate leather pieces like this bustier.

 

Couture Carrie has assembled an excellent portfolio of laser-cut lattice wear from other designers.

Looking for Direction.

Too many signs are, perhaps, more confusing than just one or two.

Tunnel Book Tutorial

I made this rough and tumble tunnel book after seeing a tutorial put together by Extreme Cards and Papercrafting. It's a few photocopies of images from a vintage book and some paper from an old school ledger.

And the tutorial would have been so much more helpful - if I hadn't left it on the kitchen counter. I didn't want to go all the way back to my house so I just guessed at it. As it turns out, the clips would have been extremely helpful. I'm going to try again, and this time, I will definitely bring the directions!

Artistic and Functional: Aprons From The Karen Anderson Collection.

The Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University is showing 47 of the 500 aprons held by the Karen Anderson Collection. Anderson, now deceased, was known as the "Apron Lady" of Lynn Center, Illinois.

According to Lynnmarie's Everyday Connection, Anderson collected and mended the aprons over many years. She wrote stories about each piece or carried on the stories of the aprons donated to her collection.

I find vintage aprons so interesting. Whenever I see them in thrift stores, I snap them up and I feel like I've scored. As if I'm holding someone's life in my hands. I think for feminists of the 1960's and 1970's aprons have become a symbol of women's oppression (see the forged metal apron by artist Elizabeth Brim) but the aprons I find are often as delicate as butterfly wings. Gauzy handkerchief cotton edged with lace, as the apron above, and entirely useless as a form of protection. These were probably the aprons kept in the drawer, too precious for everyday use. That a woman would have aprons for work and aprons for show is a blog topic all by itself.

Many of the craft bloggers around my age are inspired by vintage aprons and sew them from vintage or vintage-inspired patterns. Check out the Apronista! This is amazing work and inspires sewists everywhere. With no mention of the conflict between the last generation of women, probably their mothers, who couldn't wait to cut the strings.

I've  heard it said that, by blogging, these women are writing "into the wind", but this generation of stay-at-home-moms are different anyway. They've all got wildly successful websites that sell a bird's eye view of their lives as well as custom patterns, books, and self-designed fabric collections. (Not a bad deal. I own a consulting company and have no children and though my blog is, in my opinion, quite interesting as long as you've got an open mind - no one is banging down my door to publish a picture book of what I do all day.)

I'm not sure what to make of it either way, but it seems that aprons are somehow illustrative of the difference between two specific generations of women. What do you think? About aprons? About blogging "into the wind"?

Looking for something more concrete?

It takes a lot of time and money to keep Paradise Ranch up and running. It takes even more time to get on the schedule of local contractors who are overwhelmed with business in this small town. Today, after two years of waiting, we are at the top of the list for concrete. The guys showed up yesterday with no warning, built the forms, and returned today, with no warning and started pouring.

The concrete will be stamped with a pattern. And somewhere in there, I'm planning on leaving my signature. I've always wanted to do that.

Tea Bag Art

Some years ago I attended a two-week art workshop with a woman who made art from tea bags. Her collection was large and diverse, and she was, without question, an obsessive-compulsive.

Late one night, I borrowed the pencil she had left on her work table and carefully set it back exactly as [I thought] I'd found it. The first thing she noticed in the morning was that her pencil had been moved.

At the time, I thought it was unusual, but tea bag art is actually rather common. 

Send Me Something.

I'm intrigued by this.

Spiral Jetty.

It's been raining cats and dogs the last few days. I've got a Spiral Jetty in my own driveway.

Christian Dior Haute Couture: Fall 2009

By all accounts, last week's Dior Haute Couture show in Paris was amazing. And reminiscent of the New Look that made Dior a household name.

Shallow Graves: It's All What You Know.

Some years ago, I was visiting friends in Mexico City. They had plenty of things planned for us, with the exception of one day in which I'd have to be on my own. They lived right on the Bosque de Chapultapec park so I planned to spend the day poking through the park's many museums. NO PROBLEM. Their driver would drop me off and pick me up.

But here was the problem. Because of jet lag (I lived in the UK at that time), I had overslept. The driver had already left for the airport to drop off my friend and wouldn't be back for hours.

I decided to walk, just being especially careful as anyone blond would be, en La Ciudad. The only reason I was nervous was because my friend's business colleague had been kidnapped earlier that year and held for ransom. They were nervous and nervous about anyone who came and went from their home. But really, I didn't have far to go - possibly six blocks.

So, I headed for Museo Rufino Tamayo. Along the way, I noticed some funny things in the trees. From the corner of my eye, it looked like a series of SHALLOW GRAVES. I didn't exactly freak, but I wasn't exactly relaxed, either, given the careful warnings from my friends and their household staff. I practically sprinted to the museum.

The first thing I saw was this photo retrospective of Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta's earth sculpture. I wasn't familiar with her work. I wouldn't have recognized the shallow graves under the trees as a recreation of her silhueta performance pieces.

I learned a great deal that day. I made a mental note that Mendieta died, after falling out of a window in what were deemed 'suspicious circumstances'. But the new knowledge didn't really console me. You can be sure that I booked it back to my friends' without taking a closer look at the silhuetas. But I didn't have a blog then, either.

Cherries: An Orchard FYEye.

Local orchard manager Rod keeps telling us its a bad year for cherries, but it looks pretty good to me. I don't remember a year that we've had so much fruit on the branches. And we have a few weeks to go - they will triple in size before we harvest.

The Happiness Manifesto

Buddy The Dog cruising Glacier National Park.

I've been checking out Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project and The Happiness Project Toolbox. An interesting set of tools to move you toward good times: a group resolution kit, a list of personal commandments you can pick and choose for yourself, and my favorite -  "Adult Education." Reminders of what you've already learned from life - so that you don't repeat your mistakes.  I'll have to add mine: "Not everyone at work is on your side."

Here is the Manifesto Rubin created:

A Happiness Manifesto

• To be happy, you need to consider feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
• One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
• The days are long, but the years are short.
• You're not happy unless you think you're happy.
• Your body matters.
• Happiness is other people.
• Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
• "It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light."—G. K. Chesterton
• What's fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa.
• Best is good, better is best.
• Outer order contributes to inner calm.
• Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.
• You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do.
• "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy." —Robert Louis Stevenson
• You manage what you measure.

I agree that your body matters. It's important to balance the need to care for it with the need to enjoy life. I think it can also be helpful to act the way you feel (not on this list). Not as a performance, but as a way to get out of the groove of just being...well...bummed.

What do you think is missing from this list? What's relevant? Are any of these items just complete crap - in your opinion?

Library by Library.

I just finished reading the memoirs of Beverly Cleary, author of the Ramona books for children.  A Girl from Yamhill was perhaps the better of the two memoirs, but it wasn't until the second book that I learned about Cleary's had been a long-time librarian. Her first job was as hospital libarian during World War II. She observed:

"Most doctors, I soon learned, read history, biography, and mysteries. Men who broke their legs riding motorcycles always wanted Western stories. The psychiatrist requested books by Arthur Koestler. A man who said in civilian life he 'sold jewels to rich old women' shared my pleasure in James Thurber. Enlisted men often assked for books by Donald Henderson Clark, an author I had never heard of. The 9th Service Command's library philosophy was, 'Give the men what they want.' I ordered The Impatient Virgin, Tawny, and other Clark titles, which the men pounced on, usually saying, "I didn't think you would have these."

Best sellers were in demand, most of all Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor...that book, written by a classmate [from college], was a nagging reminder every time it crossed our new circulation desk that I too, wanted to write - if the war would ever end, and I could find time."

Interesting things happen in libraries. I was the Anthropology Librarian at the University of Edinburgh during my studies for a Master's Degree. It was a small library and I shared the position half-time with a Scot named Paul. One week, all the skin peeled off the bottoms of my feet. I wasn't sure what it was about but Paul's girlfriend mentioned during a shift change that the skin was peeling off the bottoms of Paul's feet. We're still not sure why, but we're pretty sure it had something to do with the library.

A Dutch student that came in to study smelled so bad that I would get a headache whenever he was in the room. Many people in Scotland don't have hot water in the winter, but this seemed extreme. I made the mistake of mentioning it to a friend [from Spain] who replied, "Yes, you Americans are very sensitive to things like that, aren't you?"

At Georgetown, I took many good naps on the 3rd floor of Lauinger [pictured above.] The sun streamed through the windows onto comfortable chairs and the sound of jet engines on final lulled me into restful slumbers. When I figured out how to stay awake (by studying in the carrols), I finally graduated. In the meantime, I wondered about Mark Lauinger, why he had died so young, and how his parents made enough money to have the library named for him. But I never once looked it up.

I did much of my research for my undergraduate thesis at the Newberry Library in Chicago, which had an excellent American Indian Studies collection. I loved the seriousness of my time there - the fact that I was only allowed one book at time, that it had to rest in a foam holder while I paged through it, and I was only allowed a pencil and a pad of paper in the study room -- nothing more. Sometimes, they even made me wear white cotton gloves to turn the pages. All of that made me feel very, very, smart.

Before Georgetown, there was a long stretch where I didn't spend any time in libraries at all. I'm a serial non-returner. Huge fines. I was actually committed to buying books rather than borrowing, since it wound up to be cheaper. And I'm still that way. I often visit the community college library or the library at University of Montana to do research, but I never, ever, ask for borrowing privileges. I'm just not that responsible.

In my youth, however, I spent many happy hours at the public library in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. Though I don't recognize it all from the photo tour. In the fourth grade, when I had the flu, I accidentally barfed on a library book. Not knowing what else to do, I just returned it.

Patricia S. Aleman: Ironing Out My Wrinkles

Patricia S. Aleman just graduated from Miami's DASH (Design and Architecture Senior High) magnet school and has two pieces on show as part of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts show at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Art in Washington, DC. In her artist statement, she comments that her work "portrays the moment in time when a conflict arises, when one is taken over by the "other."

The central theme of these two sculptures are her life experience with an eating disorder. The jeans cover the figure, becoming a kind of second skin over the body, taking it over in mind and form. The figures are covered with white bird feces, a symbol of migration and what the eating disorder has left behind.

What do you think of the work?

Good Mail.

I love the internet, obviously, but something has been lost for me in the frenzied conversion to e-everything. Anticipation. Surprise. The warm fuzzy feeling you get when you understand that someone far away is still thinking about you, with some measure of care.

Growing up I spent summers at my Dad's house, just outside of Philadelphia. I used to wait for the mailman to arrive, totally impatient for a letter from a friend back home in Illinois.

Now, I send "good mail", randomly, to friends. Some "get it" and some don't. Some send good mail in return. My friend D. is one of those people. It's not an envelope, it's collage - front and back. 

She's also a keen observer.

Happy Fourth of July!

"I'm pretty sure that if you put some of my blood cells under a microscope, you'd see little microscopic bald eagles being all majestic and patriotic and stuff." --L. Cragg

Helen Frankenthaler: Small's Paradise (1964)

Helen Frankenthaler stains untreated canvas with acrylic paint to create her color field paintings. In my mind, I've been rolling giant sheets of untreated canvas down the slope of the orchard and soaking them with lengths of black paint.

Beyonce's Shoe Choice: 2009 BET Awards.

These shoes are a kind of tribute to Stevie Wonder's hair, doncha think?