Saturday, August 9, 2014

Design Inspiration on a Road Trip 08-09-14

These are all interior images that might inspire quilt or quilting designs.
 
Marion, Indiana, library window.


Marion, Indiana, library floor tiling.

Marion, Indiana, motel carpet.

Marion, Indiana, motel carpet.

Marion, Indiana, motel carpet.

Rock Springs, Wyoming, motel carpet.

Rock Springs, Wyoming, motel carpet.
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Friday, August 8, 2014

The last obstacle to getting home 08-08-14

Coming home on I-15 is not a bad drive, lots of open country, straight road (except for the Virgin River Canyon) and there never seem to be a lot of big trucks.   But then one must drive through Las Vegas.  It is always a hassle.
 
The radio told me there was a storm approaching  LV and the clouds concur.

I-15 goes through a "slot"  to the east side of the Strip.
(I don't know why the color in this image is so different from the rest.)

It was darker and the clouds lower as I drove south.

And in the congestion the trucks towered over me.

 This is the Mirage Hotel home of Cirque de Soleil.  Don't  know where the Ferris Wheel belongs.
 
I believe the shiny building is the Aria Hotel.  Nice reflections.

This building is on the west side of the highway, also shiny and reflective.  It is getting darker and I am expecting a downpour.

Another unknown hotel or casino, but a bright spot along the way.
Whew, I drove through LV with only a few raindrops, but later that night the downpour caused flash flooding which can be dangerous in the desert.  Glad I missed it. 
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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Exhibits in San Diego 08-07-14

I drove to San Diego today to see the new exhibit at Visions Art Museum.  And, of course, to have lunch at my favorite sushi place, Ikiru.  They were ready to send out a search party since I haven't been in for over three weeks, or maybe a month!   Their food is so good, I have really missed it.  Didn't even look for a sushi place on this trip and ate a lot of meals out of my cooler and "lunch" box in my room at night.  Too tired to go out looking for a place to eat.  I can have a big breakfast at any motel these days (although I prefer HIE), so don't need much lunch; a piece of fruit, some cheese and crackers. 
Orange Blossom (front) and Real Crab Rolls

Orange Blossom - see the parchment slice of lemon?  Yummy.

Anyway, if you can get to VAM you are in for a treat.  Caryl Bryer-Fallert-Gentry's "Thirty Quilts for Thirty Years" (which are all thirty inches square) look spectacular.  They ARE spectacular.  She has revisited the designs she has done in the past and created new versions for this traveling exhibit.  Very impressive.  She has had such an influence on contemporary quilting over the years - so many innovations.  She was the first artist to have a machine quilted quilt win Best of Show in Houston.  In the Alcove Gallery Deidra Adams 
has six quilts from her "Tracings" series and all are gorgeous.  I like them so much that I bought two for TCQC, but they will hang in the gallery until the end of September.  The Valya Gallery is filled with Arline Frish's "Hanging Garden of California" which is composed of dozens of flowers knitted with multicolored metal wires and hanging upside down from knitted tubular stems.  They are quite beautiful and they dance when the oscillating fans are on.  Some of Arline's  neck pieces are hung on the end wall - again, beautiful. 

Photography is not permitted in the galleries, but you can see examples on the Visions website:  www.visionsquiltmuseum.org  And you can visit the artist's websites to see more of their creations. 

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

International Quilt Study Center, Lincoln, NE 08-05-14

This is a look back at July 24th when I visited the IQSC for few hours.  They had quite a variety of quilts displayed: thirties and older quilts, quilts from Pakistan and examples from other eastern countries, and several contemporary art quilts. 
 
I've always admired Joy's work, but she is not very prolific and I have not seen many of her quilts in-the-fabric.




Sue Benner works with many styles, maybe that is why I enjoy her work so much.  Always something new and original.  I love the layers in this piece.






 I am not familiar with this artist, but I was impressed with this quilt.  Her technique reminds me of both Regina Benson and Karen Rips.  It is great to hear that IQSC is expanding their interests into the "new" quilts of the late 20th C and early 21st C.
 



Since I had just been to the Quilters Hall of Fame locate in Marie Webster's 19th C home in Marion, Indiana, I was interested in the display they had of her quilt designs and ephemera.

From Ladies' Home Journal, Jan 2012

There is a smaller size of this quilt design at the QHOF that was made by Sandy Sutton who lives here in Orange County.  Sandy was at the celebration for Ruth McDowell in Marion - what a small world it is! 

Fabulous quilting

More of Marie Webster's  designs.

 Antique Star of Bethlehem and Sue Benner's "Cellular Structure VIII". 
 
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Monday, August 4, 2014

A prairie story 08-04-14

In fourth grade kids learn about their home state, so I learned about Oregon.  And my imagination was taken with the Oregon Trail that led so many people to the new territory and, eventually, state.  I read lots of books about pioneers, both fiction and non-fiction.  Some fascinating memoirs from those who had been children on the Trail.  It was all so adventurous and exciting - imagine walking all the way across the country and seeing wild animals roaming, Indians in their natural culture, and, finally, the mountains after months of flat rolling land.  I've often wondered if these memories gave me the wanderlust to travel. 
 
At the end of the 1960's my husband and I took a two month tour of the country, driving north to Oregon and then east to see some of the sights along the route of the pioneers.  In my reading I knew that Chimney Rock was an important landmark; this spire of rock towering above the trail gave the travelers encouragement in a land with few outstanding features.  The day we were to travel the stretch of US26 from Wyoming into Nebraska I was prepared with maps, camera, binoculars and high anticipation.  There are lots of large bluffs along the way so the road follows the North Platte River which provided a pathway for the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Cutoff Trail and even the Pony Express route.  Not far beyond Scottsbluff, Nebraska, with the bluffs on either side is Chimney Rock.  I waited and searched as we drove along the highway.  After we had gone further than it showed on the map I knew we had missed it, or it was gone, worn away by the weather.  My husband turned around and we went back toward Scottsbluff.   I still didn't see any towering spur of rock, one that the pioneers traveled toward for weeks.  We turned around again and suddenly, there it was.  A little stump of rock atop a sloping base, pointing to the sky, only about 300 feet high!  It took me miles to figure out the discrepancy; the pioneers walking or riding in mule-drawn or oxen-drawn wagons traveled fewer than ten miles a day; on the modern highway in our powerful automobile we were doing 65-70 miles per hour.  So, in an hour we traveled as far as they did in a week!  I had a lot more respect for Chimney Rock after that revelation, but I had never driven that way again. 
 
On this Road Trip I detoured off of I-80, up US-26 just to see that stone tower again and visit the new interpretive center built a few years ago.  It was 102F when I returned to my car and the wind was rattling the dry grass and bushes.  I stood there for just a few minutes and imagined what it must have been like for the pioneers to have finally arrived at this way point in their long struggle to reach the Western lands.  But I couldn't imagine it, I'm sure I would have fallen by the wayside long before I reached this point of the journey.  Then I got in my air conditioned car and drove off in 70F comfort.

Chimney Rock in the distance.  
 
Sign directing to interpretive center.

Parked in the lot - to prove I was there!

Very dry - telegraph weed (Heterotheca grandiflora) against the sky.  A plant that may not have been there in pioneer days, but is everywhere in the country now.  It does "telegraph" seeds as it dries.

Chimney Rock (approx. 300" tall)

Chimney Rock Interpretive Center with the Rock in the background.

The rattlesnakes were surely there back in the day. 

Lots of sagebrush and wild grasses.
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