Drive home San Juan Bautista to Placentia 03-09-17

It was a long day and though I took a nap when I got home I am still wiped out.  Age, I guess.  The drive wasn't bad until I got to Pasadena on the 210 Fwy.  Then it was creep, creep, creep.  During non drive time it takes about thirty minutes, today it took an hour and 45 minutes and I arrived home at 4:45pm, making it seven hours and 45 minutes on the road.  So tiring.  But earlier in the day it was an easy and pleasant day - sunshine and not too hot outside.  Stopped for gas and also to return a phone call.  The law in California now is that you cannot hold your cell phone in your hand whilst driving.  You need to buy a gizmo that attaches to the dashboard to hold your phone and I haven't done that yet.  Can't imagine where I will put the gizmo as the dash is pretty well filled already.

 

Empty Spools - Day Five 03-07-17

I think I may be getting too old for this sort of event.  I was too tired to post last night and tonight I am even more exhausted.  Tomorrow is only half a day, but we need to pack up during that time - both our sleeping rooms and classrooms.  I went to the classroom after the evening program tonight and packed up almost everything, but only did two hauling trips to the car.  Whew.  Maybe some of the younger ladies will help me tomorrow. 

 

There is some wonderful work in the class, but all I will show you tonight is part of my work.  I seemed to have failed to take pictures of the other two exercises.  Guess I will show them later. 

This is the image I chose to work with.

The first 8X10 pieced is a realistic abstraction.

Then we were to do four others with different abstractions.  I chose several places in the picture to focus on.  These are both from the same area of the original image.  Can you locate the area?

 

I am going to bed now - and it isn't even midnight.  Hopefully I will have more pictures for you tomorrow evening - with the permission of the artists. 

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Empty Spools Day Three 03-05-17

I was so busy trying to catch up in class that I didn't take a single picture today.  I have three seatmates in an arrangement of four tables in the NW corner of Scripps classroom - one is a speed queen and the other three - Susan, Mea, Del - are all snails.  I am the furthest behind and spent the entire afternoon cutting and fusing the fabrics I have selected for my palette.  I've learned over the past 26 years that I have been coming in Empty Spools that I will not have the right fabrics no matter how much thought I give to the selection.  So, I just pull a bunch of fabrics in different colors and textures and hope something will work.  I may get by with not needing to buy any fabric this trip.  Sometimes I am a dreamer!  But I also brought a box of scraps and a box of miscellaneous silks, rayons, sheers, glitzies, and clothing construction scraps collected over the past forty (or longer) years and I don't intend taking them home again.  I did find in that big box a few pieces I can use for accents.  My tablemates are very willing to share what they brought, so there is a great variety of fabric available to me. 

 

Dinner tonight at Il Vecchio a super Italian restaurant in Pacific Grove.  I love the Carbonara, which they make from scratch - perfect al dente.  I am not enjoying the food this year in the Asilomar dining all.  I understand they have a new executive chef, that may be the problem.   Cardboard fish, rubbery compressed turkey, ersatz turkey pot pie - even the desserts are less than expected. 

 

Rain a couple times this morning and the wind was blowing all day.  It is cold tonight, 42F at 11:30pm.  Prediction of 59F tomorrow with partially cloudy skies.

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Empty Spools - Day Two 03-04-17

Another beautiful sunny day at Asilomar - it was warm enough for me to take off my vest, but as the sun went down I had to don a sweater.  The ocean is beautiful and there are stars out tonight.  Supposed to rain tomorrow - BOOOO.

 

Sue Benner is such a good teacher.  She has it all laid out beforehand and passes out an "agenda" with all sorts of tips and instructions.  Today she showed a series of slides of the work of Modrian which I found very interesting.  I have never had any art history classes, so now I know a little more of the origins of abstraction and how it has changed since the mid 19th Century.   We had one assignment today and the pictures below might give you an idea of what we are doing.  Sue gave each of us a picture cut from a magazine and we traded one eight inch square of fused fabric with the person on each side of us - which gave us each five fabrics.  They were all supposed to be different, but I wasn't listening and mine were all the same busy fabric, so I ended up with only three fabrics.  Woe am I!

We were to use only those five fabrics to interpret the magazine picture we received and use some of each fabric in our piece..  Everyone worked very hard and some of us had never done abstraction previously, so the results were mixed.  And that was the lesson.  Working within the instructions and limitations we did intuitive abstraction - it was hard. 

 

In the pictures the magazine photo is on the left and each work to the right of it, except for mine where the magazine photo is below because there wasn't enough room to put them side-by-side.   I didn't space some of the images very well, but I think you can get the idea.   Tomorrow we will make five different 8" x 10" abstractions based on a photo we have selected and can use any fabric we wish.  An abstraction with a little control. 

I think the second one down on the left is the most successful one.  Mine is on the lower right. 

 

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Empty Spools at Asilomar

This is my 26th consecutive year at Empty Spools Seminars.  This year I am only taking one session, because I just don't have the energy I used to have.  And packing, unpacking in classroom and sleeping room takes a lot of energy.  My class with Sue Benner started today for only an hour and a half, but with all that schlepping I am worn out tonight.  So, I will have to tell you more about it tomorrow and in subsequent days.  I'll be here until Wednesday, spend another night with Mary and Joe and drive home on Thursday.  KoKo is staying with Nancy Ota in San Clemente. 

 

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Revisiting a quilt by Sally Sellers 02-26-17

Between the wind and the rain, I have not been able to photography any new quilts.  So, this is another revisit. Originally posted 06-20-10   Del

 

 

 

Here is another of the foot square quilts I purchased at the 2007 SAQA auction. I don't have much information about it and Sally doesn't have images of her quilts posted on her website. But I have seen her work for many years, perhaps dating back to the first issue of Art/Quilts Magazine (which is no longer published) and have always admired it. When I think of her, I think of houses and beading, so this was the perfect quilt to fit into the TCQC.

"House" Sally Sellers - Vancouver, WA. 2007 12" x 12" Hand and machine stitching, hand embroidery,  hand beading, tied.  Cotton Fabric and Batting, a button. .

Tiny blue beads form the moon and faceted blue beads sprinkle the roof. The bugle beads lined up on the roof top make me think of neon lights - don't know why. She has filled the shockingly pink night sky in the background with French knots and created a lawn in straight stitch with many color threads.
 

The back is made from a Sherrill Kahn print that I also had on my shelf and had a lot of fun with. You'll note that there is no label, instead Sally has signed the front of the quilt on the binding in the lower right corner. Note also that for the binding across the bottom she has used some of the backing fabric. It seems to extend the lawn into the binding.

http://sallysellers.com/sellersAbout.swf

06-24-10 Sally responded to my e-mail telling her I had posted her quilt: "This house was totally for fun, fun, fun. No agonizing over details, no angst about design, just grab some color and make it happen. I hadn't seen it since I sent it in to the auction, so am delighted to see it again now. I was doing all the things I love to do: stitch with embroider floss, add beads, use color. I continue to do that with larger projects. I have a zillion beads now but know nothing about jewelry -- I use them all on fabric. Thanks so much for purchasing it.

 

 

 

 

More Friday Feet 02-24-17

 

 

Sometimes when I look at this kind of shoe picture, my feet hurt.

 

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