On the easel

On the easel...

Caton- Merchant Gallery Opening Rescheduled

As we have yet another snowstorm approaching on Saturday, the Caton-Merchant opening of "Myth and Mystery" will be rescheduled for Saturday February 13th.
Note the snow date on the postcard.
Mark your calendars and look forward to seeing you there.

Off to Dallas mañana

Today is my daughter Nina's 20th birthday, it is so hard to believe she is now officially out of her teen years. How can that much time have flown by?

I am off to Dallas in the morning to give a lecture and teach a couple workshops with the Dallas Quilt guild. I am looking forward to seeing many great friends and having some good creative art time. I will try to catch up with you on Tuesday.

Gallery Opening at MLK Library

Katie and I grabbed a quick lunch and delivered our the paintings to Caton Merchant yesterday. I haven't seem her new work and I was amazed at how prolific and fantastic it is for someone who works full time. The work will be hung today and I hope to get photos up this week.
It isn't looking good for our opening on Saturday at this point as we have another snow storm in the forecast. If we have to cancel the reception it will be rescheduled for the following Saturday on the 13th, so if you plan to come, stay tuned. I will make the decision by Friday morning.

Last night, Craig and I went to the district to my friend Terry Dixon's opening at the MLK Library.

In celebration of the first day of Black History month, Terry, along with fellow artist Robert Morris, presented work based on Douglas Blackmon's book "Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of African Americans from the Civil War to World War II."
The exhibit is designed to highlight the role of major corporations and local government in denying southern blacks their civil rights through the power of judicial and penal systems.


me and Terry


"Life of Labor"





"Re-enslavement"
(love, love this painting....)

Working through some stuff

I am having a really hard time in my personal life right now which has lead to some sleepless nights. The other night at 2 am, I pulled out a large piece of cotton batting and started pouring lots of diluted red textile paint on it which was left over from a bunch of almost empty paint jars. I hate to throw good paint away, so I poured water in the jars, shook it up and poured it on the batting, spreading it around with a big brush. I dumped some purple and russet on there too, covering a 3 foot by 4 foot piece of batting.

It felt good to just pour out all that paint and spread it around, pouring out my anger and grief. Then I grabbed an almost empty bottle of gold, added some water and put it in a bottle with a small hole and squirted the bottle onto the batting, hoping to add in something uplifting like a bit of gold and goodness that could come out of this. I am trying to be optimistic, as hard as that is right now.

In the morning when all was dry, I freely cut big holes with a rotary cutter in a piece of turquoise hand dyed cotton with Mistyfuse on the back, to represent my external calm that I am trying to maintain, but also my sadness with all that watery blue pouring down.

I chalked in some lines for some stitching on the red batting, then I will do some more linear quilting on the blue.

As I work through this piece, I will work through this transition in my life. I hope that I can transform some very negative feelings into ones of hope and beauty and come out the other side in a better place.

Myth and Mystery exhibit

I am in the middle of another flare up with my neck and back, so I haven't spent too much time on the internet in the last week.

We are about to have another snow storm. I planned to deliver the paintings for the "Myth and Mystery" show tomorrow if the weather allows. Karen Eide, one of the three artists, has had an accident and broken both of her wrists, so she may not be able to attend the opening. She lives in Richmond which is a good two hour drive to Manassas. I am disappointed about this......we will miss her. Katie and I were really looking forward to meeting her in person after so many months of emails.

So, I have twelve paintings lined up to hang, but this morning I noticed a problem with one of the stretchers, so after picking up some hardware I attempted to re-stretch the canvas on new bars. This is a new endeavor for me as I haven't re-stretched a painting before. I never had to. Apparently, this was a bum canvas with poor quality wood stretchers that buckled on one side after a time. Even though I bought new same sized stretcher bars, the new ones are a bit larger than the original and now there is a small edge of white unpainted canvas on each side. So, I have to pull the painting from the show. This is a lesson in carefully selecting canvases. It is my regular practice when buying a canvas to lay it flat and on each side to see any gaps or warping. Generally, I find that canvases larger than 22" really need a crossbar. I am not sure where I got this particular canvas but it is a telling sign of cheapness that it has no brand name on it. Live and learn.

I will keep you all updated. Please plan to come to the reception on the 6th if you so can. Manasssas is a neat old town with a lot of cool places to eat and the Harris Pavilion will be open that evening for outdoor ice skating.

Here is the Candy Factory which houses the gallery. You can read about the historic building here.

FYI, the whole story

I just thought I would let you know, I created one long blog post about making my last quilt, Oh Deer, Look What's Become of Me! over on the Painted Threads Project blog so you can read about the making of it in chronological order.