Month: September 2018

SlowExposures

When we leave home for one of our Saturday “ride abouts”, we don’t always know where we’ll end up.  Our most recent experience was at a county-wide photography exhibit.  We stopped at one of our favorite bookstores, A Novel Experience, in Zebulon, only to discover it was on this day headquarters for glory.  

Well, glory our way.  SlowExposures, A Juried Exhibition Celebrating Photography of the Rural South, was in full swing in Pike County.  Walking and driving to at least seven sites, we met interesting people, saw interesting photography and other art forms, and came away inspired.

Every person we met was friendly and informative and urged us to visit other artists as well.  So we moved through the day on those recommendations, going from one “pop-up” venue to the next, only to be greeted by more fabulous photography, more unique ideas in presentation, more friendly people.

The photos were images made all over the South.  The photographers were from as far away as Maine, and the exhibit was the 16th of its kind.  How did we not know of this?  Well, we know now!

There was a competitive collection of single images, and there were “pop-ups” all over the county.  A pop-up exhibit was a collection of work from a single photographer or from groups with some common theme.  Subject matter, or technique, or presentation could unite them for this exhibit.

If you think a picture is worth a thousand words, you can’t image the volumes spoken by some of these displays.

A collection documenting the memorabilia left behind by a soldier who ended his own life in 1959 was sobering  The images mounted on black wood, in black frames, finished without a glass barrier, are stark and convey the mood of the project beautifully. (You can see photos of this here. Neither Jim nor I took snapshots of this work, it seemed disrespectful somehow – the display was the powerful.)

A former architect displayed part of an ongoing project to photograph all the azaleas in his home town.  He lives in Nachez, MS, so that’s a lot of azalea blooms.

The settings for the exhibit were likewise intriguing.  The main gallery was housed in an old store building in a small town six miles away from the county seat.  Pop-ups were in commercial and government buildings as well as unique buildings in the community repurposed for this weekend’s treasures.

One artist had the fortune to have his work displayed in a stable.  To take advantage of this  venue, he created amazing large-scale displays to share his Forest re-Framed.  There were dimensional elements, large scale prints with plates of glass in front to vary the distance from the viewer.  There were huge prints on canvas with natural light illuminating the photos.

There were a couple of artists housed in a sharecropper’s cabin.  The exposed structure of the building, painted white, was a perfect backdrop for their works.

Maybe I’m saving the best for the last.  Or maybe just after such a day the anticipation builds so the last thing is the best.  But our final visit was to the Hive, a small building (renamed for these two days) containing four artists who incorporate beeswax into their photo displays.  Each of the four uses different subject matter and processes to make their encaustic work unique, but all were fascinating to this Beekeeper’s Daughter.

I felt a special kinship with Kevin.  Kevin finds vintage photos at flea markets, collages the photos with other objects, and makes up a story about the person in the photo.  Yes, like I did with Margene and Ruth, to name a couple – just makes stuff up!  When I shared that I love to tell stories though my work, too, Kevin and I bonded.  He gave me permission to share a photo of him, of some of his work, and later, he demonstrated his technique with wax.  An earlier photo shows a closeup of one of his collages, but the shot below includes one of the fabulous vintage frames that completes his work.

Inspired, intrigued, amazed, fascinated; all good words to sum up the day.  Another example of retired life with open-ended adventures!  Except for the old geezer who pretended his name was Jim in order to claim our food in a crowded restaurant, the day was fabulous!  Even that situation was quickly remedied by a poised waitress and it gave us another funny store to share for years to come.

Note:  here are links to more of the artists whose work I described:

Sandy Burr

Jo Lynn Still

Houck Medford

Nancy Marshall

Rory Doyle

Remember Me

In our household, we often quote favorite movie lines to convey a big message in a few words.  A bit like a secret language, the power of a select phrase can convey a sense of place, a mood,  or a personality,  and add to the bond of family.

One phrase that’s part of our oft-repeated mantras is “remember me?” spoken in the tone Julia Roberts used in Pretty Woman.  You know the scene when she returns to the uppity sales clerk who had refused to help her.   Laden with packages from another Rodeo Drive shop, she twirls about and smugly displays her loot.  There’s a follow-up line about working on commission and “Big Mistake.”  We quote that sometimes, too.

Several years ago, when I was a member of a mini-group of quilters who called ourselves The Basket Cases, we exchanged blocks to make quilts.  The rules were: make a 9” basket for each other member of the group, in the color specified by each gal; then make your own quilt with the result.  I chose blue (big surprise), as did Mary.  Susan asked for red and pink.  Dale requested pastels, and Angie’s color was terra cotta.


The single basket block you see here is from one set of blocks I made to exchange.  The others I made for them were similar, but with pieced bows at the top, not appliquéd bows like these.  I made some of that type in blue for myself, too.

We made the exchange baskets twice and each assembled her own quilt using whatever setting was desired. I had eight baskets from friends (you can find four pairs of similar baskets in my quilt, each pair from one quilting sister) and four I had made.

I struggled with the various shades of blue and the different levels of contrast until I remembered how I love brown with blue.  This dark brown polka dot seemed to be the perfect fabric to enclose the group of baskets and serve as a border.  

I tried the polka dot as alternate blocks, but the big blocks of color were distracting.  So back to the sewing machine.  I made six 7” basket blocks, framed them with 1” borders of the brown which acted as sashing, and was done.

So it was time for a title.  The brown polka dots reminded me of a dress Julia Roberts wore at the polo match in Pretty Woman.  So, Remember Me was the perfect phrase to convey the movie connection and the spirit of the exchange blocks with the Basket Cases.

The photos of the quilt were made on an outing to Auchumpkee Creek.  Jim made some photos, I made others.


In this photo, you see the back of the quilt with a tree’s shadow on it.  As I often do, I pieced the backing with several blue fabrics.

I did not do the quilting on this one.  My friend and longarm expert, Kathy Darley, did a great job putting the layers together.

Margene’s Tablecloth

Margene was a master seamstress.  She made clothing for herself and her daughters.  She made a shirt for her husband once, but decided they could afford to buy men’s clothing.  So the husband and son wore all store-bought clothes.

Margene made her kitchen curtains, recovered chair cushions, pieced worn out clothing into quilts.  Most of this stitching, like the girls’ dresses, was done on the sewing machine.  It was faster, more efficient for the necessities of life, but Margene needed handwork to keep her busy after the supper dishes were done.

She did a little knitting and crocheting, but her real love was pulling a threaded needle through cloth.  That rhythm soothed her soul.  Embroidery met this need.  She could buy a transfer kit with a design on it, iron that ink onto her own fabric, and stitch away.  Or she could even buy a design already stamped on table linens or dish towels and get right to business.  The local five-and-dime sold cotton embroidery floss by the bushel, and even had some of the designs she liked.

This tablecloth was one Margene started, but never finished.  She was in the midst of it when she got the news that her son was killed in a car accident.  She tried, but could never bring herself to thread the needle for that project again.  After a long while, she did do other embroidery projects, but every time she picked this one up, her hands trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.  If she couldn’t see the design, how could she stitch it?

All the above is imaginative.  I don’t know anything about this project except I bought the unfinished tablecloth after looking at it in a favorite antique mall booth for months, maybe years.  At $17, it’s beyond what I normally spend on linens to cut apart and reuse, but the soft colors, the nice stitching, the possibilities, kept beckoning to me.

Here is the tag the vendor included with the piece.  Her linens are clean and pressed, and packaged to stay that way while on display.  I could see through the cellophane that there were traces of the stamped design that had not yet been stitched.  I could read between the lines of the tag that the vendor thought someone would buy the piece and finish the embroidery. 

I could do that.  I would enjoy doing that.  I might actually do that.  But it’s likely that I will include it in a quilt project with the design left as “Margene” stopped.  An open-ended story – so many possibilities.

The portrait is a discarded photo I found in a bin at another store.  I thought this lady had a story or two to tell.  Turns out, she had a tablecloth.

Since I’m sharing this again in honor of International Women’s Day, if you are a new reader, you might want to read about some of the real women who’ve influenced me:

Spinster Sisters is the story of two of my ancestors whose stories impacted my life from the day of my birth.

Quilting Sisters introduces you to two women who still influence me today. A site search for “Joyce” or “Hilda” will yield more stories of these women.