Creative Life Sampler

Happy Halloween, All! I've been wanting to share the work of my sister-in-law, Debbie Schmidt, for awhile. When I was visiting with her recently, she had her home decorated for Halloween, and I thought "Now's the time!" (The inside ) Several years ago her husband, Scott, gave Debbie a decorated box and she became interested in creating some herself. So, they took a class together on decorating cigar boxes. Scott takes care of details like lining the boxes and Debbie decorates them. You wouldn't even know they once held cigars.                                         Alice and Wonderland  themed Halloween boxes These sturdy boxes come in many shapes and sizes. Their original color or packaging design can serve as inspiration for the final product, or the boxes can be treated as a blank canvas for some new theme. Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven themed boxes Top, interior, and bottom  Supplies can come from all kinds

More to see in Lowell (2 of 2) From the Quilt Museum we hopped on to the trolley to visit the Boott Cotton Mills Museum, a National Historic Park in Lowell. An added benefit of my "history of quilting" summer reading has been a better understanding of the evolution of textiles in the US. So, it was really cool to see where much of textile history was made. You enter this factory-turned-museum and step back in time. Boott Cotton Mill was put into production in the mid-1830's. Young women composed the majority of the mill's workforce in Lowell. Given the machinery they were dealing with during very long days, their clothing, and even their hair styles, could be a liability in their work. This was a time when severe work injuries were common, when workers' rights and a fair living wage were a distant dream. Imagine the noise level when all these machines are at full function...now imagine exposure to this environment for up to 14 hours a day!

Travel Log - Fall 2018 continued (1 of 2) The New England Quilt Museum  ( building on the right) So I reconnected with a friend while I was in Massachusetts and she took me to Lowell, home of the New England Quilt Museum. They were featuring three special exhibits. The first was a presentation by several quilters who displayed an example of their work along side a description of the techniques used to produce it. The quilters described methods, like hand painting or piecing curves, which inspired the viewer to try something new. This quilt by Timna Tarr is entitled Mississippi Meander and the  instructions  accompanying it outlined how she hand appliquéd and machine quilted it. The large scale work of Susan Carlson included this piece that covered an entire wall. She uses bright, vibrant, beautiful fabrics to depict subjects from nature (among other things).  Then there was the smaller scaled needlework work of fiber artist Sally Mavor- her work caught

More to See in Cambridge  (3 of 3) We wandered in Cambridge around the MIT campus, which, as you might expect, has a modern "techi"  look to it. Check out the ceiling on the entrance to this new building... and these images from a microscope used as art work on the lobby walls at the Koch Institute... interesting textures and colors. Then there's the practical stuff.  We ran across these inventive solar powered USB ports to recharge your devices as you sit on a park bench in the sun... and you know I will always make note of a mini library!  This one had all kinds of reading materials, including textbooks. But the most exciting find of the day was this alley off a main street where we stumbled on grafitti artists busy at their work.  The funny thing was we smelled the fumes of the spray paint before we even saw the alley!  😝 I wonder how many layers of paint there are on those walls? How many hours spent in

Autumn on the Streets of Boston / Cambridge (2 of 3) My view out the car window on the way into Boston-  great to see some autumn colors again! Of course, once we got into the city, I had to document some colorfully painted electric boxes in different styles... elaborate murals with wonderful color combinations... . and graphics that might not even be noticed by the pedestrians at ground level.

Travel Log- New England, Fall 2018   (1 of 3) I had the opportunity to tag along on a business trip to the east coast recently. It is so cool to walk off the plane and see something creative welcome you to your destination. It reminds me to activate my creativity radar, to keep my eyes open for the ways people try to beautify and enhance their environments.

Reflections of an Art Student ( 4 of 4)   A Visual Travel Journal Enter the “critique”, where everyone lines up their work in front of the class for everyone else to see…and evaluate. Then one by one each artist is identified with their work, the professor makes  observations and recommendations and the rest of the class is able to contribute their input. There is a give and take in the conversation, an exchange of ideas. My guess is that this is still the way art classes work, because, at it’s best, it is a very productive way to learn and grow. It can also be very emotional. Studies from an art guild model session At turns the “crit” can be exhilarating and humiliating, discouraging and encouraging, positive and negative, and all together draining. When students in other fields get back a marked up paper or a test with an unexpected grade, they have the luxury of a private moment to deal with whatever emotions this feedback churns up. Not so the art student. This is

Reflections of an Art Student   (3 of 4) More sketchbook drawings So, this was a revelation, the fact that there are adults out there who have held on to the impression they had in college that art was a less “serious” major. Like all false impressions, undervaluing the art student (or anyone else) starts with a quick initial assessment: “that person is not like me”, which in many instances is followed by “… so they are weird…”. Then we look for things to support that analysis. But it would be a pretty boring world indeed if we all had the same interests and talents. To begin building bridges of understanding and mutual respect between people, it helps to examine what we have in common. Let me provide some perspective. One thing we all have in common is the desire to pursue our interests and refine our talents. I didn’t know anyone planning to go from high school to college who wasn’t looking forward to the freedom of not dealing with subjects they didn’t particular

Reflections of an Art Student   (2 of 4) A page from my travel sketchbook It wasn't until three or four years ago that it occurred to me that people might not think of a degree in art as much of an accomplishment. I was having a conversation with a friend whose child was choosing to get a bachelor of arts degree and she asked me if I ever felt judged for only having a degree in the arts. Now, I'm not going to say that I was unaware of people in college who dismissed the arts and, by extension, the study of them. But I really never thought that attitude would find footing after I left the sheltered halls of collegiate life. Let's face it, though the college experience can be mind expanding, you're still dealing with a very young adult community that has extremely limited real life experience. One might expect more of people once they are exposed to the "real world". As for me, I always assumed that everyone who took the time to study any subject wa

Reflections of an Art Student    (1 of 4) Rummaging around in the closet, I came across a bunch of old sketchbooks that span several years of my art work after college graduation. They are filled with drawings of people, places, and things; vacation destinations, views from a window and every day items. I suddenly had a flashback to the first day of drawing class. As we fresh faced, eager freshmen began our college careers, the professor soberly informed us that we might as well come to terms with the fact that "99.9 percent of the work you will produce this year" would end up in the trash can. After a moment of stunned silence, he then reassured us that it would all be worth the effort when we produced that .1% that was really good. When I look through these sketchbooks, I can see the process unfolding. I see the stumbling, mistakes, and corrections in the rough sketches, which document how I was translating what I saw to the two dimensional surface. All neces

Linen Closet-Autumn Quilt For this quilt I went with an autumnal theme. It was pieced back in 2000, when we were still on the east coast, and it was finished on the west coast in 2009... so, it's a bi-coastal creation. (Pardon the awkward picture: it's king size and very heavy, which makes it difficult to display for photography.)   I don't remember where the pattern came from. My guess is I saw the pattern at some point and decided to recreate it using a stash of fall foliage fabrics to pay homage to the colorful season of autumn. Take a good look at this detail, and try to figure out what the basic block was. There are actually a couple of ways to construct this look...   The first unit was the square made of 4 triangles, set on their point as diamonds. Then came the four smaller squares, on a pale beige leaf background, for the basic block.  The sashing between the blocks is made up of squares, rather than a single stripe of color. From a dista

Sewing Skills Utilized- Shower Gift A wedding shower last weekend! What a great opportunity to be creative!!!  😊 When we were getting married, a couple gave us a set of aprons: mine was sewn by the wife, my future husband's apron was sewn by the husband. This idea has become one of my favorite gifts for wedding showers. For this set of aprons, I found two coordinated fabrics, a solid and a plaid. It's a simple pattern, but I dressed it up with a machine appliquéd heart across the top left side, then switched up the pockets for an accent. Fun for the newly wed couple... those who cook together, eat together,- happy togetherness, right?