Beyond Our World

I am a huge fan of Roots/Folk music - be it Americana, Brazilian or African. While there are many songwriters and performers I revere there is one whose words and music seem to reach me on a visceral level. Dave Carter (please do click on the link and read the informative review) was an educated mathematician who periodically left the world of numbers to seek spiritual guidance and musical creativity. Profoundly intelligent, accessible complexity and a magical connection with his partner Tracy Grammer mark Carter's recordings. Gentle Arms of Eden is one of their trademark tunes. My personal favorite is the song Ordinary Town from their Drum, Hat, Buddah CD - who can resist a song with the opening lines "Common cool, he was a proud young fool in a kick-ass wal-mart tie. Rippin down the main drag, trippin on the headlights rollin by"?

Dave Carter died (again I encourage you to read Wikipedia's entry about Dave) in Tracy's arms of a massive heartattack in July, 2002. I often miss the music he will no longer make but cherish the music he left behind.

FAMA

A cairns motif that morphed into a Garden of Eden image.....FAMA....Folk Art Modern Abstract. These pieces I'm doing may not have the sophistication of altered cloth art that features paints, foils, printing and inks but - darn - I like doing these. There's something about them that reaches deep down inside me....getting to the roots of something.

Progress

Happily working away here in Shawangunk Ridge land. The top piece is a closeup showing the bit of foiling I added to the whole cloth I've been altering. Right now the cloth has been painted, dyed, printed and foiled enough - the next step will be to quilt it. Probably free motion machine stitching but maybe with some added hand stitched details - we'll see. The bottom photo is of a larger cairns inspired piece that seems to have morphed into a bit of the Garden of Eden. This one will definitely get hand emboidery added - and maybe a snake image or two...we'll see.

Time to get back to work!

Nice 3 Day Weekend

This arrived on Saturday in the mail from a great textile/collage artist, Karen Stiehl Osborn http://www.karenstiehlosborn.com/ . We agreed to trade 4x6'ers and I think it was a WIN for me! Isn't this small piece of art marvelous? Lots of texture and depth. A really great addition to my growing collection. Thank you so much Karen!

I'm a Painter Wanna-Be so on Saturday I tried my hand at interpreting that squash photo I posted earlier in the week.

An artist's group I belong to was discussing Garden of Eden motifs....one painter had us in stitches (ha! only figuratively as I'm the only textile person in this group) over her thoughts on an image of an Angelina Jolie/Mother Theresa/Evil Snake image. Anyway, this discussion lead me to start this piece that will end up being at least 12x12" (double digits all around - yea). It uses all my hand dyed fabric and is hand appliqued. It's about ready for some free motion quilting and then the embellishments will start. It looks kind of cool in my mind's eye.