Happenings past, present and future

most of which has been and will be good.
I heard from my Mother... well you know--- mothers are bias when it comes to their daughters, so you have to take her report that I did really great in an interview that I haven't seen. The interview aired on a local cable station in Louisville where she lives, last night. The interview was done the day my solo show opened last summer by a reporter and taping crew for a new cultural and art show. As I understand it, that show made its debut in the Louisville market last night. The show was so long in coming that I had forgotten about it until I received an e-mail telling me about the air dates last week. So with me no longer living in Louisville I had to tell someone to watch and that someone was my Mother.
I will get a copy of the DVD when I am in Louisville next. Maybe I will find a way to put a little of it on by blog for anyone with an interest to see.

COMING UP:
I am the guest speaker for a quilt guilds in Marshall, MO. It is an anniversary luncheon, which will be a combo of a power point presentation, and trunk show.
My middle grand son brought all of my quilts home from the two shows in the Louisville area last week while I was away. I thought he was doing it just to be nice to his granny, but no, he was planning to come anyway to get a "puppy".
I'll have a piece in the upcoming bi-annual Booneslick Quilt Guilds show. Truth be know it is the only real quilt guild show I have attended in the last 6 years. The first time while visiting my daughter Lyn here in Columbia in 2004. I was invited to hang a piece in their 2006 show and one again this year.
Right know I am trying to mentally go through my inventory of work to see which piece I will donate for a live charity auction that benefits AIDS; a cause I have supported for a long time. This will be my first time to be involvedwith that particular charity here in Columbia. I've donated other pieces of my art from time to time to causes I believe in, but this will be the first time that I have been involved with a charity that shares the winning bid price with the artist in a 40-60 split. The artist gets the best of the split. Yeah!!!! So I am happy because in essence 40% is the commission I pay Bluestem Gallery here in Columbia for selling my work.

PAST MOVING TO PRESENT:
I returned home after being away 6 days at 1:00PM on Saturday. Since 2:oo PM Saturday, the 60 minutes it took me to unpack my suitcases, get my dirty clothes into the washer and change into my pj's I've been VEGGING OUT. Well vegging out sort of. I've done some knitting, read the latest issue of the SAQA Journal, answered some e-mail, returned some phone calls and read through my last weeks class notes. Maybe you know how unreadable scribbled notes get when they grow cold.
With my rapidly approaching 65Th birthday the old body isn't what it used to be and my knees know I spent 5 days going up and down a flight of steps and walking on concrete. But hey, I'd do it again in a heart beat... after all it's about me and my art.
RECENT PAST:
I spent 6 days in Columbus Ohio arriving there Sunday before last via Southwest Airlines. Now that I live in the middle of the state of Missouri it often takes me longer to get to the airport than it does for me to fly to the places I most often travel to. For example like when I go to Louisville at the beginning of next month to help jury Form Not Function.
From my front door where MoEx an airport transportation service picks me up and dropped me off at the doorway to Southwest 130 miles later, then allowing for the hour minimum suggested before departure time and the flight to Louisville which takes all of 55 minutes I spend about four hours in transit. Flying instead of driving saves 2, 2-1/2 to 3 hours depending on the number and length of pit stops I need to take. Of course the times saved also depends a great deal on how heavily I apply my foot to the gas pedal. At times my foot has been of the lead encased in concrete kind. Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!!
The flight to Columbus last week saved me a minimum of four hours. From my front door to the lobby entrance at the hotel in Columbus it was 4 hours flat. The pilot said we had a great tail wind and I got lost in the air port in Columbus to boot, looking for the ground transportation exit where the taxi's where located.
I've been to the Crow Barn for classes before, actually last week was the 6Th week of workshops I have taken there. I love the Crow Barn and how it is set up for creative learning in a totally supported way. This time I took a class with Leslie Morgan and Clare Benn, and loved the experience.
I am not showing you any of what I did during the week and I am not going to show any of what my fellow students did either. I think it is up to them to share their work with others. What I did while there wasn't anything to write about, my workshop art work never is. I never take a class entertaining the thoughts that I will do anything that is truly me with any new to me technique or process I learn until I have time to internalize the information and experiment in the comfort and familiarity of my own studio space. So you will have to wait a few months to get an idea of what I took away from the experience

This is my friend Valerie White in the middle; from Louisville, who met me there, the work you see in the back ground belongs to the instructors and this was on day 2, when they hung some of their completed work for us to see and they used theie art work to discuss the different surface design techniques they employ in their art. Very informative.

Leslie is on the left and Clare is on the right, although you can not see the work clearly, I loved this piece. Reminded you somewhat of Rothko, yummy rich colors using silk broadcloth which has become my newest fabric love. I'm afraid, I am going to put a dent in my art supply allowance this month making a purchase of at least a dozen yards, hummm.... maybe a bolt.

Here Claire is working with my friend Karen Davis, also of Louisville. She and Valerie drove up together. This type of work is Karen's forte and she took to this class and the techniques like a swan in a pond. I think she does wonderful stuff with personal meaning that doesn't smack you in the face with an "it's about me and I don't care if you get it or not" persona.

I've had a class or two with teachers I would never repeat, but these two ladies from England were a real treat and one I would repeat again.

And another good thing happened that added happily to the week. This is Debbie Baden on the right with Leslie Morgan on the left. I met Debbie on the Internet and exchanged a lot of e-mail with her, mostly while she was away from home visiting with her daughter in Washington state . I didn't know she was in the class and would be driving in from Maryland until about a week before the class. It was really great to put a voice to the face on her blog as well as to a name.

The apple crop on the Crow farm was "abundance on steroids" and I wish I had taken a picture of the trees swayed down with them. Needless to say, I ate a few while there and regretted not having room in the luggage to bring some home.