My Reward

Driving Highway 2 through Index on our way here yesterday, Peter suggested I needed to avoid the telephone poles. I think they add something to the photo! The mountains along the way were breathtaking.

Just outside Leavenworth, Washington ( on the eastern side of the state over Stevens Pass on Highway 2) along a road that meanders along through a rural neighborhood one comes to a fork in the road. Turn left for Sleeping Lady Resort was our choice and it is from here that I write: the only sound is YoYo Ma playing Cello (thanks to the amazing tiny speakers I purchased to attach to the iPod function on my iPhone!) and Peter turning the pages of his book as he lolls in a rocking chair in the corner of our beautiful cabin in the woods here along Icicle Creek. The sun comes late into this deep valley and it is casting beautiful light across the wooden floor. I am luxuriating in my reward for a few months of very hard work in my studio.

Last week at Larson's Mercedes Benz dealership showroom in Fife the 16th annual RAGS wearable art show and sale played itself out over 3 1/2 days. Those who organized ( the fabulous women of the RAGS Guild) and we artists who had spent the previous months creating our goods to sell, were cautiously hopeful that people would turn out again and make purchases - one third of which is given to the prevention and intervention programs at the YWCA of Pierce County. However we all know of the current economic challenges and I am guessing I was not the only artist who wondered if he/she would take back to their studio most of what they brought to sell. Our amazing $80,000 gift to the YW for each of the past 2 years we didn't think was possible to repeat.

The results for the whole show will not be known for a month when totals will be revealed at the YWCA's annual luncheon but I was thrilled to part with a major portion of the works I had created and many of the artists were likewise pleased. I am always grateful that people enjoy wearing my work and I have also learned to not be crushed when someone says "No thank you". My marathon days of cutting and sewing for sometimes as long as 12 hours were rewarded .. and now the restful days are here: my reward!

Sleeping Lady Resort is a unique place built by Harriet Bullitt ( see www.sleepinglady.com) in the mid 1990s and a place we have tried to come to a couple of times in the past, but not been able to get a reservation: the secret is to come in the off season. Nestled in the woods among the beautiful long needled pine trees you find on the dry side of the state, it is an ecologically conscious site with much to offer. It was my birthday gift from Peter, last birthday, to come here and so we are here to loll and do as little as possible for a few days.

In the corner of our little cabin is a telephone ;

what a relief that it isn't mine to answer but it

looks beautiful, in its own way, nestled there

in the morning light!

Walking out the door, the fragrance of the pines is amazing and one only has to look up through the needles of the tree outside the door to imagine the potential for creating something wonderful by interpreting those pine needles into a design ... but for now it is surely time for the first nap of the day.

Playing with jello!

If you were to ask me where I've been and what have I been doing, one of my answers might be - playing with jello! Not the gooey bright green, harrrowing yellow or terrifyingly bright red stuff of childhood delights. But the plain old, unflavored gelatin.
About a year ago my friend Colleen introduced me to "Gelatin Printing" following a reading by her of an article, by Jenn Mason, in the Jan/Feb. issue of 2008 periodical Cloth, Paper, Scissors (pages 14-16). Colleen is an amazingly creative paper artist who has a fabulous sense of color. Under her tutelage I began to play with this medium and after trying out paper images, I switched to making monoprints on fabric - I was hooked ... ( that terrible hackneyed expression follows) ... and the rest is history.
The accompanying images are of a garment I called - "Veiled and Unveiled" - (created for the competition mentioned in my previous entry) at the Larson Gallery at Yakima Valley Community College tiitled "Nature by Design: New Directions in Fiber and Jewelry. At this time I remain in the dark about whether or not my pieces were accepted. However the fun for me was in pushing myself to do something new and different. I usually avoid slithery fabrics like the plague! They have a mind all of their own underneath the needle of the sewing machine. The fabric is silk organza ( doesn't get much more slithery than that) and the cloak is meant to convey my thoughts about the amazing mysteries that go on inside our bodies ( design by nature) that we mostly are unable to see or feel or even know about. Just one example: one doesn't see the blood circulating through veins and arteries or the exchanges of nutrients or any one of millions of "events" going on constantly.And what is it that is allowing me to sit on this chair and tap my fingers on this keyboard? Not any one thing for sure ... but millions of events and most of us don't give a thought to any of these ongoing events.
Printing bodies and a few parts of bodies on gelatin and then onto the fabric gave very interesting images, which I found quite wonderful, and my delight was furthered by attaching them to the inside of the cloak - seen and unseen events going on "inside" - and hand stitching connections to the various body images. Difficult to describe but very challenging and in the end fun to do. Whether or not the jurors will think it's worthy of inclusion really doesn't matter - it was the pushing myself to do something new and different that made it all worth the effort. And the gelatin printing is an incredibly fun and inventive way to play: check it out.
And the other answer about what have I been doing - designing, cutting and sewing long hours for the RAGS, Wearable Art show and Sale to occur March 12,13,14 at the Mercedes Benz dealership in Fife. This event raises money for the Domestic Violence Programs at the YWCA Pierce County in Tacoma - our 16th year of raising funds for these very worthwhile projects. Hope to see you there.