Never one to hesitate long about my next project… currently I have four waiting patiently in the back of my mind. And yet I decided to tackle right now, this week, this day… an altered book homage to my late parents.
I knew instantly which book to use for the base and that was my mother’s treasured book of etiquette. It was also the bane of my childhood existence for never was any question of impropriety ever answered without referring to what ‘Amy Vanderbilt has to say about that!’  A large part of my decision to do this now is  to seek closure on several sad events of last year. What better way to honor my parents and their life together than to gel medium it all into one sparkly volume?!
As if I did not have enough materials of my own last summer my sister graciously brought me a grocery bag full of photos of Dad. Yikes! Many were duplicates of what I already had. Photos of my youth, and his, as he was just 24 when I was born. Photos of my daughter’s youth which had been shared with the grandparents and had now returned home to their twin in my closet. As I began to fill up empty drawers  (out of sight, out of mind) with various photographs, paperwork, memorabilia it was easier and easier to pretend it was not there. Until I opened the drawers looking for something else and yikes… this deluge of paper does not agree with my feng shui sensibility!
The first step was to sort the photos by family, Dad, Mom, his siblings and parents, her siblings and parents, me, my sisters, our spouses and my daughter the token grandchild. This felt like an awesome accomplishment for maybe 24 hours. The next time I opened the drawer I still found photos but separated into manila envelopes by family. Big fat, bulging manila envelopes. OK, so not a super solution. Â The idea of doing the altered book came to me recently and in the past week I determined I need to do this now so I can clear the unused materials out of my office and my psyche.
Today I prepped two pieces of work to ship tomorrow and then cleared off my design table. Hubby brought me a 3 ft stool from the basement so I could sit while tackling this awesome task. I got out all my tools, small cutting mat (which is odd since I am already working on a 4′ x 8′ mat!) exacto knife, gel medium, brushes, wax paper and heavy books to weigh down drying, glued objects. Then I hauled all the ingredients into the studio, photos, papers, etc.
I further sorted as to timeline. I was all set to start but nothing was happening. How could I start at the beginning? Why can’t I start in the middle? I was overwhelmed by beginning. So I turned on the TV as distraction and found endless Oprah wisdom on spirituality on the OWN channel. I especially loved the ‘man of God’ saying we need not be in church on Sunday morning. We may indeed be involved in spiritual growth elsewhere. Well yes as a matter of fact I am…
I cut, glued, pressed, stitched, glued and weighted. I started at the beginning and then skipped some pages. Eventually I leaned into it and while other pages were drying I made individual collages which later when dry and flat can be cut and glued in place. Ah yes, this really got the juices flowing because there is no structure, no order, no perfect arrangement just cut and paste. After several hours that just zipped by the piles were now well enmeshed into each other. The timeline was becoming more muted and I decided to take a short break at the computer. And then the strangest thing happened. Â I lost the TV remote.
Under piles of countless black and white photos of me with my chubby legs and sunbonnet, Dad in his Army uniform and Mom walking the dog, handwritten notes and biographies, negatives and positives, postcards, wedding announcements, photos on Santa’s knee, buttons, snaps, yarn and conference pins I had misplaced the remote. I don’t know why but this gave me the greatest chuckle as if the remote were to be a part of the collage.
Let alone the irony of creating chaos in pursuit of orderliness. Hmmm…wonder what Amy Vanderbilt would say about that?
total knee replacements in the past year and a half, the loss of my aged father and my husband’s health issues my muse has hit the road.  I have been able though to do creative bits and pieces here and there but the big work just stares back from the wall. The smaller tasks do not necessarily fill my creative well but get things done.
Creative interruptions have been happening at lightening pace. While I am drawn to writing as an emotional release publishing it to the web has not been a priority so I’ve been blog-tardy.
A funny thing happened on the piece I have been working on for the past month or so. Originally I sketched an idea and made a pattern using the overhead projector. Then one day after sewing one too many curved seams it took a literal 90 degree turn!  Obviously the muse wanted something else to happen here.
Last week I began to work with a personal trainer to build muscles and strength that I have neither had nor used in almost five decades. Immediately I felt empowered by what I actually can do and that IÂ ‘exceeded expectations for your age.’
This summer so far has been an E-ticket ride! My elderly father died three weeks ago and I am having my second knee replaced in just two days. I have been tossing about like a cork in water with little direction this past month. Yesterday was my father’s memorial and it was great, a wonderful send-off that I think he would have enjoyed. It was such a fantastic reminder about living life to the fullest which I tend to do when I am not over-working or over-worrying. I am physically and emotionally drained though and am now actually looking forward to a few days of forced bed rest!
It was a funny cut, really long in the body with armholes cut to fit a small child. I took it apart and re-sewed then asked a man watching a baseball game to photograph it and thus we have this image quality!
he current exhibit “Beyond the Comfort Zone: New Directions in Quilting” for which I also served as a juror. My talk was on increasing the odds for having one’s work juried into an art exhibit of any kind. I gave this same lecture 6 times last year at a national conference and twice regionally since. Each time I give it I come away with a bit more knowledge than I had going in.
in July. I am now working backwards from that date, taking care of details like working my fiscal year hours at 
no one got hurt) and approached it again a few days later with the idea that if I still got that feeling it would come down off the wall and I would begin anew with something that made my heart sing. I was so surprised when during my second attempt at designing the path I was overcome with joy at the result. It also could have been just stepping out of the chaos of driving 1000 auto miles in two weeks to being back in my sacred space.
much to my surprise I had designed nearly 200 pieces in 12 years. This number both comforted and disturbed me as I had been fretting quite a lot with the volume of work I put out into the Universe and what would happen to my inventory when I am no more. Documenting it actually seemed to calm me down a bit. And then I read this from