Carol Larson - textile artist

Since I received my Quilt National rejection while on vacation, it seems to matter less! It was just another e-mail to leaf through on my way to supposedly doing my homework, which is the REAL reason I hauled the laptop through the airport. So far no homework has been done, but I have answered e-mails and played games while listening to the guys at CNN talk about doomsday.

Today I bought a fabulous reversible silk jacket, when the 10 day projection of 85+ degrees turned to a windy 60. Brrr. At least I will look fashionable on my way to the poor house! One would think that by my age one would know to toss in a jacket anyway, no matter what the weather clowns say, but alas I have acquired some awesome clothes all over the world, when I was unprepared.

Before we came I worried about the bottom falling out of the economy and being STUCK in St. Louis. Right now, I can say that would probably be okay… at least until the snows come. It is a beautiful, clean city with lots to do. Springfield, IL though…that is another story.

Back to the QN rejection. I find the whole scenario a bit surreal. Most of this year I told myself I was not going to enter because there are higher odds at the craps table in Vegas! And yet I did, sure that this year the work was unusual enough to get in. While I don’t have the images on my laptop, two of the 3 are on my website here and here. The third one I am remiss in designing the page and photographing.

Meanwhile I am enjoying St. Louis, arguing with McCain lovers at lunch (we are on an Elderhostel trip), seeing the sights, eating like a bird with all my food allergies and plotting tomorrow afternoon’s escape to the reknowned Craft Alliance. If you truly want to feel younger, hang out with old folks!

I made my self-imposed deadline with a day to spare! When I volunteered months ago to work on two separate SAQA exhibits, little did I know the deadlines would run head on into my vacation. One would think I would plan my vacation accordingly and I did, until a wedding we wanted to attend came up, right in the middle of our planned time away. So we postponed the trip and it never occurred to me that the exhibit deadline was looming. Although if it had, it would have served no purpose whatsoever to tell hubby dearest that we had to reschedule our vacation AGAIN because of a deadline on my volunteer project!

So my plan was to get the images and spreadsheets to the juror for the exhibit I am curating BEFORE I left on vacation. And to make the next deadline on the other exhibit, after I came back!

Yesterday and most of today I have been checking, cross-checking, formulating, re-formulating, and disqualifying entries & images ad nauseum. It is remarkable how many people (18 actually) simply do not read the rules. We all know people don’t read, but this is basic stuff, like no 3-D work. Hello?

Now, all is done, the CD burned & labeled, the FedEx envelope ready to go in the morning. Before I leave I can relax and then come back to the next project with the next deadline, which I imagine after a vacation will seem less important! Come November, right after the election, I can exhale.

One of the very best parts of this kind of volunteerism is I always learn something! I am quite tech saavy and yet mostly self-taught and yet I have learned more quirky things about Excel and Word throughout this process.

I just emerged from the basement where I was painting a second pair of chucks, this week! The first pair, shown here, was formerly a pillow ticking stripe. It was an ok shoe, that I jazzed up with striped grosgrain ribbon for shoelaces, but still they were a bit too yuppie looking for me! So I masked them off for resist and painted three colors of Lumiere! I thought they were pretty ugly until the big reveal, and then I was so enamored, I immediately taped off a pair of grey/brown camouflage. Those are the pair I just painted.

Everytime I go to my basement dye studio, I am reminded how very much I love surface design. And yet I seldom devote much time to doing it. I suppose part of the reason is it is downstairs! If I walked past it daily, I might remember more often to go down there and play! All last winter I groused it was too cold down there; but when the hot summer came, I still don’t go down to play. I guess I need to put it on the calendar and make an appointment to indulge my passion.

Since I am wrapped up with obligations, two short trips, a Powerpoint class, and two SAQA exhibits (one curator and the other data entry) between now and late October, I will pencil it in for November 1st. Or maybe I should wait until after the election…

Yet if the voters don’t have the sense to elect new gov’t, that could really ruin my peace of mind, knowing that more and more of the fat cats will keep on getting fatter… (don’t you love these transitions?)

So this is my latest gripe! I really and truly try to remain an optimist in spite of all that is wrong in the world and more specifically this country. But this latest news that the Feds have decided the gov’t, aka the taxpayers can bail out these failing financial institutions just sends me over the edge!!! Does it not make much more sense to tap the ga-zillionaire CEOs to rescue these companies??? I mean how much money can one spend anyway? I don’t know that there is enough stuff to actually buy, enough kids to educate, enough charities to underwrite. Why can’t these fat cats bail out their own companies? Apparently we taxpayers have sucker tattoo’d on our foreheads, and how deep the ink shade sorely depends on who we plant in the White House next January.

Moving to Canada looks all the more appealing every day. Until then I am voting Obama-Biden and I don’t care who knows it! I’ve got my patriotic shoes to prove it!!!

Some of us who were around BEFORE computers (aka BC) heard some distant rumor that technology was going to lessen our paperwork piles! I beg to differ. I am forever sorting through papers on my desk. Granted, I am fairly organized so they don’t really look like the cartoon, but enough already! Someone once told me that most everything can be tossed because we can readily find it again on the internet. To look at my files, it is clear I don’t fully believe this.

In addition to the paper files, I also have too much saved to folders on my computer. I have every e-mail anyone sends me about some committee I am on, lest I have to prove something. That must be a hangover from being called a liar as a kid. Enough already. How much space is this taking up on the hard drive? I can see saving e-mails that are really important, like a perceived threat, but these hardly fall into that category.

I just finished sorting the pile one more time. In it I found all kinds of articles and tidbits I have saved for whenever I need them. Well, I just got a really great idea. I should write some of them here, and then when I need them I can archive the blog! Or another, write all the tidbits into a Word file and then file it, only to delete it down the road when I am again clearing paperwork. Ay yi yi…

In the meantime, just remember these words of wisdom…from Virginia Ironside writing on being 60 years young,(for AARP magazine, mind you!)and sitting out the Rolling Stones latest tour…

I’ve been young, worn the T-shirt and thrown it away, Indeed…I was even kissed by Mick Jagger, the man who at this very moment set to embark on another exhausting tour, leaping into the air with his creaky joints as he belts out “Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ for the millionth time. I’ve had enough sex, drugs and rock and roll to last me a lifetime and I’m due for a change. Being young for me is just boring and out of date!

The entire article is a full page and wonderful. Google “sorry Mick, I’ll just sit this one out” and you might find it to read the whole thing. In the meantime, I am recycling this piece of paper!

Rayna, here you go, the entire piece! This was designed from some of the pieces I showed in Tubac, that were samples from the Kerr Grabowski deconstructed screen-printing workshop. I screened with shredded paper beneath the screen. Then I pieced with some wacko neon digitized stash fabric, batiks & other hand-dyes, and stitched it with letter shapes. Still something was missing, so a couple of months ago I took it back downstairs and screened letters on top! Since I had previously titled it Graffiti, I decided it needed more writing. I think it helped although I am unsure whether the detail is not far more interesting than the finished piece!

We bought a replacement vehicle on Friday, right smack in the middle of the worst economy in ages. I had been nudging husband dearest to buy for at least two years. We needed to desperately replace his 20 yr old Volvo LOU, with it’s broken odometer and gas gauge. He kept a post it on the dashboard and calculated the tank’s volume by adding miles he guessed he had driven. The odometer stopped at 234,600 but he guessed it was actually over 250,000. The driver’s door handle often worked and more frequently didn’t, so he usually kept the window open to reach through and open the door. And he wouldn’t allow me to drive it anymore, because even he could not get it into first gear! So last week when the annual registration arrived, I gave another nudge saying why should we put another $68 into this car? Finally, he heard me.

His justification was it had a sound engine (and body) and was good for tooling around town. He also tooled to Tahoe for various ski club activities and tooled all over the Bay Area. We left it at airports when we didn’t want to take “the good car” which now has been promoted to the old car!

Although he did drive one Volvo from cradle to grave, this one we inherited. We bought it for our daughter when she was riding the bus through the ghetto in Philly while in college. Her Dad’s reasoning was she was safer in an old car on the freeway than on a bus in the ghetto. The car was ten years old, then, which is middle-aged by Volvo standards! She drove it across the US four times. When she grew up and had a job, she bought herself a decent car and my husband inherited her old car. We sent our then cradle to grave car (a 16 yr old Honda) to charity and took the then 16 yr old Volvo because it had a more sound engine.

Do you see a trend here?! We always say we are bad Americans, because we buy a new car every 15-20 years, whether we need it or not! So last week we bought a lease return Nissan Murano to replace his old LOU, as my husband thinks it will be easier for me to get in and out. While I am dazzled that it does everything but wash itself, I am seriously missing my former “good” car with its 5 speed tranny. I have already learned that when I stop and take my foot off the brake, as is my custom, the car keeps moving! And that my left foot instinctly goes to the floor when I start the car.

And I am feeling buyers remorse in that I, the queen of green, the person who every week has just 1/2 grocery bag of trash with everything else in recycling am now driving a SUV! Yikes, I would have hoped for a Vespa or a hybrid, but no, I am now in the lap of luxury in a (smallish) SUV.

When my husband retired from the fire dept, he picked up a part time gig driving cars for the auto dealers. So he has driven them all. I trusted his judgment on this one, as he was most impressed with this car. I am patiently waiting until I am most impressed as well, without any guilt about not buying green!

At last summer’s annual art festival, I got wind of several artists opening a cooperative gallery downtown. So I spoke to the two powers that be about bringing in my work with the hopes of being approved for membership. When the photographer asked my medium, I said textiles. Oh fiber, he said. We don’t take fiber. To which I said what form of fiber, to which he responded we don’t take fiber, this is a fine art gallery! So I walked away thinking how arrogant and ill-informed he was, and how much larger my role was to educate both gallery owners and particularly other non-fiber artists about our chosen medium.

As a result of that conversation, I have boycotted said gallery until today. After lunch with a friend, we walked around a bit, and happened into said gallery. It is quite well done with lots of brick walls and many, many poorly painted dark gray walls; and miles and miles of painting and photography. I enjoyed looking at much of the work, but could not help thinking how some textiles would really break up the monotony of the place.

As we walked in, we were greeted by two artists conversing. One stopped their conversation to say he hoped we brought our checkbooks with us today. That comment put me off that I would not have bought so much as a postcard while there! To me, desperation does not sell anything, let alone art. For example, the girls who get invited to prom are not the ones sitting home wringing their hands hoping SOMEONE, anyone will invite them! Rather it is the ones who act like they could care less, bucko! Don’t ask me where I got that example. I must have channeled the inner tallgirl.

I suppose there are some who would buy anything, just because the man suggested it, but not me. All I need is one aggressive salesperson selling anything, and I am out the door! And I have noticed this trend with people selling art, craft, crocheted toilet paper covers anything at craft fairs and festivals. The ones who are standing there complaining to the adjacent vendor about how slow business is are not attracting any customers. Duh!!!

Some might say the guy just made an innocent comment, but to me it was an act of desperation. Please come buy my art because I am paying too much for this space and have not recovered my investment. There I have said it, please, please, please help me. He might as well have been sitting outside holding a cup.

Further, now I am glad my work is not in there! Would I want Mr. Desperation speaking for me and my art? Well, maybe if I got a sale out of it!!!

Earlier this year, I agreed to be curator for an upcoming exhibit sponsored by SAQA. The most obvious reason I agreed was how splendiferous it would look on my growing artist resume! Now that the submission deadline of Sept 15 is on the horizon, I am being bombarded with questions. And I have figured out that being curator is really (wo)manning the information desk.!!!

One of the things I find so immensely curious is several have gone to great lengths to locate my telephone number. My e-mail was listed on the prospectus and website should artists have questions. And yet several people have phoned to ask me their question of the day. So far there has not been a question, the answer of which was not printed in the prospectus.

The incredible irony in all of this is I am a visual learner. I skim most everything I read and really have to use GREAT discipline when I submit to exhibits myself, to make sure I have covered every detail. Why it often takes me as long to complete an exhibit submission as it does to book a flight to Europe! And yet, I can’t say that I ever have e-mailed or called a curator and asked, when is the deadline, where do I send it? when will I know if my work got in? what kind of work does the juror like? or can you resize my images for me?

This particular exhibit is for members whose work has not been exhibited in the past three years with SAQA. Clearly, there are many who have never submitted to an exhibit anywhere before.

Oh well, it keeps me from obsessing about Caribou Barbie!

After years of vacillation, yesterday I bought a laptop! There is nothing that makes me feel really old like new technology. Interspersing delight is the occasional panic of how in the world am I going to figure this out?! Then I remember alot of really stupid people are using laptops so how hard can it be, really? Other than entering the wrong code to get onto the wireless network, so far so good.

I have wanted a laptop so I can travel and take design courses; and to break away from the exhorbitant media fees on my PDA. Part of my hesitation has been in the justification of why I really need one! Even last week my husband asked why did I need a laptop?

One of the greatest things about finally being empowered is I don’t have to justify anything!!! Since I became legal 42 years ago, I have justified everything, because that was how I was raised. Over the years I have had women friends who didn’t justify or rationalize, and I was always so impressed. Somewhere after 50 I began to shift my perspective and now at 60 I just don’t care!!! Why I need a laptop is because I want one. And it is much cheaper than a new Mercedes, dear!

So now I am killing time on two computers…oh, I forgot that is multi-tasking! I am installing software on the laptop while I do e-mail. Ironically, this weekend I have SO much to do, and yet this is what I am doing…playing with my new toy because I choose it!

And while acquiring any new technology is always a bit scary for me, it is very gratifying to my weary brain that I STILL can figure out most of this stuff. I like to say I am tech saavy, but in reality a lot of times, it is on a wing and a prayer.

When I first retired from a steady paycheck nine years ago, my WASP work ethic chose to peruse the classifieds on a regular basis, although I was not seriously looking for a job. Part of it was habit, part of it was guilt that at age 50, I really should be employed and part of it was boredom. After a couple close calls, submitting resumes and having interviews, I suddenly got it that if life was a freeway, these were the off-ramps.
This perpetual pursuit of a legit job, as opposed to the life of an artist were the distractions on the freeway of life. From then on, every time I came up with a good idea as an avoidance to making art, I remembered the off-ramps.

And distractions, I have had!!! The easy and familiar route is to take the paying job; the challenge of the bumpy route is to stick with the passion of making art. That is what nearly a decade of “retirement” has taught me.

So today, it came to me again! I was sorting through a stack of papers in a file, looking for a specific one. In the pile, I found three calls for public art submissions. And immediately I visualized that old familiar off-ramp!

Already I have submitted two public art proposals. It is an interesting process and excellent experience. My work was not chosen for either one, which did not surprise me. In another, my local community had a call for exterior art for a new firehouse, construction of which has been delayed due to lack of funds. I had a fabulous idea, of creating a woven sculpture of worn fire hoses, but could not begin to fathom how to construct it for exterior purposes. I envisioned blowing stucco or concrete onto this form and then hanging it with what??? To apply for this opportunity would have required a lot of research into construction, procurement of worn firehoses, hanging apparatus, architecture, zoning, etc. A lot of time invested in something that might not even materialize, no pun intended.

When a friend said she does not do exterior art, her words reminded me that I already love the art I am making. I love doing the surface design techniques and creating abstract interior art.

So while I recognize these public art projects hold some promise, I also acknowledge they are not an off-ramp distraction I want right now. Instead I want to focus on pulling together so many of the other things I already know and do. It is interesting to me that while the off-ramp names have changed (from legit jobs to different venues for art) they still serve the same purpose. As an artist, I could do it all, but I choose not to.

Today I have begun the stitching on the piece above. It is a bit tedious and yet what I want to be doing! Toss in a little Chris Spheeris on the boom box and away I go…