Carol Larson - textile artist

My grandmother used to talk about the changes in her lifetime; how when she was born the toilet was outside and there was no electricity…probably for good reason related to the outhouse. By the time she died, most in her family had a personal computer. So many changes in her 88 years…

Why I remember back in the olden days at my first job, post-college, when the company had a special climate controlled room dedicated to these mammoth structures which spun tapes and spewed punched cards. It was the computer room and rumored to change our future. The folks who worked that room were all a bit mysterious to us as we labored with our modern electric typewriters and push button desk phones.

Fast forward 40 years and suddenly it seems the advent of technology is becoming the burden of humankind. How quickly we went from the dedicated computer room to nearly every home in America having a personal computer to every soul having a laptop, digital camera, cellphone/PDA, iPod/MP3 player, GPS, bluetooth, portable hard-drive, cards and card readers up the whazoo, and Kindle/E-Reader so instead of taking a book on your flight, you can read tiny electronic print and further ruin your eyesight.

What happened to technology making life easier? It seems to me it has created a minefield of more technology, more stuff, more waste, more chargers and more piles and piles of toxic plastics and other unpronoucable substances to the already burdened landfills.

Last year on a flight somewhere with a friend we had a chat with a pediatrician in the boarding-waiting area. He was spelling out last minute orders to some Mom on his cellphone before he boarded the plane and my friend remarked how much we have come to rely on technology. He said that he expected before the end of his lifetime, we would all be walking around with sweat-band shaped structures on our skull, that carried all our electronic information.

No more laptops, digital camera, cellphone/PDA, iPod/MP3 player, GPS, bluetooth, portable hard-drive, cards and card readers up the whazoo, or Kindle/E-Reader. All of humankind will be wearing these space-aged metallic bands around our head to communicate.

Maybe after that science will figure out a way to hard-wire kids in utero so they are born with chips in their cranium? Or has that already been done in Hollywood? Until then, I will be programming my PDA to communicate with my car’s GPS instead of taking a simple folding map on our next road trip. And searching amongst the 7 chargers in the drawer so I can connect to the mothership while away.

One fine bonus of technology however, is the itinerant blogging daughter who is traveling in Europe at present. She has always been a fabulous writer so her posts are chock full of great adjectives, photos, punch…and food. Sheesh. I have never seen blogs so obsessed with food! Well… I take that back, some of ‘yous’ at conferences post a lot of food culture! Perhaps it is because she is vegan and vegans, like diabetics, become obsessed about their next meal. From the read of it, this gal is eating her way through Europe!

How could I resist that title?!

Today I delivered my first Tall Girl Series: A Body of Work powerpoint presentation. And it was a huge success! A friend asked me to speak to her art quilt mini group. It was the perfect crowd for my maiden voyage. A lot of friendly faces plus one very experienced at teaching and giving powerpoints to give me some very helpful and friendly suggestions on presentation. It was great!

So much surprised me. Because this subject has long been the forbidden topic of my family, I have been pleasantly surprised over and over again as to how people receive this story. I keep waiting for the person who says what the hell do you think you are doing? No one did.

I received my first positive reaction about 15 years ago when my employer’s mother said it was the most barbaric thing she had ever heard! Wow, barbaric, I thought, was it that bad?! Since then I have been telling my story to various folks and generally getting positive responses. I have heard someone read my book and had nothing to say, even when asked. That tells me more about her than myself. Everyone has a story to tell and many are not yet ready.

This afternoon, a retired MFCC gave me kudos on doing this body of work to heal myself and handling it so ‘beautifully.’ There were many questions afterwards, and who doesn’t like to talk about themselves?! I loved that part, I am embarrassed to admit.

One of the most curious questions was a woman asking why if I were an artist did I choose to illustrate my book with quilts?! I beemed with pride that my marketing of myself as an artist rather than as a quilter is working.

Mostly what I gleened from this experience is I am on the right track. I am on the path I am supposed to be on. And after all this hard work of preparation in writing, designing, stitching, grieving and procrastination, now the fun part begins!

With my initial whining about it past, I decided to enlist in a new visioning project through an art organization to which I belong. I just finished my initial input, writing on a Wiki, a semi-public place what my goals are and how I plan to achieve them.

I always have had goals, personal and artistic, most of which I keep to myself. This is leftover from my days of being a smoker. No one knows if you fail if you do not share your goals! Fortunately, an unshared goal of 28 years ago led me to being an ex-smoker. So for me to go public with this goal is major!

The reason I decided to go public and participate in this project is: I just might learn something. Part of my being a successful professional artist has been to isolate myself, to become somewhat of a recluse. That being said, I do not have the resources and answers to all my questions. Additionally I may just meet (in cyber-space) some really wonderful artists.

Yet I am not of the rah-rah, cheer-leading, team mentality. I have had it up to here with workshops and seminars on how to influence people to do what they don’t really want to do. I avoid any gathering with ‘team player’ in the description. That being said, I am leading myself to the slaughter!

On a brighter note, my traveling daughter has written from Stockholm that she has my Marimekko socks ‘in the bag.’ It’s hard for a tallgirl to find beautiful socks, so I am thrilled she has fulfilled my one request. I am envisioning pretty feet!

A friend and I were recently scouting treasure at a thrift shop in a nearby town. This shop benefits a senior center and they accept only ‘arts & crafts supplies’ as donations. It is very difficult for any artist to just donate goods as one has to step into the belly of the beast to get their tax receipt. And that of course always requires a quick perusual of the inventory! On that particular trip I found two hand-woven remnants, a silk hankerchief and some rice flour sacks, all of which found their way to the dye-pot!

I am absolutely smitten with this piece Interwoven. It was clearly someone’s loving hand-woven sampler. I know this because I too was a hand-weaver once upon a time. They probably thought this sampler was poetry in motion, but I saw it as needing lots and lots of color. Two dye baths and 3 layers of paint later, poetry happened! Then I had a senora moment when I forgot how hand-woven creeps when stitched. So to further show how much I was smitten, I patiently removed ALL of the quilting stitches, over a week of TV watching, then re-blocked it and pressed a stable interfacing to the back and stitched once more. Perfection!

The funny thing about me and thrift shops is I was raised on retail. My daughter on the other hand has always been into 2nd hand. She was wearing 2nd hand long before it was chic whereas I always saw thrift stores primary purpose simply as a depository for my used clothing!

So along comes Lynn and she always wants to stop at some thrift shop in search of a particular item, usually non-cloth related. (yeah, blame Lynn!) Instead cloth whores that we are we always empty the place of their stash of linens. The last place we went to she bought 9 cotton tablecloths and I bought 3. I passed on the linen napkins, leaving something for other people. She had gone in looking for forks, but after finding the tablecloths to dye, who had money for forks?!

Heatwave I is exactly how my body feels these days. A combination of too much garlic, curry and chipotle collided with a recent heatwave to send my body heat index into overdrive. This is like a hot flash that never stops. And while I look perfectly normal, this is how I feel! As the acupuncture poster child right now, I look forward to soon producing a cool blue piece of work.

More new work can be found on my website

I am shocked when I see I haven’t posted in nearly two weeks. In the history of this blog, I don’t think I have ever been silent so long. The most peculiar aspect of this is I can’t recall what has kept me occupied for the past two weeks, except just life!

I have been proofing a PowerPoint for an exhibit that I am curating. And I have been putting the finishing touches on the Tall Girl PowerPoint, including some slides of where I work. People seem to have interest in that. So here you have some paint!

I also bought a digital projector. This one is on the cutting edge of technology where it reads a card of images as opposed to hooking up to a laptop, which it can do too. Usually when I buy technology whatever it has is the next OLD thing, not on the cutting edge, so I am suitably impressed.

Yesterday most of my proposed in-studio day succumbed when my panicked husband lost his cellphone. The incredible irony in this is he has an appointment to have his memory tested, tomorrow. Because he sorely needed to upgrade his phone but was previously unwilling to commit to gasp! new technology, his hand was now forced. So we bought him a new basic Nokia. Today’s basic is cutting edge compared to the basic of 3 years ago! Now he is on the cutting edge, whether he wants to be or not. As luck would have it, last night our neighbor found his old phone out by the trash can!

Meanwhile our daughter got a round-trip ticket for a song and flew off to Europe yesterday for 3 weeks. I thought her logic was so perfect. When she has the money to go on vacation, she has no time! So now that she has the time she went to Europe. And best of all she is posting a trip blog so I can keep a watchful eye.

Next week her BF is off on an adventure of his own so hubby and I get to dog-sit Molly for a week. Molly is a special pooch, gifted perhaps; a “bug” (boxer-pug). She went through a rough patch losing 9 teeth after they adopted her so she comes with a full page of written instructions, including needing to have her remaining teeth brushed before dinner! Ay-yi-yi.

Today I have high hopes again of getting into the studio to stitch, with two pieces in process. But then I do have to skip out to the chiropractor….life is never dull.

My new favorite expression follows. It is helpful to me in so many ways…and yet how professional would it be to put a Dr. Seuss quote on my website? But then how professional is it to be discussing dog breath on my artist’s blog?

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t
matter and those who matter don’t mind. -Dr. Seuss