Carol Larson - textile artist

Being a visual learner I have never been much of a reader, although I have been known to occasionally be seen nose buried in a great novel. When my daughter, a voracious reader, was 6 or 7 she asked me if all I ever read was self-help books?! I was a bit astonished that at such a young age she knew what they were! And yes that was about all I read at that time. Perceptive kid.

Today is a really hot day and I put into practice a newly learned method for keeping cool. After our walk, I slipped into my favorite frumpy linen summer housedress and began sipping hot tea. My neighbor told me after the last heatwave that there is an old Chinese proverb about drinking hot tea on a hot day to stay cool. Who knew? It works! About two hours ago I was so cool, I decided to take advantage of it and go into the studio and design a new piece of work. I thought I was so smart to lift the window shade to allow natural light and avoid turning on the overhead floods. And to use the light on the machine to illuminate my sewing instead of using more overhead lights. I did have to succumb to using the iron, as I was stitching curved seams which require continuous pressing. And that was the beginning of the end of my cool body.

Mid-design, I had to walk out of the studio, unplugging and de-illuminating everything in search of a cooler room. I am not certain that this it it, either. The basement for sure is fabulous right now except one has to come upstairs eventually. And with our mandatory water restriction, dyeing fabric is out of the question for summer. I could run through the sprinklers had we not let the lawn die in order to live a bit more green! Well, I could still run through, and then roll in the mud puddle that ensues. Isn’t that what elephants do to cool off?!

And so now I am wondering what is it I can do, other than relax and do nothing? And it comes to me. I can read. Ah, do I have to?!!! I have just started Martha Beck’s Steering by Starlight, which if I finish will probably banish me from the computer forever!

Today was my orientation at the ACCI Gallery. I am a new member of this renowned cooperative in Berkeley! There were 3 others ‘in my class’ who all create wonderful work; two jewelry designers and a painter. I am honored to be in such great company. I can already see my greatest challenge in this gallery is going to be in not spending all my profits on other people’s work!

I took these images from my phone. Even though I have had this model over two years only recently did I finally figure out how to get the images off my phone. Duh! So now I can be one of those really annoying people always shooting photos with their cellphone. These are mostly of the back half of the gallery, because the front half shots had too much glare.

The gallery is in what is known as Gourmet Ghetto in north Berkeley, very close to the university campus. If you need to ask which university, then we will know you don’t get out much. I doubt there is a soul on the planet who has never heard of UC Berkeley.

After I finished at the gallery, I met my friend Lynn who lives there and we went for a great Mexican dinner. By the time we finished it was perfect timing to get on the freeway and not have to deal with commute traffic.

I cross the bay at Richmond and never is it lost on me how we live in one of the most spectacular vistas in the world. Tonight though I noticed something I have been trying to ignore for some time: SMOG! In fact I have given it other names rather than just saying it. Smaze (smoggy haze)sounds so much more folksy doesn’t it? Or inversion layer which I suppose is what it really is sounds better than SMOG. But smog it is, when the days are hot and the fog has receded. Whatever you call it, smog, smaze or inversion layer…it is visibly blocking the glorious views that one normally sees when crossing the bay near San Francisco.

As a California native, rare bird that it is, it makes me really sad to be able to see the air. And yet there I am in my car, contributing to it, feeling sad about it. At least I am not contributing on a daily basis…

Yesterday was my father’s 85th birthday! My sister who spends the most time at his house decided we should all go there and do a major clean-out. My Dad has dementia and my Mom died 14 years ago. We surmise he had not done a thorough thinning out of stuff since then. Because he no longer cooks, drives or putters, there was much to be sorted through and passed along to folks who would use and appreciate it.
And don’t even get me started on why he is still living alone…

One sister tackled the kitchen. Another sister and BIL tackled the garage and attic. My husband worked the garden, planting summer plants and general cleanup. Our daughter arrived just in time to help load cars and trucks for various trips to the dump, charity, and other people’s houses.

I had what I figured was the least physically taxing job; that of sorting through 14 years of cards, letters and photographs, then assembling them into a new album. This small task took me seven hours! Today I am exhausted, in pain and very emotional.

Since my father’s dementia was diagnosed nearly two years ago, I have felt mostly numb. This afternoon I have been listening to music and sewing, which is always when I have my best epiphanies. And it comes to me that my emotion today is that it has finally hit me how really sad this dementia is. Rationally I have pondered how this man who prided himself on his intellect, corporate success and Stanford magna cum laude would be devastated to know the lights are on but nobody is home. Emotionally, now I feel it for him.

It came after seven hours of sorting and creating an album of mostly family photos. He opened it, turned the pages and then handed it back. He didn’t know who anyone was. I had labeled the pages but not each individual photo. The idea of going back and doing that did not appeal to me at the time but next week on Father’s Day I will write names in the album, which I imagine he will never look at again.

Meanwhile as I was prepping work to take to the ACCI Gallery for my orientation, I was re-thinking the fabric art postcards. I currently have them in a couple of venues, and sales are slow…mainly because of the word POSTCARD! Essentially they are a mini collage.

People will pay for a mini collage what they will not pay for an art postcard. So I decided to create a new product, and not sew them onto card stock. Instead, I am matting them, finishing the back and presenting in a cellophane envelope. What a difference! They already look like a million bucks! I have scanned four here…

What I like most about the batch I am currently designing is they all have a remnant of previous work, whether it be my own surface design, a shibori sample or part of a quilt I made for someone. I have kept two large bags of these great scraps segregated from other scraps for a few years. It is nice to finally have a great use for them.

I am thrilled to announce my work has been juried into the cooperative ACCI Gallery in Berkeley! The ACCI is the oldest cooperative west of the Mississippi and has a fantastic reputation. As I recall there are several fiber & mixed media artists currently, so I am honored to join them. I applied for membership last month with two hopes. One that I could find a permanent place to exhibit my work other than the guest room closet and two an opportunity to interact with artists of different media. This gallery clearly fits the bill.

Also to post today, two new works. Adrift was a constant battle! Designing the cloth was so much fun. I made a flour paste resist and applied with a tile tool, then sprayed deka paint. That sat around for about 6 months and then I decided it needed more so I overdyed it and voila! Gorgeous. Then it sat around another month or so and my friend Lynn and I decided it really needed some of the toxic Aztec Gold so I screened that on. Then I decided to make two small pieces for an upcmoning exhibit, so I ripped the cloth in half and began to design.

About four design processes later, I finally decided the blue and gold were not working. It needed red! Red popped it. Finally I rotated it sideways and loved it. Meanwhile, I decided not to do the second as I did not want two nearly exact works, so I tossed the 2nd half into my stash and proceeded to stitch Adrift.

Sentinel was named twice after an agonizng titling gestional period! The design reminded me somewhat of the Torii gates in Japan, but nothing in the thesaurus inspired me. And I hated to name it Torii out of respect for their Shinto shrines. This piece combines two exquisite pieces of art cloth, and a small vintage silk kimono remnant from Japan. The lavender side was a remnant from Susie Monday’s dyed tablecloths which I screen-printed with an image of a splayed dryed pine branch, while the left panel is a hand-woven remnant from that famous thrift shop. I like this one so much, I have another in utero on the design wall.

Happy dance!

My original intention for this past weekend was a relaxing ‘mini-vacation.’ It was partially relaxing but mostly hectic and I am recovering today as if I had taken a long trip to some faraway land. In reality we went to San Jose, just two hours south.

The primary purpose of this jaunt was holding tickets for the Andrea Bocelli concert on Saturday night. We got a killer rate in a 5 star hotel so I booked us in for both Friday and Saturday nights and pretended we were on holiday!

Barely escaping the tar spill on the freeway and the PG & E vault fire in San Francisco, (nice transition on the photo, no?!!!) we checked into the hotel late afternoon and wandered out the back door and down the street with food on our minds. A street fair was setting up so we kept wandering until we got to the San Jose Quilt and Textile Museum for the amazing, spectacular, gorgeous Reservoir exhibit from the John Walsh Collection. We both oohed and aahed our way through the exhibit while hubby really studied a wood embellished piece. He reported back how many trees had been used to create this dynamic work. Some other guy ambled along and they both discussed the symmetry, architecture, and manly details of assembling such a work out of wood. In a side room, a restauranteur was serving up lentil salad and beet-potato salad from his nearby restaurant. It was to die for…

The museum was crowded for this monthly Friday night opening; later I heard 1200 had attended. It was so great for our craft! People saying to their kids, these are quilts like Grandma makes, but they are art! Education… it’s a fine thing.

We left the museum and checked out the goings on out on the street. The ultimate recycler was weaving on a tall upright loom with plastic and used water bottles. Amazing! There was a mammoth rocking horse welded from scrap metals with an adult man riding it; a jigsaw type painting white on a black classic Chevy BelAir; heavy metal music wafting throughout the air and different sounds emanating out of buildings here and there; and a virtual plethora of artists armed with cans of spray paint aimed at anything standing still. Honestly I have never seen so much spray paint, in can form. Suddenly, we noticed we were the cronks on the block as everyone around us was young. Then I remembered a college was two blocks away!

We wandered into a restaurant (with older diners) called Agenda and had a fabulous meal. The service was snail paced and that really bothered my husband, but not me because I was on vacation and what else did I have to do anyway? Dinner over, we passed two guys playing heavy metal on bass and cello. How pleased their mothers must have been that they used their music lessons to such great advantage! And two opera singers in a crowded cafe and back to our hotel.

Saturday I met Connie Tiegel for lunch at Il Fornaio. It was fabulous and we had a good visit, talking about everything from the toxic Aztec Gold jacquard paint to kids. Connie is another of my treasures through the Art Cloth Network. Afterwards, husband and I went to the Art Museum which was next door to our hotel. Of course, as my museum timing always goes, they were between exhibits, but did find some interesting (and not) work to look at, including a piece by a guy who I never heard of, from my hometown. And two pairs of awesome earrings joined my collection at the museum shop!

It turned out Bocelli was not our only entertainment. Across the street from a city park and adjacent to an outdoor performance area, we had free entertainment with a poor Beach Boys impression first thing Saturday morn and Aztec dancers and drummers Saturday afternoon! Good thing I have a sense of humor…

Back to the hotel, we changed clothes and walked to have dinner at the aforementioned Morrocan restaurant Even though we had made a reservation with ample time, we somehow ended up on a time crunch, so we ordered only appetizers, salads and dessert! The food was out of this world and the sangria greatly helped my now screaming knees. After dinner we walked to the Bocelli venue, climbed a lot of stairs within and afterwards, it was a warm night so walked back to the hotel! All total I walked close to two miles on Saturday.

The concert was spectacular, we had great seats and the only annoyance was the terminally selfish who were using their cellphones to photo, video, text, twitter, check the time and who knows what else. Photo and video were disallowed, but clearly these were special people to whom the rules did not apply.

So two miles walking in a day, what’s the big deal? Well, maybe for you, nothing. For me, it spells agony. I can easily do one mile, but two is pushing it. I was in so much pain Saturday night I couldn’t sleep. Yesterday I was just sore and today, I am taking another exercise-free day! This is the rehab part of which I write in my book.

Yesterday was another marathon day. We had breakfast with old friends at their home in SE San Jose. Then we booked up the freeway to the most gorgeous cemetary location I have ever seen in my life, in San Mateo. We went to a two hour SRO memorial service for a boyhood friend and co-worker of hubby’s. I was brought to tears by their co-workers, firefighters in uniform and the rituals they perform; it really is a fraternity. After that we went to the wake, then back towards Oakland to retrieve our pooch. I had punched Liz Berg’s open studio into the GPS but by this time I was toast and ready to go home.

What I learned on this whirlwind weekend, was really just a reminder. Because I have not taken any long trips this year (so far) I had forgotten.

I manage in my own community quite well. When I travel and am out of my element, I do not fare as well. My energy is quickly spent, my body is in great pain, and I am reminded of just how fragile my mobility is. Some of my tears at the memorial may have been for my own losses, as well.