Turtle Trax Diary for July 7, 2000.
Page #27
Summertime in Glorious Ohio!
by Lucky Magnolia (Susan Shie)
Page Two
Continued from Page One of the July 7, 2000 diary, which you can return to from here, if you like.
On Tuesday
morning, June 6, we woke up to a bad surprise. A pretty large sassafras
tree had fallen onto our roof! It was lying gently on the roof over our
old bedroom, the one Gretchen and Mike had stayed in just that weekend,
when they were home, working on their Oct. 7 wedding plans! Luckily, this
big old tree fell on another, smaller tree first, and that tree took most
of the weight of the falling tree! So the roof wasn't damaged much, with
nothing piercing the roof itself. Several days of rain and high winds had
caused the tree to go. It had been growing in the ravine, with its roots
more and more exposed, and when it got really wet and heavy, its leaning
turned into falling!
We had Davey Tree Service out later that day, taking down both of these trees, as well as a diseased pine in our front yard. Wow! Those guys are climbin' fools! It's like watching a circus act! They did a quick and efficient job, tho we hated having to cut down any trees at all. We have planted lots of trees in the past, and we'll plant more! We had them save the trunk of the sassafras as firewood, and the trunk of the pine is now a bunch of chunks stationed around the edge of our big garden. The four largest pine trunk pieces are now legs of two nice garden bench that Jimmy made. And we have lots of sassafras mulch, made from shredded branches, for putting around our other trees!
On Saturday, June 10, we were back up in Oberlin
at FAVA, teaching a six hour class on Outsider Art Quilts. We only do fabric
work with hand sewing usually, when we just have one day to work. It's
a toss up between that and painting. There isn't enough time to do both
fabric applique and painting in one day. Above are many of the little pieces
started that day, arranged together on a table. I think we had 15 students,
a great group of eager workers! Since we've learned to urge our students
to work very small in short classes, they get all our hand techniques demonstrated
and tried. We got into shisha mirrors, fancy embroidery stitches, quilted
holes, and even beading, all in one day! Jimmy demoed his free-motion machine
zigzag over my cursive writing, and a few students tried it out. It's a
little different from just normal free-motion quilting, being more precise.
And it was another chance for me to admire the FAVA quilt show, as I was giving a juror's gallery talk that same night.
So then we drove home from Oberlin and jumped up the next morning and drove down to Athens, OH, to teach at Q/SDS at OU this year. We were teaching in the first week session, June 11-16. It was the first time Q/SDS has been at OU, always being in Columbus at The Pontifical College Josephinum before. (Next year is planned to be at Ohio State in Columbus.)
Here's the brush painting I did on fabric in
our class at Q/SDS. This painting was just a demo, didn't get quilted,
and was a gift that Wednesday night to Deb Lunn and Michael Mrowka, to
adorn their booth at the Mini Bazaar. I was quite proud of my offering,
but Deb pointed out to me that it needed to say "the sexiest FABRIC,"
as saying just "the sexiest" implies that the ant is sexy. Oh
well! Back to the drawing board! I still like it tho! I guess I'll try
again sometime, because I love Lunn
Fabrics the most of any of the excellent fabrics made by people, on
their own! They are the originals and the experts, to me! I guess everyone
has to decide for themselves whether "sexy" applies to fabrics,
for their own personal taste! To me, it does! By the way, the ad slogan
was my bright idea, not Lunns'. Perhaps "sexy" isn't how they
really want to have customers see their stuff. It's one of those things
I wonder about, when I can't sleep.
Our Q/SDS class was called Outsider Art Quilt
Shrines, and therefore Andi Stern, a good friend and one of the students,
named us The Shriners! Andi, aka Peppy Whirlwind, brought in this quilt
Monkeyshrines, which she had made previous to this class, in anticipation
of it! Each person would be making mixed media art in class, and hopefully
have some kind of a shrine theme involved, using their own take on whatever
a shrine means to them. And they wouldn't have to use this theme, if they
didn't want to. There were 20 students, who worked long and hard each night,
way into the night, making some wonderful stuff with applique, paint, airbrush,
beads, and all our Lucky School of Quilting
techniques. A five day class, as in our camps at home, is great for
really exploring mixed media!
I want to take you on a swing around the room
to see our Q/SDS class students. Here on my left are Judi Goolsby of Austin,
TX, and Patty Gamburg of Alexandria, LA. They and some others of the students
have been involved in the GREEN QUILTS project, and also have quilts in
the FAVA show! Patty was a student of ours in her hometown once.
Working away intensely is Janet Burke, newly
moved to Columbus, OH, from the St. Louis area, concentrating on her drawing
on a birthday card fabric, which we were all collaborating on for Martha
Kienbaum. Janet was one of many of the students who came in late evening
and stayed for the extra curricular activities and just nice companionship
we all had, sewing and painting late into the night!
At Janet's table also is Christine Klinger
of Fayetteville, AR, land of my darling Wal-Mart! And behind her is the
Aussie contingent, or Ozzie, as THEY say. That's Judy McDermott of Thornleigh,
NSW, and Pam Fitzsimmons of Mt. Vincent, NSW. Straight back is a local
Athens luminary, Lanna Galloway, who works with Hillary Fletcher at The
Dairy Barn, home of Quilt National. Beside her, in back, is Shawn, but
you'll soon see a better pic of him. On the front right here is Kathleen
Johnson of Katy, TX, just focusing away on her art!
Ah, Shawn Quinlan of Pittsburgh, PA. This guy
really had a hard time getting hand sewing going! But he tried and tried
and didn't give up! He's been an accomplished machine quilter for a while,
but had never, ever hand sewn. I am proud to have taught Shawn both my
Mom Knots and many hand stitches, not to mention how to thread a needle!
Once he got it, he was hooked!
Jean Ann Fausser of Tulsa, OK, Peggy DeBell
of Asheville, NC, and Dee Rosing of Edgewood, KY, worked a little more
quietly back in the right corner, by the door where Jimmy and all the students
came in and out to do airbrush on the patio. Sorry that they had to endure
more heat and noise from outside than the rest of us did! Their concentration
was evident in very resolved work coming out of that back space!
I'm also sorry I didn't get any pictures of the airbrush set-up outside. They had to bring it in each night, but having it outside kept the fumes out of the room, which is very important. And everyone wore a respirator, while airbrushing or heatsetting.
Here are Andi Stern of Athens, OH, Sally Murray
of Edgewood, KY, Martha Kienbaum of Grand Rapids, MI, and Jimmy of my house.
Missing from these class photos are Judith Berns of Lake Katrina, NY, Jan
Brasier of Kettering, OH, Leela Cherian of North Patomic, MD, Laura Kienbaum
of Grand Rapids, MI, and Suzanne Steiner of Pittsburg, PA. I wanted to
show everyone, but didn't take enough pictures, and we never got a group
shot of this fine class!
This workwall belonging to Suzanne Steiner
seems to me to be a wonderful example of a shrine piece in progress. Tho
she didn't care much for the painting she made first (top), it looks great
when put with the fabric and gloves quilt she was developing. Suzanne has
been a painter all her life, and her sense of color and composition is
wonderful!
Here are Laura and Martha Kienbaum, mother
and daughter students together, and the pretty cake Laura got for Martha's
15th birthday! There was even enough cake for some of the people in the
next classroom, where Laura had been hiding the surprise cake! The party
was a total surprise for Martha and a great pick-me-up for us all, in mid
afternoon class!!!
And here is Martha, showing off her card/possible
pillow front, and modelling the beautiful headband the other students made
her, with ribbons and trinkets streaming down her hair in back! The "cake"
on the card is a giant trampoline, and it sports the title of our class's
conceptual Ohio Dark Opera: "Trampoline in Quarantine." Each
of us drew a cat around the cake, because Martha loves cats. Like for birthdays
here at camp, we played the Beatles' birthday song for her (thanks to Andi
bringing the CD from home!) and we did a conga line of dancing! Some of
us gave Martha beads and other art supplies, since she got really psyched
about doing this kind of artmaking, in the class!
Behold! Here is the storyline for "Trampoline
in Quarantine," our spontaneously created drama about a misguided
working woman, Trampoline, in a little backwater town in North Carolina,
called Quarantine. The challenge became for each person to make a ten minute
or more drawing of one of the characters we had drummed up in a discussion
that sort of spontaneously erupted on its own one afternoon in class, when
everyone was just busy stitching.
Martha had been telling me about her cats whose names started with a "T", and we had started to crank out T names for more cats. It got carried away when Martha thought of Trampoline! We started to think of other names that could have the same rhythm. Valvoline, T's sister came next. Then their brothers Listerine and Vasoline. Then the Right Reverend Kerosene, and the parents, The Flying Gasolines, who were of course, acrobats in the circus. A youngest maiden sibling was named Crystalline. The cast grew and grew, with us elaborating on everyone's character and job description, until we had a huge town full of over 30 weirdos, including a cement pig named Sizzaline, whom the evil chef Sour Cream thinks is the reincarnation of her dead husband. Whew, such genius!!!! What an epiphony!!!
What to do? I wrote out the whole list of characters, including details, copied it at Kinko's, and let the students do their thing. It wasn't meant to disrupt the class work, since this WAS a shrine class! So we just made drawings, and only if the students wanted to! We just put our storyline up on the wall, so that people could enjoy it. The episodes students came up with were so funny, we all just laughed too much!!!!!
I would like to teach a class in which the whole theme of the class is to create an Ohio Dark Opera. We would do the cast of characters, just like we did that afternoon, just cranking out ideas that build on one another, in a big free-for-all. Then we would use those ideas to make the mixed media art for the opera. Instead of actually doing a play, like the Ohio Dark Opera did famously in 1995, when we did the Magic Fish in Wooster, we would do a storyline, only it would be mixed media art quilts, etc. I don't have any desire to act, like I did in Magic Fish, being the fisherman's cat Lucky. That was fine for one performance, making all the costumes and props, but we didn't want to keep doing it, over and over. So the storyline as art is a perfect compromise, between the paper drawings and the overly demanding making of a full play!
End of class came and here sat Judy McDermott,
filling out her evaluation form for Q/SDS, about our class. Wearing her
Judi Cheshire Cat face! I want to take this opportunity, along with Jimmy,
to thank everyone who was a part of The Shriners class! We, as teachers,
had a super time with all of you! The group really clicked well together,
and we all worked hard, played hard, and made some good stuff in what was
still a very short period of time! It was profoundly memorable, in a very
good way, for us, and we hope for you, too! And we were impressed with
the development of the students' own bodies of work, before coming to class.
There were a few beginners, which is good, but also there were many accomplished
artists!
The Friday night banquet at Q/SDS is always
a big treat! OU had a lovely setup for us, with big round tables, linens,
goblets, a buffet line, waiters, the works! Kyra Heine and Becky Hancock
sat at the same table as we did, at the banquet. Here, Becky, who owns
and runs St. Theresa's Textile Trove in Cincinnati, is buying raffle chances
on a kimono. She gave the tickets to all of us at the table. I had never
met Becky or Kyra before, and they hadn't met each other. Kyra lives in
Michigan, is new at art quilts and Q/SDS, and was doing work/study, I think.
She fit in, as if she'd been part of it all along! Becky had a booth in
the vendor mall, and she and Kyra hit it off right away! Kyra helped Becky
some in her booth, when she wasn't busy with other work.
Andi Stern and her husband Marty also had a booth in the vendor mall that first week. Their company, Embellishment Cafe, has a new web site you may enjoy! I bought my next year's supply of beads from them, but forgot to get more Silamide, the bead thread that they carry, that's so good and so hard to find!
After the dinner, Nancy Crow announced her retirement from Q/SDS, after 11 years of it, and we were introducet to Tracy Stitzlein, who is taking Nancy's place as Linda Fowler's partner in the symposium. Stacy is married to Nancy and John's son Matthew, is an artist herself, and is familiar with working with arts organizations, as she works for Ohio Designer Craftsmen. She runs one of ODC's A Show of Hands stores.
This is a little piece I had begun at Washington
University's Island Press in St. Louis last October. (See Turtle Trax Diaries
for Nov. 3 and Jan. 3,
for our adventures at Island Press.) Kathleen Johnson bought it from me,
after the symposium was over, and I had to finish it up really fast! I
love to do handwork whenever I can! I photographed this piece, lying on
a rug, so I could have the image for myself. The quilt/printmaking project
at Wash U hasn't really started yet, except for the first artists' proofs
of the quilt (the Cookbook) and the sewing lesson, in which we all did
little pyrex cups like this! I may have to make another one, so I can have
this memory intact. But Kathleen, like me, adores kitchen images, and especially
pyrex cups, so it now has a great new home!
We got home from Athens on Saturday afternoon,
June 17. I was exhausted, and I didn't even have to do the four hour driving
(since I can't drive.) Jimmy had to unpack and repack his stuff, so he
could take off Tuesday, June 20, for his big Trout Bums Picnic in Grayling,
MI. It's a weeklong extravoganza of mostly Trout Unlimited guys and The
Rodmakers, who handmake six sided bamboo cane flyrods. Jimmy doesn't do
that, but those guys appreciate his equally intricate skills in making
leather cases, so they have taken him into their sanctum sanctorium! All
I can say is that enthusiasm must generate a lot of energy, because he
made that six and a half hour drive to Michigan and still stayed up late
that night, to fish in the dark. They like to do that up there! Don't ask!
At least Jimmy and most fly fishermen catch and release everything, so
he didn't come home with a heap of dead fish for me to clean! There is
a god.
I forgot! The Sunday between Q/SDS and Jimmy's
Fishing Odyssey was Father's Day! I got him some new Rocky Boots in Nelsonville,
on our way home from Athens, and his trip to Michigan was part of his present,
too, along with the new BB King and Eric Clapton record.
But this guy in the sailor suit is not Jimmy or BB King or Eric Clapton! It's my DAD! Since Daddy died in January, I've really gone through family stuff, more than ever, finding this choice little morsel! He musta been four or five, you think? Richard Blackstone Shie was clearly well loved, to have this kind of get-up and staging of a photo done about him. And the eyes are just like they were in the last staged picture taken of him at West View Manor, when the activities woman took shots of everyone wearing a Santa hat! Oh, those Daddy eyes!
Debi and I went out to his grave together on Father's Day. It was quiet and birds were singing, and we both think he's got a good place to rest there. Even some big trees.
"Night Owl Cafe" finally got finished
up for the Q/SDS faculty show "Small Works" in Lancaster, OH,
at Studio B. Each instructor had to offer six pieces smaller than 24"
on a side. This one is about our patio and the turquoise sun chairs, which
we still have to strip the paint off of, because of the rust, and repaint,
trying to rematch that wonderful turquoise color! I can match it! We just
need to find the time, like with so many big ideas we have for art, for
fixing stuff around here, etc, etc. I guess that's what keeps life going,
having big ideas.
Meanwhile, I love to sit out on that patio, admire what's happening in the gardens, and stare at the brightly colored patio owl lights that go all around the patio, up at the roofline. I sit there on my parents' porch swing, and I feel like a little kid again, back on our porch on N. Ella Street in Orrville. Life is good. Take a few minutes today to kick back from your hard work, and be a kid again.
See you later, maybe around September 19, just before that month's camp starts up!
Added notes: We have a solo show at Fitton Center for Creative Arts in Hamilton, Ohio, above Cincinnati, from July 30 to Sept. 10, 2000. Opening's July 30 from 3-5 pm. Call Fitton for info. 513-863-8873. Just gave most of the artwork to the curator Cathy Mayhugh and her husband Steve, who graciously came yesterday to pick it up. Our anniversary quilt, which I just added to for this year's celebration, will be hung on a wall for the first time ever, and Gretchen is lending her Graduation Quilt. Packing and inventorying are over and we can pack for CraftSummer now!
A very sad way to end this diary is
to tell about the tragic death of infant Kazzmir Elayn Robinson, daughter
of Jimmy's niece Lisa and her husband Kareme, whom we call Dudé.
Born three months early, Kazzmir was under two pounds at birth on June
12. She died unexpectedly on July 4, after doing well for three weeks.
Lisa and Dudé have a darling two year old daughter, Tazia, who was
born two months early and is really healthy and bright. Wanda is Kazzmir's
great grandmother and Jimmy's sister Karen is her grandmother. The funeral
is today. Everyone is devastated by such a tender loss.
Be ever so good to those you love.
Return to Page One of this same diary, if you like.
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Susan Shie and James Acord
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