At last, thumbs, full views and some detailsare in a newly added gallery  on my website – at the top of the drop down gallery menu, The Creative Stitch: pre 1988  One example: 

I’ll let you know if I get off this path and onto something totally different!  

And if the spacing in this post has come out all funny – I don’t know what I have done backing and forthing with the editing,  but that’s it for now –  just be tolerant or a little entertained a little by it, I’m off to make some more samples.  cheers…. 

Although DH and I don’t normally ‘do’ Valentines Day he did come in  this morning with a bunch of red roses, which was pretty unexpected therefore, and all the nicer for that.  He learned from chatting to the florist that they were grown in Ecuador and shipped, which is amazing, but roses do grow perfectly well here – we have some (not red) in our own garden.  Out on the beach the past couple of mornings, too, the ‘engravings’ have shown more of the Valentine Day theme, so I thought I’d wish all my readers a happy day wherever you are, and  regardless of whatever you do/don’t do about Valentines Day -and share these pics with you . The beach is interesting, being in itself a constantly changing chart of the mood of the people who use it to loll, walk, sunbathe, swim, run, jog, ride bikes and motorbikes on, make offerings or discard rubbish on (often intertwined imho – it can be hard to tell.)

I can’t  believe that as I was about to photograph this in the top pic, I stopped and talked to a friend who came along, and in chatting a while managed to blur the outline of the heart on it – took the pic anyway…. and in the one further down with big lettering ‘Gaby te amo’ means Gaby I love you – several such declarations on the sand this week.  It’s not just this week, but there are just more than usual.  There were one or two dead chooks yesterday, so although the offerings have eased off a bit, they will appear from time to time.  Avagoodvalentinesday as they might say in  AUS.

Despite the sign “Troya” this suggests a cockroach or some other large, very large, insect.  On a sign advertising a show feb 2009 which I sadly missed, it names two sculptors Roberto Cadenas and Octavio Podesta.  There were some workmen nearby who did not know who made it, and the artists’ studios were closed, so I’ll just have to hope at least one of these people or both produced this, and call in sometime later in the year to confirm this when we return to Punta and points beyond.  In the meantime, if you’re travelling along route 1 and just after the airport, you might notice this in a corner near the highway.  I love it.

Tracks – I never tire of them, and sand is perfect for recording them, ephemerally of course.  Sticking to the nyr#2, I have been taking my camera each time I go onto the beach, and in the past few days recorded these sets of tracks.  Some were man made, and tend to feature shoe and tyre or machinery prints (scroll down to “Seasonal Diggings”  Jan 28th for a great pic)  and others made by a variety of other living creatures – such as birds and dogs and even very delicate fine ones left by tiny shell fish in wet sand down near the water’s edge.  I love how some sets of tracks are overlain by others.   The second picture down is intriguing: surely this is not just a circumstantial placement of objects ? for there are always holes dug on the beach – my own DH digs almost constantly when actually sitting down on a beach; or is there some story behind this one? …whatever …. and then the tide comes in and it starts all over again.   These marks show a brief part of the recent history of this part of the earth’s surface, a beach.  These are all Timetracks.

My regular readers know I think the most appropriate statement is a nifty, brief, thought provoking title.  Very occasionally though, one of mine (Wedding Quilt, from  Colour Memories gallery, or the Ebb&Flow gallery’s   “Maelstrom”)  will have a particular statement/story alongside the full image; but I prefer not to say too much so viewers individually perceive and interpret my work.   Anyway, that’s one kind of statement, the  brief, minimalist one.    

The other kind of statement is a general one, part relevant biographical information and part insight into inspiration behind designs and use of particular materials and techniques. What can be tricky, however, is how much to say, what to include and leave out, whether to write in the first person (my preference) or the third person which feels formal and starchy to me since I am pretty casual – you can tell by the way I write!   And, then too, the purpose of the statement is highly relevant: will it go on a didactic panel in an exhibition, and is that group or solo?  Will it go in some catalogue? Will this statement be part of a submission of some kind, and if so, who will read it?  Is it to be an intro to my website or blog for example?  Or is it one people can find up online if they google me – and there’s a bag of worms for sure. 

Right now I am tweaking a version of my general artist statement to include in an online exhibition of my work as a featured PAM (professional artist member) of Studio Art Quilt Associates     I’ll post when my month comes up as I don’t know which it is, yet.  Every day it seems, I have to do something of this nature related to exhibiting , teaching or publishing quilt-related activity and frequently marvel at how relatively easy all this is with computers.   

Just the other day some event organisers in Brasil wanted photos of works my students would be making at the   Patchwork and Quilting Festival, Buenos Aires March 2010    for their promotional material.    

Students in the beginner freehand rotary cut patchwork class will learn the basic techniques to enable them to make designs like this, or others such as “Green Island” or “Wedding quilt” in the Colour Memories gallery on my website.

The advanced class will learn techniques enabling quilters to make this kind of quilt pattern by freehand patchwork, or others such as ‘Afterglow’ and ‘Western Desert’ in the Colour Memories gallery on my website.