I am currently sorting some heaps of paperwork after returning from the US last week. It’s urgent now, as for months before I went I had just been heaping stuff up out of the way without order, propped up to stop it sliding around. But now I want to start some new work with order and no clutter around me. I’ve found the book stuff, and lots of little bits and pieces relevant to it, and have filed them all together, but there’s a ton of work to be done, so that’s set aside for the moment.

One thing that came to the top last night was an Australian contemporary quilt exhibition review in which my piece, Fire Danger 2, shown above, was described as being made “with reference to the kimono”. Granted the shape might suggest a short sleeved, short-waisted jacket, but a kimono? I am very careful to avoid appropriation of cultural images from anywhere. My artist statements have never included any mention of Japan, the language, the culture or travel there, and I have never used any of the currently fashionable old and many-times-mended Japanese textiles in my work – IMHO inappropriate for most of us in the Western world, unless we are making some kind of culturally relevant statement.

So, I allowed a silly, vacuous statement to irritiate me a little. Feel free to comment!

Brown and cream shown at various stages of construction on this site, is pictured finshed, as Ebb and Flow 11. Finished for the exhibition with a couple of days to spare. In time there will be a better snap without the fold down the middle, which you might pick up in this once it’s posted. 

Last saturday I spent on the beach at Ocean City MD – well on the island Assateague, a beautiful national park barrier island off the coast of MD. Lots of wild horses on the island the result of having been left there, source uncertain, years and years ago, Some are culled annually, the weak and very old, and healthy surplus animals are sold tothe public, to keep the population of them in healty balance. And of course facilities in a US national park are great, as usual. The water was freezing but I can now technically claim to have dipped into the N Atlantic up to my midriff. On the beach itself the temperature was in the high 80’s, a warm breeze, the adults got a bit burnt but the little ones didn’t, and it was beautiful. On monday I arrived in Uruguay where it has been raining these past few days, and it is cold. Really cold. This is a country which a month ago was debating how far and how harshly the neccessary power cuts would have to be imposed…. and now DH tells me the country is now exporting surplus electricity to Argentina. Floods are taking their toll in the usual places with the usual very poor victims.

For some time I have had a bunch of see-thru folders lined up to help organise newsletters, and boxes for the magazines, even an extra bookcase to be assembled. this work is now in progress as I mull over the next works I have in mind for looming deadlines, mostly for opportunities in Australian juried events. Also I am hoping to submit an entry into Visions, this year.

At last I have some time to put up a few pics to give all those not able to be present some idea of how it all looks and so on. I have to say how impressive the two people engaged by the embassy to hang the show were . Shelley works with the Phillips Collection and Marcus is a student as I recall. They did a terrific job and many people commented on how well it all looked. I engaged a photographer Peter Cutts, to take some overall gallery shots of the show when he does some high resolution shots of several of the quilts while they hang there, so there will be possibly one or more shots to put up when I receive his work. It’s an exciting thing to see a whole lot of your work up in the one space, and extra nice to have had two chances to talk about it – firstly to the embassy staff on the afternoon of the opening, and then the following week to a group of interested quiltmakers who gathered in the gallery to get to some of the nuts and bolts stuff. I found it fascinating the questions they asked, and the interpretations a couple of them put on what I had done.

Little Me with son Ivan and DIL Tara, in front of their Wedding quilt, which is huge, very large king size. A truly modern scrap quilt, looks great on their four-poster.