We woke to a beautiful morning early in Carrasco, then the fog came in, but it seemed to hold promise of a lovely day so with a couple of things on the list to look out for, we headed off downtown to Av. Tristan Navaja, where every sunday rain hail or shine, a ferria, market, takes place. Now in addition to all the produce you can think of, and household goods, you can buy anything from a tap washer to a any kind of battery, pirated and genuine cds and videos, lots of interesing industrial waste/cast off stuff, some antiques, some vintage stuff and plenty of junk. Lots of clothing, shoes and accessories, new, used, and some very old, vintage stuff. Quite a few quite nice fur coats were on offer today…. Down the years we have bought a number of beautiful glasses in ‘sets’ of anything from 1 to5, and I think I have mentioned the several stalls I keep my eye on that stock old needleworked household linens. But there’s one thing I just have not come to yet, and that is selecting and purchasing my bras and knickers from one of the many street vendors…. only some of whom are women.

Our eyes locked onto this home-made Penny-Farthing 

….and certainly showing fine DIY ingenuity to keeping the tyre on… Penny- farthings usually had all-metal wheels anyway, so this has been adapted for additional comfort. 

Look carefully and you will realise this is a print of one of my quilts, “Afterglow” onto white fabric, which is then pinned to my cream pinboard. My dear son, bless him, has dreamed up yet another way to enhance my quilt designing and making career, and had this sample done… and despite any personal doubts on the wisdom, or indeed the marketability of this idea, I have so far have consulted two very leading art quilters, and found opposing views. I have yet to be convinced that anyone at all would be interested in buying a print of an art quilt to layer and quilt themselves, sort of like a contemporary art quilt cheater cloth…. Granted you could only do this for something you intended to keep in your own collection, right? … so what do YOU think?

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!