Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving holiday didn't start out too auspiciously in our house.  Yesterday afternoon the cleaning lady told me that the kitchen sink was leaking.  Sure enough, the U-shaped trap had rusted through to leave a little hole at the bottom of the curve.  I griped about how much it was going to cost to call a plumber on the holiday, or how I was going to prepare the food I needed to bring to the holiday feast without water.

She helpfully unscrewed the rusted pipe and said "just go to Home Depot and get a new trap, and screw it in, and you won't even need a plumber."  Then she got the mop, which she hadn't even put away yet after doing the floor the first time, and cleaned everything up beautifully.

In retrospect I should have said, as soon as the leak was announced, "Hold it -- I will do emergency repairs until I can have the plumber come on Friday or Saturday."  I should have then gotten my trusty roll of duct tape and wrapped the leaky pipe ten or twelve times around, and used the sink sparingly.  Heck, we didn't even have to get ready for holiday guests, just bake a pie and make some cranberry something-or-other and take it to my son's house for the dinner.

But did I do the right thing?  No, I watched her unscrew the pipe.  And I sent my husband to Home Depot for a new trap.  Which was the wrong size, so he went back again.  Then we attempted to screw in the new one.  Sparing the gory details, it didn't work.  Except that I cut my finger on the threaded end of the pipe, a sure sign of cheap crap hardware.  (When's the last time you cut your finger on any threaded object?  Right.  Because you generally own decent hardware.)

After a while we decided to give up and have a drink.  We will call the plumber on Friday and see when he can come over.  If that won't be soon, we will eat out.

So instead of being crabby, I'm going to be thankful.  The leak did not occur after a dozen guests arrived for Thanksgiving dinner, nor did it flood out a kitchen floor full of switched-on electrical appliances, books and magazines, or five-year-olds. It will not prevent me from baking a pumpkin pie, just from washing the dishes afterwards (and have you ever noticed that dirty dishes are patient, just as dirty on Monday as they were on Thursday morning?)

I'm thankful that we can afford to call a plumber, even if it's going to cost a lot more than wrestling with the cheap crap pipe from Home Depot, and that we can afford to eat out if the plumber can't come till Monday.  Thankful that the leak was in an easily accessible, totally visible pipe, not hidden inside a wall.  Thankful that we discovered the leak within minutes of it appearing, not upon returning from a month-long vacation.

Thankful that we didn't lose our power for a week after a storm, or have a tree fall on our roof. Thankful that nobody has a terminal disease, that those with serious ailments are under treatment, and that everybody can see a doctor -- and pay for it -- when they need one.

not our house, thank heavens

Thankful that we have not had a foreign terrorist attack in the United States since 2001 and that most of our fellow citizens are willing to extend a welcome to refugees from terrible wars around the globe. Thankful that despite the petty annoyances and frustrations, we still have a pretty fabulous life, one that millions of people from other countries would brave unspeakable dangers to try to achieve.

Thankful for art, both the art we look at and the art we make.   Thankful for friends, both in person and over the Internet, who make our lives so rich.  Thankful for the opportunity to connect with you all, and thankful that you honor me by reading my blog.  A happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Happy birthday, Dad!

During the depression, my father worked at a number of low-end jobs, including one at a department store that went out of business.  Dad's job duties included window-dressing and display, and he particularly enjoyed making signs for sales and special offers.  As the store was liquidated, the loyal employees were given first chance to buy anything on the premises.  Dad bought a paper cutter, one of his favorite job tools from that gig, and it was one of his treasured possessions until he died.

As a kid I remember the paper cutter always at the ready.  Dad was always doing some kind of extracurricular calligraphy, making little paintings for a new baby, a new house, a special birthday celebration or any other auspicious event, and they all needed to be trimmed to fit.  We all made booklets and brochures and fancy covers for our school reports, and they all needed to be cut to size.  We must have cut a million pieces of paper on that equipment.  Mysteriously, the blade never needed sharpening and the pivot never loosened.

Dad's paper cutter and pens


















After he died, I inherited the paper cutter, rich with an 80-year-old patina of loving use, along with his old desk (also bought second-hand in another distress sale, and used for a half-century) and his pens, still stored in his Michigan State mug.  I graciously allow my husband to use the desk every day, but the pens and the paper cutter are for me alone.

Dad's desk, installed in our house

Today would be Dad's 100th birthday.  He was the towering figure  in my life, a great man with a public persona who nevertheless always put his family first, and his first-born (me) first among the first.

Dad and Baby Kathy



















He left a big hole, but it's a hole full of love and memories.  And pens, and a paper cutter.  Happy birthday, Dad!

Thankful

It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a holiday that many people have patriotically proclaimed to be unique to America, totally ignoring the harvest festivals that have been celebrated by practically every civilization and nation since the invention of agriculture.  But it is a lovely holiday, one that supposedly focuses our thoughts on just how much we have to be thankful for.

This being a blog mostly about art, and specifically needle art, I'll confine my recitation of thanks to that area.  Today I'm thankful, among other things, for the sewing machine, and that the models available today are run by electricity, unlike the treadle machine that my grandmother used (until my grandfather added an electric motor to it).  I have hand-pieced and hand-quilted enough to know that I greatly prefer to do neither; without the machine I would not make quilts.

I'm thankful for batting that I can order in a huge roll that's delivered to my door every couple of years, so that I don't have to pick the seeds out of the cotton bolls before making a quilt.  I'm thankful for all the high-quality fabric now available -- such a contrast from when I started making quilts and you were lucky to find a few insipid pastelly calicos, not to mention from when our grandmothers had to make clothing and quilts from feed sacks.  I'm thankful that I can afford lots and lots of fabric, that I don't have to restrict myself to scraps as so many of the earlier quilters did.

I'm thankful for the thousands of weights and colors of thread on the market, perfectly designed for exactly the machine and technique I want to use today, and that I can afford to keep drawers full of different kinds at hand.  I'm thankful that needles, too, come in so many different shapes and sizes, and that I don't have to guard just one to last me all my life.  (Although I've kept my favorite needle around for years despite the subtle bend at its waist.)

I'm thankful for rotary cutters and cutting mats.  I could never have made my beloved improvisational quilts without them -- or perhaps it's more accurate to say I would never have made them.  The rotary cutter, with its ability to "draw a line," transformed the mindset of our generation of artists and we'll never be the same, fortunately.

I'm thankful that quilts moved from the bed to the wall about 30 years ago, at the hands of a few visionaries, and for the subsequent explosion of interest in this art form.  I'm thankful that we have the myriad of shows, books, workshops, magazines and blogs devoted to the quilt on the wall.  When I started making quilts, self-taught, I could never have imagined the wealth of resources that would grow up from nowhere to guide, influence and sustain me and others who share my love.

I'm thankful that the community we have built around this shared love is so supportive and inclusive.  Sure, we complain about cliques and prejudices and bemoan the authors, teachers, jurors and curators who like stuff that we consider beneath us. But on the whole, the world of quilts as art is a pretty comfortable place to reside.  I often hear artists in other mediums gasp in astonishment over all the opportunities open to us that do not exist for painters, sculptors or whatever.

One such opportunity that I am particularly thankful for today is the internet, which has enabled me to write this blog and stay in touch with so many friends and colleagues.  Many of you I have been fortunate to meet in person, many of you are cyberfriends of long tenure, and many of you are total strangers.  Yet from every one of you I value your support, love your comments, appreciate your reading.  Thank you for making my life so much richer.

Happy Birthday!

Had my father lived another six years, he would have turned 99 today.

Since this blog is mainly about art, I'll take this opportunity to reminisce a bit about how my father taught me about art.  Although he and my mother were both only one generation from pretty damn poor and uneducated, out of the blue they both developed a love of art that was quite unexpected in the dark days of the depression.  Dad began to acquire art as a very young man and was quite proud of his growing collection.  Indeed, buying art was one of the most important activities of his life, a passion he instilled in his children as well.

Among his World War II souvenirs was this lovely watercolor of Weilburg, Germany, which he purchased from an impoverished German artist he ran into on his military rounds.  The purchase price, modest though it was for Dad, allowed the artist and his family to buy food for several weeks.

Shortly after the war, Dad was asked to judge an art contest for his local museum.  His honorarium consisted of the second-place winner, this gorgeous picture of Saginaw, Michigan, with the Saginaw River in the foreground.  The steeple at the right was the church where my parents were married and my sister and I were baptized.

When I was about 10, Dad took me on a Christmas shopping mission -- we went to an art fair and bought a painting that was supposed to be a secret gift for my mother.  It showed up under the tree with an envelope reading "A surprise for Vi!"  But when she opened the card, it said "The surprise is that this painting is for Kathy!"  It was the first piece of art that was mine alone, and the first of dozens, if not hundreds, that Dad gave to me.

All three of these paintings now hang in my home and whenever I see them -- wherever I turn -- I am reminded of how my father opened my eyes and my world to art.  A favorite family activity was to hit an art fair (the Cheap Art Fair was the best of all) and buy a bunch of new stuff.  We shopped at the low end of the food chain but managed to find plenty of lovely things.  The occasional dud didn't cause all that much financial regret, and probably made some artist quite happy.

After my parents died, my sibs and I divvied up the artwork, a process that began long before our parents' demise, has taken years to accomplish and still isn't complete.  Just last week some sculptures that belong to our brother in Australia moved from my sister's house to mine; we hope that someday they'll make their way across the ocean to their rightful home.  I'm now trying to pass some of the art along to succeeding generations, continuing Dad's legacy, passing down both the tangible and the ineffable.

So Happy Birthday, Dad!  You're here in every room of the house, living on in the art.