Goodbye to the old gallery....

I haven't been posting this week, or doing much art of any sort, because it's moving time at Pyro Gallery.  Cleaning out the old space --

It looks much bigger empty!  It's been a good home to us for five years and we're sad to say goodbye.

My favorite things 35

We have a family rule of no gifts, except for extraordinary circumstances, so I was surprised when my son showed up shortly before Mother's Day three years ago to present me with a Kindle e-reader from him and his brother.  We were leaving the next day for Great Britain and the guys thought I needed a Kindle to stay in touch.  The best part of the gift was that my son did all the setup for me.

And indeed, I immediately fell in love with the device.  I could check email from our hotel in London, find a google map to plan our walking route, read in bed without turning on the light when jet lag woke me at 3 a.m., order up a new library book after I had read the three I loaded at home.  The only downside was that I couldn't upload photos to my blog, open attachments to email messages, or perform any online activity that required highlighting, cutting, pasting or anything else that you would ordinarily do with a mouse.  I've carried it with me on many a journey, and only occasionally has it done temper tantrums.

Until last week, when I got a message from the library that a book I had had on waitlist for some time was now available.  I went online and told it to download to the Kindle, then turned on the Kindle to start reading -- and nothing happened.  I plugged it in overnight but still nothing.  My son came over with his own Kindle and power cord and confirmed that it wasn't the power cord.  The Kindle was dead.

The new one arrived Friday afternoon and in a fit of independence I decided I would do the setup this time around.  And it only took an hour and a half!

First I had to wait while my new modem/router took its time thinking about whether it would indeed let the Kindle connect to the internet, despite several attempts where it told me "no internet available." Much searching around to find the sales slip from the new router to entitle me to 90 days free tech help so I could ask them why the wi-fi wasn't broadcasting properly.  By the time I got myself organized for that task, I realized that the Kindle had apparently persuaded the router to let it on. Then I had to click around for ten minutes to figure out how to get my email online.  Here I knew the password, but I couldn't figure out how to access the right site (it was bookmarked into the old Kindle, but that didn't help....)

Now to the blogger site.  A month ago Google had a hissy fit when I tried to log in to my blog from a motel in the wilds of Ohio, deducing incorrectly that this was a hack.  It took me an hour of frustration before I was able to persuade them that it was indeed me, and to issue me a new password.  I thought I took the precaution of sending myself an email with the new password, as well as writing it down in a couple of different places.  I did in fact remember it long enough to reset my desk computer when I got home.  But yesterday I couldn't remember, nor could I find the email or any piece of paper with the new password.  So I had to ask for another reset.  That took the better part of a half hour to get resolved.

Then I had to bookmark the public library site, and check out a new ebook to see if the library would recognize the new Kindle instead of the old one.  It did.  But then I had to log in to Amazon, which manages the interface between library and device.  Finally, I had to bookmark the New York Times, without which I could not live while away from home.

In all, I had to look up five different passwords in my notebook, wait for an email with a new one-time access code, reset that password, write it down in my notebook, and reset it on my desk computer.  I still haven't reset the new password on my laptop, which occasionally travels with me as well.

Technology is wonderful, I guess.  Before the Kindle I carried bags of books on long trips and searched out computers in hotel lobbies to check email.  And before computers and email we sent postcards, searched out the International Herald Tribune in tobacco shops around Europe, and didn't know whether our loved ones were alive or dead till we got home.  But technology doesn't come easy.

I suppose my granddaughter could have whipped through these setup tasks in five minutes, but I was happy that I managed it all by myself.  Now comes the second learning curve, figuring out how the new device differs from the old one.  You know it will, and you know that some of the features that I liked about the old one will have disappeared.  But I'm keeping a smile on my face.  I do love the damn thing!  I really do!  grrrr

The pyramids are almost all gone

I wrote in February about a new fiber art enthusiasm, making pyramids out of heavily machine-stitched fabric, stitched so densely that the fabric took on structural integrity and would stand on its own.  I made five pyramids in reds and blues and put them on display at Pyro Gallery, the co-op gallery where I have been a member since last fall.

To my surprise, four out of the five have been sold -- all but the tallest, pointy-haired blue one.

So what do you do with one pyramid?  I guess you go back to the sewing machine and make some more so this one won't be lonely.

All the pyramids were stitched with shiny polyester machine embroidery thread, left over from the Mending Project at Kentucky Museum of Art + Craft, which I participated in and wrote about extensively two years ago.  KMAC was trying to get rid of a lot of stuff it had no storage space for, and our local fiber art group got to take home thread.  I have a whole drawer full so stitching pyramids will be totally free, at least in terms of materials (not so in terms of time).

Since I made the first five pyramids, I've been having ideas for more -- I could truncate the pyramids, I could make doors and windows, I could build little dormers and awnings and bulges onto their sides.  So one of these days I'll be back in the pyramid-building business.
 

Grandchildren and fiber art 3

Several weeks ago I posted a photo of Vivian asleep while I crocheted.  At the time, she had spent practically all of her time with us asleep, a source of frustration to grandparents who wanted to play with her.  But I predicted that pretty soon she'd be up and about.

And sure enough, she's now awake.  My dear friend Uta Lenk from Germany, whom I met years ago at a quilt workshop and have been close with ever since, is visiting the States this month and brought her knitting along.  We noticed that Vivian seemed transfixed by watching Uta knit -- was it the click of the needles, the light reflecting from them, or just the repetitive motion?  Whatever, she watched Uta intently all evening.

Uta promised to come back and teach Vivian to knit when she's old enough.  Uta learned when she was six, taught by her grandmother who rewound balls of yarn to include coins and little toys, an incentive to keep going.  What a great idea!  Only five and a half years till we can try it with another little girl.

My favorite things 34

My parents traveled frequently to South America and brought home various souvenirs that my siblings and I now own.  One of my favorites is this fragment of weaving from Peru, made by the Nasca people in about 1500 A.D.

It's not the oldest thing I own, but is by far the oldest textile, and is well preserved; the dry climate of the coastal deserts west of the Andes has kept lots of cloth in excellent condition over many centuries.  It has the traditional birds, steps and spirals of ancient Peruvian textiles, and its red and gold colors are still relatively bright.

After I'd owned this for many years, I bought a contemporary piece of embroidery that shares the pre-Columbian sensibility, a small piece by my very good friend Bette Levy.  It has four mask/faces painstakingly executed in couched metallic threads, onto a frayed linen background that looks a whole lot like the real antique.

(My apologies for the reflections and glare in all the images, because both textiles are framed under glass.  I know that glass protects fragile art, both from dust and flying objects and from UV light, but I always wish that textiles would be open so they can be better seen and appreciated.)

Of course the two pieces had to be hung together, and that's how they have been for a decade, keeping one another company across the centuries.

At the State Fair 2

Today was opening day at the Kentucky State Fair and I was in attendance, which I haven't done in several years.  Yes, I would go out three days in advance to judge the textiles, but not show up for the actual festivities.  This year reminded me of what I have been missing, and I loved my favorite pastimes of watching the border collies herd ducks, observing the animal judging and eating a pork chop sandwich.

Towards the end of a long day, I didn't have the stamina to look at every quilt on display, but I was surprised to see that they've added a new category since I used to enter.  This one is called "Quilt Top" and is described: "The quilt top may be hand and/or machine pieced, no serger.  This class is for a quilt top only -- the back will be displayed.  This class is to show the skill of the quilter in constructing a quilt top."

I guess this is the natural culmination of the quilt police mentality that has always reigned at state fairs and similar venues -- not only will the QP judge you on the number of quilt stitches per inch and whether you sewed your mitered corners shut, but now they want to see inside!  I think it's sadly appropriate that in this class you get to see more of the back than you do of the front.  After all, who cares about design, composition, color or artistic vision as long as those seams are beautifully pressed in the right direction?

Here's the first place quilt, of which I would have liked to see a lot more of the front and a lot less of the back:

And a couple of more in the same category, all beautifully pressed.

And here's one that you can probably deduce wasn't going to get a ribbon:

If you want my opinion, the skill of the quilter in constructing a quilt top is pretty damn evident from looking at the finished quilt.  When that one just above is quilted, for instance, you're going to detect lumps where the seam allowance flipped from one direction to another.  You don't need a separate category in which people are going to be obsessing over trimming the fraying edges off the back of the quilt (the big difference I could see between the blue ribbon winner and the also-rans).

Because what good is it to trim the fraying edges out of the inside of your quilt?  Other than winning a ribbon, that is?  I'd much rather the state fair encouraged people to obsess over important things like how the quilt looks when it's made up and hanging on the wall or lying on the bed.