july, JULY, JU-LIE-I-I-I

Well, we've been up here for almost two weeks now!
I've been nanny-ing for some very sweet girls, Talia and Charlotte. They are seven and four and perfect. Right now we're making a quilt out of some of those STUNNING imitation Chinese silks that they sell at Joann's... you know the ones!

I've also been working a lot on my beautiful new sewing machine, which was a gift from Pamy Wiley. Every time I sew on it, my heart hums a little. And that is a good kind of heart humming. Making lots of quilts and experimenting with the million stitches that are on the machine... what a treat! up there is a little tiny thingy-ding that I made yesterday for our friend Elisabeth, her birthday is soon.

*** We're planning a winter trunkshow! stay tuned about that one. hand made for lovely you + your lovely home.

We have applied for a big grant for LOOP IT UP! I'm waiting to hear news about that. If we do get the grant, I might get to do this -- teach + coordinate the program/materials center for my JOB! which would be SPECTACULAR! fingers crossed for that one. Next week (Vacations OVER!!!) I'm going to start writing a little curriculum, mission statement/philosophy ... good stuff that will make Loop It Up more accessible and easier to pass along to other people in other parts of the community.

Very happy to be here, with my family and good friends. very excited to get back to SAV. not much is better than having good work to do, many things to make, a fabulous apartment with LYNZ + JILLY + BUB + THE WILEYS and the sun shining almost every single day when we wake up.


Ingrid Michaelson says, "I'll sew on patches to everything you tear. Cause I, love, you more that I could ever promise..."

eat pray love

monday monday. I have an early break at work today, it's kind of nice to have some free morning time. I'm eating my new favorite snack--- a "fitness muffin" from Woodstar. it's sort of a carrot/rasin/ bran muffin.... de-lish!

as usual, the post trunk show period has me a little worn out in terms of studio production. I'm getting back into some fine art after last weeks total break in which I don't think I made a single thing. artist + writer Sabrina Ward Harrison started the true living project a few years ago this is what she wrote about it:

Two years ago I ended up in a field of grass hip high. This is where I began to make the body work that has come to be called The True Living Project.

E.E. Cummings said a poet a “someone who is abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement”. Which is to say the highest form of concentration possible: fascination; to report on the electrifying experience of being.

On a daily basis we teeter on the edge of humanity losing history through the fading cultural landscape of our country and our interconnectedness as human beings. Though unconscious development and historical neglect. As we have barreled deeper and deeper into a technological / result driven 21st century, now more than ever I do believe we need to be brought home to the presence of our living. To allow the restful validation of your own tender true humanity, may this work be a living ode to our living.

I am striving to create both a visual and emotional unfolding through the textural interchange of photography, sound, collage, film and found objects.

As you observe, as you listen, may you rest into that place where this moment, and your memory, exist.

*** I think that the true living project is a fabulous title for a body of work. I've been using the ideas and the title as a way to think about and process my own work. at this point, I know that my work falls into a couple of categories. the first is the studio work--- items which I make many of. the second is the fine art, the true living project, which is the work that I do to document, memorialize, record and at the same time figure out how I feel and what I think. here is the beginning of the most recent piece (quite recent too, I started it yesterday afternoon!)

so we'll see where that one goes.......... I can't wait to work on it more this afternoon. this work is so freeing, it's good to be without that pressure of craftsmanship. it's good to work with things that I've collected and which are not yet tamed or designed.

I'm reading Elizabeth Gilbert's book eat pray love, I just read the part when she meets a 9th generation Balinese medicine man named Ketut. He tells her, " to find the balance you want, this is what you mush become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world thru your head. You must look thru your heart instead."