When Women Were Birds

When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love her name: Tempest. It evokes wild nature, and that is her love, as a naturalist, teacher, poet and essayist.  When I checked this book out, the librarian gasped. She told me she is from Utah, as is Williams, and she'd participated in a writing workshop Williams led. TTW inspired her deeply. We wanted to go on talking, but  a line was waiting. This was the first time in a while that I'd talked books with a passionate librarian.

Williams is from a Mormon family and a (distant?) cousin of Mitt Romney, but her sensibility couldn't be more different.  In these 54 poetic reflections, Williams sometimes gets too gushy for me, but just as I'd start to close the book, I'd read an arresting thought or phrase. Like her, I have a bird and wing fixation. Maybe it is deep in every woman. (I once wrote a poem about a daughter Noah left behind so there'd be more room on the Ark. As the boat pulled away, Noah turned to see his daughter rise on wings.)

And like Williams, I chafe at my family religion. I am going to read more of her work.


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The Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a van Gogh Masterpiece by Cynthia Saltzman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This starts where Smith and White's biography of VVGogh ends; it's the story of  van Gogh's portrait of his doctor, one of his final works. Saltzman tells how it grew in value, until it was sold for an astounding $82.5 million to a Japanese businessman who was planning a golf community named after van Gogh. Unfortunately, he was found guilty of bribery and died. At the end of the book the painting is wrapped and stored --the property of maybe his family or maybe his creditors. The book was published in 1998. My quick Google search did not reveal what happened after that.

Truthfully, I skipped the boring parts. This book did not speak to me deeply, but it does illuminate the relationship between finance and art, and it makes me wonder what happened to the value of all van Gogh's other work. There's something troubling in the whole thing.


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The law of slaw

A friend on chemotherapy told me that not much food appeals to her, but for some reason her eyes lit up when I said "coleslaw." I used The Zen of Slaw for starters, then improvised. Here's their guide for a pound of shredded cabbage and one carrot:

1 tablespoon distilled vinegar

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 tablespoon white sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon celery seeds (not celery salt)

I had a whole cabbage, so I doubled this, using all the mayonnaise we had, without measuring. Then I added a cup of sour cream so I wouldn't have to go to the store for more mayo. 

If you like slaw without mayonnaise, try Mom's slaw. 

A better shot

Lake Jackson
applique
8" x 10"

Photos from my iPhone 3GS are snappy, but not always exact in either color or shape. I want to enter my art in shows, and I have to send pictures of my work.  So I've been learning -- slowly! -- how to take better photos. Shades of Dr. Peterson, my photojournalism professor at Ohio State! I still hear him insisting that pushing the button is NOT what taking photos is all about. It's the preparation. Background, distance, lighting ... Shoot That Quilt is a good introduction, and I'm taking photographing your quilts with Janice Baehr at Quilt University online at the end of September.

Gold Cone Flowerapplique
11" x 14"

Balance
collage
11" x 14"

Mustard-roasted snapper

We had friends for dinner Saturday, and it was fun and delicious: snapper with a mustard sauce, rice, peas, salad (with homemade garlic croutons), and Mom's peach pie. Which was almost a disaster because the peaches were mealy and tasteless (due to refrigeration at the store, gardening friends say). I'd already made and blind-baked the crust, and had the topping ready. Taste buds primed, I improvised with half Publix frozen peaches and half fresh raspberries. This peach melba combination is irresistible.

Mary gave me Ina Garten's Back to Basics, where I found this recipe:

Ina Garten's Mustard-roasted fish

I'll write it here too, the way I made it for six:

Take 2 pounds of snapper fillet and cut into six fillets. You can leave the skin on or not.
Cut a parchment circle to fit the bottom of a large casserole dish.
Place the fish, skin side down, on the parchment. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Mix 16 ounces creme fraiche, 6 T. Dijon mustard, 2 T. whole-grain mustard, 1/4 C. minced shallots, and 4 t. drained capers. (I think I used more.)
Pour it on top of the fish. This makes more sauce than Ina's recipe, but I did it because that's how much creme fraiche I had. The sauce is delicious.
Bake at 425° until the thickest part of the fish flakes. It took 15 minutes.

Make small art look good

There's no reason to belittle my recent work -- even though most of the pieces are 8" x 10." I follow Lyric Kinard's advice and stitch them to gallery-wrapped canvas. First paint the canvas to complement the work. Then pin the little quilt where you want it. I stuck straight pins through to the back -- you WILL prick yourself! Then sew in fairly big stitches, knot carefully. I put a blog of hot glue over the ends to make sure it's secure. Here's the back

And here's the front:

A couple more:

Glue hanger onto back of your quilt

What I made: plastic quilt hanger with magnets

One day I described this method to a roomful of quilters: You cut a strip of plastic and hot glue it to the back of your quilt. More than one person gasped. It's just not right! We quilters make a pocket, slip a rod through, then hook it onto the wall. But "regular" people understand picture hangers better. So why not put one on the back of a quilt?

I got the idea from a 2011 Quilt Surface Design Symposium workshop with Cynthia Corbin. She uses this technique, with a sawtooth hanger instead of magnets. She said it works for any piece up to 24" wide. I had an 8" x 10" quilt of a cone flower. I wanted to send it to my mother, who hangs things on her refrigerator with magnets.

First I had to get a plastic sheet from Home Depot. I thought I could use my craft knife on it, but I was wrong. I had to go back and get the plastic cutter that was recommended. I cut my first strip, using my quilt cutting board and plastic ruler: I ended up with a shard of plastic. So I read the directions: you have to score the cut 7 to 10 swipes before snapping the 1 1/2" strip off. By the time I was finished, I'd also swiped the edge of my plastic ruler, which is no longer straight. And I dug a groove into my green cutting mat. This piece of plastic was getting expensive, but I'm going to hear from my mother soon, and she'll be happy because she can hang the little quilt onto her refrigerator. I like this technique.