Road to Florida: Deep Peace

Deep Peace
28" x 28"
cotton, silk, tulle, paint, machine applique and machine quilting

Road to ___ (fill in the name of a state here.) is a title for some classic quilt blocks. They say that quilters designed them along the way to a new home -- mostly going West in a covered wagon (like Road to Kansas). But this year Quilters Unlimited has challenged members to come up with a Road to Florida 12" x 12" quilt block. This is my entry. I knew no design of mine could convey the complexity that many experienced and are still experiencing as they make their way to a new home in Florida. This is my attempt to celebrate the peaceful beauty people seek in Florida. It's inspired by a Gaelic blessing:

Deep peace of the running wave to you.

Deep peace of the flowing air to you.

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

Deep peace of the shining sun to you.

Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

Cedar Key weekend

View from Cedar Key's small beach

Storm approaching

Scallop season
Shells decorate a waterside sandwich shop
I heard a boater say scallops are abundant in the grassy flats offshore.

You've got to at least taste alligator, right?
I did. Once.
And that palm salad is the crunchy, tasteless heart of Florida's state tree, the Sabal palm.

Fish above door on vacant building

Fish can be ferocious.

Air boat on trailer on Cedar Key's main street

Market Square Farmers Market

It was busy last Saturday.

I bought red peppers, $1 ea. and roasted them.

 

I bought 2 eggplants, then roasted them with garlic and olive oil, which I blended with a tiny bit of anchovy paste and served last night with French bread.

I'm going to try her honey next time, but I'm happy with  Orchard Pond tupelo. 

You can't see the sign around her neck that says "Blind." She and her husband are real partners in this venture. A month ago they sold me two basil plants and then gave me a "lucky" mint plant when I said I can't grow mint. It's still alive.

FSU show features textiles

FSU graduating artists show
FSU Art Gallery

How great to discover textile art at the current  FSU Museum of Fine Arts   show. It features two students, one of whom, Jenny Lee, employs textile techniques to reconcile her Korean-American heritage. Lee wants to "critique, question, and subtly subvert our expectation of textiles as having only domestic practicality..." according to her Artist Statement. Here is some of her work:

First Born
Jenny Lee

Detail, First Born

Sweet Tea
Jenny Lee
wool, hand-dyed fabrics, tea bags, hair, embroidery, rice paper, antique linens

Sweet Tea detail

Marium Rana
image in the Qalam series
(A qalam is a brush with a single hair of a squirrel's tail!)

Display method: dowel and  line, resting on nail or screw

Display method: magnet on art, with nail or screw 

Something Wondrous

Turning and Turning
12" x 12" mounting 15" x 15'

Leslie challenged us to make a quilt experiment inspired by a poem. Naturally, I thought of the most depressing poem: W. B. Yeats' s The Second Coming. I love this poem. I tried to expel it from my mind and think of something chipper, but instead found myself  experimenting with mad turnings. I had too much fun drawing this thread picture of the end of the world, or society's descent to corruption, or whatever Yeats meant by his glorious words. 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15527#sthash.NvSF9nkY.dpuf

Something Wondrous Will Happen
12"  x 12" mounting 15" x 15'

Naturally, I felt guilty and compelled to cheer, so I created this thread drawing of my second-favorite poem:

It’s the Dream by Olav H. Hauge

It’s the dream we carry

that something wondrous will happen

that it must happen

time will open

hearts will open

doors will open

spring will gush forth from the ground–

that the dream itself will open

that one morning we’ll quietly drift

into a harbor we didn’t know was there.

from Borealis (March/April 2002), translated from the Norwegian by Robert Hadin

http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/olaf-h-hauge-its-the-dream/

Of several translations online, this is my favorite. But I just ordered a collection of Hauge's poems, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin. 

Storm

Monday Zing! and I were running at Phipps Park, in the low area by the lake bed, and suddenly we were chased by storm clouds. It was sunny when we started, but ...  Just the day before I'd been scared off our front porch by a lightning storm. Still, I have to admit I considered bypassing this wooden viewing tower. I thought we might outrun the storm. However, Zing! persuaded me to be careful, and I'm grateful. Shortly after this photo, we relaxed on the bench upstairs and watched the grasses flatten and the trees bow down. Birds stopped singing and butterflies disappeared. We heard only rain on the wood roof. Lightning. Thunder. It reminded me of being at anchor in our old sailboat the Partnership during one of those wild Great Lakes storms. I loved it. Even Z! put his ears down and relaxed after a while.

It was a long and private time.

Then the rain slowed, the weeds stood straight, and I began to hear birds and swat mosquitoes. As we jogged again along the path, we were confronted by a big spotted tortoise. I've never seen one in this part of the park. Then a deer poked head and shoulders from the protecting trees and seemed to find everything satisfactory. I imagined these creatures were, like Z! and I, quietly exulting for some unknown reason.

Artists who inspire me

People ask which artists inspire, and I usually blank out. But I want to honor those who inspire me.  The list changes as I find my way in art. But for today it's these:

Economy -- Miro

Line -- Bridget Riley

Color -- Hendra Gunawan

Florida Artist -- Miami -- Enrique Martinez Celaya

Subtlety -- Agnes Martin

Humanity -- Caravaggio

Judith Beheading Holofernes

Balance -- Kenojuak Ashevak

See also
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/01/13/renowned-inuit-artist-kenojuak-ashevak-walks-146934

Brilliant Ohio artist -- Jenny Holzer

Verve -- Nuria Mora

Favorite classic art -- Winged Victory of Samothrace statue in the Louvre

Favorite contemporary wings -- Book with Wings. Anselm Kiefer. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Social awareness -- JR

More on JR
1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8091890.stm

2. video about a video on JR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFThZIJuH5o


Collage -- Joan Schulze

Mystery -- Peter Doig

100 years ago

Texture --Thornton Dial. High Museum, Atlanta.