Strawberries

Look what I did today. I LOVE SUMMER!!!! Twelve quarts in 35 minutes. Course it will take a bit longer to process them....

Where Have I been?

Living life in the summer in Maine, just as it should be. Probably the whole summer will go just like this, and 'go' way too fast. We've had houseguests this past weekend. Two monkeys climbing in a tree:


Charlie and Katherine, 5 and 3 respectively.

I don't know how my sister keeps up with these two. I was exhausted trying to keep up the favorite aunt status, but I think I did a pretty good job.


Getting a little sustenance so we had the energy to cheer the trekkers in at the finish line.

The Trek across Maine was this past weekend, 180 miles from the western mountains to the sea over three days. My brother Joe and Bruce have done it for the past 6 years and last year Joe met up with one of his fraternity brothers who has also done it for many years. It's easy to miss someone in a crowd of 2000 bikers. So Ken enjoyed the comforts of my couch for one night. He was polite and said he LIKED couches. The perfect houseguest. This is the joy at the finish line which this year ended at the Owls Head Transportation Museum, a very cool place all on it's own.


Joe, Bruce in his VERY IDENTIFIABLE team shirt, blaze orange! He was easy to pick out in a crowd. And Ken Ruff.


Just for Martha since I know she reads my blog, like the great sister-in-law that she is! I love this picture.


And my dad was HERE, at my house, for Father's Day!! You think I could have gotten a picture of him here for the first time since 1998. Or a picture of him with three of his children that happened to be in the same place at the same time. DUH! I'll use the excuse of the kids needing attention.

Yesterday I delivered 5 hangings to Sarah for the show she is having at the Camden National Bank in downtown Camden. She has invited me to help her fill the wall space. So I guess we're doing it together? Although she's done ALL THE WORK. She's the kind of person you want to hang out with! So then I came home and started thinking about the show I'm having at the Maine General Medical Center Art Gallery for the month of July, at least 15-20 pieces in 2 weeks! Yikes! I think I need to start accomplishing things after dinner instead of shutting down. I'm actually in good shape, so good I've started playing with a piece of hand painted fabric. Here's a little peek:

United States Poet Laureate

At the beginning of this month Donald Hall was named the incoming US poet laureate. While I walked last night I listened to an interview with him on our local public radio station. I was excited because he just happens to have written one of my very favorite of all time childrens books, 'Ox Cart Man'. I would read it over and over with my children. I loved it because of the symplicity of the story, the cycle it told of a simple life, and the touches of tenderness and reverence. I also loved it for the illustrations.





"Then he sold his ox, and kissed him good-bye on his nose." Love it!


They were done by Barbara Cooney, a Maine native. She wrote and illustrated my second favorite book, 'Miss Rumphius'. The illustrations in both books were the stuff of wall quilts for me. I found them at a time when I was heavy into hand applique and hand quilting. I made several hangings for my own enjoyment based on the illustrations. Where they are now I have no idea nor do I care. They just needed to be made.

And in all the times I read that story to my children I never realized it was a poem. If I had thought about it from a literary standpoint I could have figured it out, but for me it was pure story. Maybe that's what a good poem is all about.

All About Flowers

It's all about flowers today. And why something as beautiful and as intricate as a peony blossom lasts for such a short time. (Someone said that peonies are stupid because they don't like to be transplanted, though Laurel and I have done that a few times with great success; I tend to think they run more along the masochistic line...the only flower that once it blooms, it's head immediately falls down to the ground) And the smell...a few years ago I had a virus and lost my sense of smell. Interesting post all on it's own. Slowly I've gotten some of it back, but not to the point of intensity, like burying your nose in and going 'ahhhhh'!!! Well, these beautiful peonies were the first thing I saw when I came downstairs this morning.



Today is the opening of the exhibit 'Art in Bloom', in which the Waterville Garden Club and Colby Art Museum mesh their talents and put on a beautiful show. The garden club members choose one piece of artwork from the museum, and design a flower arrangement based on their interpretation of the painting or sculpture. Here are some of my favorites:



Painting is by Alex Katz, a Maine resident entitled Milly and Sally. Notice the tiny yellow bikini all made form daisy's and the little flip flops. Daisies, too.



Red Sails'also by Alex Katz..I just loved the simplicity of the one sail, one color flower.



This is a John Marin painting and, again the simplicity of the arrangement got to me. It was also pretty easy to interpret. I like instant gratification in everything I do, including studying paintings I guess.

Look at this one. The little sketch is by Georgia O'Keefe but don't you love the calla lillies coming out of this shell?




Look at it closer:



Beautiful, beautiful white.



"East' by Alex Katz



'Forest' by Alex Katz. He names his paintings like I name my quilts. Boring, but to the point. A lot of the artists (gardeners) used constructed metal sculptures as framework around their arrangements, similar to this one. The branch was there first and they made the sculpture around it.

Nice day.

Frayed Edges Today

today we painted, stamped, silkscreened fabric. My intention going into this was NOT to focus on any end product but just PLAY. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and I STILL got a few good pieces of fabric I might be able to do something with sometime. This is one of them:



This is another and the one following had a little photoshp doctoring...I think i like it better:






I also stopped at a new for me quilting store and bought a few pieces of fabric....notice a theme?



Okay, I guess I'm getting bitten by the dots bug. I mean, look at the colors in these and the dots are all arranged so symmetrically...and really, WHO can pass by a Kaffe Fassett fabric and not want to touch it and look at it more closely. And perhaps imagine ways in which it can go together with other mates.



And of course I forgot my camera, but everyone was so busy and at one point the room was hushed and heavy with creativity. Hannah was nice enough to share her basement, her neat and tidy basement, and all her paints and stamps and screens, etc. Not to mention make a delicious lunch for us and allow me to go through her books and borrow several. It is so nice to have generous friends who have different books than you! We also shared a few words with Deborah via long distance cell, but up close and personal is SO MUCH BETTER! (I've always had a hard time letting go.)



Some are heavy reading, some are all about the pretty pictures and all hold the hope of striking some creative spark somewhere deep in the mossy recesses. So Beate, no time for "lapping" today. Don't know lapping? Check it out.