I visited a GYN Doctor once...need I say more?

This picture was painted just after I visited a doctor who told me about a procedure that would help fix a problem they discovered. I was not having any part of it...It really expresses how I felt. Stretched out to the limit, eyes nose and mouth pressed flat. Throat and body scared by the exam. Had I as many legs and this comb has teeth I would have run away. As it was I refused the procedure and in time the problem has resolved itself. Now that works for many things but not teeth. So do not go thinking my problem will work itself out too...if it is in your mouth. My problem, or their diagnosis, was located somewhere else. And it and I am just fine, thank you. LOL. Ms. V

Summer prayer 2009

This year in Massachusetts we have been getting lots of rain and stormy, cloudly days. Where is the summer weather we all waited through the long dreary winter for? There must be a reason Lord. So I will not complain that I can not go to the pool and wade in the water, or sit outside on the ground an plant a few more flowers. I will instead, wait, wait on you Lord and seek a reason for this weather, for the slowing down of our usual summer persuits. Oh, I know there is a reason and if I read the papers or watch the news Lord I know what is down or low for this time of the year.

There is always a reason Lord and I will seek within myself for it. I hear you but I am not sure what the message is. I will use the quiet time and the rainy days to reflect on all that is going on in my life and I will wonder at your magnificence. The answer is there, in you, in me, for all to see.
Thank you for this day and the tool of the computer.
Thank you for bringing me this far, it's funny Lord but at one time I had no idea what that meant but sang the words..."We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord", and I had no idea then what was to come.
Thank you for giving me that song. It has continued to be a theme in my head and heart.
Thank you for bringing me through the storm to today.
I wait for the sunny days, but not of my life, this is one, any one I can open my eyes and breathe and pray is one.
Thank you for this Massachusetts summer.
Amen
Ms. V

Weaving a quilt - or creating a quilt topic

I have a few weaving's that are now calling out to me to reproduce them as quilts. The question I have is are they looking to be actual quilts or quilt tops.

I have learned over the years that some pieces are only ever going to be a quilt top, a way to learn a technique, to be used in a lecture or training workshop, or to just hang on my design wall. The unlucky pieces stay stuffed in a box or a bag. Why unlucky? Because I always intend to get back to them. This year those unlucky pieces from the last twenty-thirty years are going to see some sunlight.

Take this piece for example...As a complete piece it does not have the pull to create a quilt but crop it in a few places and it screams at me to take it on.

Look what happens to this 8x10' weaving when I crop it. It becomes a bold possiblility for a quilt. It lends itself to all kinds of techniques including adding some threads and beads, weaving the fabric in and out to mimic the actual weaving. The threads hanging from the bottom and around the eyes of the lower of the four faces could be strips of bias sewn above the eyes for example. I love the way the piece enters and exits the edges of the faces. The inspiration for this was an African Mask I saw with what appeared to me to be tears streaming down the face. Later I learned it was from an agricultural tribe and was used in ceremonies at certain times of the year that had nothing to do with what the mask felt like or meant to me.

I love putting together faces that work into each other and become the brow or nostrils of the next face. There is something me, myself, and I about it. This particular piece was almost done and I was going to work some type of hair treatment at the very top when a friend asked me if God would be looking down from above...although those were not his words but my interpretation of what he said. Like most of my art my hearing when it comes to my art takes on a life of its own and works its way into my pieces. If I want a piece to be solely my own I would probably have to shut my self up in a space with no outside influences. But is that even possible as we take with us all our previous and most especially last impressions into a piece. Well that is so for me, especially when I look back two or three years. I found the pieces I made with all the lazy eyes and noses were all about the adult asthma I would later be given a diagnose of. Did I bring it on, or did I know it, and not know what I knew. Look into your art works and see if you are weaving a quilt or creating a topic for discussion.