not Granny's quilt...

Some of the major insanity of the past week has been a national phenomenon that occurs here... It's the Quilt Show.

To the tyros, that seems like a gentle and bengin sort of event, populated with possibly a half-dozen grey-haired ladies of a certain age, slowly looking at fabric swatches...

Wrongo!

This is more like 35,000 folks of every description descending on MY neighborhood for 5 days- it's not a single rentable bed available within a 30 mile radius of the show- it's every imaginable color, texture and pattern of fabric offered for sale, either by the bolt or "fat quarter"...

It is amazing. One of our dear friends is a nationally acclaimed quilter and this show is why she choose to move to Paducah. The quilts that are on display are not your grandma's quilt- we are talking about paintings done in collaged layers of pigmented fabric and constructed of single continuous threads measuring in miles.

They are inspiring to look at as anything that I've seen in the Smithsonian- I kid you not!

These images are just an appetizer- a tease- of the more than 100 quilts that made it through the jury to get to the show...

When I think that I spend too much time in the studio and have no life, and then I look at the work that goes into one of these quilts... I'm not at all suprised that they can take years to complete and isolate their creators effectively from all human interactions...

It's whats for dinner...

I had a fun assignment today...

Our friend, and world class (really!) quilting Goddess, Caryl Fallert hosts a huge number of folks each year as part of the Quilt Show that happens- no that's not right- as part of the Quilt Show that engulfs Paducah at this time of year. As part of that hospitality she has a fancy dinner on Thursday night for about 30 folks...

This year she ended up asking me to pinch-hit the cooking of this meal for her...

So my day has been a layered phenomenon of planning, chopping, pounding and such... the big challenge, of course, is the limitations of the kitchen at Caryl's house... did most of the work here at home and then ran a semi-hysterical shuttle service for foods between the two houses.

Everything came together, as meals have a habit of doing, and the crowd seems sated.

The menu?

I made 3 different foccacia- a garlic herb and Olive oil, a two cheese and curry, and a chicken sausage mozzerella and sundried tomato- for appetizers. The main course was a Chicken Rollantine with feta and fresh spinach layered with all sorts of herbs. I laid the spiraled medallions onto a bed of mushroom sauce... the side dishes of jasmine and wild rice with julienned sun-dried tomatoes and minced olives and sauteed asparagus with the most beautiful medley of different colored peppers... a salad, of course, with a palette of different garni... dessert? of course! I had Victoria and Xan make 5 different types of cookies and I figured that people would have to be able to find something they liked and the leftovers would be appreciated for days afterwards.


After the food was laid out and people started serving themselves (with a certain gusto), I got to come home to dinner that Victoria made... that was like having dessert!

Happy Earth Day...

The library here in Paducah is sponsoring a strange and wonderful art show in the lobby... they've given out a pile of discarded books and asked random community members to alter them into art pieces-as a re-purposing project, if I understand correctly.

So, don't throw those old books out, but carve them, stack them, add to them and reduce them into art that you can then throw out later!

The stack of books that they dropped off for me were, of course, all Readers Digest Condensed Book collections... what choice did I have? I did this piece that is titled "abridged"...


I am not fond of adbriged books- just philosophically- 'cause when I think about it, that author struggled over every word, then the editor forced them to reconsider and choose even more carefully. The publishers all had their crack at it and someone finally decided that those words- the ones that were so carefully selected, ordered and edited- were worthy of getting into print.

Now someone comes along and gets rid of all of the 'extra' words so that the book (all books apparently) is now a one hour read.

I thought of this sculpture the minute I saw that I got the Readers Digest books... the guts of the books being torn out and thrown away seemed so obvious and fun...

You know what the toughest part of this was? Finding someone with an 'old style' paper shredder that plooped out the long strings and not the confetti.

The show is up at the Library and opens today... check it out... think about Earth Day... and don't forget to take time to smell the quilters!

Arts and Music- Paducah Style!

So this will be my first, but certainly not the last, entry about the Lower Town Arts and Music Festival...

I have agreed, though no power on earth can reveal to me why, to be one of the Co-Directors of this years Festival here in Paducah, KY... Don't get me wrong- this is going to be a truly great little festival- one that I'll be proud to say happened in the town that I live in- I just didn't really need another full-time occupation this year!

I have to say at this point, that a lot of the heavy lifting has been done: we have lined up a great list of community partners and corporate sponsors, the Artists have been juried and the logo is designed (see above- thanks David L.)... in fact, I just designed the Information Volunteer's T-Shirt, below, to be printed on bright yellow so that they can be our (wait for it) yellow pages...


Now, I am looking deep into the site plan of our neighborhood and working with Stef, (my other Co-Director) to make all of the parts into a harmonious whole...

All the little triangles are chatting amiably with one another and I have a sneaking suspicion that this will all work out!


You know what the biggest challenge has been so far? Making the emotional transition with folks who have been here much longer than I have, from the way the Festival has been run to the way we are doing it this year.
People tell me they have not been happy.
They tell me that they have not been treated well.
My job has been, (so many different times in the past month), to walk folks through the plan, the players, the strategies and the finesse for this year and the next few years.
People are a bit skeptical- and I have gained a real appreciation for that... but the best politics are the politics of community growth and healing- those are the only ones that I can personally make time for!

Must be Spring...

Clearly this is not the appropriate 'spring' hat for the Easter Island head of Lower Town that seems to have taken up residence in front of our home...

so the first thing in the hat-changing manual requires that you don't repeat the folly of how you put the Christmas hat on, (leaning an extension ladder against a wobbly foam sculpture in the middle of the night), and back your giant van up onto the sidewalk, creating a semi-stable platform to put your borrowed 8' ladder on...

Once you manage to haul yourself up on the van, (our 'new' van has none of the fine places to

grab onto that the old van had), you pluck the Santa hat off and ascend the new spring chapeau.

and now, and probably for the rest of the summer, we have a new ridiculous hat for our guy, in our town...

The community fervor to change the hat didn't really start until the middle of March, but then things really started smoking!

I tried to take an informal survey of what the next hat should be and found out that I should never have opened that door... I instantly had a full calendar of Hat Suggestions- bonnets with bunny ears for Easter, Broad-brimmed hats for the Racing Season, Baseball caps in size XXXXXXXXXL for the summer...

At first I seriously entertained these ideas, immeadiatly thinking of how to 'make it work' in the full scope of weather that we get here... (the high winds are the toughest to factor for), and then it occured to me that I probably didn't need another full time job making giant hats for a temporary sculpture.

I thought of that one just in time!

Clearly, it is officially Spring in Lower Town, now... we have a new can of propane for the grill, new diets, and a new hat!

Starting this up again...

Well, there have been many, well justified, smacks about the head and ears to start this up again. Most notably from my dearest friend Penny, and so it is my intention to keep up fairly regular postings... really it is!

Just back from the NCECA conference, (National Clay Educators get together every year), in Philadelphia... I arrived there with a bit of a snorffle and by the time I got home I was full-on coughing, sneezing sick. Who cares? I didn't want to miss anything and so I just filled up on all of the great herbs and vitamins that I could, stayed away from recreational beverages and ate as 'raw' as possible.

The Conference was emmense! There were over 90 galleries outside of the conference that had shows 'officially' and just about everything in the city had something 'clayish' going on unofficially. For those of us in the business, it was a marathon including speakers that had to be heard, symposia that had to be attended, panels to participate in, and then shows to look at... I am pretty sure that I logged about 35 miles of walking in the 4 full days that I was there...

Aside from phenomenally 'geeky' conversations about reduction and quartz crystal formations and rotatations, I did manage to negotiate the construction of another kiln that I've needed for about three years... It will be built in Georgia and they will do all of the groovy special wiring so that I don't have too! (That is a big Hooray! in my world right now)

The other treat for me was running into to people that I've known for years and meeting people that I've only corresponded with online... I was actually approached by a fellow ceramicist who I've only known through FaceBook- She teaches at a University in San Palo, Brazil!!- thank goodness she was paying attention to the little photos next to each posting...

I'm not going back through my notes right now, but I'm pretty sure that I looked at somewhere around 40 shows... I will not bore you with the details but I thought I'd share some of the interesting things that people were doing:

and so much more that Blogspot does not want me to show you... It will just have to be more later! (did I mention I was sick?) Signing off, blessings abound!