It's getting late...

and I should be heading to bed, but I'm being called equally by two things:

• A bowl of Quaker Oatmeal Squares cereal, and
  
• My blog.

So here I sit with a late-night snack (a salad for dinner, no matter how large, is never quite enough) and my thoughts. This will be a rambling entry that I may or may not decide to publish, but one week into the New Year I feel a need to assess how things have gone.

One thing I learned from watching other people work is that doing things is how you get things done. This is a shocking revelation, I know, but it hit me suddenly one day when I was teaching someone how to pin baste a quilt. It took all of 25 minutes to baste this quilt. Twenty-five minutes! That's all it took! Mindboggling!

This was unbelievable to me. To me, basting was a mind-numbing task that consumes hours upon hours of life. But I learned that basting a reasonable wallhanging can take just minutes. I had no idea.

(In my own defense, this belief stems from the very first quilt I basted. It was a queen-size quilt and I thread-basted it in preparation for hand quilting. It took me thirteen hours of non-stop work to finish. Thirteen hours! No wonder I avoided basting.)

So December was the month of basting. Through December and into January, I pin basted seven quilt tops for machine quilting. (I have another stack of quilt tops that need borders, but one thing at a time!)

So I have seven projects ready for me to quilt. Since the New Year, I have committed myself to working on something a little each day, even if it is just for twenty minutes. I am amazed at what I have accomplished so far.

• I finished a rag quilt that I started over four years ago. I had 44 of 63 blocks done. It only took me a couple of evenings to finish the remaining blocks and then sew them together. One more evening was spent clipping seams. After washing, I gave it to my husband, but it seems that he will have to fight the cats for it. (Cats love rag quilts.)
• I ditch-quilted a paper-pieced flag wallhanging that is over six years old. My next decision is whether to just bind it as is or add additional quilting. My vision for years has been to quilt a large, traditional American eagle across the entire quilt. But do I still care that much?
• I am currently quilting a Yellow-Brick Road quilt. This quilt is only one year old! I'm probably half-way done with it. Can probably finish it by the weekend if I continue with a little progress each day.

So, seven days into 2008 and I feel a real sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. A little bit each day adds up to a lot over time. I will keep to my commitment to a little progress each day. I like that I am already seeing results.

Stuff

Yesterday, in preparation for the new year, I returned to my sewing studio only to find a horrendous mess. I hadn't been in there since the snow-day-inspired basting extravaganza back in early December--an unexpected snow day led to my pin-basting five quilt tops--but had apparently decided to use the room as a dumping ground for anything remotely fiber-art related.

An enormous pile of sample quilts sat right inside the doorway on top of my crochet project bag. Piles of books and magazines spilled across the entry. Fabric scraps and thread snips littered the floor. An overflowing trash can tilted precariously against the table leg. Finally, I had cleared off my sewing and cutting tables for the basting bash so my workspace wasn't set up.

In short, it was a disaster.

I had two quilt tops left to baste so decided to finish that task first and then get down to the business of sorting through the mess. Later last night I set the timer for 30 minutes and started to work.

I rapidly came to the conclusion that I have too much stuff in there. The rest of my house is fairly minimalist. My husband and I decided a few years ago that it was better to have fewer beautiful things than lots of junk. So periodically, we go through closets and drawers to purge the extra junk that accumulates.

I have never done that in my studio.

This summer, I had a friend come to help organize my space. She had great ideas for rearranging my work environment. When I asked her to help me purge, she looked at me in horror and said, "No, no, no. I never get rid of anything. You never know when you will need it."

And that has been my perspective too. I accumulate stuff on the off-chance that I may need it some day. I have two large banker's boxes full of "found objects" for use in future projects, when I have never, ever, not once used a found object in my work. I have a stack of circa-1970's quilting books that my mom bought for me at a yard sale. I keep thinking that I will read through them one day and find lost patterns or techniques. Four more banker's boxes of ribbons, yarns, and trim are stacked high. And three more of fleece and felted wool. Not to mention my ridiculous fabric stash. And the ginormous box of pillow forms. Or the sloppy stacks of magazines. And the bags full of batting scraps. I could go on.

Looking at this stuff, thinking about this stuff doesn't inspire me anymore. It just makes me feel tired. It's blatantly obvious to me that my mental and creative energy is being blocked by this. But I am not sure how to proceed. I'm not sure how to discriminate between things that I may use some day and are worth keeping and junk that is just taking up space.

Time to set the time for another 30 minutes and see where that leads me.

A Return...

I started this blog with the best of intentions, and then life happened. Well, really work happened, but in any case, hard deadlines for two major projects consumed all my creative energy (and then some) for the past two months. But through it all, I kept dreaming of the post-Christmas period when I could relax, regroup, and return to my creative process.

I never finished (heck, I never even really started) my journal quilt from November. But that was a conscious decision on my part. My life was so busy that I could only devote an afternoon to it. I did not want to rush through the process and compromise my vision. Now that my life has calmed down considerably, I am ready to return.

My focus for 2008 is three-fold.

• Increase my understanding and use of basic design principles through reading and online classes.

• Begin fresh with my Journal Quilts.

• Finish one old project per month.

With this I have a good balance: I'll clean up old projects, improve my understanding of design principles, and then get the chance to apply them in a series of small Journal Quilts. I will look to assess and refine this focus as the year progresses.

I am excited to get back to work, so to speak.

A Visual Moment

I'm not very good with computer hardware. I've never been able to install a printer on my first (or even second) try. Scanners fail regularly in my presence. And I've been known to have problems with jump drives.

So when my dear friend C encouraged me to get a digital camera, I was skeptical. I can deal with dropping rolls of film off at the grocery store, but hooking up a camera to a computer and then downloading pictures seemed nearly impossible.

But I bought a beautiful camera and took it on my trip to England. Taking pictures there went well and I was able to download them after a couple aborted attempts. But then fright took over. My camera went into my purse and rarely came out. I took the occasional picture, but never downloaded them. They simply sat, in some arcane computer language, stored in my camera.

C would ask how my camera was working and I would say fine. But I was lying. I was afraid of the foolish thing and rarely touched it. Finally, I admitted the truth and she offered to help me learn.

You know what I learned? That taking pictures and downloading them is pretty darn simple. I can't believe I was so scared. So I took a bunch of photos and began cropping and manipulating them. (Although I am a wimp about computer hardware, I have no such fears about software.)

Here is the first picture I cropped after downloading.


And here is the original.


The original picture was a pine cone in grass, pretty enough, but nothing special. But by cropping out a very small portion of the picture, I've come to appreciate the little details. Delicate cracks and tiny chips mark the scales. And the highlights on the edges of the scales are contrasted by the dark shadows inside.

Life is busy, and it's not often that I remember to truly look as the world flashes by. But my camera allows me to pause the world for a bit and really learn to see each visual moment.

In which Kimberly asks herself, "Where is the Art?"

Four days into my fiber art blog and there is nary a shred of art to be found. I made that observation when I sat to post tonight (in keeping with NaBloPoMo). And that observation led me to a realization about myself.

I am first and foremost a writer. As much as I love visuals, words are my preferred method of self-expression. When I sit to journal, words pour out freely while I have to remind myself to sketch and draw. When I read blogs that also have photos, I read the words first and then remind myself to study the photos. When I chose my words for the journal challenge yesterday, my first instinct was to write down my reactions rather than sketch out my ideas.

Words have been my friends for years. I was an insatiable reader as a child. My poor mother trolled garage sales and thrift stores to keep me in books. (Even as I child I hated the library. Returning books that had entered my life seemed like a betrayal.) I liked to draw and color, but I loved to read and write.

It's harder for me to express myself through art than words. My visual vocabulary is vastly smaller than my verbal. I have no formal training as an artist, while I was a professional writer for years.

Words have always been my default. But surprisingly enough, art has become my passion.

I am drawn to art. To look, rather than hear. I feel art rather than think it. I create art from emotion rather than reason. I weep with sheer joy in front of paintings and sculptures. Art connects me with the universal while words too often tie me to the specific. Art silences my mind and touches me on a deeper level.

I may have a long-standing preference for the verbal, but I've found that the beauty of art lies in its ability to speak to my heart without any words at all.

Cosmos Key

Today was Tuesday, which is Choose-Day for the journal quilt challenge. I awoke early, wanting to answer emails, run, shower, dress, and breakfast before choosing my words.

Was I procrastinating? Perhaps, because I must admit to feeling slight trepidation as I reached in to select my first word. Why was I nervous? It's the beginning of a year long commitment and I was a little afraid of too difficult a juxtaposition. But I got over myself and grabbed my box of words.

I slid the little slips of paper around and around in my fingers, as though waiting for a shock to tell me, "This is your word." Finally I stopped waiting and just pulled one out. Cosmos, it read.

"How cool," I thought, recalling glorious images of galaxies and star clusters from the Hubble Telescope.

So I reached in again and shuffled the slips around. Key, read the second.

"Not another noun! I don't want to waste my nouns," was my initial (and honest) reaction.

Cosmos. Key. Two beautiful words on their own.

Cosmos: universe, the idea of the infinite, of space and time, of alternate worlds and possible galaxies.

Key: unlocking, answers to mysteries, solutions to riddles, doors and pathways.

Together they can ask a question, "What is the Key to the Cosmos?"

And to that I say, "Good Grief! When I first committed to this journal quilt challenge, I never imagined that my first challenge would be to unlock the mystery of the universe."

My first thoughts of Keys and Cosmos were literal and pictorial. Images of golden keys were superimposed on cosmic clouds. Doorways and portals were interspersed among heavenly bodies. But then I thought, even if my words were nouns, my quilt didn't need to be. So I started thinking deeper.

As I began thinking about Keys and Cosmos, my mind began wandering. I started thinking about Eastern Philosophies, about mindful awareness, and about the use of negative space in Asian Art. I thought about how the quality of the life you live isn't always about those big and special moments, but about how you live those moments in-between. And then I began thinking about space, and how it is so vast and empty. The stars in those glorious clusters captured by the Hubble telescope are light-years apart.

Maybe the key to the cosmos isn't to be found in what is. Maybe it's found in the space in-between, in what is not.

Serendipitous Juxtaposition

How's that for a mouthful? Serendipity and Juxtaposition are two of my favorite words, both in being fun to say and for their meaning. I love the idea of Serendipity, of making fortuitous discoveries by accident. My discovery of my love of quilting is one such moment of serendipity. And Juxtaposition, in addition to being just plain fun to say, holds promise in the act of putting two things side-by-side for contrast.

Last night, as I was lying in bed, words began flashing through my head. These words were rich with promise and resonated with me on a personal level. I had the presence of mind to grab my notebook and pen to record them. Here is the list, in the order that they came to me last night:

fascination
loneliness
mystery
hidden
shattered
cosmos
intensity
splotch
pistachio
linen
momentary
forgotten
hope
London
faded
fragment
symbolic
family
home
forgiveness
flames
sprout
lace
redemption
awe
key
layers
cathedral
reservoir

Twenty-nine beautiful words--each highly charged with personal meaning. As I lay in bed, contemplating the many and varied ideas for each word, I realized that two words together were even more evocative than one alone. Just on the basis of list position alone,

faded London
momentary linen
pistachio splotch
shattered cosmos

were the initial pairings that jumped out at me. Each one sent my mind spinning with possibilities for design. The combination of two words can be more evocative than a single word alone. It's in the interplay of meanings--how one word complements or changes another--that the magic happens.

Rather than use just a single word for inspiration, Serendipitous Juxtaposition, that is, fortuitous discoveries from the accidental comparison of two words, will be the underlying theme for my year of journal quilts.

So each month, on my Choose-Day, I will draw two of these words from a little box (serendipity in action) and use the juxtaposition of words as my inspiration.

My commitment for today (seeing as Choose-Day is tomorrow) will be to type up these words, cut them into little strips, and find a little box to keep them in. I will also find a little journal that I can use to journal my year of journal quilts.

How's that for an iterative process? Keeping a journal about keeping a journal! But in this case, it seems the right idea to record my thoughts as I create each journal quilt.

I'm so excited. This is going to be good.