love and squalor

A couple years ago my stepson, his wife, and their toddler came to visit us in Brooklyn. The visit consisted of doing many of the usual things you do in NYC with first-timers. It was interesting to experience the city through fresh eyes - a sentiment I know many New Yorkers express when they have out-of-towners to stay. I was surprised (a little) by how unprepared they were in some ways for the city's harshness. They had only packed flip-flops so their feet were pretty well destroyed after a day's walking. Hauling Hunter's stroller up and down the subway stairs multiple times a day wore on everyone, of course, and there were no easy places to change his diaper - Starbuck's bathrooms (of questionable cleanliness) being the default option.

Still, when we took them on a driving tour of the city, starting somewhere around Central Park West and winding down into the bowels of the Lower East Side, I was a little surprised by their reaction to (what I've always felt to be) the gritty charm of downtown. I believe the conversation in the car went something like this:
"So, is this area cheaper to live in, at least?"
"Nope. Even the Bowery's expensive."
"Oh my god, why would people pay to live here?"

Now, in surveying the view from the car window, any sensible person would likely agree. The streets are filthy, mountains of black trash bags lay heaped along the sidewalks, building facades are crumbly with age, graffiti and stickers adhere to every flat surface, it's noisy and crowded.

But all I see is glamour. Visiting the Bowery and the Lower East Side always leaves me all fizzy with excitement.

I've given this a fair amount of thought and I can only think it is the product of coming of age in the 1980's. Or not, I don't know. I started college in 1984. Though plenty of people attending RISD had plenty of cash, it wasn't cool to look like it. I remember one classmate returned after our freshman year driving a cute red Rabbit convertible. Within a month she had traded it for a shabby, grey Datsun beater. Everyone's clothing was ripped, stained, torn, vintage, thrifted. Clunky black combat boots, badly dyed black hair, oversized sweaters (with sleeves hanging a foot past your fingertips), asymmetrical haircuts were de rigueur. Sid and Nancy was a huge hit - remember that scene where they're making out in some disgusting back alley while garbage rains down on their heads from the tenement windows? That was romance, baby! And Nan Goldin! Nan Goldin was Everything. The first time I got an eyeful of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency was like being hit by lightning. I suppose it was all a reaction to Reagan's America, Thatcher's England. Not that I had any sense of politics at the time. It was just the sheer effrontery to respectability that thrilled.

Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen

Trixie on the cot, NYC - Nan Goldin

I guess, as a result, I've always assumed that all young people have a moment of infatuation with some version of that hedonistic, self-absorbed nihilism? I mean hello, La bohème
dates from when - ? (the 1840's - thank you Wikipedia). The cliche of the starving artist in the Parisian garret is at least as old, yes?

But my very sensible daughter-in-law proved entirely impervious to the derelict charms of lower Manhattan. To her credit, really, I think, my surprise not withstanding. It's gross. Dirty. Hard. Even studded, as it is now, with luxury condos. Still.

Still. I'd move there in a heartbeat. Even knowing the inevitable 5 flights of tenement stairs I'd have to ascend and descend daily might just kill me at my age, now.

heavy heart, busy hands

This is a quilt top I made well over a year ago. I made it during Hurricane Sandy. Expecting our electricity to go out at any moment, I decided I would just keep busy sewing until it did. Well, it never did (we were lucky) so I was able to get a hefty chunk of sewing done during the storm.

This kind of patchwork is a deeply satisfying sort - once I had decided on pink and brown, all the thinking it required of me was over. I find myself returning to this style of quilt-making whenever I am feeling sad or lost or frustrated. It is pleasantly distracting to sit and sort through my bins of scraps, to piece together similar lengths, to sew up chunky bits and then piece those together - it's not unlike doing a jigsaw puzzle.

I was tempted to begin another one this evening but resisted. It's a way of working that is maybe a little too easy (maybe a crutch?). I want to start something new and challenging, something that I could possibly submit to this year's QuiltCon. But I'm also currently smarting from a gigantic fight I had with a friend earlier today, and I find I can't concentrate on much challenging.

Which is also why, of course, I want so much to be sewing something mindlessly right now - I want the distraction and feel of productivity that comes with keeping your hands busy.
Sigh. 

lily's quilt update

So when I last worked on Lily's quilt-in-progress (in January!) it was looking something like this:

Which I ultimately scrapped, because I just wasn't digging it. I ripped out those seams, cut up the fabric panels and made some flying geese, a block I've never made before. I was thinking I would do something like this:

I found this on Pinterest and don't have any info about it, other than it is a very cool quilt. So I tried my version of it for Lily:

I had actually sewn the whole thing up with the white side panels and everything when I decided I just wasn't totally digging it either. Sigh. So I got the seam ripper out again. Started looking at Pinterest again. Saw this quilt:

And thought, hey.

So that's how it ended up. Well, actually, I ended up adding two more narrow strips of the black and white polka dot fabric to right and left sides, but you get the picture. Mailed it off to my quilting ladies in Michigan this afternoon. If I were to do it one more time (ugh), I think I wouldn't have put those random polka dot squares in the white panels in exactly that fashion. It feels a little too balanced and deliberate to me. However, I know once it's quilted the contrast between the polka fabric and the white will be subdued and I'll feel much less aware of those patches. Or so I think (hope).

pressure and pleasure

I recently finished my first ever commissioned quilt. When I first started making quilts I couldn't imagine wanting to make commissioned pieces. I was too drunk with all the possibilities swirling within my own head. The idea of collaborating with another person felt like an unhappy compromise. Too close to what I did for a living every day, maybe.

Sewing started out in some ways as a reaction to spending 10 hours a day in front of a computer screen. After punching out at work, the last thing I wanted to do at home was to sit back down in front of a Mac. I've never "designed" a quilt on a computer. I've thought about it - done a couple "sketches" in Illustrator, but ultimately, that process (then and now, at least for the time being, never say never) just doesn't appeal. Process is paramount for me. No, actually pleasure is paramount for me. If I were to design a quilt on a computer, I would then feel compelled to execute that design as flawlessly as possible. There would be no room for improvisation or happy accidents or whimsy. It would feel like a lot of pressure. I don't like feeling pressure. It is in no way stimulating to me. It is the opposite of fun, and fun is the only reason for me to make quilts, dig?

Cut to early February, three months into my current sabbatical (layoff), and my friend Charlotte asks: are your quilts available for common folk to purchase or are they strictly museum acquisition pricing levels? Pffft, I replied, they are totally available in whatever budget you got, sister!

I sent her jpgs of all my available finished quilts, but none was really the right size/color. She was looking for a birthday gift for her partner, Roz, something that would work in their bedroom on a Queen-sized bed. I told her the best thing possible would be for me to make something specifically for them. I've known Charlotte and Roz for a few years now, been to their home on several occasions, but never seen their bedroom. Charlotte asked us over for dinner and afterwards we all tromped to the second floor of their beautiful brownstone to survey their bedroom and talk logistics.

I think they were a little nervous. I was a little nervous. But also really excited. I took some phone snaps of their walls and artwork, their rugs, the chair next to the fireplace. I asked them some questions. I tried to weigh how much they were committed to the reds in their bedroom, how much importance to give the William Morris pattern on the armchair. Roz said she like asymmetry. I started thinking about what I could make that night in bed while I fell asleep.

In a few days time, I sent Charlotte a short design rationale to get her feedback:

She gave it the thumbs up so it was all systems go. It didn't take that long, actually, and had I not come down with the worst flu on earth in the middle of it, it would have been done in under 5 weeks as I had proposed. Still, I delivered it to her 2 days before Roz's birthday so it was all good. I even had time to photograph it on our bed before delivery.

I have to say, I was really pleased with how it came out (this is rare for me). Though Roz and Charlotte were possibly ideal clients, I would love to do this again. It was a fun sort of problem-solving - like the best design assignments.

Not a sponsored post. Unless you count the open bar.

After my trip last year to France and Spain (a birthday gift from my squid mother), I made a small Blurb book of the snapshots I took to give her as a thank you. I made a copy for myself, too. I decided it would be just images - no text. Writing exactly the right thing seemed like too much pressure and I wanted the process of making the book to be as enjoyable as the trip had been. Blurb has templates for non-designers to use, as well as a new software program called Bookwright which evidently provides the tools to help non-designers make custom layouts. I used the InDesign to pdf option. When the printed books arrived in the post, it was really very exciting to have a printed and bound actual thing to hold in my hands that contained all these great memories/experiences. I presented Linda with her copy this past Mother's Day while we were back in Ibiza. I told her I had had to leave out a lot of images to keep it to under 75 pages. She suggested I do a second volume and well, that's just what I did (delivery due sometime this next week).

first book.

ibiza.

montmirail.

paris.

Blurb has had a couple promotional events here in the city the last couple weeks. There was one in Chelsea a couple weeks ago that I went to because a book artist I admire was giving a talk. Brian Dettmer does these crazy things to books - slicing them up and cutting through them to reveal the interiors. They are insanely precise and kind of mind-blowing. These images are from his flickr page: flickr.com/photos/briandettmer

Brian Dettmer

Brian Dettmer

Blurb was hosting the event (with 3 other speakers) (plus open bar!) to promote an international contest they were having called "Unbinding the Book." They were looking for people to really push the boundaries of what a book could be and the winning entries (12 in total) would receive some dough and an exhibition opportunity. It was an interesting event held in a pretty incredible space. Lots of folks made use of the terrace and the skyline to take selfies. In fact the person presenting the speakers made a joke about it, asking everybody to come back inside so they could start the lectures.

Brian Dettmer speaking.

view from terrace.

night falls in nyc.

so pretty.

So this week there was another blurb party at the Refinery Hotel roof bar celebrating this new BookWright thing as well as the fact that you could now add an ISBN number to the books you make through Blurb and sell them on Amazon. Which is pretty cool, in truth, particularly if you are a self-publishing author. Anyway, glamorous location and yep, open bar? I'm there.

refinery hotel.

catching up

Likely of interest to myself only, but in an effort to track the days as they fly past, some notable bits from the last several weeks.

Whitney Biennial. The show everybody loves to hate. I didn't have to pay admission or I probably wouldn't have gone. That said, it was interesting to compare it to the 2012 show. I went in 2012 to see the work of some college classmates, and because I was in NYC, and because I didn't have to pay admission that time, either. In recalling it, what comes to mind is a general feeling of fatigue. It felt so thin, and grey, and undernourished, all the artwork. What I remember most vividly is a picture I snapped on my way in of a woman in sneakers and a wonderfully vibrant coat.

yep. that's the one.

So 2014. I'd read a few reviews and again, "knew" people who had work in the exhibition. In this case a couple artists I was at Skowhegan with back in the day. I also figured it would be worth checking out as it would be the last time the Biennial would be held in Marcel Breuer building before the whole museum decamped to the Meatpacking District. This year felt more than a bit like an MFA exhibition. Too crowded, too disjointed, too...just trying too damn hard. Though the building didn't help matters. Disengaging from the art and looking critically at the galleries revealed some pretty worn-out parquet floors, inadequate lighting, and an oppressive cement acoustic-style ceiling. I've grown to dislike galleries without any natural light sources.

painting by Laura Owens.

can't remember the artist, but kind of like this twinkie painting.

security guy checking me out.

Rebecca Morris.

liked this thing - not surprising, I suppose, since it looks a bit like a quilt?

Alexander McQueen sleeve on the left, feather starfish on the right.

Nothing really to say right now, except, wow, how gorgeous is the world sometimes?