I have been working on my French map quilt steadily for a few weeks now, and I’m pretty happy with it so far.
The rivers are embroidered, the city dots are ironed and sewn into place, the mountains and highlands edged, and the coastlines nice and swooshy.
Of course, it isn’t done yet. There is all that land between the main features that looks like it wants some detail.
Rolling hills and grape vines, rocky crags and swampy spots, fields of wheat and rows of lavender, all need to add texture and interest.
So I will get started on the next step. I have chosen my color palette, looked at the symbols used in paper maps. I have come to terms with the fact that this will not, and cannot be, an accurate depiction. It will be, like all maps, an interpretation.
Auntie Bridgett and I were wandering the Lone Fir Cemetery the other day, and we came across this tall, ornate headstone for a Woodsman of the World.
The Woodsmen were a service and benevolent organization, like the Elks. Their member’s graves are honored with very specific markers, cast and sculpted from cement. This one included a tree taller than my head, mallet, ax, ferns and scroll.
I figured Mr. J. A. Tell must have been a big shot with his fancy stone, so I went to my old friend, the online Historic Oregonian, to look him up.
I was saddened by what I learned.
As you can see by his stone, Mr. Tell died at the young age of 22. According to the newspaper story, J.A., (whose first name is not given in any of the articles) convinced two friends to go swimming with him in the Willamette River.
They borrowed a boat and rowed out to the protected channel between Ross Island and a smaller island. Here’s what the area looks like now, from Googlemaps.
Robert Ausplund stayed on the island while J.A. and the other fellow, identified only as Jorgenson, rowed to the end of a fifteen foot rope. J.A. disrobed and dove into the water.
Within minutes J.A. began calling for help, but his friends thought he was fooling. In the past, J. A. had insisted that he was a good swimmer. By the time they realized he was really in trouble, they could not reach him in time, and he drowned.
J.A. Tell came to Portland from Dakota just three years before his death in 1891, was a skilled mechanic and, by all accounts, a fine young man. I mourn for the foolishness and over-confidence that lead to his very preventable death.
I went to the zoo with Grandpa Nelson the other day. It was later in the afternoon than usual, and most of the animals were inside their enclosures, having a siesta (or maybe a Union meeting, no one would say.)
Instead, we enjoyed a lot of people and art watching.
This father and son were sitting by a small waterfall, talking very seriously about gravity and water flow.
The statue group of Charles Darwin talking to kids and animals is different from every angle. I like how the little girl is physically connecting the cougar to Mr. Darwin, showing our connection to all living things.
And Mike Bennett, a local cartoonist, was all over the place! Mr. Bennett, who bills himself as ‘a public joy creator’ has partnered with the zoo to encourage careful looking by placing his funny animal cartoons all around. They are funky and opinionated and always make me smile.
We actually saw more of his animals than actual animals, on this trip.
I love how there is always something new at the zoo.
We are getting near the end of summer, but our weather is still warm and I’m not ready to give up my free salads yet, so we picked up 12 new starts at the Portland Nursery and put them in a week ago.
You can see them here, the short new ones among the tall, spindly older ones.
For now, I am only harvesting from the old ones, and pulling them out when they have done all they can do. In a week or so, the new ones will be ready.
In the meantime, I have another zucchini (this makes five, I think) almost ready to come home and get pan fried with lots of garlic and topped with parmesean.
The tomatoes have started bearing, turning red, and generally running amok. I keep having to re-tie their supports and say encouraging things. The neighbors are enjoying second hand fruit!
And, of course, Laverne and Shirley, our dahlias, and getting their second wind. We now have about a dozen blooms and buds.
School is starting next week, but summer isn’t over yet!
Ruthie Inman has done it again! She has gotten me started on a mixed media project that has so many stages, layers and materials, I can’t even see where it might end up.
Here’s what I started with: three colors of acrylic paint, a canvas board, some tissue paper and tule fabric, and some beads. I added other materials as I thought of them.
My piece is inspired by some Ruthie showed us on line; rich, layered, abstractly leafy backgrounds with something that may be a dragonfly on it.
I wanted some texture under the color, so I glued some thin cardboard shapes down, then some splotchy purple paint, then tissue paper cut in sort-of leafy shapes, which got purposely crinkled. I found some tule from my jellyfish costume and stuck that down, too.
It was a good start, but seemed too pale. I mixed some dark blue in with the purple and dabbed.
No No NO!!!
Way too dark. So I pulled out the white and dabbed some more, just here and there, because I want to it feel like shadowy leafy shapes.
At this point, our class time was over and my piece needed some serious dry time. I’ll think about what it needs, and what I could make the next layers out of, between now and our next class.
While we were on the Oregon Coast, we stayed at McMenamin’s Gearhart hotel. We have visited it before, but now we got to really explore.
As with all McMenamin’s venues, the art and ambiance are wonderful. They have a sizable art department that creates wonderful “surreal histories”, as well as preserving actual historic posters. The blurring of factual and mythical history is delicious.
Since Gearhart is a golf course, all the artwork is golf themed. I don’t care much for golf, and it is one of Auntie Bridgett’s LEAST favorite sports, but the art was fun, anyway.
It told of the agony of missed shots and the joy of fresh air and competition. There were so many styles on display, we seemed to travel from religious relics to 1920 flappers to Disney-esque woodland creatures by turning a corner.
There was even a ‘secret room’ painted in wonderfully eerie black-light paints.
We spent a LOT of time looking at art, as well as people watching, fire pit sitting, and beach walking.
And then, after a few days, we were back home, refreshed and cool.
It has been getting really hot in Portland lately, so we decided to take a break. We made reservations and headed for the cool, foggy Oregon coast!
A couple of long walks along Cannon Beach got us relaxed and re-hydrated. It was so cool and beautiful. Windy, too!
Bridgett’s hair blew like crazy, and I ended up chasing my hat for a long time as it tumbled, just like Claes Oldenburg’s “Hat in Three Stages of Landing.”
The fog made everything mysterious and delightfully murky. On an early morning walk, I heard the breakers half a mile before I saw them.
It was my intention to be very methodical about this quilt. First the land forms, then the cities, then the rivers, and so on. But that wasn’t working for me.
Embroidering the names of the cities is extremely fiddley, and hard to do for very long without getting a little crazy. There was lots of squinting and mumbling.
So I started alternating. A few cities, then some easy, sweeping lines on the mountains, then a few more cities. Then start on the Loire!
Then a walk in the park to stay balanced and happy.
I love doing embroidery. It can be restful and contemplative, just making stitch after stitch and feeling a picture grow under my fingers. But sometimes I wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew.
My French map quilt needs the city names, and these pieces of paper aren’t going to do the trick. The names need to be stitched. All 27 of them!
So I practiced a bit, and then wrote, in pencil, each name on the map. You need to squint a bit to see them, I’m afraid.
Then came the stitching.
I used the embroidery hoop because the fabric felt floppy and it gave me more control, and it worked pretty well.
Once the name was embroidered, I used a small blanket stitch to make sure the city “dots” stayed in place.
I’m still working on this, but making progress. Moving Paris and some other cities slowed me down a bit.
I ask your patience, and my own, as well. Breathe and stitch, Judy. Breathe and stitch.
