What Flower Are You?

These are Bleeding Hearts from my garden. If you're interested, you might want to try out my new link on the right to the What Flower Are You Quiz. I'm not sure how accurate it is. Turns out I'm a snapdragon. I'd love to know what you are.

On the Road, Part II

This is my daughter. Can you tell she hates it when I take her picture at times like this?Yesterday we took her to D.C. for what the Peace Corps calls "staging". This is preparation for her assignment to The Gambia in West Africa. She's at the start of many lectures and innoculations. Tomorrow she's off to Banjul, the capital of The Gambia, for the beginning of about three months in-country training. She will be an education volunteer if she successfully completes this training. To make this fiber art/fabric related, I am hoping she sends home some wonderful fabric from The Gambia. They batik, tie-dye, and also beat some fabric with wooden sticks until it shines.

The round trip from NJ to DC took 9 1/2 hours: 1 1/2 hours longer than usual. (There was a terrible accident on the NJ Turnpike.) As we neared home, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. A little while later as we got even closer, another rainbow appeared. A sign of things to come, I hope: one rainbow for each of the next two years.

Your assignment: can you find The Gambia on a map? Do you know why "The" is part of its official name?

On the Road, Part I

This is one of my favorite pictures from being in Kansas City for the Surface Design Association's Conference at the beginning of the month. I don't know what this sculpture (?) is doing on someone's back porch, but I sure was surprised to see it.

I also liked this sign at the Kansas City airport. Luckily for me the weather was just glorious for the most part. I even got a little sunburned despite the fact that I was hardly outside because of all the interesting lectures (including New Materials Interacting with Temperature and Light, Cultural Identity Through Fabric and Thread, The Art Quilt Paradox: Studio Art Quilts and Contemporary Quilting Today, Extra/ordinary: Craft Culture and Contemporary Art), demonstrations, First Friday studio openings, and the Fashion Show.

My favorite picture would be from the members' show which included the piece I mentioned in an earlier post, Irony. This is a better shot than those I took at the show. Just ignore the background. Of course this was taken in my basement "studio". I hope the glimpse of its horror isn't too much for you. This is a detail shot I think I posted in March, but now you can see how the whole piece turned out. The best part is that Irony is one of the 100 chosen to travel. Not sure where it's going yet, but I'll be sure to post when I know.

The coolest thing was how they were displayed. Most of the work was hung on wheels of spokes suspended from the ceiling. You can sorta get the idea from the above picture. Mine was just on the wall, center right above.

That's the Kansas City Road Report. Stay tuned for On the Road, Part II.