Sherri Woodard Coffey

Speaking of the economy, I received a message from the American Craft Council that its shows in Charlotte and Sarasota have been cancelled. Here’s a quote from the message:

The Charlotte and Sarasota shows have provided great community outreach but unfortunately have experienced a decline in artist participation, public attendance and revenue. It no longer makes sense for the Council to subsidize these losses. This change will allow us to focus on our four shows located in diverse geographic areas: the flagship show in Baltimore and the shows in Atlanta, St. Paul, and San Francisco. Through these four shows, the Council will concentrate on presenting the best shows and best work for our artists, members and public audiences. We look forward to working with all artists who choose to present some of the nation’s finest craft at these venues.

Guess this means I don’t have to make the decision to spend the money to go to Charlotte. That really was going to be an expensive undertaking for me. But at least I can say that I was selected to participate, right?

I always feel inspired after even a short trip like the one this past weekend. I even figured how to sync my new phone with the computer this morning! Now if I could just get the Bluetooth devices to embrace each other!

Now I notice that none of the pictures are not clicking to the larger size today. What have I done now? “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

Great Weekend

We left Friday morning for a little drive to San Antonio. That’s about 5 hours from the Fort Worth area. We used the GPS, but rejected I-35 for a more scenic route. Unknowingly, we had the parameters on the GPS set to avoid traffic, which means we went on backroads of Texas that weren’t even on our paper map. Because of the drought, our bluebonnets are not as plentiful this year as usual, but they are still thrilling to see. We Texans love our bluebonnets! Somehow when we see the bluebonnets in bloom, all’s right with the world. In good years, the flowers would cover the hills and everything would look blue during the peak season. This year the flowers are clustered in areas where more moisture would have collected.

CHT

The Contemporary Handweavers of Texas biannual conference was up and running when we got to SA. I tried out my new phone camera and used my regular camera to take a few pictures. The one on the bottom is of Lone Star Loom Room’s booth, taken with the camera. The one on top was taken with the phone, which I have trouble holding still, for some reason. That’s a snap of Heritage Art’s booth.

Linda Ligon, of Handwoven magazine fame, was the keynote speaker and the judge of members’ work.

I am happy to say that Sine Wave won second place in the Art Concept category.

Friday night we drove downtown (I was reminded again of why I don’t like big cities-freeways!) to the mercado area for dinner at Mi Tierra. Mi Tierra is a Mexican restaurant that has been in business for over 60 years. As you walk in, there is a huge altar of the kind that is usually only seen for El Día de los Muertos. The ceiling of the restaurant were decorated with metallic papeles picados and metallic piñatas.

Mi Tierra is also a bakery and has typical Mexican pastries. And there are pictures EVERYWHERE!

On the way home we stopped in a little town called Blanco. In 2000, the population was around 1500. It’s in a popular area of Texas, so I’m sure the population is larger now, but not by too much. So, imagine our surprise to see 20 or more Ferarris parked around the courthouse square. Each car has to be in the range of $250,000 to $500,000. What’s this about the economy?

If you like to read about art-making process, as I do, you may enjoy reading about the process of making the felt yurt on display at the Cooper-Hewitt. The journal includes sketches, notes, etc on the process. Here’s the link for the exhibit itself.

Did you read this post about art and innovation from Psychology Today? I found it very interesting, finally looked it up to read again.

Think we’ll be thunderstorm-free today, so will do all that computer stuff—after weaving for a couple of hours. Not looking forward to the setting up of the wireless router. I spent hours on the phone with my own set up.

I’m still having a hard time believing I’m going to have to bring tender plants inside for the weekend. My basil does not like anything below 40. Something that people from other states find out when they come to Texas: We’re obsessed about weather forecasts. I didn’t realize that people in California don’t watch the weather until a friend made a comment about how we keep up with the weather here. Well, when it changes every 5 minutes…

I’ve been playing with Twitter a little. Can’t decide is it’s a big time-waster or useful. Sure are a lot of folks using it. I’ll try it out a couple of weeks and decide.

Spring brings flowers … and thunderstorms. I had planned to do many things this afternoon, but decided to come home after a brief grocery store foray.  Hail was forecasted, and since I just got my hail-dented car repaired a few months ago, didn’t want to take a chance. But the rain and thunder was glorious for weaving. Look at the raindrops on the rose. ¡Muy hermosa!

Unfortunately, I also had do some un-weaving this morning. I decided that the fish’s eye was misplaced.

Tomorrow, unless there is more hail forecasted, I will buy the new computer for my mother, the wireless router, and head over to her house to get all installed. If all goes well, maybe we will have time to redo her online banking. Friday will be spent in a quick trip to San Antonio. We will go to the Contemporary Handweavers of Texas conference. My only goal is to check out the vendors.

You might remember my rant of last week about how you can’t find people in offices. XTO actually called me back yesterday and explained how they do the disbursement checks. They don’t call them disbursement—there’s another specialized word for it. But at least now I know.

I just heard the forecast, and they’re talking cooling off to 36 for Saturday morning with (maybe) a wintry mix of precipitation. Unbelievable!

… playing with pictures. Don’t you love this picture? Not only is the llama pretty, but look at what this little guy is seeing. What a view! Not sure llamas really notice the scenery, but … 

Today was pretty much a washout as far as creativity is concerned. Did errands, made many business-type phone calls that were mostly very frustrating. In case you don’t know this about Texas, oil and gas is big here. In the last few years, they’ve been doing big-time gas drilling in what is called the Barnet Shale. Even in my little neighborhood, the mineral rights were leased, but trying to find out what’s going on is impossible.  XTO Energy has the lease, but nobody answers their phone. No real person is available in any department, only voice mail and the capability of leaving a message. They “might get back to you in 4 business days.” The “voice” suggests going to their website, but no information is available there either.  It’s a giant conspiracy, right? Soon there will be no living person working in any office, only “voices.”

I finally got around to ordering the 2 x 8 ft panels for the booth setup.  What a shock that was! First of all, you have to order in pairs, so I couldn’t get just 5. Second, the shipping via freight is $117! UPS would have been even worse. So, I’m looking at a pretty big charge on my credit card.  Yuk!

Tomorrow will definitely be a weaving day. Maybe even 2 full inches. And looking at the little guy in the picture makes it all better.

This is a picture of the self-watering pot (from Gardener’s Supply) I’m using to grow a tomato plant. I stuck this in here to experiment with pictures with this new program. I downloaded Windows Live Writer and am trying it out now. The picture was soooo much easier to place than it is in Blogger. I’m going to experiment with this for a while, but so far I’m loving it! This great hint came from Lyn here. I only installed the Writer portion.

Did get some weaving done, had 2 dyepots going, and hope to finish up the browns tomorrow or Saturday. Also spent some time checking on a new computer for my mother and the wireless to go with it. She wants a laptop, which requires wireless. The desktop is about to bite the dust.  I know from experience that I will need to plan on a day to help with the wireless part, then on to the online bank services, etc. My mother is 82, by the way. I’m so proud of her for being “computer literate.” Her hearing is not what it used to be, thus the phone help from me.

As in befuddled, distracted, etc.

Yesterday the roofers were here, finished about 6, but left the gooseneck trailer full of old shingles in the driveway. G and I went to dinner, and I parked in the driveway behind the trailer. About 9 I hear a knock on the door. I’m thinking, okay, what do I do. I asked who it was (I know, probably not wise), and it was the guy back for the trailer. So, I have to go out, wait for them to tarp the trailer, hitch it up, before I can move my car back. I’m glad I wasn’t in bed when they come, a fairly frequent happening around here.

So, today

Woke up too late, cleaned out the dyepots, filled ’em up, printed out all the amounts needed of all ingredients and added them to the pots, turned on the propane tank…and.. it’s empty. Time for plan B. Then the head honcho for the roofing company came out to inspect the job and, of course, pick up a check. Since I had to go to town anyway, I went to a couple of nurseries for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. And, foolishly, a couple of gardenia plants. It’s really too hot and not acid enough in my area for gardenias, but I have great memories of them, so am going to attempt. I arrived home to a message from my insurance agent about new insurance for the house and took care of that. He was able to e-mail me the paperwork, and I signed and faxed it back to him. Isn’t technology great!

When I went to Lowe’s for the propane tank, I also looked at track lights to potentially use for my booth lighting. My friend told me about this nifty thing that plugs into the end so you can use a regular outlet for power.

Then did some mowing and preparing the new self-watering pot for a tomato plant—that’s what the picture above is. Came from Gardeners Supply Company. Didn’t get finished with the mowing … it’s gotten so high it’ll take a little bit. But the mower started right up, so be grateful for small things. Tomorrow the tomato plants, dyeing, more mowing, etc. Gosh it would be nice to weave too.

I was tagged by Shannon of Sunrise Fiber Lodge. (By the way, I love the photo on her web page.) You’re supposed to list 5 addictions and tag 5 other blogs. Sorry, but I’m going to have to adapt this a little. I’ll list the addictions and then just give you a list of blogs and/or artists to explore.

• Weaving-in all forms even though I only do one kind for the most part-actually this could just be fibers and fabric of all kinds
• Color-which leads to dyeing. Color is what always grabs me.
• Reading-mostly mysteries. Actually, this can be a pretty serious addiction.
• Technology-again in all forms, but especially research, just the capability a computer can provide. Something I spend way too much time using.
• Gardening-where my dreams are always more grandiose than my capabilities or time allow

   

There are so many great blogs out there, one could spend all day just reading! For this list, I think I’ll go with non-weavers.

• Lisa Call-Contemporary textile art, great colors, creative process, right now building a new studio
• Daryl Lancaster-okay, she IS a weaver but there’s lots about sewing, etc. I just like reading about the creative process and where it takes you.
• Tracy Helgeson-Painter with a houseful of kids, again love reading about the process of creating
• Elizabeth St. Hilaire Nelson-wonderful collages. Take some time to look through her portfolio on her website. Unbelievable!
• David Castle-watercolor artist, blog here
• Denise Bellon West-no blog but great work
• Sarah F Burns-painter, again process

Whoops! I went overboard. It’s hard to stop. There are some really great artists, but enough.