Tag Archives: visual vocabulary

A series — global warming

This Global Warming quilt is probably four feet long and exhibits the most surface work of all of them.

Visual vocabulary: Orange concentric circles for heat; bamboo to suggest nonnative invasive species taking advantage of climate change; lots of spirals for tornadoes; ferns and palms to hint at enlarged tropics; smokestack shapes “found” in cut up clothing to represent the source of carbon gasses; stripes for both rain and radiating heat.

I have a total of eight finished quilts in the series. There are at least two more unfinished pieced tops — one is flapping on the line outside right now (what a cold windy day it’s been here!) and the other is in the studio, I think.

These last shots are of the back of the four footer.

PS I unexpectedly sold two small quilts off of my FB business page yesterday. How nice is that?

rethinking beauty with parking lots and overpasses

Where does the time go? Snapping pictures as I am out and about helps me remember. Sometimes I am shocked at all the places I’ve been.
I love my quarter acre with its shaded perennial beds outside and light filtered through antique glass on the inside. But lately the impulse to post images from beyond this little yard has become stronger. Not so much to answer my question, “where has the time gone” as to expand my visual vocabulary.
Perhaps even to rearrange my sense of what’s beautiful.
A provocative and inspiring post over at Grace’s windthread blog, in part, promoted my taking this step more consciously.  That post is here and it includes her usual delicious mix of observation, reporting, and wisdom.  A comment Maggie made a little bit ago (about me and my quarter acre… ) is also influencing me here.

Here’s to the beauty of parking lots, tar squiggles, overpasses, stapled electrical wire, dashboards, and guardrails.

Or, better yet: here’s to finding beauty wherever we are.