Woohoo! Got the grant! Oh, dear.

Yesterday I got an envelope from the Kentucky Foundation for Women saying I'm a recipient of an economic hardship grant that will fund my mailing an original collage and document to leadership in the United Methodist Church to stimulate conversation about the church's attitude toward homosexuality and women leaders. These funds, from an anonymous donor, are micro-grants. The maximum each person could request was $500.  My request was for $258.

The KFW letter goes on to say that 48 feminist social change artists requested funds; 24 were funded. The requests "bear powerful witness to the impact of the national recession on the feminist artist community in our state" and also "bear witness to the great strength, ingenuity and persistence that KFW grantees are demonstrating in seeking solutions to their financial hardships."  A check for $258 was enclosed.

I was totally happy until this morning when I re-read my grant proposal, in which I say I'M GOING TO CUT UP MY PREACHING ROBE and use it to make the collages. Good God, people.  What was I thinking? Why didn't you stop me?

It's the theological equivalent of flag-burning.  Let's be clear. I approve of flag burning as political statement, as performance art, as a way of knocking us out of the doldrums of familiarity, as free speech.  And if somebody else had told me she/he planned to chop up a preaching robe -- well, cool.  Free speech. Performance art. Political statement.  Let's get those fools to open their eyes that they may see glimpses of truth.  Right on, my sisters and brothers.

Right on, indeed. But it's my preaching robe. MY preaching robe.  My PREACHING robe. Embedded in its warp and woof is every day of my life from 1995 to 1998, when all was well with the world (or at least with Fred, my late husband); and when the congregation, God, and I danced -- a waltz, a tango, a Fox trot, the twist, the funky chicken, the swim -- on Sunday mornings.  I wore the robe when I performed my first baptisms (Bradley and Devin, two of my grandsons).  I wore the robe when I performed my final baptism (Seth, the baby my friend Lisa was pregnant with when she preached Fred's funeral).  The robe hung in my closet in South Carolina, and I brought it with me to Kentucky, and here I stuffed it into a sack and later I set the sack on a shelf in the garage.  I brought it back to the house after I wrote the grant proposal, and now the ratty old sack sits on a shelf in the laundry alcove.

I'm going to chop it up; I really am. And I'm going to make fiber collages of it and mail them to United Methodist leaders along with a statement, and I'm going to post that statement here, and I'm going to e-mail it to newspapers and magazines. But not quite yet.  Soon, but not quite yet. I want to hold on just a little longer to my preaching robe and to what it used to represent:  my life; my local church; a kind, open-hearted, open-minded, open-doored denomination.

Battle Cry of the Revolution

The hell with quarter inch seams.

Yellow Orange to Red

Yellow Orange

Gold

yellow

Center medallion

You don't notice the center medallion so much from a distance.








It's only when you get up close that you see the rich colors and detailed stitching.








I read the book Ann Stewart Anderson kept about the Hot Flash Fan, and there I read about knots.








Can these be them? How long would it take to tie this many knots?

Participating Artists N - Z

Pat Obye
Joyce Ogden
Jacque Parsley
Liz Quinton
Lizi Ruch
Felize Sachs
Betty Senn
Kate Simon
Peg Smith
Marilyn Swan
Rebecca Tobias
Elizabeth Watkins
Donna Weiner
Jeanne Whitty

Participating Artists E - M

Marcia Fogelson
Frima Gelbard
Mary Clay Goodwin
Jean Guy
Shirley Hewitt
Peggy Sue Howard
Naomi Judd
Kathy Kaulitz
Suzanne LaValley
Anne Lindstrom
Micky Lorber
Anne Maiken
Martha March
Shana McMahan
Beverly McKinzie
Betts Meehan
Margaret Merida
Ann Miller
Jacquelyn Moore

Embellishments

Ribbon









Picture, birth control pills, netting







Dried flowers held in place with netting

Beading

Before the Hot Flash Fan exhibit ended, I went back and took many more photos. I'm glad I did, because it gave me the chance to see details I missed the first time. The participating artists did an amazing job.

I love the sense of randomness within this carefully planned work of art. It's in keeping with the energy of the piece.

Another Fiber Art Exhibit: At the River's Edge

Saturday, August 9, 2008, is the last chance to see At the River's Edge, a dynamic fiber art exhibit in the Charlotte Price Gallery at the Water Tower in Louisville, Kentucky. The postcard above shows one of the art pieces: Water, Mountains, and Trees; she watches over me by Valerie C. White.

According to the gallery guide, "the art ... focuses on both pictorial and abstract representations of rivers and the landscapes, bridges, and communities that border them." The six participating artists -- Pat DaRif, Kathleen Loomis, Marti Plager, Joanne Weis, Valerie White, and Juanita Yeager -- embarked on the river theme in 2003. With five years to explore the theme in depth, the artists developed pieces that "conjure up the essence of the river; you feel the movement of the water, ... the ancient draw to live close to a body of water."

The pieces are wildly different and yet I saw in each a reflection of the predominant fact about a river: its constant movement. Perhaps most striking is the piece by Kathleen Loomis, whom, incidentally, I know because of my involvement with another art quilt group. Two of Loomis's piece are simultaneously tiny and enormous. Small pieces -- an inch? half an inch? -- of fabric, multi-colored and/or embellished, are strung together both horizontally and vertically, creating a whole that shifts and moves gently in the breeze from a passing observer. The colors merge into each other and separate, just as the river itself does. Stunning works.

As are Marti Plager's bridges. Hot colors and precise angles offer the comfort of bridges in the midst of the textile rivers. Her pieces, lovely in their own right, add the same element that bridges offer in the course of a long car ride: the joy of geometry in the midst of natural shapes. (By the way, I know Marti as well.)

You can see more examples of the art work at the website of the Louisville Visual Art Association. They give you a hint of what's happening in the gallery, but only a pale hint of the remarkable power of this exhibit.

Still to Come

I have more photos to post, and I also plan to go back to Huff Gallery on Friday to take more photographs. This is the first time I've taken pictures of such a large piece, and in seeing them now, several weeks after the fact, I learned a lot about what I left out. At the time, I wasn't trying to be systematic; I focused on techniques that I especially liked or that were delicate enough not to show up in a full-size photo.

I still won't manage to photo every aspect of the piece, but there are a few important things to add. For instance, the hemisphere from which the rays emerge. I don't have a single close-up of the work on that part. It may not be as vibrant as the rays, but it's critically important to the whole.

So: more to come.

P. S. When I returned to take more photos of the Fan several weeks later and was able to concentrate on the hemisphere, I saw how vibrant it actually is. Strong colors, beautiful handwork -- it's a dynamic aspect of the whole.

Close-up of Lower Left of Hot Flash Fan

Lower left
Originally uploaded by Ka-ching

In this view, you can see something of the intricacy of the Hot Flash Fan.

The figures in yellow are outline stitched, and embroidery fills the area between the figures.

The green section over their heads is closely quilted.

The orange section depicts the rigors of mastectomy. It includes several post-mastectomy photographs. It feels like a brave thing to have done in 1985.

The Hot Flash Fan

The Hot Flash Fan is currently on display in the Huff Gallery of the Spalding University library in Louisville, Kentucky.

Hot Flash Fan is owned by the Kentucky Foundation for Women. At the opening reception last week, Ann Steward Anderson, the originator and principal coordinating artist, told how KFW came to purchase the HFF. She said Sallie Bingham was creating KFW at the time and urgently wanted the documentation Ann had collected (design sketches, letters between her and Judy Chicago, etc.) in the creation process. Ann told her that to get the documentation, the Foundation had to purchase the artwork. And so it came to pass that this monumental work of feminist art has been held and preserved for more than twenty years. According to the participating artists I spoke with at the opening, the piece has lost none of its luster, color, or embellishments.

That face, that beautiful face

When I made a quilt for my grandson Joe this year, I decided to include JT, one of his family's horses.

This is the block very near completion.

Here's the thing about hand quilting, hand embroidery, etc. : the more you do of it on a piece, the more you need to do... The law of diminishing returns is NOT in operation; the more stitches added, the better.

Love You--Mean It

I took a photography class this fall to better document scenes around Beargrass Creek and to improve the photos I take of art.

I just noticed I forgot to use the tripod when I took this photo.

You've heard the phrase "a work in progress"? It applies to art, to blogs, to life.

"Love You --Mean It" is approximately 9 x 12 and is hand-stitched and hand-embroidered.

Fly If You Want To journal

I've been expanding all of my horizons since being invited to join the Louisville Craft Mafia. Pictured is one of my first journals. It includes two or three embellished fiber pages plus 20 or so plain pages to write on

5.5 x 9 inches.