Plan B: Gee's Bend

So I had some plans tonight to go out but I dithered and they fell through - mostly my own sketchiness. It's getting bloody chilly out there anyway, and to be honest, I could use a night in. I fumbled around on Illustrator a bit and talked design with a friend, and worked on some of my own doodles. Then I went and looked up the quilts of Gee's Bend. Martha (our painting instructor) brought two books about these amazing quilts on Monday. I combed the catalogue and copied these images. Since I'm linking back to them I figure it'd be ok. I hope it's ok...! Anyway these are my favourites.

Loretta Pettway, born 1942.
"Lazy Gal" -- "Bars," ca. 1965,
denim and cotton, 80 x 69 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Loretta Pettway, born 1942.
"Housetop," 1963,
cotton twill and synthetic material (men's clothing),
80 x 74 inches.
In the early 1960s, Loretta Pettway fashioned three quilts from the same batch of men's clothing scraps.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Loretta Pettway, born 1942.
"Logcabin" -- single-block "Courthouse Steps" variation (local name: "Bricklayer"), ca. 1970,
denim, 84 x 66
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Arlonzia Pettway, born 1923.
"Lazy Gal" or "Bars," ca 1975,
corduroy, 89 x 81 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Essie Bendolph Pettway, born 1956,
multiple columns of blocks and bars, 1980,
corduroy, 93 x 75 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Martha Jane Pettway, born 1898.
"Housetop"--nine-block "Half-Logcabin" variation, ca. 1945,
corduroy, 72 x 72 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Annie Mae Young, born 1928.
"Bars," ca. 1965.
Corduroy, denim, polyester knit, assorted synthetics,
81 x 79 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Annie Mae Young, born 1928.
Blocks and strips, ca. 1970, cotton, polyester, synthetic blends,
83 x 80 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Annie Mae Young, born 1928.
Strips, corduroy, ca. 1975,
95 x 105 inches
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Leola Pettway, born 1929.
"Log Cabin" -- "Courthouse Steps" variation (local name: "Bricklayer"), ca. 1975,
corduroy, 85 x 70 inches.
Leola Pettway is China Pettway's mother.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Linda Pettway, born 1929.
"Logcabin" -- single-block variation, tied with yarn, ca. 1975,
corduroy, 88 x 78 inches
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Quinnie Pettway, born 1943.
"Housetop," ca. 1975,
corduroy, 82 x 74 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Ella Mae Irby, 1923-2001.
"Housetop"-twelve-blcok varation. 1962,
cotton, 88 x 75 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Gearldine Westbrook, born 1919.
Center medallion -- "Bars," ca. 1960,
cotton, wool, printed terry cloth, 79 x 70 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Lucy T. Pettway born 1911
"Snowball" (Quiltmaker's name) Circa 1950
Cotton, corduroy, cotton sacking material 83x85 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Lorraine Pettway, born 1953.
Medallion work-clothes quilt, 1974,
denim and cotton/polyester blend, 84 x 68 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Florine Smith, born 1948,
four-block strips, ca. 1975,
corduroy, 68 x 81 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Louella Pettway, born 1921.
"Logcabin" -- four-block variation, ca. 1975,
corduroy, 79 x 71 inches.
Louella Pettway is Linda Pettway's aunt.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Missouri Pettway, 1902-1981.
Blocks and strips work-clothes quilt, 1942,
cotton, corduroy, cotton sacking material, 90 x 69 inches.

Missouri's daughter Arlonzia describes the quilt: "It was when Daddy died. I was about seventeen, eighteen. He stayed sick about eight months and passed on. Mama say, 'I going to take his work clothes, shape them into a quilt to remember him, and cover up under it for love.' She take his old pants legs and shirt-tails, take all the clothes he had, just enough to make that quilt, and I helped her tore them up. Bottom of the pants is narrow, top is wide, and she had me to cutting the top part out and to shape them up in even strips."
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Missouri Pettway, 1902-1981.
"Path through the Woods" (quiltmaker's name), 1971,
polyester knit, 73 x 69 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Arcola Pettway, 1934-1994.
"Lazy Gal" variation, 1976, corduroy, 81 x 89 inches.
This variation on a "Lazy Gal," composed like an American flag, is one of the most remarkable quilts created during the Bicentennial.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Annie Bendolph, 1900-1981.
"Thousand Pyramids" variation, ca. 1930,
cotton sacking and chambray, 83 x 70 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Emma Mae Hall Pettway, born 1932.
Two-sided quilt: strips, ca. 1975,
corduroy, 76 x 92 inches.
[via: Quilts of Gee's Bend]

Vote of confidence

The other day Ozen and I were walking down Kensington avenue, on our way to lunch at Hibiscus. We were talking about what we were doing before art school (she was working as a mining engineer and I was a grad student), and what we want to do with ourselves afterwards. At one point I said something about how I'm finding this transitional phase difficult - between the pretty cushy situation I had before and the uncertain future ahead. But, I said, I'm trying to live my dream life - and who knows, maybe I'll never get there, but I'm going to try anyway.

Just then a young man passed us by, headed in the opposite direction. He turned around and said to me 'Don't worry. You'll get there.'

Thanks for the vote of confidence dude, whoever you are.

p.s. over another conversation re: the same subject, Anna astutely observed that it is always those chances which we don't take that we regret - not the ones we take (even if we fail)... I have to say that I quite agree.

Life-Drawing 1

So today we got to have one pose for about two-and-a-half hours (maybe a little more). In that time I drank three cups of tea, took a walk to the Tim Horton's with my class-mates, and managed to do five drawings (in addition to a whole bunch of gestures) on big newsprint.

I'm quite happy with the results... Obviously still beginner's pieces, but I thought I'd post them here anyway. Oh and also I photographed these with them lying on the ground in a jiffy just as class ended, so the quality is rubbish. Sorry about that. The drawings are presented in the order in which I made them.

This is drawing one. It's just a rough sketch. Notice how it's perpendicular to another gesture from another class a long time ago. Anyway I like the foot... Oh and it's done in compressed charcoal.

This one is the second drawing. That's a folded piece of fabric he's sitting on... it's not his leg. Funny how it didn't look at all like his leg to me until now. Anyway, the photo is on an angle. Humf. I like the back here. I think this is either compressed charcoal or conte. Can't remember which.

I kinda like the feel of this one. It's done in vine/willow charcoal. I love willow because it's so malleable. The next best thing to having an 'undo' button, really. Originally I made the foot way too small. Then Natalie pointed it out and I had a fit of erasing and re-drawing. Mmmm. Love willow on newsprint.

This photo turned out all blurry. Anyway it was probably my least favourite of the lot. It's done in coloured conte. I like the leg... but the rest of it is wanting. The head especially. Oh well.

This is the last one. I did it in charcoal pencil (you know, the wood-less kind). I did it really quickly, just a gesture followed by outlines and then filling in the deepest darks and using lines to hatch out some shadows. Ah, lines... my favourite. I like lines more than anything else, so this one is my favourite. It was fun to do something just the way I like it.

Now I go and catch some zzz's... Goodnight.

Curious how it just so happens that today is Thanksgiving

Walking home holding a box full of hot Mediterranean food and anticipating stuffing my face when I got back... Suddenly overtaken by the realization of how fortunate I am to be able to just have food whenever I am hungry. Thank you, Lord, tonight the fallafels feed my soul.

Enough already.

Too much whinging & the likes here. Let's pull the ol' sock up, shall we?
Aye, 'bout time.

Quite suddenly...

I remembered Yakushima and the daily routine. You getting up before dawn and riding away to visit the monkeys. Me staying in bed till I couldn't sleep any more. Spending the whole day at home by myself doing the laundry and other chores. Making lunch (always miso soup with something else), reading the notes that I had photocopied and brought with me from Edinburgh (Stevenson and also a lot of Troilus & Criseyde, wasn't it?). Going around taking photographs of clothes drying on the hangers outside for the lack of anything better to do. Reading Bill Bryson.

When you came home we'd always walk to the only shop in the village together. I'd buy some kind of snack and sometimes the lady in the shop would give us little things (a packet of salt made on the island, some special rice). Flowers occasionally, or pomkam from the roadside stalls. Then we'd go and walk along the beach and pick up drift wood and beach glass and anything else that lay at our feet. Remember how we used to make up things to do to pass the time? Coming up with probability problems to solve or watching your endless supply of pirated films? (oh and we had that REALLY big fight over Serenity) Dinner for two in the living room on the low table - always more miso soup and some kind of fish.

Strange to think of it now, so much has changed.

The things we cannot help

... even if we wished that everything were different.
still i have to turn your pictures upside down so I never see you again.

The kind of person I am...

Yesterday I pulled out a vintage bed-sheet that I had shipped back from the UK. I'm the kind of person, apparently, who likes to sleep on vintage sheets and does not mind shipping them from one continent to another. It cos 2.99 pds, with the Oxfam price tag still on it - so I never used it while I was there. It's very thick. I made my bed with precise folded corners, held together on the underside of the mattress with two safety pins in each corner. Then I pulled out some some pillow cases - also vintage. I put my IKEA pillow into a linen pillow protector (just an extra pillowcase that is unadorned) and then into a white cotton Oxford pillowcase with a trim.

As I was doing all this I wondered if others also take their bed linen across oceans. I'm particular about the quality of bed linen, and find vintage ones better value for money and usually more aesthetically pleasant. In Taiwan I still have a very large queen-sized linen top sheet embroidered with pale pink cherry blossoms across the the top edge (from Paddy's shop). One day when I have a queen-sized bed (and hopefully someone to share it with), I will enjoy it to a disproportionate degree. I'll probably even blog about it.

Arrived

With the help of good people I have now arrived in my new home in The Beach (or The Beaches, depending on who you talk to). It's an area down near the lake-front in Toronto - like a little village of its own. Loads of nice shops, coffee places, restaurants, beautiful homes, families, dogs, and parks. I'm just around the corner from a coffee shop with wifi, next to a decent looking pub, a bookstore, a library, and 5 minutes from the boardwalk by the water.

A part of me can't quite believe my luck, having arrived here.

Just a bit ago I was at home, unpacking my boxes. Three of them were packed up in June in Oxford and had been sitting at my previous address in Toronto for two months while I hunted for flats and waited to move. As I hung up the clothes from the UK with my stash which had been left behind in Toronto I felt these two phases of my life converge. It's strange now to think of myself as split only between two places - Taipei and Toronto, rather than three (Edinburgh/Oxford, Taipei, Toronto).

Obviously I'm not actually split into two or three chunks - but the distribution of my worldly possessions is effectively a scattering of my life. I guess the flow of my material life reflects my wanderings, and are the most tangible signs of my 'belonging' in one place or another.

More than anything else it feels like my stint as a foreign student in the UK has now most definitely come to an end. I am (in part) sad to see it go, but I am also glad to have signed a one year lease and happy to know that I can stay put at least for a while. Removing myself from the goal-oriented, secure, and surprisingly unchanging routine of academia (with its own seasonal cycles complete with deadlines and parties and expectations), has been really difficult. Often I feel disoriented and uncertain of myself - if I am working hard enough, or even working at the right things. Without termly assessment & feedback, how am I to measure my achievement (if any) and performance? (rhetorical question). It's like the structures which held the shape of life together has fallen away and I have to personally make sure that things are held together through my own devices.

Undoubtedly this is a feeling I will grow accustomed to...

Here are some photos to share with you.

A beautiful late autumn street scene, just down the road from where I live.

This amazing house has a metal installation around the porch. I think it is a version of Hokusai's painting of waves. I was ever so impressed.

A marvellous vintage truck parked outside the greengrocer's. Made me think of my friend Paul from London, who's very into dancing balboa, and vintage trucks.

Now for a little tour around my studio flat/bachelor apartment.

The entry way, with some of my shoes lined up, a closet, and my hatbox.

A part of the main room, with a low table, various possessions, and Richard's boater hanging on a picture-hook.

My closet. It's a little on the narrow side. I found some clothes that Maria gave me when I was packing - which I had previously forgotten about. Thanks Maria! Those woollen things will come in handy now :)

Here's the other side of the main room, with my computer desk (sans computer), my lamp, bed, and my free standing shelf where I keep all my art/craft supplies.

Finally, my dinky kitchen and bathroom. I can't stand up straight in my bathroom - the floor is raised (not sure why). It's very cramped, but I am definitely smaller than the previous tenant, so I'm sure I'll manage.

Please, do come and visit.

More dreams

Do you have dreams which recur? or themes of dreams which recur?

I often dream that I am driving. I don't know how to drive. I've never even driven except once when my high-school boyfriend tried to teach me to drive his manual Honda civic in the parking lot of a mall, and once even before that when my father let me back the car out of the garage (this one went rather badly - the car ended upon the lawn). I've never taken a driving test - not even just to get a learner's license.

Why? I've always found that I can manage without.

In my driving dreams I am always just about able to steer the vehicle. I seem to be able to fake it and other motorists don't notice. Only I know how close I am to disaster. In these dreams I am worried that something will soon go wrong - either I will crash or get pulled over and be in trouble. In my dream I also think about how I should really stop driving, and also learn how to drive.

Dreams and other stuff

Last night I dreamt that I was living in a very tall house with windows and I had to escape from something. I don't know what it was. My family advised me that I should just fly away. According to my dad if I jumped out of the highest window I would be able to fly. I maintained that this would probably result in instant death. In my dream there was also a guy around who was a family friend. My dad asked me if I was going to break up with him and I asked how I was suppose to break up with him since I'm not going out with him anyway. My dad said 'Why don't you go out with him? Don't you like him?', at which point I I started crying and said 'I want Richard back'.

Then I woke up.

I also received a box in the post yesterday. I'd posted a bunch of things to myself from Edinburgh, when I moved out of Topher's flat. It's full of momentos from our relationship - photographs and toys he'd bought me and stuff. I opened it earlier today and it's still sitting here. I don't know what to do with it and can't really bear thinking about it right now.

All in all, a pretty emotional kind of day

Some new sketches

So I've not put any of my sketches on here because I'm too ashamed of them. But today I had two which I was proud of (in the way that parents are proud of ugly children). They're really not much to write home about, but believe you me, they're an improvement to things I was producing a month ago!

So here's one that's done with white conte on black paper.

I didn't have time to do tonal blocking on the fabric covered stool the model was sitting on. So it stayed as a gesture. But I kind of like it that way. In fact, I hate tonal blocking. Probably because I'm so rubbish at it. I really like gestures though. Oh and I hate doing faces.

Here's a second pose. Vine charcoal on white paper. I took photographs at 3 stages.


So this is stage one. You can see that one of her legs is still just scribbles. Unfortunately the camera didn't focus so well cos I was in a hurry and wobbled. She was also leaning on a cane (which is invisible). I don't like drawing canes because I think they look stupid. For some reason our models usually end up with a cane at some point. Sigh.


This is the second stage. I've keyed in the landmarks (shoulder & hips etc.) and filled in the figure accordingly. I liked it best at this stage.

I don't like the end product so much. It's not complete of course - we never get enough time to really work it to completion. But anyway I like the gestural stages much better.

I keep intending to go along to life drawing without instruction - that should be good practice. I have another life drawing class tomorrow too, which I'm looking forward to :)

Remember...

The Blazer? Skye? Scoraig?

Things were better then. What changed? and why can it not change back? I miss the people we were.

I just wanted to say...

One day I felt unwell and stayed at home alone; Katya and Sonya had gone with him to Nikolskoye to look at the new building work. The tea-table was laid, I went downstairs and, while waiting for them, sat down at the piano. I opened the Sonata quasi una Fantasia and began to play it. No one could be seen or heard, the windows to the garden were open, and the familiar, sadly festive sounds rang out through the room. I finished the first movement and quite unconsciously, out of old habit, looked round at the corner where he once used to sit and listen to me. But he was not there; the chair, long unmoved, stood in its corner; but through the window one could see a lilac bush in the bright sunset, and the evening's freshness was pouring in through the open windows. I leaned both my elbows on the piano, covered my face with my hands, and thought. I sat like this for a long time, remembering with pain the old days that could never return...

'Family Happiness,' The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy. Trans. David McDuff and Paul Foote. Penguin, 2008. p. 83.

I too, still feel your absence from my life. Take care, my friend. I hope you are well.

What I'm doing these days

These days I find myself often being quite busy in one way or another. I had thought that once I left the crazy academic schedule of Oxford, my days would calm down a little bit. But somehow even though I am not nearly as productive as I was in Oxford, I am still busy? It's better this way though - too much time to think is never a good thing for me. I tend to be happiest when I am productive (and most frustrated if I am busy but unproductive). Of course commuting in this big city takes a chunk out of my day (1 hour down-town and 1 hour back up, minimum).

Anyway I wanted to show you a little bit of what I've been working on for the last two or so days. In my Photoshop class we were asked to make six 6x6 inch themed squares. The themes are based around 'elements of design' - for instance, lines, texture, colour etc. We are fairly free to interpret that as we would and use whatever means we can. I've done five so far and am stuck for ideas for the sixth...

This one is themed around texture. It started out life as a photograph of an parking alley linking two roads near Spadina and Adelaide in Toronto. I went to Google maps and got a very zoomed out satellite image of the city streets, and put it into the picture to give it texture. I quite like how the colours turned out too.

This one is theme around plane. It's made from a photo I took, again around the Spadina and Adelaide area. I didn't put the shoes on the hydro-pole - they were what made me stop and take the photo though. I outlined the building with black lines, got rid of the building itself, made the hydro-pole and shoes black and white, and then intensified the colour of the sky.

This one is themed around lines. Though the way it worked out in the end it could also have been a colour theme I suppose. It started out as a picture I took of buttercups on Port Meadow, Oxford. The original was wide angle and had a lot of the meadow and sky. I cropped it and made the background black and white. I intensified the colours of the one buttercup in focus, and cut the picture into strips and rearranged it. Then I did something with layer blending modes though I can't quite remember what.

(I still remember the day I took this picture. I thought we were going to row at Godstow but instead we were down at the Isis. When I realized I hauled ass down the canal and made it there a quarter of an hour late. I got a worried phone-call from Ross on the way. He called me 'Hong' - which is how I knew he was in coach-mode.)

This one is centred on the theme of dots. It's probably my least favourite. It's just the 'pointillize' filter and some kind of layer blending business. It's a picture of a strawberry in my hand from Medley Manor Farm, Oxford.

(I was staying at Walton street at the time and Richard wanted to go fruit-picking, so I cycled over to Binsey and went to the farm by myself and called him from the strawberry fields. It was a glorious day and I came home with a punnet full of strawberries. We made strawberry custard tart and strawberry ice-cream. So you see almost every photograph is a memory).

This is centred around the theme of colour. It is made from a (not very good) sketch I did of Diane Keaton, from an old photograph. In it she was wearing her signature Annie Hall look. I scanned in my pencil sketch, cleaned it up a little bit (but leaving my comments to myself) and then found an oil painting of candied-apples from which I cut out colour & shape for her lips.

So, instead of medieval literature, this is what I'm focusing on at the moment. Learning how to create digital images, but also learning how to draw etc. I will have to post some pictures of my sketches and life-drawings at some point but I am so bad at it I'm embarrassed to show you!

But hopefully I will (eventually) get better.