Looking Back

This week while doing some research for a project, I found some lists of goals from way back when for my artistic life. I kept journals of all of my work, notes and goals for about 6 years.  This was about the time that I felt like I needed to write everything down to keep myself organized. I still do that to some extent, but in a different way. 2007 was a big year. I moved my studio from my house to an office park, I wrote my book ‘Embellished Mini Quilts,’ did a large commission for a church and a public project for your library with the Cut-Loose Quilters.

Followed by 2008. Planning for the first Festival in Long Beach. How I miss that venue. This is the year that I had my hip replacement. I became a co-rep for SAQA Southern California, when they paid for our memberships, which is always a nice perk. I organized the SAQA booth at Festival in Lomg Beach. My Surf’s Up Quilt hangs in our house. Our daughter graduated from high school and went to college. MIU started at Festival in Long Beach!

And 2009 when I started giving my year a word.  Dinner at Eight Artists was created with Leslie Tucker Jenison and we became a curating team.  Our exhibits started at Festival in Long Beach. We had a group of volunteers to help us set up our exhibit and then we all had lunch together. It was a special time. Our Artists Dinners originated here too. This year we will present our 10th exhibit at the International Quilt Festival in Houston.

I could not find the page for 2010, so we will skip to 2011. On the upper page of notes, I love the one about saying NO more. Be selective about your projects. I am pretty good at this one now. My word for that year was choose. This was a pretty lofty list of goals form 2011. Before Thanksgiving of 2011, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack and my life changed forever. My mother died 4 months later. Writing these goal lists became a challenge. My sister and I cleaned out my parents house over a 6 month period. 64 years of living in their forever house, so you can imagine how painful this was. My life stopped for a bit. I learned so much from this time in my life. I take pictures differently now, after cleaning out my parents photos and slides. Too many waterfalls and sunsets, photos of things that had no significance to us, but then to find the treasures of our lives - the people pictures. This is what is important.

My lists resumed, but a little different. They have been taken over by deadlines for upcoming projects as a Fabric designer, an artist for StencilGirl, exhibits that I jury and curate, quilts that I want to make, trunk shows, teaching, coming up with new classes, designing and writing patterns, drawing for fun, promoting products that I love and whatever else that comes my way, I am truly blessed in my work as an artist, my family and friends. 

A brainstorming page from when I was a member of The Sketchbook Challenge. At the start, we all had the opportunity to choose our own theme for a certain month. I still do this for other projects. It is so fun to see these ideas and how certain ones have carried through in my artistic life. TSC was started by my friend Sue Bleiweiss. You can still visit the blog and see all of the amazing art we created each month. This project brought me back to my roots of drawing. There is also a book too. Such great memories of interpreting themes. We did some collaborations as well.

The Sketchbook Challenge link

The House Quilt Project was started in 2010 and working with Furnishing Hope. They furnished and decorated the houses and my group made customized house quilts 12x16 for each one. Our first project was for Habitat for Humanity with 18 houses. A little sidebar note for the Veterans First project which was our second. These are my notes from my first meeting. Now we are in 2018 and The House Quilt Project is still going strong with two projects and I am always looking for people to make house quilts. Patriotic house quilts with a house and an American flag on the masculine side 12x16 vertical format and Heart of the Home for women and children who are transitioning out of homelessness 14x14 whimsical and cheerful. Let me know if you want to make one!

link is here