Summer's End

The end of summer is always a time of change to me, even though it's been years since I last took  excited girls out shopping for notebooks and pens at the start of the school year.  Even without a school-age child living in the house, even without the quintessential transition of the end of summer and the beginning of school, other seasonal changes are making themselves known:  later sunrises, earlier sunsets, cooler evenings, and ripening gardens.
This year, as it turned out, even though we've been empty nesters for three years, Joe and I actually did take our daughter Lucia, who's beginning her senior year at the University of Vermont, out for school supplies.  We were already buying her rugs and curtains and other essentials for the new apartment in which she'll spend her senior year.  There, at the back of the store, near the curtains, were the school supplies.  And because we were there and Lucia needed them, Joe and I did get to buy Lucia's school supplies with her for what will probably be the last time ever.
We could tell how she'd matured.  This time, she was looking for the best deal, not the snazziest stuff.
 A week later, middle daughter Leah made another transition, moving from one part of Brooklyn to another, Park Slope to Greenpoint.

Goodbye, Park Slope

Here's Leah's moving crew

We may not be experts, but we're cheap

 Leah's new place:  a refurbished cork factory in Greenpoint, a neighborhood with a thriving Polish community and a working-class feel.

Leah's enamored of the spacious feeling in her new apartment

And her view of the Manhattan skyline isn't bad, either:  the Empire State Building on the left and the Chrysler Building on the right

 Once we got home from moving Leah, the season continued to stimulate change.  The basil in my garden, for example, was ready to be harvested and made into pesto.

After the basil is picked and put in a basket,  the leaves need to be stripped off:

Once the leaves are stripped, they go into the food processor along with olive oil, garlic, and pine nuts.  The mixture then goes into a bowl where butter and parmesan cheese are added.

The result:  summer in winter.

In another harvest activity appropriate to this season, I also harvested chard from one of my two deck planters and used it to make Swiss Chard with Chick Peas.

Swiss Chard with Chick Peas.  What could be more satisfying than a meal harvested from my own horticulture?

When the chard was gone from the planter, I replaced it with a flowering kale, a pink chrysanthemum, and a dark, purple-black ajuga called Ajuga Black Scallop

Same planter, new plants: getting ready for fa

Having accomplished all those things, I can now turn my attention toward another coming transition:  spending the month of September at a cottage in Eastham, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod.   There I plan to do lots of art, take lots of bike rides, eat lots of seafood, and walk on the beach.  Getting ready for it now! 

Lowell Quilt Festival 2012

Lowell Quilt Festival 2012.  It was worth the four-hour round trip.  Especially because I got to have a good long visit with my friend Carol Vinick as we traversed I-495 in torrential August rains.  And later, lunch with quilter friends Carol Eaton and Mary Lachman eating some yummy Greek food at The Athenian.

I went to Lowell because three of my art quilts had been accepted into two different venues of this year's Lowell Quilt Festival...as had several quilts by several other good friends.

Here's the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, an imposing edifice, which hosted Images 2012, a juried show featuring work by 82 artists from across the country...including me!

Two of my quilts were juried into Images 2012.

Buddhist Temple II is based on Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, a Buddhist temple I visited in Chiang Mai, Thailand, during the year when my middle daughter, Leah, was teaching English there at Chiang Mai University.  There are 309 steps up to the temple, and that staircase is bordered by a pair of sinuous enameled dragons, called naga, which guard the temple.  In my piece, the steps iterate the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path of Buddhist practice. 

This is Buddhist Temple I.  The strip of writing across the bottom center reiterates the Eightfold Path of Buddhist practice.

This is the 309-step naga staircase leading to the temple at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep.  I was so inspired by my visit that I used this temple, and the staircase leading to it, as the basis for two quilts.

This is the chedi at Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, which inspired the central image of my Buddhist Temple I and Buddhist Temple II

Elsewhere at the Lowell Quilt Festival, I had one quilt accepted into Art Quilts Lowell, at the Brush Gallery, another festival venue.  I was in rarefied company here--one of only 26 quilters from North America whose work was chosen for this show.  The juror was Karey Bresenhan, President and CEO of Quilts Inc., who has co-founded numerous quilting-related groups, including the International Quilt Association and Quilts Inc., which stages the annual International Quilt Festival.

This year, the theme for Art Quilts Lowell was music.  My piece took as its inspiration Thus Spake Zarathustra, the tone poem by Richard Strauss, which was used to impressive effect in the film 2001:  A Space Odyssey, to show the grandeur and mystery of deep space.  My piece shows a whirling nebula, its center ablaze with white-hot fire, its atoms dispersing into the universe.

Here's a visitor to the exhibit, checking out my quilt.

But there's more! My buddy Diane Wright (the other Diane). who, like me, is a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates and the Connecticut Fiber Arts Collective, also had a piece accepted into this show.

Here's Diane with her piece, which was inspired by Vivaldi's The Four Seasons

But there's still more!  Another venue of the Lowell Quilt Festival was at the Whistler House and Museum, birthplace of the great American painter, James McNeill Whistler.  There, the competition theme invited participants to base their quilts on one of Whistler's paintings.  My friend Judy Ross, who like me is a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates and Women Against the Grain, knocked my socks off with a quilt based on Whistler's Nocturne.  She's in rarefied company--one of only 18 quilters accepted!

This one knocked my socks off.  Go, Judy!

Worth the four-hour round trip?  You bet!

Psst! Hey, fiber artists! Wanna get high?

If so, go to New England Felting Supply in Easthampton, Massachusetts--a playground for fiber artists!
When I was a kid, stationery stores  turned me on.  All that paper, all those blank books!  Later, it was fabric stores, then yarn stores, then art supply stores...and those still turn me on.  But now that I'm a beginner felter, felting supply stores are taking their place among retailers whose products get my creative juices flowing.

So I went to New England Felting Supply today with two of my felting friends, Carol and Sandy.

Look at those colors!  Look at those textures!

So many choices!  So much to learn about this ancient art!

Look at some of the cool things you can make, if you only know how:

A delicate felted scarf

An abstract wall hanging

Doggies!

A vase--I guess--but only for dried things

A fairy

As a beginner felter, I was blown away by the colors, textures, and choices.  Fortunately, though, the staff is both knowledgeable and patient.  Carol, Sandy and I were impressed by the riches.  But after an hour of browsing, we made some selections.

Here's Carol making some choices

Carol showing off her purchases

Here's what I got

Carol and Sandy and Sandy's purchases

 Do we know how to have fun or WHAT!????

One of my quilts... in Japan?!

I'm never at my best on Monday mornings--who is?  That's why I was extra challenged when I sat down at around 6:30 on Monday morning, April 30, 2012, and read the following message in my inbox:

Long distance Hello to you from Tokyo, Japan!

My name is Kenji Ishii. I am a member of a congregation belongs to Japan Church in Christ (JCC known as Kyodan).
I am writing this e-mail because I was delighted to find your beautiful quits on the web.

I have been looking for images of  "a tree rooted in God", for the poster of our church event in March  20. We will have a worship in which a guest preacher will be talking about  "a life of hope".  We are preparing a leaflet and a poster for this event and we would like to invite people around our church.
 I find your artwork of "Bearing the Fruit of Peace and Justice".  I was so impressed by its warm message of fruitefulness of trusting in God's love.

I would like to ask your favor to allow us using your quilt image in our leaflet and poster. 
If you kindly agree, we would pay some copyright fee. Please let me know how much will be adequate.
We will use your image just once for the event. We are going to print two big poster for the nearest railroad station and several hundreds of leaflets to pass our neighbors.

Other artworks of you are also great. I like them very much!

in God's love,

Kenji Ishii
2-14-4-201 Hiratsuka, Shinagawaku, Tokyo 142-0051, Japan
Phone & Fax +81-3-3787-3676
E-mail: ishii@pet.tmig.or.jp

I am a member of Senzoku Church.
www.senzoku.org

My response:  "What???!!!?"

Was this for real?  I had to figure out how to respond.  I shared the message with some of my knowledgeable art quilter friends, and with their advice, composed a list of things to do.

Starting with finding out about the Senzoku Church and Kenji Ishii.

Kenji Ishii, right, with Reverend Yoshinobo Tobu

Turns out Kenji is a geneticist and neurologist working at Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, conducting research on the aging of the brain and dementia.  He's fluent in English, having spent some time with the National Institutes of Health facility in Frederick, Maryland.  He's been an elder of his church for 18 years, and he contacted me in that capacity, as he was looking for an image to advertise an upcoming church event, a special worship service called "Tokuden,"  an abbreviation of Japanese words "Tokubetsu-Dendo-Reihai" meaning special missionary worship.The speaker at this event, Rev. Yoshinobo Tobu of Aoyama Gakuin University, a prestigious private university in Tokyo, would take as his text the psalm, "He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither."

For that reason, as Kenji told me later, he went to the Google Image site and "...input key words 'rooted in god' because I was looking for an image of tree with roots and fruits. Actually your kilt image comes out in the top ten images right now."

The quilt he found, titled Bearing the Fruit of Peace and Justice, was created for a commission from the United Methodist Church of Hartford, and it was on the web because I wrote about it on this blog!  Like right here, for example:  http://stitching-it-all-together.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-used-to-be-working-on-bearing-fruits.html

Kenji explained, "We expect people to get a feeling how peaceful, secure, fruitful a life rooted in God is, through your beautiful quilt image."

Once I was satisfied that this voice from Japan belonged to a real person, and an admirable one at that, I had to try to figure out the extent to which I had any rights to the image.  I researched copyright law, and it turns out that although the United Methodist Church of Hartford owns the quilt, I own the right to the image.  I immediately copyrighted it.

The next step was to figure out whether to ask for reimbursement for the Senzoku Church's use of the image.  I went onto the very useful Yahoo group run by one of the quilt organizations to which I belong, Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA).  http://www.saqa.com/.  I posted my question.  Some respondents suggested that I ask for a modest fee; some suggested that I not charge any fee because the organization was and is a church.   One respondent suggested I contact internationally-famous Japanese quilter Noriko Endo, who, besides being a native Japanese and a professional artist, was also a member of SAQA.  I own one of her books and I admire her work.  Take a look:  http://park19.wakwak.com/~noriko/

To my surprise and delight, Noriko responded immediately.  Here's what she said:

Dear Diane,

I read your e-mail. it is now our Golden Week( long vacations, 4/29-5/6), so everybody is taking vacations. I know the church, as I grow up in my junior and high school age near the area, Senzoku.

Congratulations! Many people will see your beautiful quilts image. 

As he is going to use your image for the coming event in the church, so your question is how much you can charge him as he is offering to pay money. I understand you have copy right.

I suggest you that you better not charge him.  In some cases of mine( not only my cases, but many of other quilters around the world), I am often asked to borrow my quilts or use my quilts images for the events or campain, I never asked them to pay me some amount of money. As your quilt images spread out to the world, so you will be become popular and popular.  It is a good thing for you.

In case he insists to pay you, you better answer him to donate the money to the church. 

This is my opinion, how do you think?

In case I needed to borrow my quilts which already went to the collectors for my solo exhibitions etc., I didn't need to pay any money to the collectors.

Hope you understand.

Happy Quilting!

Warmest Regards,

Noriko Endo

I decided to follow her advice...she was in the best position of anyone to advise me.  So  I drew up a simple contract specifying how and when the Senzoku church would use my image, asking in return only for copies of the handouts and posters, and for photos of the posters hanging in the local train station and outside the church.  Here's the contract I drew up:

And here's how the posters looked, hanging in the Hatanodai Station, which is the local train stop in that part of Tokyo, and in front of the Senzoku church:

How thrilling is THAT?

Now a copy of the poster resides over the fireplace in my living room:

Best of all, Kenji's congregation is thinking about having me make a smaller, similar quilt for their church.

In all this, I am many times blessed.

Many thanks to everyone who helped me figure out what to do, especially to my friend Edith Tresner, who commissioned Bearing the Fruit of Peace and Justice for the United Methodist Church of Hartford, and to my friend Betty Warner, who not only set up this blog for me, but also held my hand through this mysterious and wonderful interlude in Japan.

Impromptu Fibers

Nature abhors a vacuum, so when a group of 15 Connecticut art quilters learned that the magnificent atrium at the Connecticut Department of Transportation was experiencing a vacuum in its lineup of art shows, those quilters jumped right in.

Together we created Impromptu Fibers, a spur-of-the-moment display of some of our current work. We hung it on July 19, 2012.

And what an embarrassment of riches!  Expansive as the Department of Transportation space was, we had brought with us more work than would fit on the walls.  

Here, for example, are two of the pieces I brought, Dog in Eel Grass and Lunch Among the Cabbages.  There would only be room for one of them.

Here's Diane Wright http://dianewrightquilts.blogspot.com/  figuring things out with Judy Ross.  That's Betty Warner on the left and Carol Vinick on the right.

Here's Barbara Adams scoping things out with Delois Barnes, who is the DOT employee who made it all happen.  On the wall beside them, Roz Spann's Papa's Greens Harvest, my Lunch Among the Cabbages, and Diane Wright's Salon:  After Matisse

Here's Carol Vinick hanging Yvette Howard's Hidden Wells

Here's Barbara Adams with EdJohnetta Miller http://www.edjohnetta.com/ and Karen Loprete http://www.karenloprete.com/ (back turned)

Swiss Chard by Deborah Bento with Summertime by Barbara Adams

Blood Iris by Kate Themel, Big Sky by Karen Loprete, and Within Reach by Rosalind Spann

Blood Iris by Kate Themel

Impromptu Fibers will hang in the atrium lobby of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, 2800 Berlin Turnpike, Newington, Connecticut 06131-7546 until Friday, August 31, 2012.  For a list of artists and their creations, and to view the exhibit, contact  Department of Transportation employee Delois Barnes at delois.barnes@ct.gov or (860) 594-3307.