On the Road Again

My daughter Allie and I went on a road trip to Portland last week, and I feel like I'm barely catching up with myself. We had a great trip. It's about a 7 hour drive, and we went to visit an art school there where she's been offered admission for next year. Here we are having lunch downtown. Doesn't she already look like an art student? Next week she's going to New York, where she's also been accepted at the art school of her dreams. I'm glad she liked Portland and the school there. It's a serious contender, and we'll see how her dream school looks to her in the flesh.

Portland is a beautiful city. I tell my kids that it reminds me of San Francisco, my home town, but it's clean, whereas SF has gone the way of a lot of big cities in the cleanliness department.
While we were there we stayed with my friend Bernadette and her husband Adrian. We had a wonderful visit. Bernie and I are old friends: we met in college and were roommates once upon a time when we were single gals and she was in law school.
Another benefit of visiting Portland is I got to have a lovely visit and breakfast with Allie Aller. We met in person when I went to Portland two years ago after becoming virtual friends. She counts as an old friend now too. She shared a wonderful bag of old lace with me and one of her gorgeous floral photo transfers. We got to talk about our work and do show-and-tell in real time and face-to-face. What a treat!

In spite of traveling, I'm making progress on my Jacobean Chile 12x12. Here's the finished motif. I am inspired by Erica Wilson's work on Jacobean embroidery from the 1960s, but where she emphasizes its formal aspect, I want to emphasize its folkloric qualities. I developed this design by studying Wilson's Jacobean work, and botanical drawings of chile plants. I worked the design on a piece of vintage shirting fabric. I agonized about adding text. I went back and forth on what text to add and where to place it. An email chat with JoWynn gave me the encouragement I needed to try it out and not worry about it so much.


The piece looks miserable in this photo, but it shows I added the text by writing it on water-soluble stabilizer with permanent pen and then stitched through the whole thing. Next time I'll remember to let the ink dry completely.
The line of text I picked is from a very well-known Mexican folk song, "La Llorona" (The Weeping Woman). The line is "Yo soy como el chile verde, picante pero sabroso," which translates, "I am like the green chile, spicy, but delicious." To me the line underscores the earthy part of Jacobean design.

I'm hand quilting this piece and I will bead it as well. I hope your weekend is full of creativity and relaxation.