Clifton Springs

Our visit to Clifton Springs last week included a walk on the grounds of the Clifton Springs Hospital.  The walking paths include a tour of the healing garden, herb garden, flower gardens, gazebos and swans.













Bev checked out the Peace Labyrinth, which unlike traditional labyrinths, offers an exit directly from the center.














The sulphur brook is usually a small slow stream, but is really full now from all the recent rain and flooding in our area.










This mother duck was not happy that we were getting so close to her family, but the water was too fast for her to consider as an alternative route.

A visit to Priscilla

I stopped in to visit Priscilla yesterday.  It was a lovely spring day, so we checked out her new patio area.













Her new home includes a large back yard.














She's pretty well settled in and has much of her mask collection installed on display in her office area.












Priscilla said that she'll soon be incorporating these two superior molas into a new blouse or jacket.

Quilts across Cortland

The YWCA of Cortland presented their "Quilts Across Cortland 2014" show on May 17 and May 18.

I was pleased that they selected several of my quilts for a special exhibit. 

Here are members of the committee hard at work during the set-up, organizing some of my smaller quilts to fit on the drapes.

Meeting day trip

Since we were in Phelps for the quilt show, we also stopped to visit the Phelps Art Center, located in a beautiful old church.
















Currently on view are fascinating pieces in the Toothpick World exhibit created by Stan Munro, the "Toothpick Engineer."














Then we visited the Main Street Arts gallery in Clifton Springs.  Currently on display on the main floor is their first juried exhibit, Flora.

There were more exhibits on the second floor, including this display of competition pieces done by area students.

Peeps meeting day

The members of the Art Quilt People decided to forego their usual meeting and spend the day on the road instead.


The first stop was to visit the quilt show sponsored by the Lake-to-Lake Quilt Club held in the Phelps Community Center.





Nancy and Linda












Jeanne and Bev













And one of our agendas at the show was to check in on Pat, who had a vendor booth with her wonderful hand-dyed and printed fabrics.  We caught her taking a little break at lunch time.

My Night and Day Quilts

I had a request to show the full pictures of the two quilts I made for the exhibit.  You can still see them in person until the end of the month at the Wayne County Council for the Arts in Newark, NY.


Daybreak   (66h X 57w)











Red Twilight  (65h X 58w)

Night and Day Opening

 



My friends and I in the Peeps group (The Art Quilt People) hosted the opening of our Night and Day exhibit at the Wayne County Council for the Arts in Newark, NY.











For the "gallery talk," each artist spoke about the pieces she created for the exhibit -- the inspirations for the works and the materials and processes that were used.

This is Anne Anderson, talking about her piece, Explosion.

This is Pat Pauly and her pieces on the left, Dusk / Dawn.

My pieces are behind Pat -- Red Twilight and Daybreak.

Nancy Hicks talked about her pieces, Soweto, South Africa - Then and Now.














This is Mary Wieser, talking about her piece, Hostage of the Night.

Behind Mary are the two pieces done by Linda Bachman, Light of Day and Calm of Night.











Our wonderful spread of "goodies" furnished by the Peeps and the Arts Council featured a nice variety of snacks, which were very popular and well received.

Here some of our visitors pay rapt attention as another presentation was being made.

GVQC meeting

The program for the May meeting of the Genesee Valley Quilt Club featured a presentation by Karen Eckmeier, who is well known for her top-stitched piecing techniques.  Karen also offered her workshops for Happy Villages and Accidental Landscapes.











This is Karen's Scrappy Layered Log Cabin quilt.

Studio visitors

Barb Ackley and Genie Barnes came for a much over-due visit to the studio.

Part of the agenda was to select some of my quilts for display at the quilt show at the YWCA in Cortland on May 17 - 18.
















When Barb arrived, she was wearing her "It's a Barbara Thing" jacket that she made from what was originally a sweatshirt.















She finished the back of the jacket with some wonderful fabrics, using a flip-n-sew method, and followed by quilting.

Thanks, Paula!

My friend, Paula Kovarik, was in Paducah, KY, and visited the AQS quilt show. 

When she found my "RoundAbout" quilt in the show, she took up the Guide Position, and made sure all passer-bys were alerted to the chance to check out my quilt... :-)









Paula also visited the Fantastic Fibers exhibit at the Yeiser Art Center in Paducah and sent this picture of "Jet Trails #11".


I don't often get to attend the shows where my quilts are displayed,  so it's always a special treat to receive pictures like these.  Thanks again, Paula!

After the rains

We recently received a real tropical-like deluge of rain. 

The downpour lasted for more than an hour and left ponds of water throughout our gardens.











Our formal perennial garden was particularly affected.

We've seen the planted rows covered with standing water before.  In this case a lake was created that covered everything!









It will be a fair amount of time until these gardens emerge, dry out, and re-grow.

As the old song goes, "Spring will be a little late this year."

Hanging Night and Day

The Night and Day exhibit of our contemporary art quilts is being hung today at the Wayne County Council for the Arts in Newark.

The first task is to plan the layout of the quilts.

Then Mary and I let our group's math wiz, Bev, calculate the spacing between each quilt.











It's always great to have lots of help to make the job go faster.

Bill steadies the quilt, while Wayne checks it with the level before he secures the hanging rod.














Nancy and Bev are checking out the pieces that were hung so far.












I helped Nancy post the artist statements for the quilts.













Mary grabbed a picture of the exhibit title board that Pat prepared.

Gardening start

Everything is late this year.  In fact, here is Bill finishing up trimming some raspberries that were not tended to last fall.  There has been little greening so far this year, so no harm was done.














Marcia is weeding another part of the area.  Despite deep freezing  of the ground and several below-zero nights, the weeds, of course, survived and growth is well underway.

 

Our feral barn cat joins us, sort of, and enjoys stretching and rolling in the sunshine.  She continues to avoid human touch and is still "our friend at a distance."

Spring cleaning

A sign of changing seasons is the arrival of the Clearly Aquatics crew to work on a couple ponds on our property.  This year they picked a cold and rainy day.









The slippery, difficult cobblestone-lined fish pond is always assigned to the "new" man.  The draining of the existing water is followed by pressure cleaning. 

Bill is in his customary supervisory position on the deck.








Our lily pond is behind the barn and is also drained.  The flower pots are then fertilized and returned to their underwater habitat.

For the deck pond, the fish are returned, the waterfall pump is cleaned and covered with a new filter and net, and the filling process begins.

Peeps - continued

Taking advantage of having everyone together yesterday, Anne organized a group "selfie."

(Anne, Jeanne, Pat, Linda, Nancy, Bev, Mary, Marcia, Carol)











Nancy found the start of this wonderful spring jacket at Craft Bits & Pieces and was finishing it up with pink binding.





















Mary showed us the Leaf piece she made in Pat's recent workshop at the Lake to Lake Guild.