If I thought my internet service was slow at home, I don’t now. It’s way slower here at the seminary and I’m having a hard time getting anything posted. I hope I’ll be able to keep the blog going this week with the promised retro quilt show. So here goes as I see whether I’ll be able to upload any photos.
This first quilt is actually the second large quilt I made after learning to quilt in 1979. I don’t have pictures of my first quilt which was a queen size sampler quilt now owned by my sister. This quilt was completed around 1980 and was made from a pattern found in Quilters Newsletter Magazine. It’s called North Carolina Flower Patch.
I liked the medallion style which at the time was a fairly new style for quilt making. I chose to do the main background in a print which was sort of unusual at the time, also. As I evolved in my quilt making I found myself using a printed background a good deal of the time, so it sort of evolved as a part of my “style”.
The quilt is approximately 54″ x 54″ and completely hand pieced, appliqued, and quilted. For many years wherever we moved just wasn’t “home” until this quilt was on a wall somewhere in the house. It’s now taking a break as it has become quite faded over the years.
I am through my first day of classes in my Doctor of Ministry program and I’m very excited. The projects for the first class will involve actually doing a work of art and documenting the process from a technical and spiritual standpoint. Another project will be a detailed interview with a contemporary artist about that person’s process and how spirituality figures into it. I can already list three or four artists in New Mexico that I want to interview! ’Sounds like time to schedule a trip.
One of the things I love about this course is that it includes field trips. Today we visited the Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum in Bethesda to view Phillip Ratner’s sculptures. We had the rare privilege of meeting and talking with him and getting to visit his studio. He invited us back to do a workshop with him, and we hope our professor will be able to arrange it for us.
Ratner’s works are found all over the world including at Ellis Island and the Vatican. His museum in Bethesda and another in Israel feature sculptures depicting several stories from the Hebrew Bible. We had to do a quick walk through so I hope to be able to go back soon.
