Aullwood: Annette Kennedy

Today has been a really rough day and I'm completely worn out. Today, my daughter was supposed to have her senior pictures taken in my back yard. So....I got up early, went to the bakery (we have a guest and I wanted her to be able to try a selection of yummy baked goods from the Bake House Bakery in Troy), the grocery store (we were out of milk and I needed feta and balsamic vinegar for a Greek salad I was making for a party later on in the day); and to the farmer's market to get some fresh veggies (and yummy red raspberries).

I was back home by 7:30, ate breakfast and went out to finish working in the garden. I needed to tidy up the beds by deadheading and cutting away plants which had gone dormant or died in the heat, and lay the new cut limestone blocks I got through freecycle for the edges of the goldfish pond, and then take away the concrete blocks I had been using. By 8:30, it was already 81 degrees with oppressive humidity. At 12:30, we got our first thunder storm.

After it passed, I went back out and tackled the limestone, hand hauling blocks weighing over 30 pounds. Then there was another downpour...the upshot? My daughter called me from the hair dressers saying that she had to cancel the photo shoot, even though she had had her hair done as it was too wet and drippy and since she had to work, there wasn't enough time to push it off and just have it later. I hope all the patrons appreciated her hair as they were the only ones other than the four of us here today who say it.

Because I'm building a new wall, I decided that Annette Kennedy's Garden Wall HAD to be the one I showed you tonight. Annette is from Longmount, Colorado. She made this restful piece by fusing commercially printed cotton, then painting the details and shadows. She machine quilted the piece to emphasize the lines and shading on the plant parts.

Annette is well known for her painted quilts. She offers classes and lectures. If you really can't live without Garden Wall, Annette sells prints of her original piece on her website. Her website may be viewed here