Ironweed

Things to do today:

1. buy a couple more annuals to fill out area in garden to make it look great. Check.

2. Finish weeding the SE corner of the garden (check) and mulch it (nope. As I was getting the load of mulch near the back gate, the lawn tractor heaved a mighty puff of black smoke and moved no more. I tried to move the filled cart by myself, but only got it about an additional 50 feet. I'll get it when Carlos comes home this evening and when it is cooler. ---Liar....see what happens below).

3. Go shopping with dd in the heat of the day so that she can find two new outfits to wear for senior pictures. dd PROMISES that I will get out of this for less than $150 and only about three hours late. (um, uh, sort of check......)

4. work on Pudge's quilt (yeah, right...see further explanation of above, below)

5. Prepare for the Art Quilt Workbook class tomorrow night. (ditto)




Well...I took dear daughter to two shopping centers and one mall (maul?) 8 hours later, we return, mission accomplished...but I'm done in. Hip hurts, head is mush and checkbook is depleted. Instead of showing you pictures of Aullwood and having something to say, I'm leaving you with a picture of Ironweed

Ironweed is one of my favorite late summer wildflowers. This particular shot isn't as dark as other varieties I've found. Ironweed is Veronia altissima and stands about 36" - 48" tall. It's spectacular in Ohio's fallow meadows, fence lines and other areas. I have been so taken with it, that I bought a cultivar called "Iron Butterfly." Supposedly it is slightly shorter and will have the gorgeous color of the wild variety. The leaves on the purchased one are thing and whispy, more like a Amsonia, so I'm hoping it is the right thing.

Some species have been used to treat stomach aliments. Supposedly, Native Americans used it to assist with treating post child birth pain and restoring menses.

When I found it in a nursery in Connecticut, I happily took it to the counter to pay for it so I could bring it home. I was amused when I looked at the slip that the sales person had abbreviated it to "Iron butt".....which is sort of the way I feel right now.

Aullwood: Kathy Nida

Today, I sort of feel like the earth mother. I guess it's from groveling in the soil for several days. So, tonight I thought I'd share Kathy Nida's Watch Me Go. Kathy's style is loose almost cartoon-ish, somewhat akin to Picasso's style which he used in La Guernica, but not...She leads a really busy life in El Cajon where she is a teacher and a mother (of teenagers and furry things). Quite frankly, she's one of those people who I don't know how she is able to complete as much and show as much as she does.

Watch Me Go in some ways speaks to some of those pulls. Here's her artist statement on this piece:

"As our parents age, we have to start taking care of them, acting at times as their parents, making decisions for their health. Mother Earth needs our care, our attention, or she will go."

Measuring a healthy 52" x 43" Kathy uses fused applique with hand-embroidery and machine quilting.


Check out Kathy's website. She has lots of wonderful images of her work up as well as a blog which addresses some of her every day life. You can also see how she works. VERY fun!

The Butterfly garden

I've been working hard in the garden trying to get it in shape for this weekend when my daughter will have her senior photos taken in the yard.

I've been struggling with some of my "weeds." You see, my garden is a haven for butterflies and moths of all sorts. Here, you can see a tussock moth caterpillar (at least I think that's what it is) chewing away on a swamp milkweed.

In fact, I have a lot of plants in my garden which drive me nuts, but I am loathe to remove them as they provide food and shelter for various sorts of butterflies. Swamp milkweed is one of them. I haven't had too much luck with getting butterflies on Asclepius tuberosa (butterfly weed), but the plain jane swamp milkweed hosts lots. I also like the smell and the flowers of the plant...what I don't like is the fact that it sends runners out to propagate my garden.

Here you can see the flowers with a monarch dangling off the bottom. The sweet scent cascades over me as I weed below it.

Here's a monarch caterpilar eating away at the milkweed leaf.




























Black swallowtails prefer the Salvia bonariensis (upright salvia) and the fennel. Both freely seed themselves EVERY in my garden. The Salvia isn't too much of a problem as I can pull it out easily. The fennel, on the other hand, has a long tap root. It doesn't form a bulb like the Italian fennel, but is a purple variety. If you don't rip it out when it is young, then it is a real problem.

Other butterfly incentives in my garden include buddlea (butterfly bush), various sorts of native grasses, cosmos, echinacea, liatris, several different varieties of rudebeckia, daylilies (hemerocalis), Missouri primrose, and coreopsis. I'm probably forgetting other ones.

I have fritillaries, sulphur, Red Admiral, Eastern Swallowtail, and several other types which I have a hard time identifying. I need to find a field guide to butterflies which include the caterpillars as I'd love to know who goes with what.

Aullwood: Suzanne Mouton Riggio a lesson in perseverance

Since I have been working so hard lately in the garden trying to get it to look its best by this coming Saturday (my daughter has decided to have her senior pictures taken in my garden....at a time when it isn't its best because of drought and a gap between the summer bloomers and the autumn glory), I thought I'd share Suzanne Mouton Riggio's Garden Gate.

This particular piece isn't like much of what I have seen of Suzanne Riggio's work. Suzanne, who lives in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin doesn't usually create pieces which are as traditionally based as this...and when I read the artist statement, I understood why.

Suzanne has worked years on this piece. I don't think I could say it as well as she has, so I'm going to include her statement here:

"I had not been quilting for long when I decided to do a garden quilt with a wrought iron gate in front of it. It was such fun finding all the flowers and leaves, then organizing them so that the larger were in the forefront and the smaller in the distance. Prior to quilting, in order to show the garden in early morning with fog in the distance, I painted silk for the background in graduating greens and emphasized its depth by meander stitching the distant foliage in greens from light (farther) to dark (closer).

I chose green rat-tail to be the iron gate. The longest stretch of time in the making of this quilt was the hand couching. I kept the work in a tote bag that traveled with me to doctor's offices and hospital rooms where I got a few stitches in while I was waiting to be seen or while visiting my heart patient husband. After 12 years, I was hospitalized for spinal surgery. A lengthy convalescence enabled me to finally complete the couching.


The binding proved extremely difficult too. Because I was now a parapalegic, I used my right hand to work the foot pedal of my sewing machine and my left hand to manipulate the fabric. In spite of using the zipper foot, I was unable to close the gap between the outermost rattail and the binding. Yay for perseverance and stitch ripping!"

Unfortunately, Suzanne doesn't have a website per se or a blog, but she has exhibited widely and has had several articles written about her. You can see one of her pieces here. You can find more by Googling her name.

Her piece is 26 1/2" square and you can see it here hanging with the other garden like quilts in the Aullwood Nature Center's exhibition hallway.

Like Suzanne, my quilting is my constant companion in doctor's offices and hospitals...and other places, including waiting to be seated at restaurants. I just can't stand to not have my hands going. :)

Aullwoood: Nancy G. Cook

Aullwood is one of those shows which allows each artist to submit up to three works. Nancy G. Cook is one of those talented artists who had all three works submitted accepted.

Nancy, who lived in Dayton for a while, presently lives in North Carolina. She uses embellishment, layers of fabric, deft quilting and hand-dyed fabrics (and I think some commercially printed fabrics as well) to create wonderful images. She tends to work in series drawing heavily on nature, particularly on the plants of all types and sizes. This is her Pelton's Rose Gentian."


The lighting in the Aullwood gallery leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to taking pictures and I always forget a white card to make sure that it is calibrated correctly. I think, although this shot is very small, that it conveys the depth that Nancy acheives just using stitching.

Nancy's choice for this piece is derived from a photograph of a plant discovered by John Pelton in the 21st century. Pelton was an amateur botanist in his 70s when he discovered this piece. I think Nancy is making a statement as to the positive contribution that amateurs as well as those who are advanced in years can make.

Nancy acquired permission from the photographer to use the image in creating this machine pieced, machine-quilted (hand guided) and hand embroidered piece.

This cool piece is entitled Mimosa Dancing. Since Nancy is especially poetic in her description, I'll just include it here:

"With a dance of leaves as a gentle breeze blows , the imported silk tree signals summer in the Carolinas and life is moving on. Whole cloth, painted leaves, hand-guided machine embroidery and quilting.


Nancy has been working on a series based on leaves and trees. You can see her other work here on her website as well as more about her work in general.


The last piece is entitled "Crepe Myrtle: Homage to Klimt". Nancy said, "Since the Crepe Myrtle is so sensuous that Klimt's palette and motifs seemed perfect." Since my crepe myrtle, grown as a nod to sentimentality--reminding me of my days in Williamsburg at grad school, are presently blooming, it seems like a good time to put this one up.

"Klimt" is referencing Gustav Klimt, an artist working in Austria at the end of the 19th century. He incorporated sensuous line in a modernistic sense while still using more traditional methods as well. He is probably best known for his series "The Kiss." His work is often sexually charged.

While usually when I think of Klimt's work, I think of rich golds and darker colors, often using a warm palette. This piece seems related more to "Mada Premavesi" which he completed in 1912. Look here to see what I mean.

Aullwood Quilt Show: Merry Havens Color Spectrum

Without a doubt, my absolute favorite entry in this years Aullwood Audubon (Nature) Center's show is Merry Haven's Color Spectrum. Composed of 6 panels, Merry takes us through the color spectrum from Red to violet. Merry completed this in 2009 and it measures 50" high and 60" across.

The piece is absolutely sumptuous. I admit, I'm a real sucker for rich and bright colors, but that's just one element of this piece. Merry primarily machine pieced it, but then layered other elements in with applique, beading, specialty stitching and threads, and items re-purposed as decorative elements in the work. Each piece is it's own size and shape, but they work well together.

Design wise, you go from section to section, your eye moves around it and you are brought into the piece. Notice how the dark color from one goes into the next panel, unifying it.

Merry's technique was good as well, and her embellishment made sense...not just embellishment for embellishment's sake, but choosing items which not only looked good, but looked like they belonged there, not contrived.

The pieces have great depth and texture. You really can't stop looking at it. I actually couldn't stop taking pictures of it, but blogger only allows me so much.







Merry was all inclusive in the materials she used...cottons, silks, rayons, whatever did the job, she included.

Aullwood Quilt Show: Merry Havens

Merry Havens of Boulder Colorado submitted three works to the Aullwood Nature Center show and all three were accepted, and rightly so. I'm afraid this is going to be a tease of a post as I'm not going to post my favorite piece until tomorrow. :)

Merry lives in Boulder Colorado and draws her inspiration largely from nature, social concerns and just expressing her rather voluminous creativity.

This piece is called "Slice of Life" and measures 15" high by 30" wide. Here's her comments on this piece: "Slice of Life" is a green machine pieced, quilted and appliqued. A zebra and giraffe are peeking through the slices of green, 2 dragonflies with machine laced wings take stage on the diagonals while fish and parrots are watching. Hand embellished with glass and stone beads. Free-motion stitching accentuates the details. Mostly cotton with a touch of silk and linen.

Logically enough, her next piece is entitled "Green Blocks" (46" x 31"). In this piece, Merry layered her work,starting out with a background of a batik which was machine pieced, then using paints, painted fabric, hand-dyed fabric, lace (painted), thread work, bobbin work with embroidery thread (using thicker, specialty threads in the bobbin--the pattern appears on the bottom so you are basically working blind), applique, and beadwork.

You can get a sense of this work in the detail photograph.

Merry's work shows exuberance. You can see lots of her other work on her website, here.
You can also check out her blog and see where she has been diligent in posting. Her goal is to post a piece of artwork a day....I'm afraid I haven't been as faithful as she has so far.

All three of her pieces are for sale...but you have to check back here tomorrow and see my favorite piece.