Corduroy Quilt

A corduroy quilt, color palette is mixed gray, pink, green, red, light blue and comprised of solids and florals. Hand-quilted. Basket-weave variation with curved piecing; gray wool suiting for the binding. dimension are approx 68" overall.

quilted 'off-the-frame' as more and more of my work is- I find handquilting a basted quilt without any tensioning or support for the quilt to be as easy and fast as quilting on a frame or hoop. Less of a strain on the hand and wrist as well. Quilted with Americana quilt thread - pink clay. Organic cotton batting; cotton back in two floral/paisley prints. In the collection of Ms. Jennie Hindes.


detail of quilting- free style pattern of concentric rectangles.

a basic need for . . .

Photo by Ronald Simon.

There is something about the art of puppet theater and something completely different about the puppet arts as done by Bread and Puppet Theater.

There is a great book about Bread and Puppet titled: Rehearsing with Gods by Ronald Simon and Marc Estrin and published by Chelsea Green.


The book chronicles the concepts and movements of the theatre over the years- but it is the over all concept of the troupe's work with puppet's to further the basic needs of our culture that is most fulfilling and most entertaining.


I visited the farm/theater/museum in Glover VT. That's where the photo of the zebra and the trash can puppets comes from; from the cheap art bus gallery/store that was there when I visited.


I took in the circus that they performed in their barn built for the occasions- it is hard to describe the performance because for me it was one of those rare occasions when theater has expanded my consciousness toward, and right up to, a unity experience. Stuffed onto bleachers erected at one end of the barn, cramped and hot, the performers indulge in the main space and the band fits in on the side. And as if channelling everything that is Waiting for Godot and turning it into the essential revolutionary gesture that fits into a barn in Vermont, the performance hovered between iconoclastic defiance and domestic enchantment- between slapstick and ballet.


What I experienced sitting in the audience was the growing feeling that all the pageantry and display and poetry was fitted and found within the context of the great North East Kingdom and the outstretched nation that seems to tumble down from the ridges and run west. The performance was as if an anchor- both symbolically as is the theater's goal to point out, and establish in our awareness, follies both personal and communal and as an anchor for all work and progress evolving toward truth.


There is something in the human/mythic quality in the puppet that I often see in quilts- the strong narrative force matched to the human utility of the object's use. The unity experience that I had in Glover is not unlike the knowing feeling that is created in applied art objects. One transcends when looking at a quilt because of its mix of the complex and the simple. It is both a shelter and it is an object of art that is decorative, pictorial, and narrative. A quilt transcribes the path of its creation and it fixes that patchwork process into a unified wholeness.


At the Bread and Puppet farm, before performances, you stand outside the theater and they raise a flag honoring some aspect of the domestic, a broom, a chair, etc. the small flag has a picture of a broom on it, it's raised up onto a spindly, rough-hewn flag pole. There is a drum-roll as the flag is raised and when it reaches the top someone blows a "ta-da" on the horn and the cast of the theater all say something like: "The Broom." And then everyone goes inside for the show.

Quilt Guy Group meeting- South Central Mass

Last night I attended the second meeting of the men's quilting group of South Central Massachusetts; we met at the Charlton Sewing Center in Charlton, Mass. The next meeting is Wed. Dec. 10.

7 guys from central Mass attended the meeting (actually 5 from central mass and 2 from Western Mass and NY) and shared their quilt interests and quilts. The group was launched in October by Holice Turnbow to gather together, instruct and inspire men who quilt.

I was the featured presenter for the evening and shared some of my quilts and spoke on the influence of improvisation on my work and on quilt-making as a craft medium in general.

Guys who quilt can also meet online: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/QuiltGuy/

Inspirational indeed.
Thanks guys!