Traveller's Altar

12"x18", tea stained cloth, assorted printed cloth, stamped cloth, paper, machine and hand stitching, ribbon and beads.
I believe this is my beginning of some new approaches and yet with my usual subject matter...still interested in the desert journey, antiquities of forgotten tribes and the forever love of cloth, beads and stitching. This piece represents (to me) a time when travel was measured with light weight burdens and that even altars and important documents needed to be rolled up and tied for safekeeping. I'd like to think of this cloth altar as a touchstone for the wayfarer: unrolling and saying prayers at the days end. Many rolled parchments have been found in clay jugs in caves as they were put there until the traveler would return.

Bits, Slivers and Slices

One of the good things and one of the bad things about painting on foam core is that you can cut it into any shape you would like. This was once a 10"x10" piece but after working and slicing off bits, it is down to 6"x6" and I have decided to quit. I can't remember all the materials: satin, paper, acrylic, ink stamps, ribbon and cheesecloth to name a few. Some materials were just cut off! Sorry about the tilted photo. I'm not complaining, I'm in the studio and working and experimenting and I know it's all leading me to new art .

Tomorrow is President Lincoln's birthday and I wanted to share these powerful remarks. Carl Sandburg spoke before Congress in 1959, on Lincoln's sesquicentennial: "Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on Earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect." Happy Birthday President Lincoln.