"On the Boardwalk"

Photo of our Boardwalk taken from the wharf. The tourists are here, the rides are up and running! I can here the screams and the waves when the wind is right but mostly it is the traffic that changes when summer arrives. My son will be flying in from Corpus Christi TX for a great summer visit...I'll be taking time away from this blog to enjoy him in the days ahead. I'll put aside my almost finished second piece and post it when he flies home.   HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE1

"Fading Memories"

12"x20" embroidery, Momigami, found papers, machine stitching, dried flowers, digital transfer on silk, wire and ribbon.

This is the first of my proposed three sacred cloths using the palm motif. I tried once again the technique of Momigami. The green rectangles and also the tan rectangle in lower center. This tan cloth began as those thin brown recycled napkins and after oil and crumbling it became a soft delicate cloth?! The jar is a silk transfer of an ancient jar with Hebrew letters incised into the pottery...a very rare find. I see this cloth as a collection of memories both the sewn jar and the transferred image seem to be as faded memories of daily desert rituals.

On a personal note some of my sweetest childhood memories were of spending an occasional few days at my grandmother's house. I was 6-7 and now that I recall she was my age that I am now. Our mornings were spent moving a gigantic garden hose around her yard watering her beautiful flowers. The garden was glorious and there I learned about azaleas, carnations, wisteria, roses and daisies to name a few! After our gardening she would prepare my breakfast which was always the same: a soft boiled egg perfect with salt & pepper, golden toast generously buttered and a warm mug of coffee mostly milk. Sacred memories for me!

Palm Motif

I found this design of a border of palm trees and flowers online at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The palm motif was very popular all the way back to the ancients and I will be using it on each of the three cloths I'm putting together but with different colors and all. The printing process is called 'water soluable glue and textile paint'. Simply put it is silk screen over a hand drawn dried glue design. I created this freehand using a squeeze bottle of glue in order to maintain the raw image. I used a green textile paint for the print and then added raw umber by a roller on the fabric. I've added embroidery and used a 'daisy chain' stitch for the flowers. I'm still getting excited about learning new stitches and adapting them to my images. This is just the beginning border to the altar cloth so I have plenty to do and I admit Holidays and BBQ's are keeping me away from the work table. Friday is marked as an all day studio day...Wooope!