A lot of people are happy to see 2016 go. Yes, it was a very stressful year for almost everyone, but I am quite fearful of the next few years so I’m not ready to let 2016 go yet. However, I don’t have much choice, do I? So here’s my annual wrap-up blog post.
“Save our State,” a postcard tapestry I sent to an exhibition in Oaxaca, Mexico this year
I marked a couple of things off my bucket list this year. One event that might have made my bucket list but didn’t was voting for my man Bernie in the presidential election. It wasn’t on my list because I never ever expected him to get so close to the goal. Bernie Sanders has been my political hero for years, and it filled my heart with gladness to vote for him in the primary. At least our guys won in the N.C. governor and attorney general elections, which can only help, although the legislature has a controlling majority and is hellbent on taking away the powers of the governor’s office now that their party lost it. UGH.
My heart ached all year about the sale of my mother’s house in Marietta in late 2015. Although I’m glad that we don’t have to deal with its upkeep, it will always be home to me. I didn’t expect its loss to hurt so much.
In January, a big bucket list item was fulfilled when my tapestry, “98% Water,” was accepted into the American Tapestry Alliance Biennial exhibition. Right now I think it is still in Kansas at the Mulvane Art Museum. and will be traveling to its final venue at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. I also rented a small room at my church around the corner as a studio space, which I enjoyed for most of the year. My grand-nephew lost his father who was only in his mid-thirties, which had a huge impact on our family. This post wrapped up that month pretty well.
Pocosin Arts Center in Columbia, North Carolina was the location of a workshop Susanne and I took from Daniel Essig. It’s a sweet little town that most people breeze through on their way to the Outer Banks without a second look, but it is also the home to the headquarters of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, which I took as the theme of my wood covered mica book.
In March, my cousin Fred Adams died. He had Type 1 diabetes and a stroke and was in kidney failure for a long time. His house at Lake Waccamaw is the place that I have written about and photographed so much here over the years. He was a dearly loved family member and we all miss him very much. Everyone who knew Fred loved him. He was one of those kind of people – funny, intelligent, and friendly.
During the spring, I dived into weaving and sewing cloth strips, mostly from my worn-out jeans that I collected over the years. I learned a lot about what my little sewing machine is and is not capable of! I owe this cloth party to Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth.
Then in April I used the diced up denim trimmings to make paper!
Which was really fun until my back and hips said uh-uh.
Tapestry Weavers South had an impressive 20th Anniversary exhibition at Yadkin Arts Center in May. I’m so glad that I became more involved with this group.
May 2016 also brought the second bucket list item to fruition – we took a train ride on a sleeper car. It was during a big beautiful trip to Montana and Washington and Oregon, and there are too many gorgeous photos to choose from so you’ll have to travel back in time to my link above if you want to see them. We flew to Minneapolis, boarded Amtrak in Saint Paul, got off at Glacier National Park for three days, took the train again to Seattle where we only spent a couple of hours near the depot, then took the train to Portland. There we rented a car and drove to Mount St. Helens National Monument, the Astoria and Cannon Beach area, up the Columbia Gorge, to John Day Fossil Beds National Monument (Painted Hills) in central Oregon, to Bend and Sisters, and back to Portland for the last two days, where we flew back east.
It was absolutely one of the greatest trips I’ve ever taken, but I will not be riding in a sleeper car again! It also reinforced the idea that Sandy and I really should go west if we are ever able to retire.
June and July brought me back to the studio and growing field peas and butterbeans in my garden, which is much reduced in size now due to my chronic physical problems. I spent July 4th weekend at the lake at my sister’s house for the first time. She has kittens!
In August I finished up the denim blanket, which I learned was too large, bulky, and heavy to use as I intended, so I cut it in half and now it is two rugs on my bedroom floor. When I need picnic blankets, I’ll roll them up and take them along. I started on a new blanket project with a bunch of my husband’s old cotton and linen shirts.
On Labor Day weekend I traveled to South Bend, Indiana via Chicago to attend the opening reception of the ATA Biennial at the South Bend Museum of Art. I flew through Chicago, took Amtrak to South Bend with the points I earned from the May trip, stayed in an AirBNB (which has made me a convert!). On the way back I spent a few hours at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Only a couple of weeks later I took what seems to be turning into an annual trip to see my Aunt Delaine and cousin Cherie near Denver, Colorado. Hey, you can’t tell we’re related, can you? This time I was there to go to a class with paper collage artist Elizabeth St. Hilaire at the Art Makers Denver retreat. As usual the entire time with my family was lovely.
After the disastrous owners’ meeting in July I had written off Deep Roots. When I came back in September I got involved with a group of Deep Roots owners with the purpose of changing the direction of the cooperative, whose management and majority of the board got way off track in trying to deal with the financial problems. I spoke before the board about communication – my speech is in the minutes here. The good news is that we did prevail. The general manager was gone by November and most of the board members who supported him serve their last day on the board today.
I didn’t write on my blog at all in October or November. My nerves were shot and I was angry or shellshocked all the time. But once I was able to, I did a catch-up post here. The good news: I met and drank with Ben Harper. We screened in our front porch. We went to Savannah, Georgia for a long weekend for Sandy’s birthday.
My favorite place in Savannah was Bonaventure Cemetery. I’ve got it in my head now to do a angel tapestry after the “Cathedral” tapestry is finished.
We had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend with my sister, brother-in-law, brother, and cousin-in-law (Fred’s wife) at Lake Waccamaw. I didn’t blog it.
Then I took Susanne’s offer to move the church studio into her house. We are having a great time! I’m working on a travel themed t-shirt quilt. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.
Goodbye, 2016.
slowly she turned 