Eggs

Babies, eggs of all kinds, feathers, flowers, families....!

Quilt 4 of 4.

This project was supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council which receives funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Wally

Many years ago in Jamaica Plain, MA:
When I saw Wally this past Saturday, it had been awhile. Every time I see Wally, he says, “There’s my little photographer girl!” On Saturday, he hugged me and gave me a big kiss. (On the cheek of course.) He was wearing a blue denim cowboy hat. Mr. Blue had given it to him, he said. “It was brand new in the wrapper.”
One day, after our preliminary greeting, I asked Wally how he was doing. He said, “I’m feeling naughty.” I asked him what he meant, but he wouldn’t elaborate.
Wally says he works for a moving company in California. He’s the “executive field director of operations.” Which means that he’s the “troubleshooter”. When something goes wrong, he goes out into the field and chews people out. He works at the First Baptist thrift shop on Thursday and Saturday, which is where I usually see him.
Most of the time, Wally says, he gets paid to sit in his room. He tells me that he has a “teletype machine” which pages him when he is needed. He tried to describe this machine to me, but gave up and said, “Goody’s seen it.” For his job, Wally needs to sometimes travel extensively throughout the eastern seaboard. He doesn’t drive anymore, but people cart him around. Sometimes he flies “in a chopper”. Last Thanksgiving, Wally had coffee and donuts in Boston, ham and eggs in New Jersey, seafood in Bangor, Maine, and then, pheasant under glass in Boston.

In his former life, Wally was a photographer. He still has his Hasselblad, and insists that my Mamiya is every bit as good. “I’m a twin lens man myself.”

nepotism?

My children will appear on a disproportionate number of squares on the GREAT KIRBY DOCUMENTARY quilt. Sammy is on her square twice along with her fantastic friend. This past summer I dragged them with me to many protarit sessions. They were of course very helpful AND carry much crowd appeal with them. ("What lovely, well behaved girls!") I let them have a sheet of film and use of the Wista; they photographed a sunflower together. Walker is in three incarnations on his square.

**This project is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts!

letting go of type 55

Deep down, I'm a square, color person. Then I happened on some grant money, bought a wista, tried type 55, and was hooked. With my Mamiya and a borrowed backdrop from Lenny Wayne (that's a whole nother story), I had already set up a "photobooth" at a church bazaar. I charged $1- for a portrait, then mailed the large color prints a week later. With the polaroid, the gratification and exchange became immediate and big. These are images that I shot at "photobooths" in rural South Carolina.

a wonderful pattern

I've been experimenting with cyanotyping on different types of fabric. This will help me both break up the overwhelming blue, and hide the many imperfections that are a natural and unavoidable part of the blueprinting process. Laura Blacklow gave me this idea, and I've been having Linda at Blueprints on Fabric custom coat various calicos and solids. I had tried this on my last quilt in a limited but very successful manner. Now my coating days are over due to a limit of time and space. So anyway, Linda does a great job.

***This project is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council which receieves funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Legislature!!!

silver cows

Here's a piece of the great Kirby Documentary Quilt in process. After realizing that my original idea of photographing everyone in my small town of Kirby, Vermont was not going to work, I had the idea that I should aim to photograph every cow in town. These cows are printed on the almost luminous cotton sateen sheeting made by Blueprints on Fabric. It fairly glows. I bordered this image with silver velour from an old shirt worn by my son. The quilts of Gee's Bend were a revelation to me; they gave me the idea of using non-traditional quilting fabrics- corduroys, work clothes, old clothes, etc.


****This project is supported in part by the Vermont Arts Council which is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts!****

quiltstravaganza- girl art to the max

This is my first photo quilt. I made it as a documentary tribute to Colleton County, South Carolina. It was made with funding from the South Carolina Arts Commission and with an Alternate Roots Grant. My husband, Bill Storz helped to do the massive amounts of technical work that creating this quilt involved. I worked on it through two pregnancies.
When I moved from urban New England to the rural South Carolina Low Country in 1991 (to begin life as a schoolteacher) I felt that I was in another world. I began to explore my new home with my camera in hand. I printed these images on fabric and then made a quilt. This work was completed in 1998. It is 100" x 100".

warm and fuzzy

The first kid's quilt that I made was for Sammy. She was one and we had just moved to Colorado. I always go running in the early morning before anyone wakes up. That didn't work with Sammy though. She'd wake up if I wasn't there. I had to take her with me. Even in the frigid winter. So I made her a very warm quilt. Wool blanket on the inside and backed with fleece. It had many personal images printed either with cyanotype or van dyke brown.
Well now I live in a colder place and also have lucy. So I made another warm quilt. This one has all kinds of pictures- her favorite doll, me w/ my mother and grandmother, her sonogram, a snakeskin, her favorite flowers, etc. I also used pieces of the sling I carried her in and the maternity dress I wore when I was pregnant.

It's a fair day!

A rare hot and sunny day here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. I spent the day today at the Caledonia County Fair. I photographed many people along with the animals that they had brought to the fair to show. Kids with cows, a woman with her various rabbits, a man with baby pigs and pygmy goats. The CCF brings rare Kingdom weather and special generosity of friendliness. People enjoy talking about their animals and sharing.
I had to shoot with my medium format camera today as I am running out of the polaroid film that I'm using with the 4 x 5. These images were made about 4 years ago with my wista. It was the first year I shot at the fair. I printed the negs on cloth and made this bag- "Fairpiece". I use it to keep my lupe in and hang it on my tripod for handy help when focusing the 4 x 5. I've been showing it to my Kirby subjects as an example of how the photos on the Kirby Quilt will look.