New Kid on the Block: East Bay Modern Quilt Guild's show

(detail)

The Modern Quilt Guild has 60 branches worldwide, and now there's one in the East Bay.  I wanted to see what it was all about (I belong to the East Bay Heritage Quilters), so I drove over to Piedmont, parked the car, hiked about a hundred miles uphill in the most circuitous route possible, and found the Piedmont Center for the Arts.

There are only 27 quilts in the show, "Stitch Modern," so I got carried away and took photos of all but one. Had to use my phone camera and didn't have the patience to copy names/titles, but you'll get an idea of the what the show's about.

Mostly I wanted to see how their work was different from what my own guild does.  The MQG website says "...several characteristics often appear which may help identify a modern quilt. These include, but are not limited to: the use of bold colors and prints, high contrast and graphic areas of solid color, improvisational piecing, minimalism, expansive negative space, and alternate grid work."

What think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(detail)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(detail)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

wearable art

 

"Stitch Modern," will be up through February 23 at the Piedmont Center for the Arts, 801 Magnolia Avenue, Piedmont. The gallery is open Friday-Sunday, noon-3 pm.  Free.

 

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The East Bay Heritage Quilters (EBHQ)  show, "Voices in Cloth," will be held at the Craneway Pavilion, 1414 Harbour Way South, Richmond, on March 22-23.  More than 200 quilts displayed, plus vendors, special exhibits, demonstrations.  Two-day admission $12; $10 advance purchase. At left: photo of one of two raffle quilts, "Firecracker," by Rebecca Rohrkaste.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Falling Out of Love

Yesterday Jerry was on the phone with a colleague when the man told him that he'd recently gotten divorced, after 29 years of marriage.

"He said they fell out of love," Jerry reported over lunch.

"Oh, for God's sake!"  I snapped.  "What kind of reason is that?"  Major irritation attack.

Maybe I'm defensive because I haven't managed to stay "in love," by my definition, for 36+ years.  We were in love, and it was really, really fun.  Intoxicating, exciting, consuming, all that.  After while, it went away, and we got on with being married.

We still find each other adorable.  We have fun.  We love each other.  We give each other Valentine's Day cards.   But to characterize what we have as "in love," feels frivolous.  Very Beginner.  Getting divorced, on the other hand, is serious.

But when I looked for validation online: forget it.  "Falling out of love," is now a primary reason given for divorce, ranking above financial worries and physical abuse, according to an article in Psychology Today, "Are You Falling Out of Love?  A Quiz on 10 Warning Signs,"  (here  if you care to take the quiz).  In it, author Susan Heitler writes,

"Falling out of love involves a gradual loosening of pair-bonding energies focused on your partner, and the reinvestment of these energies elsewhere."   According to Dr. Heitler, falling out of love can involve not seeing your partner as a truly good person, not having fun with your partner, violating trust.  These are the serious problems that she says contribute to "falling out of love."

I took the "self-quiz," and found out that apparently I am still in love, because I had a very low score (high is bad).  I had Jerry take the quiz, and the same thing happened.

Is it just a matter of definition?  Maybe.  But the whole in-love, falling-out-of-love, soulmate thing feels so shaky to me, so temporary, that I wish Susan Heitler and Jerry's colleague would just forget about it. Call it something else, something with the gravitas it deserves.

Even, "a gradual loosening of pair-bonding energies focused on your partner, and reinvestments of these energies elsewhere," feels more real.

I'd love some feedback on this.




We do give each other Valentine's Day cards.

Mass Superficiality and a Super Shampoo

"Moreover, I feel that the worldwide obsession with hair, clothing, and shoes is the clearest illustration of mass superficiality within human culture, and that the outsize role these things play in day-to-day life is corrosive for everyone."  Chuck Klosterman, "The Ethicist,"  New York Times, January 26, 2014.

So, Chuck, tell us what you really think.

I'm guessing you aren't an aging woman with dry, disobedient hair.

I am, and I'm willing to pay almost anything to do something about.

The last time I was at my (overpriced) hairdresser, I asked about a Japanese shampoo that his assistant had used on my hair the last time I was there.  My hair had had more bounce and held its shape better than it had in years.

"It's by Shu Uemura," he said.  "It's really the best."

"Why?"  I'm already spending an unconscionable amount of money on a fancy shampoo.

"It's oil-based," he said.  "Less harsh."  Pause.  "It's what I use."

That did it.

I had him show me a bottle: "Full Shimmer Illuminating Shampoo for  Color Treated Hair."

The ultimate in understated packaging

"How much?"  I inquired.

"Uh, $48," he said.  Even he looked rueful.

I bought a bottle.

It's dynamite.  My hair has restored bounce and shape and goes where I tell it to.  I rinse out the shampoo well, per instructions, but I don't have to wash my hair any more often than I did with other shampoos.

All that money for shampoo for a person who volunteers at a food pantry and rails against greed and Republicans!  Of course, I feel guilty. But it gives me a literal and psychological lift.

Amazon sells the stuff, but at a terrible mark-up.  The best bet is to google the manufacturer and look for nearby salons that sell it:  http://www.shuuemuraartofhair-usa.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-shu-Site/default/Salon-Locator    There are two in Berkeley:  Keter Salon (1815 Fourth Street) and Panache-College (2928 College).

There are several formulas, depending on what type of hair you have.  The other one they use at the salon is Murota Volume Pure Lightness Shampoo.

Rinse well.

Vintage in a Floppy Hat

Sooo old

It's kind of pathetic when you don't know how uncool you are.

Until recently,  I had a flip phone, which my young neighbor, Leah, called "sooo old."  Jerry still has one.

We used to have phone directory in the kitchen, one of the kind that pops up according to the alphabet letter you choose. One night  her sister, Annika, inspected it, puzzled.

Vintage?

"Is it vintage?" she asked, finally.  I banished it to a drawer.

Rude awakenings.  (It was also news to Annika that Paul Newman was ever anyone but a producer of salad dressing.)  Another unwelcome revelation:  Fleece vests are very uncool and generally owned by moms.

But the rudest awakening I've come across by far was in the travel section of the Sunday New York Times, in an article called "Tours for the Younger Traveler."

A consortium of tour operators have come up with "Yomads," (young nomads, get it?), organized trips that target people under 40.  If you're over 40, forget it.  You won't be able to go with them to China, Cambodia, or Laos.  Younger travelers want "rugged" hikes, not "gentle paths."

So, fine, I don't want to hike up mountains--or crawl on all fours--in some remote place.  I'm too old for that, and I'll admit it.

But worse,  "Young people don't want to be on tours where everyone's wearing floppy hats," said Gert Nieuwboer, director of a Dutch company that created Yomads.

Visor preferred

Right away, I reviewed hats I wear on trips and realized with some relief that I stick with visors because they don't mash my hair.

And then I remembered that I actually bought a brimmed hat in Switzerland last June on a day when I forgot my visor, and the sun was beating down (and probably causing age spot, one more thing).

Here we are:

Switzerland 2013, floppy hat and all.  Jerry's more cool than I am?
 

Whatever floppy hat connotes, Yomads doesn't want me.  It's not fun to feel I'm boring, and therefore unwelcome because I want "gentle paths" and wear a floppy hat.  But let me opt out, Yomads.  Don't sniff, shake your head, and exclude me. 

 

And wait 'til you're old.

 

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A reader asked about the website I mentioned in yesterday's post, about the little boy currently undergoing cancer treatment.   Here it is:  http://www.ezpowell.org/

 



Adorable pictures.

(And thanks to my sister, who sent meticulous instructions for how to include a link.)

 

 

 

The Kind of News that Stops You Cold

A friend posted a notice on Facebook yesterday that made me drop everything and call her (no sacrifice because if I spend on more day readying this quilt for the quilter, I'm going to leave the damned thing at the bottom of the driveway with a "Free" sign).

Here's the gist of what she posted:  Close friends of hers--whom I know--have learned that their four-year-old grandson has been diagnosed with a rare cancer.  He is in the hospital in Oakland getting chemotherapy.  His mother has moved into his room there.  His father has taken off work.

There's a website where you can give money (this young family has health insurance but a very high deductible), which I did right away.   I told my friend to offer our fold-out bed to the grandparents in case they need a place to sleep, because they live 40 miles from the hospital.

Several times since I learned about this, I've felt close to weeping, always for the grandparents, who are wonderful people and pillars of their West Marin community.  When I told Jerry, he immediately felt empathy for the parents.

"Devastating," he said.  "The thing you most worry about when you're a parent."  He looked stunned.  He's a parent, and his mind (heart) goes straight to that, even though his children are in their fifties.

I went to bed with this on my mind, and I woke up thinking about them.  Haunting.

Giveaway: Vintage Linens, Anyone?

While we were hard at basement-cleaning last weekend, I discovered a bunch of vintage linens I got from my dad when he appraised an estate in Saratoga years ago.

I washed and ironed what I found and decided that these are things I'm just not going to use.  If you'd like them, speak up!

1. The Downton Abbey of dinner napkins:  Giant (26" square),  very high thread-count cotton, with a slight sheen, a tiny white-on-white polka dot,  and a monogram I can't for the life of me make out. 

The textured-look is a camera error.  The fabric is very smooth.

 

 

Indecipherable but pretty

 

2.  A lace doily, 9-1/2" x 16-1/2". 

3.  Set of 8 lightweight cotton placemats, 11" x 17", with 6 matching napkins, 6" square.  I think these are a "luncheon set," but who knows.

 

 

 

4.  And one non-vintage table runner, never used, that I bought at Crate and Barrel.  You need a long table for this one:  It's 14" x 120".

 

 

The back is navy blue

 

Next stop:  thrift shop!



Hey, Boomer Girls--

Is there a more direct road to a major nostalgia attack than listening to Judy Collins? 

I'm trying to put together a quilt back that seems to have to include fragments of tea towels I've bought on trips to England (oh, God, now it's "Chelsea Morning"), and I heard her calling to me, right after I finished with "Jersey Boys." She's kind of an enjoyable downer, but I had to have a lot of caffeine to offset all that poetic earnestness.

Has absolutely nothing to do with Judy

And I think Tom Hanks is right in "You've Got Mail" when he asks Meg Ryan what the hell "Both Sides Now" means, clouds and all.   The lyrics doesn't make sense, but I remember being obsessed with that song when I was a freshman in college.  Obsessed.

I also remember--here we go--driving down to LA from Santa Barbara in 1969 to see Judy at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.  My date was wearing me out with his moods, and I sat there feeling lugubrious and bewildered, which is just about the right state to be in at one of her concerts.

"He loves his damned old rodeo more than he loves me..."--name the song.

She's sending in the clowns, and--amazing grace--she's almost finished.

Desperately Seeking a Sense of Accomplishment

What a weekend!  Aargh!  For two days--with time off for a walk in Tilden Park and three nag-free hours on Sunday during which Jerry watched the '49ers game--we cleaned the basement.  It had become a shocking, slum-like repository of junk.

I carted three non-wheeled suitcases (American Tourister), an broken ironing board, an old oak office chair, a functioning modem, and an  '80's era be-fringed cushion to the bottom of the driveway and stuck a "Free" sign on them.  They all went.  We left more junk there overnight:  gone in the morning. Thank you, whoever you are.

We still had a full carload to take to the Berkeley Transfer Station.  I hate this place because a) it stinks...

Vast mountain of junk at the dump; this is just the summit

 

 

...and b) because I feel guilty.  All this junk we have the pleasure of acquiring and a too-convenient way to get rid of!  No one's standing around at the dump carrying a sign that says, "THINK BEFORE YOU ACQUIRE!"  Where does it all go?  (Don't know, but there are big City of Berkeley trucks lined up, not garbage pick-up trucks, but just about the size of ship containers to haul something away somewhere.)

 

Our carload: $29 and we're free of it--too small a price to pay for desecrating the planet?

 

We recycled all we could, but what do you do with a giant 15-year old microwave inherited from Jerry's dad?  Or dust-mite laden pillows?  A broken wine rack?  An ancient bowling ball (far right, in carrying case).  I did rescue the round basket at the left.

 

On Sunday, we collected two bookcases that my friend Claudia wanted to dispense with, wrestled them into the car, and then painfully maneuvered them into the basement.  One of these days, Jerry's going to have to clear out his University office, and these will be filled with reprints and books.  More lugging.

 

Poignant:  I found a box of all my college class notes, dusty and moldy.  What to do?  Put them on the street with a "Free" sign (right!).  Or save them just because we have room? 

 

 

 

Two of my readers will read this sideways (i-Phone picture gone wrong) and recognize the address:

 

Class notes from fall 1970, when I transferred to Berkeley

 

And funny:  Jerry's hat collection drives me nuts, always in the way when I try to pull out suitcases.  I washed a bunch of them so at least they'd be clean.  He arranged the drying, on top of coffee cans:

 

 



After we finished, I took some pictures to mark our accomplishment:  Big deal!  It's still a room full of junk, with a clothesline:

 

 BEFORE

Chaos with ice chests

 

 

 

 AFTER:

Slightly less chaotic, still with ice chests

 

 

 BEFORE:

Note the empty "wine rack,", part of the  hat collection, unused backpack frame, suitcases

 

 

AFTER: 

Bookcase for University office overflow, washed caps, winnowed down suitcases,  bar (lower left; we don't drink hard liquor anymore--pity because in the old days this would have called for a pitcher of martinis).