Jim's New Shirt

Here's Jim's new shirt - in toto and in detail. We bought the fabric in Hawaii when Diedra took us around the Big Island stopping at quilt shops.

Pillow Cases

I love fancy threads and fancy stitches. Whenever I buy sheets or pillow cases, I get out the fancy threads and do some machine embroidery. Here are some examples of what I've done.

Big Tiles

I started working with larger, asymetric tiles. The top one is from ^6 using slips. The white part in the middle will eventually have either a gold or a copper luster.

The bottom tile is ^04 using commercial glazes

Thylokoids

Here are most of the thylokoids - there's one left to fire and there will be some for the naked raku. These are done in ^6 with coyote glazes. I was using one of the new kilns at the university and this particular kiln fires quite quickly. I prefer to fire my work more slowly. I think it was the quick firing that caused the major crack in the one.

Yes, I did notice that the purple and green one looks like produce.

Healing and Justice

This is one of those happy surprises where the art takes over and the thinking part of my brain shuts off. I didn't realize until I had finished painting with the under glaze that I had chosen purple - a color denoting healing. Purple is also the color of the tassel you get when you graduate from law school.

She's Got The Blues

I took what I learned in Pamela Allen's quilting class and transferred it to clay. I had no idea the brown slip on the eyebrows would burn out in low fire, but I like the effect.

One more abstract piece

I've never worked with abstract designs before and I like what's happening when I'm working with abstract designs now.

Creatures of the Imagination

I've been playing with lines and design. I've used slip to paint some of the designs, the air pen to outline, and low fire glazes. I dearly love the glazes with crystals in them.

Perhaps something to drink?

A little something to eat?

You may not be able to see the details perfectly, but I used a thick slip for what's inside the bowl and I left it textured. I'm not sure what kind of food it is, but I had fun. This is also low fire clay and glazes.

Shalom

Reading from the top down, the tiles spell Shalom or peace in Hebrew. I used low fire clay and glazes and played with both slip and my air pen. It's nearly impossible to tell how the colors will come out when using both slip and a glaze with crystals. I'm very happy with the results.

I get very weird when I'm sick

I got a flu shot, but something evil got me and kept me in bed for a day. Here's a white blood cell eating the evil virus.

Playing with slip

I took some of the designs I was playing with on the ship and used them on tiles. I played with slip, underglazes and glazes.

Alpha Penis Wet Dream

How a bullie percieves her/himself.

Alpha Penis Reality

Part of my series on bullies.

Works in Progress

I bought an air pen. Using a bottle with a tiny tip on the end and squeezing slip out onto tiles hurt my hands. The air pen works wonders. Here are some of the tiles I played with last week. This week, they get bisque fired. Next week, I will glaze them.

Jim's Excellent Weight Loss Program

We saw this oversized shirt in Hilo Hattie's. Ah, the clothes I could make from that shirt!

Studies for Painting

One of the things we do on vacation is take photos for studies for our art. Jim wants to paint his feet. Hmmmm.... there just might be a quilt in this. I do believe I have some metallic copper lycra for the tonails.

The Road To Hana

When we got to Maui, we rented a car and drove part of the way to Hana. It's quite the twisty, narrow road.

My Heritage Emerges - The Explanation

For years, I have had a strong pull towards Irish things and Jewish things. I could never understand this pull. I love Irish music. I love Irish knitting. I even knit in a way no one taught me. Eventually, I saw the way I knit in a book about Irish knits and there was a photo of a woman knitting in exactly the way I knit.

After doing some massive searching for my family history, I discovered my father's side of the family is Irish. I began to wonder about genetic memory. I had always considered St. Patrick's Day a great day if one was Irish and an excuse to get drunk if one was not. Thinking I wasn't Irish, I ignored the day. After I learned I was Irish, I discoverd St. Patrick's Day is a wonderful day if one is Irish.

I had the same sort of pull towards things Jewish. My grandmother always told me that her mother was born in Germany and she spoke Hoch Duetsch - a very gramatically proper form of German. But the very little German that my grandmother spoke sounded so "off" to me after I had learned German in college. I kept looking and discovered that the German my grandmother knew was if fact Yiddish.

I made this quilt in shades of green to honor my Irish heritage - a heritage that had been hidden from me for more than 30 years. I used two greens of equal value in making the star to show that my Jewish heritage had also been hidden from me. I used a darker value of green to show the discovery of my heritage.

I like the comments I received on the quilt and I appreciate all the input I received. The quilt is saying what I had hoped it would say.

Now.... I get to square up the quilt, put on the binding and the sleeve in the back. I haven't decided where I'm going to hang it yet.