Slow Blogging

Greetings All You Mavens of Cloth, Art, and Wonder,

Welcome back to BLOCK! I'm just back from the Old Pueblo - Tucson, Arizona. It was a short trip, just three days, and I was so steeped in the seasonal magic of March that I found myself stuffing orange blossoms into my car's air conditioning vents on the long drive home - just to make all the sunshine and sweetness last a little bit longer. 

I saw friends and held their new babies, I ate meals deserving of the city's recent and remarkable status as Capital City of Gastronomy by UNESCO, I attended the Tucson Festival of Books, where I had the chance to, once again, experience "literary badass," Luis Alberto Urrea, present. And - best of all - I made new friendss in the realm of quilts and quilt-based activism (more on this in future posts).. 

Driving home along the two-lane highway between Wickenburg and Wikieup, I rolled down the driver's side window and flew my hand on the wind behind the wing mirror of the car. Urrea's voice was with me once again, via audiobook, telling the true stories of men, women, and children crossing the boarder along The Devil's Highway (the migratory route for which his 2006 book is named), and I marveled over the contrast between their experience in the desert and my own. Dry, stabbing, desolation. Globemallow, Poppy, and Lupine. The brutal indifference of the summer sun, and the geo-politics of poverty. The softness of wildflowers born out of winter rains, captured like a picture-quilt on my smartphone's camera roll. How am I complicit?  I wondered with each passing mile.

By the time I pulled in to Wikieup, the sun was setting and Urrea's bone-chilling account had reached its disturbing conclusion. I stopped for some bad coffee and fuel, and was shocked (for better and worse) how quickly my mind drifted back to the people and tasks, responsibilities and projects, all waiting for me when I got home.  

I pulled out into the new night and went through my to-do list, one by one, until my mind I fell upon BLOCK like a bumble bee on an orange blossom. And I felt a new confidence in my decision to make BLOCK a slow blog - a place for original exploration and research, adventure and storytelling.

So, with this in mind, today's post marks my shift away from BLOCK as a weekly blog, the way it has operated for most of the last five years. Instead, I'm hoping to produce an even more meaningful, original, and creative space, by doing away with arbitrary deadlines.  Posting every Tuesday will instead be swapped for non-fiction, long-form, pieces posted every time I complete one (which are in the works mavens!).  While serialized installments of The Adventures of Polly Field: The Quilt Queen (the working title of my attempt at a fiction novel) will continue to be posted on the first Tuesday of each month.

I sincerely hope you'll continue to join me for this exploration of quilts and quilt culture, and I'm looking forward to the new wave of creativity this change will hopefully inspire.

Peace & love mavens,

A-

---

Thanks for visiting BLOCK!

*BLACK & WHITE, Editorial

Quilt produced by Angola prison quilters, who volunteer and raise money for the prison's hospice program. Source.

---

Greetings you mavens of cloth,

Prison-based art therapy and rehabilitation programs are taking place around the country. And the focus of today's post is on one in particular, at the maximum security prison known as Angola, in Louisiana.

According to the Atlantic, "There are more than 6,000 men currently imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola—three-quarters of them are there for life, and nearly 80 percent are African American." Plus, the state has the highest incarceration rate of any other in the country. 

I came to learn about the quilt-makers of Angola prison specifically, through the work of Lori Waselchuk, who's acclaimed book of photography, Grace Before Dying, features day-to-day moments of the prison's hospice program, including the quilt program supporting it, which raises funds through auction sales. The pieces are nothing short of personal testimonies, and remarkable expressions of redemption and loss. But even more than that, they are dignified shrouds made for the living, who are facing the end of life.

The work of two notable artists are also worth mentioning here. And they are Hank Willis Thomas, who's quilt, Angola Bound (2014), was created from decommissioned Angola prison uniforms. As well as the new graphic work by street artist Shepard Fairy, who's murals on prison reform speak to the benefits of art therapy for inmates, and advocates for rehabilitation vs. indefinite incarceration. 

May you find meaning and goodness in the expression of these individuals. And as always, thanks for visiting BLOCK.

Resist,

A-

PS. For even greater context, see the Oscar nominated documentary, 13th, about mass incarceration and the legal framework that supports it. Radicalized Mass Incarceration Poverty, Prejudice, and Punishment, by Lawrence D. Bobo and Victor Thompson, Harvard University, The Milwaukee Experiment; What can one prosecutor do about the mass incarceration of African-Americans? By Jeffery Tobin, The New Yorker, and Chart of the Week: The black-white gap in incarceration rates, by George Gao, Pew Research, chart imaged below. 

---

Quilt, created by volunteer inmates of the Angola prison hospice program. Source.

The incarcerated hospice volunteer quilters with their piece, Travelin' On, 2009. The auction of these quilts made by volunteer quilt-makers, "allows volunteers to buy coffee machines, radios and books for the isolation cells now serving as hospice rooms. Purchased items such as sweatpants, specialty foods and slippers provide the same small comforts we’d all hope for at our hour." From the book review of Grace Before Dying, by Lori Waselchuk, at Prison Photography.

“The Quilt” made by members/ inmates and caregivers in the Angola Hospice program, 201. Photograph by Keith Calhoun.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

-Emily Dickenson

A quilt by the volunteer quilters of Angola prison, photographed by Lori Waselchuk for her award-winnng book of photography, Grace Before Dying. The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities awarded Grace Before Dying a "Publishing Initiative Grant" which supported the writing of the book.

---

Also worth mentioning: Art & Graphic Design, on Prison Reform

---

Hank Willis Thomas, Angola Bound, 2014. Quilt made out of decommissioned prison uniforms from Angola prison, installation view. STUDIO LHOOQ/ THE ARTIST AND JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY, NEW YORK. Sourced at ArtNews, here.

The famous street artist, Shepard Fairey was invited to participate in the Open Source project, through the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Philadelphia Mural Arts program. You can download a copy of your own prison reform graphics by Fairey, here.

Inspiration

Greetings You Mavens of Cloth,

Welcome back to BLOCK! This week's theme: inspiration. The divine breath. I'm just back from an amazing jaunt to Zion National Park, where I took in a long, glorious, breath of it, hiking the switchbacks of Angel's Landing Trail. I don't think it's an overstatement to suggest that one of the best things going for Southern Nevada (where I currently call home) is its shocking proximity to (count 'em) seven national parks! 

From my perspective, the National Park's System is a gift to all of us, all Americans; an affirmation reflecting our capacity to appreciate the natural beauty of the United States, and preserve it for generations to come. That said, four local parks down - three to go!

Now, on with the show. This week I thought I'd share a few amazing gems - content created by others - that I've had bookmarked for months now. I wasn't sure if collectively they articulated a particular point about quilts and quilt culture, until I realized how well they speak to cornerstone features of art writ-large, and particularly quilts.

From color to texture, to movement alive in tessellating symmetry - I suggest you stop now, and go grab yourself a hot cup of joe.  The videos themselves won't take long to watch. But the spark of inspiration they ignite, at least in me, takes a while to exhaust after the fact. 

Wishing you an inspired week ahead - one full of creative making and/or standing still, 'learning to be astonished.'

A-

Messenger

My work is loving the world. 
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — 
equal seekers of sweetness. 
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. 
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? 
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters, 
which is my work,

 which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished. 
The phoebe, the delphinium. 
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. 
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes, 
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, 
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

—Mary Oliver

---

HOVER OVER THE PIXEL QUILTS below & LINK TO SOME truly CREATIVE & INSPIRED CONTENT.

---

Pattern: Simon Beck, the artist, is using simple tools to create jaw-dropping patterns in snow. This video, by #inspirasjonstryn on Vimeo, is particularly breathtaking about 4 minutes in...

Color & Texture: This video by Deluxe's Method Studios was created for the 2016 AICP Sponsor Reel, "The AICP awards celebrate global creativity within commercial production...Motion capture, procedural animation and dynamic simulations combine to create a milieu of iconic pop dance moves that become an explosion of colorful fur, feathers, particles, and more." Amazing.

Symmetry: Dive into a digital kaleidoscope with this compelling flick (warning: those of you sensitive to optical effects - avoid). According to the video's producers, mylapse, the video utilizes a technique they developed called "Kaleidolapse" a, "visual technique that applies a kaleidoscopic effect to different shots taken with time lapse technique."

Movement: Janet Echelman creates remarkable sculpture from fishing line and other specialized materials. The work is exquisite, but her story on becoming an artist is equally as motivating. Watch her popular TED talk, here.

---

Thanks for visiting BLOCK!

#Curriculum: New Shapes of Meaning

Greetings All You Mavens of Cloth,

Welcome back to BLOCK. 

This week the focus is on STEAM education - something near and dear to me. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math, and I'm involved in supporting this type of integrated approach to preK-12 education here in Nevada. .

I'm excited to share a new curriculum I designed, New Shapes of Meaning, for this year's STEAM Teacher Training Series, hosted by the Desert Research Institute's Green Power program, in partnership with Nevada Museum of Art.

Link here for access.

Also worth mentioning, for any of you Nevada educators out there, the Nevada Governor's STEM Advisory Council has just made the STEAM working group, Integrating Arts & Culture in to STEM Education, a permanent sub-committee on the council!

Peace my friends. And resist. 

A-

---

STEAM Showcase: 

Improvisation, mapping climate change, and the fibers of physics.

Diane Melms, is an artist out of Anchorage, Alaska, who uses her own hand dyed fabrics for her improvisational compositions.

---

All the credit needs to go to Symmetry for my discovery of Kate Findlay's quilts (above) about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. 

---

Alicia Merrett, from the U.K., creates works of art that read like aerial maps, of animated cities, undergoing climate change. 

---

Thanks for visiting BLOCK!

In Honor of Dr. King

Martin Luther King Jr. and his family eat their Sunday dinner after church on November 8, 1964. Photo credit: Flip Schulke/Corbis

Greetings All You Mavens of Cloth,

I hope you enjoyed a long, creative, holiday weekend, and were able to soak in the spirit of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in some way, shape, or form. I mentioned that this week's blog post would be dedicated to Lady Liberty in the run up to the inauguration. But I failed to factor for the MLK holiday at the time.  So, I'd like this post to pay homage to Dr. King. And that's what it's going to do (blogs are nice this way: you really can be the queen of your own domain).

So, Lady Liberty will be on-hand next week, with some truly wonderful examples of her influence stitched in cloth, along with a feature on the upcoming Million Women March in D.C. (this Saturday, January 21), and marches happening in sister-cities across the U.S. that same day. 

In the meantime, enjoy this collection of art in honor of Dr. King. And a few other quilt-related gems in solidarity with and celebration of our African American brothers and sisters. 

See you on the way to the mountaintop.

A-

---

In Honor of Dr. King

Detail, 1968: President Lyndon Johnson Signs the Civil Rights Act, by Connie Horne, 2012. For a complete look at the quilt, and more information about the story behind it, visit the Bullock Museum's feature of Horne's piece, here.

"All we say to America is, 'Be true to what you said on paper.' If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop."

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. from his "Mountaintop Speech," delivered April 3, 1968, Mason Temple, Memphis, TN.

A Tribute to the Civil Righters of Alabama Quilt, by Nora Ezell, 1989. Visit the site, Masters of Traditional Arts, profile on Ezell, including a gallery of her work, and a video of Ezell. It's worth a watch alone for the brief story she shares from childhood.

Yesterday: Civil Rights in the South, by Yvonne Wells, 1989. Visit Quilt House's wonderful online recap of their exhibition, Quilted Messages. The site includes a gallery of Well's work, detailed descriptions of its symbolism, and a video of Wells describing her artistic process.

---

Two Artists: One in Her own Words, The Other in Cloth

---

Quilt Meaning, Making, Metaphors, and Murals

(Left & above) Donald Gensler, Jane Golden, U. Penn. Students, ArtWorks! Students, and Urban Tree Connection, Holding Grandmother's Quilt, Philadelphia. "Sponsored by DHS and Ford Foundation, 2004. This project involved a unique group of neighborhood men called MASCO. Their organization has continued to maintain the park space in between the two murals." Sourced from his website, here.

---

One Final Note:

For anyone who missed the opportunity to reflect on Dr. King yesterday, I recommend meditating on this thought provoking episode, "The Spirituality of Peacemaking," produced by PRX, as part of their series, The Power of Non-Violence. It aired yesterday on my local NPR station. And I was so grateful to find myself at home hand-quilting an old top when it came on. The act of stitching while listening to people speak on the transformative power of what Dr. King referred to as SoulForce, was nothing short of a gift.

---

Banner Image: The New Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. 

Thanks for visiting BLOCK!