Independent curator, Juana Williams, selected only 35 out of 600 pieces submitted for the 23rd International Open at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL.  My work, Wiggle, shown below, was among those selected.  It will probably be the smallest piece in the show as it measures a mere 3 in x 3 in.
 

 

I was also fortunate to have work included in the Grandmother exhibition at the Hannan Center Kayrod Gallery in Detroit's Cultural Center from August 21 - September 30, 2020.  This was a lovely exhibition that presented visual work together with the stories the artists told about the work inspired by grandmothers. I had three, prismacolor pencil drawings on black paper included in the show.

      
 

On the left is an image of my maternal grandmother as I remember her in her garden.  She worked wearing a worn vest sweater and her babushka/head scarf. 

In the middle is a three generations drawing with my Mother reaching up to the tree of life: me, the Virgin, sitting at the base of the tree; and my Grandmother, the Crone, picking strawberries. 

On the right is a dream mandala drawing.  I am lying on my side, pregnant with my daughter, Claire.  Beneath my head is another fetus, my creative imaginination.  I am protected by the arms of my grandmother below her all-seeing breasts.

 

Dorothy Jett-Carter, April Anue, and I talked about our work at the invitation of Kathy Bricker, who organizes outings for the Needle Work and Textile Guild of Michigan, on September 23, 2020 at the Kayrod Gallery.  It is always a delight to meet other fiber artists and enthusiasts.

Marking Time


 

At the start of the stay-at-home order I thought I would start working on something very different and BIG BIG BIG in my studio!  But I just couldn’t do that.  BIG just didn’t seem important.  The pandemic was BIG and it was making people miserable, sick and killing them! 
 
Then all the face mask patterns became available and I thought I would make a lot of those.  I made two and stopped.  There were so many patterns coming out almost as fast as I found them.  It was no use.  It was all too confusing.
 
Out of frustration, I picked up narrow strips of scrap booking paper I had in my studio and cut them in half so that they were about the size of a bookmark.  I perforated lines in the paper with my sewing machine and then stitched into the holes by hand.    

                 

I made 30 for people I write to every month.  Some are almost blind, but these were pieces they could touch and run their fingers over the stitches.  I used bright colors too, hoping that even if the lines were blurry, at least the colors would be pleasing.

                  

I tore handmade paper into strips too and kept on stitching.  Soon I was putting texture between the lines. 

                   
                  

Then I was covering almost the entire piece of paper with stitches. 

                               

I call this my Marking Time Series…as we are all marking time until this pandemic is over.  This series will be ongoing until I feel comfortable working larger...or perhaps this will remain my way of putting art into peoples' hands so that they can touch something besides computer keyboards or the glass of their smartphone screens.  One of my pen pals now addresses me as QEM...the Queen of Exquisite Minutiae.  I delight in the moniker!