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I am currently at Quilting By the Lake being held at Onondaga Community College in Onondaga NY.  I’m studying with Fran Skiles, a warm, sharing person with a relaxed, approachable style who made a point of stressing that she is not teaching a quiltmaking class, nor will we be making any quilts.  Instead, it is a painting, printing, and collage class.

Today was about creating six cotton duck fabric bases containing texture and line created with mock French seams, reverse applique, and crude embroidery — meaning large, quick stitches using heavy threads.  Thus far the palette is white and black.   Color will be introduced later.  We also seamed together paper photographs (black and white)  to create a collage that later in the week will be incorporated into the work.  I love using photographs in collage, do digital collage practically daily,  and have been wanting to incorporate more of such work into my textiles.  My latest work, Witley Decay 1 and 2, uses my photo imagery.  One of my hope is that the class experience pushes me further in that direction – if even by creating a new body of work entirely separate from “quilted” textiles.

Each day will have a new objective, with each building on the prior.  It’s a very intuitive, spontaneous work approach and, again, I’ve no idea what I’ll end up with.  My hope is to enjoy the process and artistically grow from the experience.

On the Apollo front, I found these two links which are fun: Apollo 11 Live TV Coverage – you can watch it as it aired 40 years ago.  This begs the question: Do you remember viewing it the first time around?  I have a recollection of a black/white TV and “spacemen.” The problem is that I no longer remember if it’s my memory from the first time around or seeing it replayed over the years.  The Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal by Eric M. Jones.  The site contains a wealth of links, a one-stop site for nearly all things Apollo 11-related.

Wow! On July 20th, it will be 40 years since the moon landing!   I saw a piece this evening on BBC America about Alan Bean and his artwork.  “Alan Bean became the fourth man to walk on the Moon during Apollo 12 in 1969. After 18 years as an astronaut, he resigned from NASA in 1981 to dedicate his life to the art of painting his memories of Apollo.” Tomorrow there is an exhibit opening at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum called “Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, First Artist on Another World.”

NASA has a special 40th anniversary celebratory section on its site.

That’s me some three years ago when I was at the London Science Museum.  I’m standing next to the Apollo 10 command module used to fly around the moon in May 1969.  The module is much smaller than I imagined it would be, and the exterior looks more like worn-in leather than cold metal.   My partner, Derry, was also there.  Derry is not only planning to see the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, but wants to be around to see the 100th anniversary!  Who knows, it could happen.

The London Science Museum is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing by presenting  the premiere of a new live arrangement of Brian Eno’s 1983 album ‘Apollo’.  There’s more information about it here. The Big Picture has a collection of 40 awesome images.  July 16, 1969, marks the  launch of Apollo 11, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. “The entire trip lasted only 8 days, the time spent on the surface was less than one day, the entire time spent walking on the moon, a mere 2 1/2 hours … In the words of astronaut Buzz Aldrin: “In this one moment, the world came together in peace for all mankind.”

“This video excerpt from the documentary Alan Bean: Artist/Astronaut. features Alan Bean in his workshop describing his artistic process and reasons for leaving NASA to make his Apollo-inspired artwork.
Video courtesy of Jeffrey Roth Productions.”