Greetings from Montevideo, from Alison Schwabe, Aussie quiltmaker

On one of the quilters lists to which I subscribe there has been quite a bit of discussion recently about how quilters go about naming their works - someone commented that 'Untitled' is a bit of a cop out - and yet, at least with such a title the viewer's mind is then free to roam around the impressions created by the work without being influenced or inded puzzled by the title.

One quilter even asked other readers to check her website and help her name a recently finished piece pictured there ..... does this mean the work is a collaboration between artist and the one who supplied the final name? To me, choosing a title even a blah one like 'Untitled' is part of the creative process, as important as signing the completed work. I enjoy all the processes of making a piece, and I jot down words and ideas in my mind while I am making it, so that generally by the time I get to the end, the title has worked itself to the top of the list. To me, a satisfactory title is like a mini-statement, and IMHO all that is needed to assist the viewer regarding a particular work. People who know me know that I don't care for wordy artist statements about every work, since so many of them are literary fabrications, so often a whole of of artspeak that may or may not offer the viewer any connection to what they are seeing. And a major pet peeve is the confusion many quilt artists display with them, often filling the allocated space with technical construction and process details, for want of anything else meaningful to say in terms of inspiration or personal feeling contained in the work. Climb down off soapbox.... er hem.

Very big this winter in the leather shops here in Montevideo are suede outfits, blouse amd shirt type tops and skirts with decorative punched hole edges ..... these and my growing collection of lacy samples are clearly influencing me ... plus many fibre artists are making 'lace' out of all kinds of stuff, so why not leather ... I am thinking seafoam, coastal landforms and topographic maps ... landlace perhaps? Anyway the pile of little circular cutouts and slivers trimmed from what I am working on grows by the hour. the hands are aching a little, or perhaps this is the onset of cooler weather... but the leather punch is such fun. 

Hmmm - these need more work - all the edges of the large number of these need to be hand sewn down, from the back, and even then, although I have done with the composition I am not sure of what the final impact will be -
but since it has 'potential' I am not showing the whole thing just now - and again, I have put it aside in favour of the next thing...

These little samples continue to appear. From rust marks I feel it was stapled for years in a sample book - some of the others I have collected probably hav been, too. What does not show in the photo is the pencilled number 29.

This little needlelace insert worked on very fine handkerchief linen is exquisite. The diameter is aprox 6cm. Every petal has a different filling stitch, and I adore the delicate little loop/picot thingies on the zigzag cross bars.
I might have to get myself a sample book in to which to staple them all ... 

Samples are important to me - to try out new materials to see how they handle is one purpose, but to begin the transition from paper/pencil doodling of ideas and word lists is another....samplising is a stepping stone.
Whether anything like one of these samples actually goes into a work is not the point; each of them tells me something, reminds me of a whole lot more, linking what is in my mind to something I either want to pursue or perhaps don't, or won't.
Anyway, this is a little of what faces me every time I turn round in my work room just now. 

This is a very small portion of gold leather on black, somewhat akin to the one I have in Across Australia, currently touring.Wth the leather hand appliqued from behind, I am much happier with the appearance of those segments.

I am tossing up whether or not to quilt more in addition to the grid currently stitched down in perle #8 in a thead which looks remarkably like the same colour as the gold - it isn't - it's a khaki, but very shiny.

I have put the whole piece aside, and perhaps putting a fine binding on it might be all there remains to be done. 

Yesterday we wandered into one of our favourite browsing stores here, and right now it is probably the same in many places around the world - easter eggs and other chocolate fancies and novelties piled high to meet the annual choc buying and eating splurge that so often presents as 'Easter' , blinding many to the real point of this particular Christian festival. We thought we had seen everything until we came across this chocolate fountain playing as a focal point of the easter egg display. The notice on the front of the fountain warns that the contents of this fountain are for display purposes only, and the stuff is not edible. I did a hand/heat test, touching the outside of the fountain from the other side before I read the sign, and it was quite cold. I am left with the appalling thought that by the time they pull the display down on monday, probably many little fingers belonging to people of below-reading-age will have taken a dip into the 'choccy fountain' while their parents' attention is diverted. Easter greetings from Montevideo. 

I have been tossing up whether or not to put this one up; it has been haunting me a bit. Our guide explained how it is a memorial to all those who were imprisoned, tortured, died in custody or just disappeared as political prisoners in the long and brutal Stroessner dictatorship that controlled the country of Paraguay for 35 years up to 1989. Unfortunately it is an experience that most south american countries have had in their most recent history.

The sheer oppressiveness expressed in this sculpture reminds me that I and Australians of my age and younger, and our children, barely comprehend what it can mean to live through and survive such a period. I have talked with several Uruguayans over the past few years - they do not talk easily about their troubled recent past, and their faces still show fear and sadness while and indeed, if, they do talk.

Walking along the street here I am able to observe and compare the carefree young faces with some of the older ones - every now and then I see a remarkable face in front of me - I hesitate to try to capture on film the suspicion, fear or anxiety that seems to have marked that face. In Australia recently, I noticed how older people in airports, food halls, coffee terrraces and pedestrian malls showed more relaxed, open, and fewer worried faces. And no wonder - apart from a brief attempt by the Japanese up around Darwin during the WWII, we have never experienced foreign invasion, civil war, nor military dictatorship. Despite our pollies' raucous haranging that passes for debate in our houses of parliament, and the heated commentary on the state of our nation in our media, the ups and downs of Life for most people in our country are due to fire, flood, drought, tempest or changed economic conditions producing changes in the work place. Undeniably traumatic to those involved, but fortunately only a portion of the nation is ever thus traumatised at one time. Australia IS a very Lucky Country.

It's not exactly the dreaded white page syndrome - it's more the half written page, or the half blank - or is that black and white? Whatever, it is that well known point at which a creative person sometimes gets stuck, wondering which path to take now. I am facing this with the current quilt top, which I think is now 'done' in the applied leather department, in a style similar to earlier pics on this blog - now for the quilting. Deciding what type - the options are (1) fine free machine quilting in a subdued gold thread to tone with the subdued gold leather angular appliques (2) lots of hand quilting in both black and the perle thread which looks like gold matching the leather.... Instinct tells me to just start - but I am not sufficiently committed to going ahead with any one kind of approach so I am tempted to put it aside for a while and get on with the next design calling me - but the thing is I did this with the previous one..... and still haven't picked it up again. I am so rarely in this position - normally I have either some piecing or some quilting going on at the same time as some finishing off - not this kind of clog up which might be construed as a heap of (2) UFO's. So, some procrastination of some kind is looming today perhaps.

Oner thing I will do is spend some time with a new (to me) book on Tim Storrier a prominent Australian artist. I can do an on line search for stuff on another fav. I have always been meaning to look into more, about his life inspirations etc because I adore his work - Jules Sher. Yes, that should give me some thinking time. And if that fails, there is the Robert Drewe book I am well into, "Grace".

One of the clearest and sobering examples we saw of the huge gap between the haves and have nots in Paraguay was this view from the Palacio Legislativo. Very humble homes without basic services perch precariously along the rivers edge etween the lovely plazas and avenues of the edge of the city and the banks of the Paraguay R.


About 1/2 km further along is the President's Palace, beautiful colonial era building which is now where the president of the country conducts businesss; it is not lived in. Alongside the large manicured grounds between building and river are also similar buildings and homes to these. All highly susceptible to flooding. We heeded the guide's warning this might not be the best place for two foreign ladies to wander sight seeing, at night especially. 

Another lovely example - clearly this is sculptural, painterly and references lace through the hand painted carving in each part of the gown of this saint. Lacemaking is a craft medium though - so is this art or craft?

This biggie question was behind the private comments of another fellow quilter and lacemaker regarding the work of some accepted makers in the art world whose work references the lacemaking medium and yet is taken as 'art'. We were musing over where the line goes in such cases; she was puzzled because a reply from a grant organisation clearly put (down, she felt) her own beautiful modern lacework into the craft realm.

Our guide on our trip to this museum and the Jesuit mission commented that the Indians in these missions were in effect slaves on the plantation - does that diminish or add to what they achieved here? 

This one loomed up on the edge of the road from Encarnation to Ascunsion, Paraguay and, like one I posted 2nd. January 2006 this one suggests stitch possibilities, although more in the counted thread, more orderly way, perhaps.

Seven strands of wire are held by the vertical posts and the small pieces join two strands, these short pieces stepping up or down each time moving along the fence. th9ughtfully painted wjhite so that we could see it more clearly.
A quilting pattern could be devised based on this...

This photo is not to show that we allow pets up on the table - nor that we enjoyed a yummy lasagne the other night along with a delicious Uruguayan red....

No, this is a contemporary Paraguyan indan carved artefact that leapt at me and said 'take me home'. The large dark area of his back has been pierced by some tool in a random dot pattern; the band over his back is slivers cut out by some chisel, and the linear patterns on his tail on his head are pokerwork. So anyway, I brought him home, but not without some difficulty - made of solid wood, it is heavy, and had to be well wrapped in a carry one bag with particular attention to the fairly long tail to protect it and other passengers against accidental injury by prodding. My dear friend Kitty though, managed deliberately to goose me with it having pretended to care to lighten my load a little. She'll keep.

This is one of several models in my collection of these creatures found up and down the americas - several species and sizes include armadillos, melitas and tatus. All of them have the same basic shape, poor eyesight, highly sensitive sense of smell and long snouts for probing ant nests, and all are covered by a hard segmented articulating sheet of 'armour' or shell like material, which protects them when they roll into a ball in the presence of danger. Certainly here in Uruguay they are fully protected, but you occasionally see one offered for sale beside the road. And it is quite common to see shoulder bags made from the shell covering, rolled up with the head flap forming the closing flap of the bag - how one could use a bag made from one of these innocent creatures that lives out its days harmlessly snuffing around through roots and leaves, I don't know.
Q: has anyone ever noticed that if something is protected it is actually delicious eating? I claim no knowledge of any these particular creatures, but 'they' tell me they taste very good. But I have once knowlingly prepared and eaten meat of a protected bird.
Back in the nickel boom days, the '60's, one of the camp bosses on one of the projects managed by DH finally carried out his frequently made promise to supply DH with a bustard. These large birds, almost turkey size, are an easy mark as they slowly wander and flap around their open grassland and light savannah habitats throughout much of Outback Australia. Then as now they are fully protected under Western Australia's fauna protection laws. DH had always said "No, I don't want one, Jim" but Jimmy was persistent, and on this day would not take no for an answer. The 200mi drive home was anxious despite the bustard being well hidden deep down in the clobber in the back of the ute. DH rushed in that evening, not stopping to say hi, dashed into the laundry and slammed the lid of the freezer down... and was still looking agitated when he emerged. He'd managed to avoid being pulled over by the wildlife inspectors who patrolled the roads - but this was only the start, really - we couldn't leave it in the freezer for ever, and we'd have to very carefully dispose of the bones and feathers once we did cook it - the fines were horrendous if caught. The major problem was, where do you find a recipe or cooking instructions? People claimed from time to time that the breast was very similar to roast lamb, and quite delicious, but we were not sure who we could safely ask. I don't recall how that was solved but we did cook and eat it and it was perfectly delicious, as 'they' claimed it would be.
And in one way I don't feel guilt about our bustard - we did eat it all( well not the innards), as primitive hunters and fishers eat what they catch and don't waste anything; but I still feel a bit guilty about breaking the law in WA, and since I don't know the statute of limitations on such matters, I have my fingers X that I'm not arrested at the border next time I go into Australia. 

The central panel of the saint's robes shows gentle fabric folds exquisitely hand painted in natural vegetable dyes.

The outer robe texture was achieved picking and pecking away at dark stained wood to reveal the lighter wood underneath, the same techniques the Indians would have used before the Jesuits came, and which they continue to use today.

And the same as to North American Indian people would have used for the ancient pictographs found on rocks all over that continent ( and indeed on all continents ) the style of design and the degree of detail however is almost certainly imported and imposed on the native carvers of C16th.

Awe inspiring. 

I hope I am not boring the thingies off people with this stuff but I adored it. Not being RC myself, and coming from a much younger country in terms of european settlement and the church influences that brought, it also probably shows that I have not travelled much in europe - where I imagine things like this are well known...but heck, as I say, I love this stuff.

But here is another beautifully carved wooden statue ( with a nice large hollow cavity accessible from behind)

the textiles represnted on htis figure are superb and warrant a close up view. 

The lace pulled back revealed the interwoven/laced rawhide thonging that formed the support for the sleeper's mattress or palliasse.

The lace holes are MOL 1cm dimension. 

In one of the small museums was this antique bed, rather awkwardly photographed through the bedroom door but there was no other way to catch any impression of the lace cover .

We saw a lot of this lace, but didn't buy any. Which is not to say it was not beautiful but because of its guage IMHO is a bit limited to decorative table cloths and covers such as this, and you do see a fair bit as curtains. There is a fair bit of clothing featuring this lace, but even as cap sleeves or appliqued sections it seemed to be catch any jewellery I was wearing so I didnt buy any.