my whispers...no one works alone...

Ken put these images together for me for my postcard...sort of a grid of images to hopefully entice people to come on down and check out what I have been working on. I spent hours putting the binding on the largest new quilt and now I am hand stitching the edge before I add the last of the large bone and mother of pearl buttons and see how the piece has progressed. I also began layering a antique silk scarf that I dyed with strong coffee to place an organza sheer photograph of my mother. I want to use some linen fabric from Ireland and silk ribbons and color flosses as the composition comes together. I returned to the Eva Hesse work in progress and I think I will attempt to hand stitch the loose threads at different intervals before I make the final decision to hang it freely or enclose in a frame. Several pieces are in the last stages and this is when I get a wee bit nervous ...the night before the opening I am usually a nervous wreck. Walking in a room naked.... that is how I feel when I put my work up for the world for judgment day. This too shall pass and the important thing is my work so I have to go with the knowledge that the process is the journey traveled.

I received a call this afternoon from the director of the museum and she is wanting to have an intimate lunch preview for a few special patrons of my works and the Arts in general. I am having a very difficult time because I have been fortunate enough to have had many people who loves and support my focus and visions. Ken had made all of my risks and adventure possible even when he had his doubts...not about me but whether my health could hold up. Dr. Kathy Desmond should be there but she is in the mid west teaching and getting ready to publish her life's work and comments on America Artists. Cyd Engel should be there right by my side... but she has just expanded her Tucson Yarns business in Tucson and has very little time for herself. Cyd was my best friend... advising me to use the best materials I can afford, take the risk to travel to Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, France twice in one year and London , England when Dr. Desmond was teaching abroad and invited me to come on over and spend a week in Kennsington. Dr. Robyn Wasson arranged for me a month abroad with over 40 artists from the Art Quilt Network and I lived in her charming little house in Brisbane and all up and down the East coast. Now that is the first five seconds and these people are the ones I could spit out in one breath. My Licking County Arts community have given me of support and inspiration since 1986 ...my whole life here in Licking County. I do not want to hurt anyone and leave them out so Marcia will make the final selections. We do have the big opening on the following night.

To Make Sense of Things

I yearn for my work,
because it always helps me make sense of things.
For never was a horror experienced without an angel
stepping in from the opposite direction
to witness it with me.

Letter to Marianne in 1914
Rainer Maria Rilke

Imagine and Live in Peace,
Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart