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The tour was amazing…

Went to the Octagon Gallery in Westfield… lovely little gallery in the basement of the Patterson Library, showing a range of regional artists’ work… fell in love with some pedestal ceramic bowls with feet, fun, brightly coloured… easily pleased, me!

http://www.pattersonlibrary.info/octagon-art-gallery.html

Then Chautauqua Institution community, which reminded me of Portmeirion. Although its conception more organic than that place, it had a claustrophobia about it, small cottages that had been gradually built in place of tents originally for a methodist camp, now totally ecumenical, but economically exclusive now. Visiting it out of season was interesting, some of the houses open and beautiful, brightly painted with lovely fret work, wood clad exteriors, open porches. Others, being protected from the weather blowing in off the partially still frozen Chautauqua lake, are tented, reminiscent of their beginnings. Tailor-made closely fitted canvas, covering just porches, just the lake facing frontage, or in some cases the entire cottage. Thomas Edison’s cottage was entirely covered. Any construction work has to be done off-season, so it was a hive of industry. The institution itself now hosts all manner of community activity, courses, arts etc. Interesting place….

http://www.ciweb.org/

Also, holding the sign outside to its word we pulled into the drive of the Portage Hill art gallery, off season open by appointment or chance! Good to see a high quality selection of regional arts and crafts of all varieties… chatted for ages to the owner and artist Audrey Dowling… I say chatted… I whispered occasionally… my voice still rubbish, and being nursed carefully in the hope I can actually do more than whisper at the artist talk this evening!

http://www.portagehillgallery.com/

We also visited Sharon Bartoo, a weaver… An amazing woman, showing obsession in artists and craftspeople the world over knows no bounds. We all say to each other, “are you mad?” as one artists obsession and attention to detail seems ridiculous and unreasonable, yet our own perfectly normal!

Well… bit of a dilemma…

Here I am in Jamestown New York, with all these events planned for me, and the little tickle in the back of my throat that I thought was because of spending so much time in airports and on planes, turns out to be raging throat infection of some sort I can barely speak above a croaky whisper. I’m so cross! I haven’t travelled 4000 miles just to creak and groan at people, I have come to be erudite and eloquent and witty, I have come to seduce them all with my work and my gorgeous English accent!

I’m being taken on a lovely tour of the area today, taking in all sorts of artists and artistic venues… fabulous! I am going to try to do so without talking. Those of you that know me, will know this will be virtually impossible!

Yesterday was amazing though… is there anything more flattering than talking about yourself and your work and people being interested and listening, and asking questions? I visited the gallery for the first time, and encountered my great coat in the way it is meant to be seen. I saw it afresh, and I liked it. It has grown in importance again. I love this piece of work. It has gathered people around it and it seems they like it too. I spoke to a few visitors about it and soaked up the compliments. My body is probably now paying the price for my inflated ego.

Also, went to a recording of a local radio show of a live music gig. This trip is pressing all my buttons… saw Austin “Walkin’” Cane play the blues. Magical.

Thanks Jamestown… especially Debra Eck (and Glenn) and Pat and Mike… whose generosity to an unknown stranger seems to know no bounds!

This time tomorrow I’ll be in Paris, waiting for my fight across the Atlantic to be reunited with my coat.

I am curiously, at the moment at least, not at all stressed about the journey. I think this is partly because I am responsible only for myself, but mostly because I am so excited!

It seems to have come about through serendipity, chance, coincidence…

One minute I’m reading Wendy’s blog, then I send her an email, and a few months down the line, I’m packed and ready to be off!

My friend Bo says that God is in the coincidence. I don’t know about that, but serendipity is a culmination of things that happen, I believe, because you have put yourself in the position to make them possible. You have to say yes to things, you have to talk to people, be nice to them, help them, have faith in them. You also have to know who and what you are, in order to say yes to the right things… and… no too. Saying no to the things that don’t fit can be more difficult, but just as crucial. I have to know what sort of artist I am, so I’m in the right place, doing the right things. This way, onlookers also know what I am and who I am.

If I’m doing what feels right, if I have established principles and practices, my path is clear, and I am open to opportunities. My view isn’t cluttered by the wrong stuff, so if there’s a lovely little tangent, I can zip along it, and back again… spurred on and inspired.

Open and clear. That’s my Spring resolution.

It makes for a light heart, and puts a spring in my step.

Do other artists make rules for themselves?

I do it all the time… I can only use this pile of fabric… I can only do running stitch… I can’t use brown (this is more of a phobia than a rule).

The piece of work in progress at the moment is a case in point… but I think I have started cheating…

For a start, I began with a ready made pair of baby trousers – cheat!… and I want to “armour plate” them with loads of layers of extra fabric on the bottom and knees. Ideally, I would like them to stand up on their own. I could sneakily use milliners’ wire to help, but that is another cheat.

But the biggest one is, I am hand stitching, and now up to about 5 layers over the knees, I have made a hole in the end of my finger. It has now become physically impossible to stitch by hand without my trusty, but cheaty, leather thimble. The trouble is, I can’t build up enough layers using my bare fingers, to allow the stand alone thing to happen.

So what I have to do then, is decide which cheat I can live with, and which is a step too far.

I think I can live with the thimble being used, as then at least the final piece of work will have that structural integrity (if it works). Milliners’ wire is not allowed, because I could use that now and they would stand up. Also, there will be less blood stains on the work. Last night I had to sponge a stain out. Now some of my work has previously used stains… and some has definitely been blood… but the blood of some anonymous historical fabric user, not me in the making of the work. That would be a different work completely.

I’m taking this work with me to America, but by the sound of things won’t have time to sit down long enough to do any!

Hope to blog through my experiences over there, as I go, and tweet and facebook etc… but you know what? I might just save it all up and splurge it all out while recovering from the jet lag and waiting for the adrenalin rush to subside!

Getting ready to go to Jamestown… lists… I make lots of lists…

I’m almost ready I think…

I have my clothes sorted, including posh frock, and New York Haircut/colour, a few pieces of work, my passport, tickets, insurance etc.

I will probably need some dollars.

And one of those foreign pluggy in thingies so I can use my laptop and keep it charged… I may have time to blog…

Trying to whip up a bit of a social media whirl so that the show goes out with a bang… if any of these things come across your radar, please feel free to retweet, share and so on…

This time next week I’ll be there.

And by the end of the month I’ll be home again.