"In the depth of winter ..."



Somewhere near Monterey, CA, in the summer.
I feel like the gargoyle, hunkered down
and trying to remember what summer feels like.


 In the depth of winter,

I finally learned

that within me there lay

an invincible summer.

Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)

A sewing friend sent me this Camus quote today and said it should be my mantra. I told her that I don't think there's a summer inside of me, although I keep trying to imagine that it's so. I dread the dark winters and I long for endless summer light. The Northwest is not the best place for someone like me, but in the spirit of being positive, I'm posting some of the photos I took when the days were bright and colors clear.


Western Washington in the summer



My daughter's former yard in Olympia, in May



A quilt that I made sometime in the summer in Illinois.
I called it "Garden Gone Wild."



Perhaps I am a bear,

or some hibernating animal underneath,

for the instinct to be half asleep all winter

is so strong in me.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Now this quote about hibernation is more me. I don't get much art quilting done in the winter because I just want to hibernate. Blogging is easier ... I guess because writers are used to working in dark, cold garrets, but artists need good natural light.



This is why Western Washington is home to so many writers.



And this is why New Mexico is home to so many artists.
I took this photo in Silver City, NM, in March years ago.
I want to live in New Mexico.

Detail of "Study In Green," which I made in the summer.



Dave walks among the giants in coastal California.



One of my quilts for the Journal Quilt Project.
I used torn masking tape as a resist on black fabric.

I took this photo in Sequoia several years AFTER
I made the little quiltlet below.
I just discovered the similarity while going through my photo files.

There's a certain Slant of light,

Winter Afternoons --

That oppresses,

like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes --

Emily Dickinson

Oh Emily, I can relate. Poor Emily's poems may have taken a different turn if she could have visited Hawaii in January:

And I'll bet she never soaked up the sun on the beaches in Southern California:

Somewhere south of L.A. in the summer.



Detail from "Beach Houses."
I painted the fabric while California dreaming.



One kind word

can warm three winter months.

Japanese proverb

Thanks, Linda, for inspiring this entire post

with that one quote!

(That's Linda's embroidery at the end of the last post.)

Have a colorful day