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First Ladies and the White House – Part 3
In August 2019 (before the pandemic) I was invited to join a stellar group of artists, to create a historic quilt for an exhibit that would premier at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. The exhibit was to be titled “Women’s Votes, Women’s Voices, Women’s Rights”. That invitation email read: “The Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas will be hosting an exhibit commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote and the 25th anniversary of Hilary Clinton’s speech at the Beijing Conference on Women’s Rights are Human Rights. The theme of the exhibit will be to tell the story of…
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First Ladies and the White House – Part 2
Please Note – if the images in your blog email are not high resolution – click through to the actual blog to see detailed images! During the Clinton administration (late 90s) I had the chance to tour the White House. It made quite an impression on me. The artwork, the architecture, the history….the ghosts of past administrations….our tour guide gave us a vivid history of each room we visited, and it made me want to learn more. I went from there, to the National Portrait Gallery, Ford’s Theatre, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Over the years I have picked up many books about the White House. The…
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First Ladies and the White House – Part 1
As we contemplate the possibility of having our first woman president in the USA, it is perhaps a time to look back on the women who have already served in the White House – the First Ladies. Over the years I have had several connections to the White House. My best childhood friend served on the Clinton Healthcare Task Force. (They were trying to create a national healthcare system, similar to other developed nations.) During those years I did a tour of the White House, which was much more accessible at that time. My architect brother works in Washington DC and his firm did the renovation/redesign of the White House…
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Stardust Mothers – Now at DAR Museum
Whenever people see this piece, they have lots of questions about my process, so I thought I’d share the story with some images. I lost my mother in November 2023. On my last day in Houston at the Quilt Festival, I got the call that she tested positive for Covid. That was Friday…I flew back Saturday….she was gone late Tuesday night. She had a long slow decline and was near the end (before Covid took her), so I had a lot of time to prepare. Me & Mom, circa 1968. During the last year of her life, I thought a lot about the generations of women in my family. I…
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Life in the Arts
I have identified as an artist as long as I can remember. I was told that I was an artist as a child, and I accepted it as truth, because that is what I loved to do. In school, I was not just doodling in class. I was sketching in class, practicing drawing a wide range of subjects in the margins of my math assignments while sitting quietly, shyly hiding under the radar. I remember feeling competitive in our brief art classes. I wanted to be the best artist in the classroom. By Junior High I had read The Agony and the Ecstasy (biography about Michelangelo) so many times the…