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Kyoto Quilt Festival 2025 – Prologue
Having recently returned from the Kyoto Quilt Festival, I wanted to share some of this experience with you. But also I’d like to share the context of this event. During the early 1980s when I lived in Hong Kong working as a fashion designer, I often went to Osaka to source textiles. I did not have a chance for sightseeing, and mostly experienced a male-centered industry in smoke-filled offices. Starting in 2008, I started to travel to Japan again, to attend the Tokyo Quilt Festival. Honestly, it became an obsession, and I saved up my Star Alliance points all year to get a ticket to Tokyo. Eventually there was a…
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The NASA Connection
In 2016 I made two quilts for the exhibit “Fly Me To The Moon“, organized by Susanne Miller Jones. They premiered that Fall at the Houston Intl Quilt Festival. The quilts traveled 2016 – 2019, but the exhibit I remember most was when a small group were chosen to hang at the NASA JSC Visitor Center, along with artworks by rocket scientists and astronauts. It was at this venue that I met the quilting astronaut, Karen Nyberg. We had our photo taken together with a couple guys in patchwork astronaut suits. Later I met NASA seamstress Jean Wright, who has recently published a children’s book about her work. (Which we…
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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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Fierce – Protector of the Forest
This small piece of textile art was created for the SAQA Spotlight Auction. It takes place April 12-20 and you can preview and bid from this page. I started this piece on the day Alexei Navalny’s death was announced. I finished this on the day of his funeral. I dedicate this piece to his memory – his courage and sacrifice for the people of Russia who long for Truth and Freedom. I spent 2 weeks in Russia 10 years ago and I have artist friends in Moscow, and artist friends who have fled the country, and then had to flee Ukraine. This war is deeply saddening. I can only hope…
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Rocky Mountain High
I have had a desire to travel the world since I was 12, and fortunately that dream came true. I have visited over 50 countries since I was a summer exchange student to Germany in 1974, and my passion for travel has not diminished. On many of those trips I took a group of quilters, artists and friends along. I was always interested in photography since I was a kid, and documenting the art, design, landscapes, wildlife, culture and people of each new place has also become a passion. In addition to traveling to photograph quilt festivals and special exhibits at museums, I have also enjoyed traveling to Alaska and…
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I Have a Thing For Bears….
I have a thing for bears. I am not exactly sure how it started. Maybe when I was at Rocky Ridge Music Camp at the foot of Longs Peak in 1970, and I met a juvenile Black Bear in the dark one night as I was sneaking from my cabin to another friend’s cabin. As I passed the garbage dumpster, the bear and I got a good look at each other…..seemed to last forever….then he crashed into the underbrush and I ran in the opposite direction. My first up close bear encounter. Maybe it really started when my oldest son transferred to Bear Creek Elementary in 1996, and I offered…
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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…
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Day 11 – The Old Orphanage Building – Part 4
After lunch we drove to the old building for the Social Welfare Institute. There are no babies or little orphan children living there now. These days it is an assisted living residence for seniors, and it also houses the older children and young adults who are mentally and physically disabled…who cannot live on their own. We were greeted almost immediately at the gate by a woman in a white lab coat, and she was introduced as Dr Xhang. She was the doctor who gave Sophie her first physical exam when she was first found and brought to the SWI. She gave Sophie all of her exams, until she left to…
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Day 11 – The File – Part 3
Returning to the orphanage is the highlight, and the whole point of a Heritage Tour back to China. We did not realize that this would include a very formal re-opening and review of Sophie’s file from when she lived there. The brown file was tied up with a ribbon, and when it was brought into a conference room in the administrative building, about an inch thick of papers were pulled out from this file. We were offered hot tea, and fresh local tiny oranges and kumquats. Another big screen on the wall had the colorful greeting – “Welcome Sophie QinXin Rubin”. Another lovely lady came in to join us. She…