A break from blogging, and a renewal

I’m going to be “off the air” for a few days as I’ll be teaching at Morrisville college, somewhere near Syracuse , NY at Quilting by the Lake – actually I just wrote “Quilting as a Lark” – I hope it will be!! Since I don’t have a laptop (yet! The next big sale will net me one, I hope) I’ll have no email access there.

After QBL, I’m still hoping to teach at Madeline Island School for the Arts but havn’t heard from them since I signed the contract! I’ve emailed with no result. I’d love to go there, it sounds like a lovely place – an island in Lake Superior.

Even if I don't get to Lake Superior, I am going to visit lake Ontario: after QBL, I’m off upto Canada – hope to see some art there. On my last visit I went to the Textile museum in Toronto where they had a great exhibit called Blue. Their current exhibit Close to You examines the use of idioms and images from popular culture – don’t know if that’s quite my cup of tea! But we’ll see. There is also going be to an outdoor earth art exhibit at the Royal botanical gardens in Burlington, Ontario that sounds wonderful. And I’m sure there will be lots of galleries ( to say nothing of pubs) in between! That’s the great thing about art, there’s always something to see even on a rainy day!

Seeing new art (manmade and nature made) always stirs up ideas and energy. Robert Genn’s newsletter this morning described his “principles of renaissance”. I’d like to think I have some – though some of the authority figures I’ve worked for might not feel them to be so positive! Especially the principle of “inventing new systems” – the library I worked in wasn’t too thrilled about that!!

The “principles” are great ideas to follow: A Renaissance person is consistently curious and questions convention. One should always strive to make better (not just more) work, perfecting skills or learning new ones as necessary and looking for challenges rather than taking an easy path. It is fascinating to see the challenges artists give themselves: giant crocheted constructions,

paintings of emotion, poems tiny and perfect jewels. We must not fall back on the same old topics and solutions, instead we should invent new ways of solving problems. And take risks. A call to arms that will benefit rather than bankrupt. We need a 21^st century Renaissance!!

And, if you have been, thanks for reading! Elizabeth