Updates

Well not a lot of cogitating has been going on lately!  More like gallivanting!  However things are happening - I received a large box of postcards advertising the book (send me your address if you'd like me to send you a postcard - my email is: elizabethyork100atyahoo.com).  And the book itself - or rather the cover! - has appeared on Amazon for pre-order, though apparently it won't be out till May.

I heard from Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, TN that my August class has made.  If you've never been to Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts it is one of the best in the country.  They run concurrent classes in many different media with top notch instructors - it's an honour to work there!  so you're exposed to new developments and creativity in many media other than fiber: paper, wood, clay, metal, painting, stone, enamal, glass etc.

Arrowmont's main gallery

 It's so much richer an experience being part of the wider world of art and craft than just tucked away in one corner - however cozy that corner is!!  I've been working on some new ideas for this class too - developing quilt designs protocols based on some of the best women abstracts artists in the 20th century.

My class at The Bascom in Highlands, NC is now up on line.  This is a new venue for me and should be fun.

 The Bascom is an absolutely gorgeous new art center in a beautiful little town in Western North Carolina.  It will be quiet and peaceful and a great place to get down to some designing, dyeing and constructing!!  They like small classes so there will be lots of one on one help.

I'm also going back to Cape Cod in October again!  Linda Gallagher has the info on that class.

I've recently turned down invitations to two very far away countries...for events in the far distant future...I'd loved to have visited those places but the teaching venues were at hotels during big quilting events  - short fast paced process driven classes - and I find I like to get to know the students
and work with them one on one rather than being a production!!

I got another Teacher of the Year nomination - thank you very much whoever put my name forward for that honour!!  It's a very nice glow to feel that someone would go to the trouble to do that.

And I managed to get two quilts into the local art show - this is quite an avant garde venue so it's a leap forward for quilts to be accepted.  Plus an even more forward looking local gallery wants 5 or 6 of the industrial quilts for a special show about Working Environments... so - things are moving!

It is with great sadness though that I learned today of Carol Miller's untimely death.  Carol started the online class Quilt University many years ago and 3 years since invited me to teach there.  Heavily persuaded me!  She always insisted that the cost of the classes be kept low so that anyone could join and that the language be very clear and the supplies simple so that you didn't have to speak English very well, or worry about esoteric gadgets.    These classes have proven to be wonderful for people who couldn't attend a class away from home - either for cost reasons, or distance, or various home commitments.  Having now taught about 20 such classes I realize more and more how very important they are and how amazingly far sighted and innovative Carol was.  Yes there are other online classes but most of them are a LOT more expensive, ordinary people simply couldn't afford to do them.  Teaching for Quilt University has brought me in touch with people around the world, every continent (except Antarctica - though I'm still hopeful!)!  Carol's husband plans to carry on with the classes by the way but I know all the QU teachers will sorely miss her humour, her support and integrity and straightforward warmth.

Things change all the time, everything is in flux - enjoy what you have today - it might be different tomorrow!  It's all to do with quantum physics apparently which demonstrates that nothing ever measures the same from one moment to the next.  Oh and they use prime numbers to encrypt data and messages because it is next to impossible to factor a large prime number thus enabling asymmetric encryption i.e. coded with one key, but deciphered with another.

And now for a cup of tea...and then back to those abstract painters! And, if you have been, thanks for reading.   Elizabeth