Off Line til Labor Day

I am off to the Cape with my family, plus two more girls. I anticipate lots of baking, cards, and giggling. To paraphrase Annie Dillard (The Maytrees) the days will break open like a pinata, spilling time upon us.

Making the Rounds

Nope, I haven't died, but my camera did. So these photos are pulled off the internet. But believe me, Lancaster PA really does look like this:
Spent four hot days in PA with my sister, visiting my mom, whose hip shattered on the eve of her 84th birthday. She looked grim, but perked up considerably when my sister revealed the gourmet miniature birthday cake. Lemon mousse beats industrial food any day for attitude assist.

For my birthday my daughter and I worked at a local food pantry in the morning. It was good to feel useful. We patronized some local designers in the afternoon.

Since then I've been teaching and dropping off stuff at Goodwill and other charities - books, toys, etc. Best stop was Arlington's Fox library, which now has a resale shop for children's stuff - what a great idea. They happily accepted bags of out-grown, nearly-new toys.In between errands, my girl and I are working our way through Battlestar Gallactica. Ideas pile up in my un-air-conditioned studio. Twas ever thus, in August.

The Fabrication of Imagination

Provocative, by Virginia Fitzgerald

The Fabrication of Imagination, now at the ALL Gallery on Market Street in Lowell, blew people away yesterday. The curator, Gwen Stith, has filled the space with work that leads you in. Every piece explores the boundaries. The exhibit reminds me of Annie Dillard's discussion of writers in The Writing Life. Like them, these artists "loved the range of materials they used. The work's possibilities excited them: the field's complexities fired their imaginations." The gallery vibrates with ideas.

The Fabrication of Imagination will be open 10am-6pm this Saturday,8/8, and from 10am-5pm this Sunday, 8/9. Also on this Saturday, Susan Webber will demonstrate free-motion stitch from 10-1, and you're invited to a reception for the artists from 2-4. Gallery hours for the rest of August are Saturday, 11-4, and Sunday noon-4.

To borrow from Dillard again, why do we make art, "if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?"