Faith Ringgold at the National Portait Gallery

Last week in Washington DC, I had the pleasure of seeing with my own eyes some of Faith Ringgold's famous story quilts at the National Portait Gallery. Her work is so refreshing, both in the freedom of her style and in her ability to blur those heavy lines between craft and fine art. Tar Beach, one of her children's books, illustrates the power of a child's imagination to lift her off her Harlem rooftop and send her flying over the George Washington Bridge. The work does reproduce beautifully in print, of course, but there's nothing quite like being in the same room as a quilt (if there's no chance of being able to touch it) and I cherished for the opportunity.

bag bag

There has been renewed interest in one of my favorite projects completed last year: Bag Bag. I knit this from thin strips of plastic cut from select bags from the utility closet collection. The handles were purchased. Here's Bag Bag on the move:

Here are some details of the fabric.




In other news, dub legend Lee Scratch Perry came to Burlington this past weekend. He put on a damn good show for a septuagenarian. We also enjoyed the performance of Brooklyn-based Dub Is a Weapon. It was one of those blissful events that makes us so grateful for the lake, the mountains, and abundant art and music that make Burlington a damn fine place to live and raise children.

If you're in Burlington this month, visit Viva Espresso on North Winooski to see some lovely photographs of rusted metal and weathered wood by Tres Crady.

marvin and the paper mobile

here's our handsome mascot, marvin. he guards the studio so nobody steals my paper scraps and disco records. actually most of the time he's littlewing's sidekick at the farm.


i'm working on cutting out many many many 2 inch circles from colorful paper with which to make a mobile for the chicklets. it's been so much fun turning ephemera into, well, more interesting ephemera, and giving it a relationship with the wind.


this project may take a while. nursing the chicklets takes up most of my time these days. they don't call me mothertrucker for nothing! we did get in a bit of turntable time yesterday; here's an artist list of the set: eddie kendricks, roxanne shante, jurassic 5, shuggie otis, and malkit singh.

well, i'm mo-t and that's the news from the flying hen.