Review: Allison Strine

What is poetic beauty?
In art school, I heard of a professor who assigned his students to illustrate the concept BEAUTY.
What a challenge! Is there a definitive beauty? Is there something we can nail down, and all agree is attractive, positive, uplifting, beautiful? One of the few things that the students eventually agreed on, when handing in their assignments, was that beauty involved regularity, evenness, balance, symmetry.
Certainly there are archetypes for these attributes, there are gods and goddesses who embody these qualities.

I am in line with none of them, myself.
Therefore I celebrate the uneven beauty; the irregular and attractive, the unbalanced and still healing, the unsymmetrical bouquet.

Showcase Allison Strine, artiste of poetic beauty.
Her work is funny, and hauntingly sincere. Her images embrace the wide variation of human shape, and celebrate our strengths, and laugh joyously at our weaknesses. With a bit of collage, painting, quotes and original text, she is able to hold woman-kind in a warm circle of acceptance.
There are images of animals and birds capping human bodies, and the iconography resulting I find deeply inspiring.

Just in time for the holidays, affordable artwork, and it’s available near you! Check out her website, www.allisonstrine.com, where you can peruse her gallery of images, or search for a store carrying her work near you. Live in the middle of nowhere? Shop on etsy, and have your purchases shipped to you for the holidays. Search on www.etsy.com for Allisonstrine, and you’ll find a store of opportunities waiting for you!

Quilt Retreat, Casowosco Fall 2008

Ah yes, Quilt Retreat…
What do the magical words mean to the uninitiated? How many times have I met the eyes of one who gives me the “Wha?” look when I say with feeling “QUILT RETREAT”.

There is the wild fabric muse, skipping giddily among the tables, strewn with fabric. There are late night hijinks, still pajama game girls under their garlands of years. We share jokes and high hilarity; we share wild laughing fits that seem to have no end.

We share knowledge and experience directly upon seeing another with an unsolved problem. We share advice, free flowing, varied as the rainbow from as many varied women. We see many works of many artists, fancy and simple. We experience creative fertilization, one mind to another, simple and complex.

This quilting retreat may have had those rich times, but it also had a memorial service. In memory of one of our members, who we enjoyed at this retreat, in her most robust healthy days, in her unflagging chemotherapy days, arriving with determination and napping much of the retreat, and now in her absence. The circle of women goes on, as we remember our sister, Donna.

So here are the images, of quilters in their glory, and quilters spreading the ashes of a loved one.

I don't live in Tompkins County, I can't attend the meetings, and I drive over six hours to attend the retreat spring and fall. But these amazing women have allowed a special place for me in their circle. So when I say I am a quilter, my deep sense of pride is not for the colors and patches. It is that I have had the joy of calling myself a member of the Tompkins County Quilt Guild.

Washington Bead Bazaar

I just attended the Washington Bead Society Bead Bazaar at Bohrer Park, Gaithersburg Maryland. Next year, I’ll be standing behind my own table! The show went great, with lots of sales, fun, laughter, and supportive friends. I shared a booth with several ladies from the Mid Atlantic Society of Glass Beadmakers.

We did a lot of laughing! We discussed the merits of large vrs small chesticles, and other savory topics.

I brought my newest goddess beads, and sold so many on the first day, I had to stay up Saturday night to make more!

Open to the unkown, open to the good

There’s a reason the musical “Annie” has run almost constantly for about sixty years. The reason is, optimism is a timeless message. Another reason is, art based on optimism can do nothing but rise to the surface, in any environment.

Today, I am wearing my optimism necklace. It is a bit funny looking, bold and silly, with a bikini clad blonde goddess who says, “Hey, let’s surf!”

I wear necklaces to remind myself to get out of the rut. I have a whole collection and each has a relevant message, to help me remember how to escape the quagmire of depression. Hey, not only is the surf up when the weather’s bad, lemons make lemonade, and flying by the seat of your pants is still flying!

So today, I say to you and me, open the window, not on what you know, but on what you don’t. Open to uncounted possibilities.

Every time I have done this, I am shocked at the sudden fire-hose flood of good turned on me by the laughing spirits. And if I don’t stay open to it, I will shed that gushing goodness like water over an umbrella. So today, I turn my umbrella upside down in the rain, and smile, and open my arms to the downpour.

Malphi : Rustic Chic

I was perusing Etsy one day, and discovered this treasure. I have to share!
Old fashioned, fun and comfortable, functional, poetic, historical, romantic, yes, what fits in these descriptors better than aprons?

Let’s face it, the world is changing, and I want to curl up in a book and forget about it. I want to go back in time. I want to mop my floor with a mop, a scrub brush, ancient non-toxic good-smelling soap, not use a plastic machine from walmart to suck the water off it. I want roots, connection, to feel the earth while I garden, to dust with a duster, not a disposable swiffer.

So here are clothes to help you get that down home, egg-hunting, water-carrying feeling.

Malphi, who believes you’re never to old to play dress up, is a terrific spearhead of the apron movement. Trained as an actress, this UK seamstress has brought her theatrical style to sewing, and now to you. She learned to sew from her mother, (the best way in my opinion, as Mum isn’t trying to sell you a sewing machine.)

Dig her designs at her etsy store, her website, http://www.malphistyle.com/, or her blog, Malphi.typepad.com. On her website, Malphi: Rustic Chic, she sells aprons, from short to long, and verity dresses. Each is designed to go over your clothes- just imagine the flexibility! A wrap around verity hope dress to brighten and feminize the standard black outfit, a patchwork apron to hug you at home, over the sink, while you have to face the housework dragon. Turn house work into comfort, turn everyday into Jane Austen’s day… now that’s what I call moving forward!

Grama Tortoise Needs YOU!

Welcome to Grama Tortoise, the weblog of jewelry, beads, adornment, and rampant wild fun.

This is the place to look for the insanely gorgeous. Disregard your trendometer, fling aside your fashion magazine! What's hot, actually isn't. What's going to be hot is here, and its not about making an impression, it's about honoring you.

Yes, that you! The wild bumblebee spandex you! The false nose and glasses you! The naked dancing around the fire chanting you! Get ready for cutloose dancing, margaritas at midnight, and ... jewelry!