Sunday, September 04, 2011

Quartz Mining, Final Residency Presentation, and HOME again!


(Above: Hiking on the Hot Springs National Park trails.)

My wonderful husband Steve flew into the Little Rock National Airport last Wednesday afternoon. I was thrilled to have him with me for the final few days in Arkansas. We hiked several trails in Hot Springs National Park, cleaned the cute "ranger house" in which I'd been living for a month ...



...presented my work during "First Friday", the monthly "art crawl" in the town of Hot Springs ...



...officially donated three pieces to the National Park's permanent art collection, ate in the finest local restaurant, waded in the creek, took a scenic drive, and WENT QUARTZ MINING at Coleman's Quartz mine!



It was 96 degrees outside. We met all sorts of fun people digging through the dregs from the "professional" mining, found lots of gorgeous quartz pieces, and had a total blast. I even created a two-minute video of the experience. It is HERE. Then, Steve drove me back to South Carolina. I stitched on my Grave Rubbing Art Quilt piece, Anonymous, the entire way. There will be photos coming ... but for some completely insane reason, I decided to add very, very dense running stitches (kantha style ... like the beautiful work from India) to the piece. I'm estimating a minimum of 45 hours more stitching to complete the quilt top. Thank God I love hand stitching! Tomorrow ... I tackle the mountain of work that piled up in my month-long absence.

5 comments:

EmandaJ said...

I am sure it is great to be home, but WOW what a great opportunity to be in Arkansas for a whole month to create art. I've enjoyed living vicariously.

Emanda

Els said...

Ha, know what you mean : miners !!!
I once went to a digging site here in Holland looking for fossils: lots and lots of people hammering on rocks ... ha !

Lynn Cohen said...

fun to see you at the site! Loved the video too. Happy stitching. What an experience you had!

lynda Howells said...

love the video..love the pictures of you..beautiful person!. Happy stitching .....lynda

Wanda said...

I know I'm a little late but welcome home! I also know that you've already been to/from HHI for a weekend. I sure hope you had fun. The rangers in the pictures look so happy and proud. I am sure you did a great deal for the residency program and it's reputation. I'm so glad you had the opportunity to do this. I wonder if it already feels far away...I'm sure someone like me just can't imagine the amount of work that piled up for you at home! Well, welcome back and hope to hear from you soon!