This past September I was lucky enough to be this year's Artist-in-Residence at Great Basin National Park in Nevada. I'd applied last year ... about this time of year. I remember applying because it was my great hope to return to Great Basin. My husband Steve and I had visited once ... a year earlier ... in June ... when trails at 10,000' in elevation were still under snow. We didn't get to hike on a single trail but I was able to capture a few images from the parts of the road that were open. One of these pictures was of a bristlecone. The colors and textures of this ancient tree were magnificent.
In my excitement over being selected as the 2020 Artist-in-Residence, I went to Spoonflower and selected a couple of my digital images to be printed on cotton. One of them was this detail shot of the bristlecone. It was basted to a piece of felt. With great anticipation to see more bristlecones, I stitched on it during the three day drive west. (Steve flew back from Salt Lake City.)
While at Great Basin, I fell madly in love with the bristlecones, but my favorite trail was undoubtedly the 1.1 mile from the Summit Trailhead to Stella Lake. Why? Well, that trail is lined with aspen. During my two-week stay, I got to see the changing of autumn colors and walk over scattered yellow leaves. I was never on this trail without seeing mule deer. It was magical. As a result, I stitched one of the other Spoonflower printed images while in residency. It is called Aspen. I blogged about it HERE. This piece became my donation to the park's permanent collection.
Even though I continued stitching on Bristlecone during the drive home (after picking Steve up at the Salt Lake City airport), I never finished it ... until this past weekend. It got shoved back into a bag, one that I generally use for an "on-the-road" project. I forgot about it. Of course I did! With this on-going pandemic, traveling is now a rare experience.
(Above: Lock Down 2020.)
This weekend, however, Lock Down 2020 had to be delivered to Spartanburg, a city in the northern part of South Carolina. Even though I don't actually live in the "Upstate", the Artists Collective let me apply for their Art of Survival show. It's a virtual fund-raiser. People are asked to pay $5 to vote for their favorite artworks, all of which deal with the pandemic. It was fun to drive somewhere, to deliver artwork again, and to participate in something that is also having a real show ... socially distanced, limited numbers of visitors, and masks required of course. I'm hoping that the coming year will have many more such opportunities, but in the meantime, I took my "on-the-road" stitching bag and finally finished Bristlecone! I'm glad I did. I've always prided myself in finishing things!
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