"Urban Graffiti" ... My view.

I  conceived this small quilt recently as my response to a Quilts On The Wall Fiber Artists call for entry "Urban Graffiti" but unfortunately it didn't make the cut.... However, it did crystallize my own feelings about graffiti in the urban landscape. I remember traveling to New York in the 1970s and feeling so smug that at least the cityscape of my native city of LA was not scarred with graffiti. Alas, of course, this is no longer true. My feelings might have been further cemented later on when our place of business was tagged - not by gang members or serious graffiti artists, but by local wannabes from the surrounding upscale neighborhood.  I spent hours scrubbing it away from a painted brick wall.

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I know that in today's art world graffiti artists are subjects of study and veneration and I can certainly see that is valid in some cases, but my appreciation cannot help but be colored by my own experience and the feeling that what I've always thought of as a beautiful city is being diminished by what is painted all over its buildings and infrastructure. Certainly most of the artists that offered up work for the QOTW exhibit "Urban Graffiti" explored this artistic view of the subject and I applaud them for seeing beauty and meaning in the ugliness that I see around me.

For those interested, the quilt was constructed using a fused raw edge technique. The individual bricks were cut and fused on to a printed mottled gray fabric that served as the mortar. The letters were from a "graffiti" font I found online. The bricks were dabbed with textile paint for an aging effect and free motion quilted in various small fill patterns with silk thread. If you are wondering about the two white objects on the quilt in front of my machine, they are pieces of rubber shelf lining which I find helpful in guiding the quilt sandwich during quilting. Much better than gloves, or hoops, etc. I hate having to put on and take off gloves!

My congratulations to those QOTW members whose works were juried in to "Urban Graffiti" There are some remarkable images in the quilts that were included in the exhibit that will debut at Road to California in January 2016. I'm looking forward to seeing all of them together!

In the meantime, this quilt will soon be added to my website at www.sallywrightquilts.com and will be added for sale in my Etsy Shop

See this and other great blogs at  Off The Wall Fridays with Nina Marie Sayre

Yes, that was me on Jeopardy last week.....

So yes, that actually was me if you wondered who that slightly familiar looking contestant was on Jeopardy last Monday night, June 8, 2015. To answer your first question, no, I did not win buckets of money and to answer your second question... What was it like? I thought I'd better put the whole experience down while it's fresh so years from now in my dotage, I can go back and actually remember the very interesting experience.

Yes, it was sort of a bucket list thing. I've always watched and seemed to do pretty well on the couch with a drink in my hand.... and no pressure. Also my good friend and college sorority roommate was on Jeopardy in the 80s and won a whole big bucket of money... so there was a little bit of competition there.  I'm pretty good on Art, archaeology, history, food, movies, theater and word usage.  Not so good on recent music, Rhyme Time, Before and After , etc. I'm basically a fairly shy reserved person, but i react to challenges and I've found in life that the things that really scare me are the ones once accomplished that mean the most. So I decided, one evening early last summer probably after a glass of wine or two, to take the Jeopardy online test. 

It was a bit of fun, not too hard, but in no way did I think I aced it. No one was more surprised than I when a few weeks later I received an email inviting me to a local Jeopardy audition at the Doubletree in Culver City, not far from Sony Studios where the show is filmed. That was in early August. I had no idea what to expect... a one on one interview, a cattle call, a super embarrassing once over and a 'Thank you, we'll let you know"?

I arrived to find myself one of about 75 people waiting outside a function room in the hotel. I looked over the other interviewees. I was - without any  doubt - the oldest person there... by far. I gulped. I was surrounded by mostly very young men who I knew had great buzzer talent from all those computer games. There were a few younger women, a couple of mid 40s guys and a whole load of Jeopardy nerds.  I overheard conversations in which they were knowledgeably discussing former Champions and their strategies, great Jeopardy questions, shows by their ID number etc.  They knew everything! I overheard one young man say that this was the 7th time he had interviewed.  AS I listened more, I sort of learned why.  Crazy. I got more nervous by the minute. By the time the talent coordinators came down the line taking Polaroid shots of each of us, I wanted to turn tail and run. 

Inside we were seated and told about the Jeopardy selection process, about the show and its history and what we  were going to do for the next two hours. We took a longer written test and then each one of us went up and talked to Glen, the head Talent Coordinator. He asked questions based on our written responses to some questions about our lives and interests. Then we were brought up three at a time to actually play a little Jeopardy Game with what we were told were the actual Jeopardy buzzers! I was nervous and thought I had blown the whole thing. We were told that if selected, they could call us to tape at any time for the next 18 months.  The whole team were delightful and very kind, but I went off home feeling tired and assured my call would never come.

One morning in September my cell phone rang and a nice voice introduced herself as Amy from Jeopardy and  - bombshell! - could I come to tape an appearance the end of October?  Exactly the week I was going to be out of town on business doing an antique show in San Francisco. It's the most important event of our business year and I could not miss it. So my name went back in the hopper and Amy assured me, if they called once, they would probably call again.  And they did! The middle of October I was asked to come for a taping in mid November. I was forwarded pages and pages of instructions and forms to fill out including every possible 'interesting " topic about myself for Alex's interview at the break.  I put off filling those out for as long as I could, but finally on a plane returning from Houston Quilt Festival on November 1st  got them filled out on my iPad. I challenge you to find 25 really interesting factoids about your life. 

I arrived at Sony Studios at the proscribed time 7:00AM optimistically toting my required three wardrobe changes on a Tuesday morning and was ushered into the absolutely freezing Green Room along with all the other contestants for that day. We got our orientation, signed our releases, went over our topics for Alex's interview portion and listening to Maggie the Producer basically do a very irreverent and funny stand up routine. Finally we went onstage and did a rehearsal session. Again this was a mostly younger group of contestants, but this time there was one lady who at 72 was older! YES! Everyone got full makeup and waited, and waited as the contestants were chosen for game 1, then game 2 and then game 3. Finally after the chosen went to game 4 (five games are taped each Tuesday and Wednesday) it was clear that I was the odd woman out and as a local contestant would have to be invited back again. 

So I waited... and waited... and finally in February I got another call from Amy and I was booked for early March, this time guaranteed to get on. So again, 7 AM at Sony with my wardrobe... the same orientation, full makeup, freezing green room, slightly different, but similar stand up routine from the irrepressible Maggie and on to the rehearsal.  I was chosen for the first game!  Knees knocking I took my place on the stage, was hitched to my microphone and the familiar music started....

Well, if you saw it, you know that while I did not disgrace myself, I did not win the big bucks. I came in second. For a moment in Final Jeopardy I was ahead and thought maybe, yes, I could win this, but the defending champion also had the correct answer (How could a park ranger know that the name Don Quixote named his heroine was Dulcinea! But, alas, he did and with $19,400 I lost to his $19,700.  

Yes, I made some bad mistakes. Only wagering $500 on my Double Jeopardy opportunity in the beginning of the game was a major gaff, especially since I got the  correct answer. One mistake, I have just found out this week after watching the show was not really a mistake and should have been credited as a correct answer, but I was in such a nervous daze I didn't raise my hand and question it at the time. Turns out that the Babylonian "Captivity" is mentioned several times in the Bible and should have been correct. How did I find that out? By going into  Jeopardy nerd land online and reading a couple of the many, many blogs devoted to weekly Jeopardy contests. Seems a number of the J-Geeks think I was robbed! However,  I was also lauded for courage in going all in at the end. 

I went home relieved that it was over, thankful for my husband Glen and my art quilting group the Fiber Fanatics who came as guests to the studio and solidly supported me, and happy and relieved that it was all over.  I can't say enough about the Jeopardy Staff and Crew - Everyone from the Producers, Director, Talent Coordinators to the stage crew and makeup people were lovely... kind, generous and very supportive. Special thanks to Glen Kagan the senior Talent Coordinator who helped me get my buzzer mojo going during the first break! 

I had almost put it all out of my mind until my show aired a week ago last Monday June 8. It started as a trickle and then a flood of emails, Facebook posts and phone calls and still has not subsided.  Congratulations from old friends, sorority sisters, business colleagues, quilting acquaintances, relatives I haven't talked to in 25 years and friends and clients of my parents 50 years ago who I have never met have poured in since.  My name is all over the Internet on Jeopardy Geek sites and I was invited to appear on a live online blog at www.theJeopardyfan.com where Andy the Jeopardy Fan personified interviews the past weeks contestants along with former champions and fans who are hoping for an interview. 

What did I learn from all this?  First, age should not be a defining boundary. At 65 I did better than a  20-something guy who has spent much more time hitting buttons on a game console than I, but not as well as a quiet park ranger who must spend a lot of time reading.  I learned that a load of people watch Jeopardy religiously and that I should not be surprised when a perfect stranger walks up in Trader Joe's and says they saw you on TV last week.  I was also touched by my friends who gave me boundless support and encouragement. And what has been proved to me over and over is that the thing that scares you most, is the most satisfying accomplishment. Try to get outside your comfort zone often.  And yes, Alex Trebek was very nice.... 

Everyone told me that an Apple Mac was so much easier to use than a Windows
PC. They said it was so intuitive, clear and clean, so user friendly. So since my Dell PC is over five years old, starting to slow down and labor over tasks and so "not cool" I decided to make the change egged on by the fact that our son was leaving his job at Apple and it would be the last opportunity to get his significant discount.

So for the last six months, I've been trying to get as comfortable with and "in sync" with my stylish iMac  as I was in my 25+ years with my PC. First I tackled email - that was pretty easy - but when I started installing Mac versions of my much used software programs it all became a lot more complicated. Everything is in a different place!! The commands are different!! I miss My Computer and Windows Explorer!!  I used to know where everything was! It has been a huge learning curve made just a little easier because I have loved my Iphone and iPad and use those for a lot of things. Some things do cross over.

I gave up for a few months, but decided that was ridiculous - there was this very beautiful and stylish iMac perched like a useless brick on my desk-  so in the last month I've really persevered, taking some very useful online webinars and classes from David Cox of PC Classes Online  and transferring data from the PC into my new Apple software.

I'm now proud to say that I have figured out how to save and organized documents and files in Pages and I am now editing all three websites that I manage with a new version of Dreamweaver CS4 for Mac. And just yesterday I managed to transfer all my financial data from Quicken 10 to Quicken 2015 for Mac!

There are a few more hurdles... I have yet to figure out a good Mac database for 40 years of inventory and sales from our antiques business and its accompanying mailing label list. Maybe I can just be really 21st century and forego all snail mail advertising? We'll have to think on that.

One big success - moving all (some 4000 business and personal images) of my photo files off the PC and into IPhoto. Of course right in the middle of doing this I woke up to find IPhoto had automatically changed to the new Photos app and I had to learn to use it all over again. But as part of that I figured out how to do a Photos slide show complete with music. I've added it to the home page of my website through a YouTube link. It replaces another slide show I had used, but this one was much easier to make, will be easier to change and update and best of all is free!

So here , at last is my newly made slide show "Sally Gould Wright Textile Artist" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q69TmZDPDyA

The  journey continues,  don't let anyone tell you that migrating to Apple is a cinch.....

Check out Off the Wall Fridays at  http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

The SAQA Benefit Auction is coming in September....

So the donation deadline for the 2015 SAQA Benefit Auction is looming - June 1 - so I was motivated to get my little 12" quilt finished and in the mail. I had put it off and put it off waiting for this new cactus plant we were given to bloom. I had been told it would be spectacular and I had hoped to photograph it and use in the quilt, but when it finally burst open last week it was a very disappointing color and almost too prehistoric looking... So I opted for a yellow desert rose I found amongst a lot of old photos. 

I had the background... Actually the practice / warmup scrap of faux leather that I had quilted in copper metallic ( inspired by a great class with Jerry Granata) to prepare for my "I'll Be Seeing You" which is currently on show in North Carolina in the PAQA South  Reminisce exhibit. The tooled leather inspired floral pattern looked vaguely southwestern, hence the desert cactus idea. The nopales paddles are three dimensional, stuffed with a little batting and hand stitched with pearl cotton thorns. The flowers were printed on cotton and then machine and hand stitched. 

The desert lizard was drawn and coloured in with Tsukineko markers and then machine stitched .

Another lizard decorates the back label.

The auction begins online at SAQA.com on September 18. there are already many, many wonderful little works on the site. Hope you'll take a look. 

check out Off the Wall Friday's at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Where Spring is Really Spring

Since I'm a native southern Californian, my ideas of changing seasons are a little skewed. We've recently come home from a trip to a land where Spring truly makes sense to me. Our son lives and works in Nashville and his stories of the recent bitter weather full of ice storms and snow left me unprepared for the gorgeous greenness of Tennessee right now, especially contrasting to our local hills already going gold with little or no rain this winter.

Tennessee seems as green as Ireland, especially here at the natural Spring at the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg where we spent a delightful day touring, tasting and enjoying BBQ with our son David and his lady Olivia.

Drifts of White, pink and yellow dogwood were everywhere in public spaces as well as forest glades seen from the highway.

The tulips in the gardens of the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art http://www.exploreasheville.com just south of Nashville were just about over, but the snowball bushes, flowering trees and spring bedding plants were fabulous. We spent a wondrously Saturday afternoon there with Olivia's parents who came up from Huntsville to meet us.

As we left Nashville and drove east into the Great Smoky Mountains to Asheville, NC the flowering trees continued along with wild flowers alongside the highway. The gardens at Biltmore, the Vanderbilt Mansion in Asheville were equally spectacular with drifts of blooming azaleas in all colors ranging down a miniature valley below the spectacular house. The tulips were over and the roses not yet blooming, but these topiary ladies made from blooming posts were fabulous. Inside the house - a special treat -  a traveling exhibit of all the costumes from Downton Abbey were displayed in the magnificent rooms.

What else did we do? Well, we certainly ate a lot of great southern food - real southern breakfasts with wonderful grits and homemade biscuits at the Early Girl Eatery, a superb farm to table dinner at Chestnut and super North Carolina coastal seafood at The Lobster Trap in Asheville and a very complicated new wave southern dinner at Sean Brock's Husk in Nashville. I mustn't forget the great "meat and 3" fried catfish lunch with our son at the Cool Cafe in Franklin, TN on our last day.

Oh, and I did get to a couple of quilt shops... Both in Franklin. One - The Stitchers Garden - a treasure trove of thousands of bolts of fabric in messy towering piles and the other - The Quilting Squares - a charming little shop with a very controlled Traditional aesthetic and a charming staff. At the messy Stitchers' Garden another customer told me that some local quilters love it, others hate it. I checked Yelp and found it to be true.  The haters found it to be impossibly disorganized and disheveled. She loved it because she never know what perfect piece of fabric she might find at the bottom of the pile. A treasure hunt! I agreed.

All Tennessee quilt shops seem to have designated "husband chairs" which they tell you about as soon as they see a man walk in - see the rockers above. All seemed genuinely surprised when I told them Glen liked to help me select fabric. What I bought at both stores -he  helped me find and  it had to go into his carry-on suitcase!

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My favorite week of the year....

Usually I love returning home from a trip away - I love my pretty house, lush garden and my own comfortable bed - but each year I feel a real wrench leaving one of my favourite places on earth... Pacific Grove and the Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar. It's a perfect week in the company of great friends, learning new art quilting techniques, making some new friends and enjoying the simply beautiful background - the beach, the pines, the vintage Julia Morgan designed heritage buildings and the charming town just down the road. It was hard to come home.....

My class this year was taught by Susan Carlson who had escaped the horrible Maine weather to sunny California and happily taught us her technique of fabric collage. Basically we traced our designs on a muslin foundation and then filled the outlines with freely scissor cut fabric and glued it down. So simple, so easy to achieve a fabulously painterly effect with commercial prints, batiks and hand dyes.

Susan is a very relaxed easy going and gifted teacher. She gave each of us a lot of her time quietly moving around our classroom dispensing helpful and pertinent suggestions in a really lovely way. Our tables were quickly piled with the most beautiful combinations of pattern and color - scraps, fat quarters and larger pieces in every color and scale. It was certainly the messiest classroom at Empty Spools last week, but also the most beautiful with the cascades of color and pattern. 

Very soon images began to develop on our boards - landscape scenes, floral studies, exotic animals, family pets, portraits... Even a colorful warthog done my talented friend and traveling companion Roberta Walley.

My portrait of a Green Man - a Celtic folklore forest spirit- grows little by little... My drawing began as a photo of a plaque hanging on our garden fence and grew from there. 

He's almost finished by week's end. Just a few more finishing touches, a background and quilting remain. You'll see final version soon.

check out Off the Wall Fridwys at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2014/02/off-wall-friday.html

Why Can't I Go Along with My Quilts?

Check out Nina Marie Sayre's Off the wall Friday's at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com.

This morning Quilts, Inc., the promoters of International Quilt Festivals around the country sent me this cute little badge to use online on Facebook, etc to advertise my quilts being shown it the upcoming Quilt Festival Chicago in a few weeks.




So all of you in the Midwest have an opportunity to see the two quilts I have in two Special Exhibits "Tactile Architecture" and "In Full Bloom". Mated for Life and Bella Camellia are shown below as I photographed them as they were hanging at Houston. Terrible photos, but the best I could do given crowds and lighting.









So if you can't be in Chicago, maybe Savannah or Denver intrigues you? Some more of my pieces are part of two Quilts on the Wall traveling exhibits being shown on the Mancuso circuit at Quiltfest New Jersey (just past) Quiltfest Destination Savannah (3/26-29) and the Denver National Quilt Show in late April. "Windowscape and "Forrest's Flowers" are in Appearances and "A La Carte" is in Maps.









I have nothing at Paducah this year (Had one accepted last year, but this year just a rejection letter - such is life...) but we'll be nearby visiting our son in Nashville the same week in April. Would love to be able to teleport. My quilts get to go around the country. I just wish I could go with them.