Working on these hybrid garden paintings-with-stitch has given me plenty to think about lately. Not least is how rejuvenating it can be to switch gears and to be firmly planted – no pun intended – in learning-mode for a bit. There are times when I feel I’m burning the candle at both ends by trying to toggle successfully between dyeing, embroidery, drawing (with ink, graphite & colored pencil), and now painting with watercolor. But the larger my grab-bag of processes to choose from, the more flexibility I have. The key is to remember that the most important, though unseen, element is limitation – and to use it judiciously.

Thinking along the same lines of choice, options seem to be opening all around us. This week Vermont became the first state in the country to have passed the 80% vaccination mark, a fact for which we can all be grateful and proud. As Senator Patrick Leahy so aptly noted, our success was due in great part to the bipartisan efforts and cooperation of our state’s leadership.

Politics don’t usually surface in my work, other than in my 2016 post Art as a Responsibility; Art as a Superpower, and my election-centric COVID house “Until The Bitterness Passes”. Overall, I feel I can have more impact by expressing strong opinions directly in letters to Congress, contributing to get-out-the-vote efforts, and never failing to show up on Election Day.

For the most part, art is a refuge for me. I feel I can do the most good for myself and for others by speaking to more intimate, everyday observations rather than using my work as a platform for interpreting or protesting the issues that get under my skin. I have great respect and appreciation for political art but I feel that others are better qualified and more adept in their use of it. And sometimes a quieter statement can have just as much impact for receptive eyes.

Every now and then though something surfaces that registers with both sides of my voice. This month two such projects came to light. The Violet Protest is an avenue you too might consider if, like me, you would like to creatively express your disdain for and frustration with the partisan stagnation in Washington. It offers an opportunity to use your textile skills to contribute (in a very manageable way) to what will be a “colossal visual gesture of friendly protest to every member of the 117th US Congress”. Please read more about the project and its purposeful creative “limitations” here, and be aware that the deadline of August 1, 2021 is coming along quickly!

Another venture in which I was recently invited to participate is the “We Are All Connected Art Project”, spearheaded by Beatricia Sagar. It too speaks to this moment in history. Participants articulate aspects of their COVID experience within the confines of a 3″ puzzle piece. Again, limitations provide possibilities. As individual pieces by diverse artists are joined together, the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts.

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Palate cleanser:

After a year of constructing houses balanced on tall legs, it was a treat to happen upon a photo in Seven Days of a monitor barn raised on stilts. In his article in response to a reader’s query of what in the world it might be, Ken Picard supplied the answer: a bat barn. I am totally smitten with it!

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And finally, a couple of visual confections for you:

I made my first in-person gallery visit recently to the BCA Gallery in Burlington and it was the perfect “first”! Their current exhibit “Bubblegum Pop“ joyfully captures the uplifting sense of release that accompanies reemerging after so many months of uncertainty and lockdown.

Lastly, Raku Inoue’s  floral imaginations will delight and inspire you. Instagram:  @reikan_creations