a fusion of textiles & smiles
In the middle of February, before the reality of global pandemic became something we would be discussing in our daily conversations, my partner and I went on vacation to Cabo San Lucas.
In my next post I will share stories from our “relaxation vacation experiment” but for this post I will just share some of the photos I took in black & white to continue my ongoing series Life in B&W, in which I pretend I am a photographer (smile).
This post is a continuation of my previous post California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part I.
Northern California is a beautiful part of the U.S. While visiting my Quilting Sisters Kathy and Lisa in the Sacramento area in April 2019 I got to appreciate some of the beauty of Northern CA.
I stayed with my friend Kathy, her husband Matt and her awesome new Chocolate Labrador puppy, Riley. They have incredible wooded areas on their property and just hanging out at their home I got a taste of the beauty of Northern CA.
One morning, I watched three wild male turkeys trying to court a female turkey right off their back patio:
I put an arrow where the female turkey was and she did not seem very interested in any of them (she kept wandering away) while they took turns (or simultaneously) displaying their plumages!
Kathy took me on a day trip to South Yuma River State Park and it was amazing! I will let the rest of this post serve as a photo essay as I show you some of the images from our visit to this stunning state park.
Next post (which is the final one in this series of posts) I will share photos and stories from our Quilt Shop Hopping in Northern California!
I am also sneaking into this post a continuation on my series of posts Life in B&W, in which I pretend I am a photographer showing you the stark beauty of Black and White photography.
Here are a couple of the images I took during the day trip in B&W for your enjoyment (or you can roll your eyes, ha!).
Oh yes there we a lot more, but I figure four images is enough to expose you to 🙂
Continuing my series of posts Life in B&W, I thought I’d share images from a trip to El Paso, Texas and a day trip to Mesilla, New Mexico with old friends. In El Paso we stayed downtown at a lovely hotel called Hotel Indigo.
Let’s consider this post a “photo essay” and I will just share the images without a lot of text.
Yes I have a thing for doorways and windows in B&W. The last photo is one of my favorites – I love the contrast of the white adobe structure to the wooden door.
Only in El Paso…
Why drive to Starbucks when you can take your horse? Yes this is downtown El Paso, Texas.
Continuing my series of posts Life in B&W, I thought I was share some images from a recent morning walk near where I am now living in the Denver Greater Metropolitan area.
But first I thought I would share some news/update you on my life…
Those of you who followed my blog for a while know that earlier this year (April 2019) I moved from Central Oregon to the greater Denver Metropolitan area, after my husband Terry suddenly passed in December 2018.
I moved from a home in Central Oregon to a two-bedroom apartment in the Denver area. and tried to stay positive about a new “living on my own apartment adventure” (the first time I’ve lived on my own in my life). However, little did I know how much I would dislike apartment living after living in a home most of my life. As well as how much I would dislike living without another human in my residence.
Mike my miniature schnauzer disliked apartment living also – he missed having a backyard to play ball in. Early morning, during the day and late in the evening, I had to take him on either a quick or longer walk for him to “do his business” and this became tedious. Additionally there were sketchy areas and a large homeless population near where I was living. Mike and I had one scary experience where a homeless man from the park near my apartment followed us for several blocks in a stalking manner.
In May I met a friend at the new Spousal Loss Grief Support group I was attending in the Denver area who also loss his spouse and was interested in having a roommate for his large house. He had a nice backyard that backed up onto a green space and walking trail and he really liked Miniature Schnauzers (his favorite dog breed)!
So a couple months ago I left my apartment in an urban area and moved to the suburbs and I am very happy (and so is Mike).
Plus it is wonderful to have a roommate who understands the depth of the grief of losing their spouse/lifetime partner and we’ve been a great support to each other. It is not something I want anyone to experience in order to understand. As I’ve discussed with numerous other widows and widowers, unless you’ve personally experienced this unique and devastating loss, you absolutely do not have a clue (and you are not in any position to offer any life advice to someone who has lost their spouse, all you can do is support and respect them on their journey) or can even imagine what they are dealing with.
You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.―
With that background, I can now share with you some images in B&W I took with my smartphone on a morning walk near my new residence (by the way, I thought I was going to live an edgier urban life but I am a suburban girl at heart.)
As part of my walk I had to go through a tunnel under the road to cross from one side of a busy street to the other. I was absolutely fascinated with the tunnel in B&W:
The tunnel was lined with bird nests, which also looked quite interesting in B&W:
Pretty cool, eh?
Now that I live in a house, I also have a yard in order to plant things. One of the early thing I planted was sunflower seeds. If you are a longtime follower of my blog you might remember my obsession with sunflowers (see series of posts – Sunflowers!)
Recently the first sunflower from three large pots of sunflowers I planted has begun to bloom:
I suspect I might have a future post about sunflowers when all three pots of sunflowers are in bloom!
And speaking of future posts – I have a new studio in my new residence.
If you remember my posts from May 2019 (“Oh Scrap”, Part II and New “Studio” Tour and New Studio Tour, Part II) I shared images from my new apartment “Studio/Guest Bedroom”:
I now have a dedicated Studio – a room for creating that I do not have to share with any guest – ha! So I will do a future post about my Studio, but here is a sneak peak with an image of the design wall my roommate built me and a work in progress:
Here is my next installment in my new series of posts “Colorado Bound” which began with this post: Colorado Bound (Part I). It is also a continuation of my series Life in B&W in which I pretend that I am a real photographer expanding my portfolio of Black & White Photos taken with my iPhone camera (isn’t that what real photographers use?!?!?).
I recently returned from a 5 day trip to the Denver Colorado area to visit friends and to tour apartments to live in. We toured 10 apartment complexes between Boulder and Denver and I settled on a place in a suburb of Denver, in the Denver Greater Metropolitan area (this is the web and you never know who is reading so that is as many details as I will provide in this public forum).
I did end up getting a 2 bedroom apartment which even has a separate nook with a built in desk for telecommuting! I was originally going to be very minimalist and thrifty but decided that if I am going to work from home I need space. Additionally it will be nice for visitors and to have a decent space for crafting.
I decided to rent in a “boutique apartment complex” type of place for a year which has included a fitness center, a pool, community activities, and other wonderful amenities. It will be sort of like living in a hotel for a year!
In addition to touring apartments (my friend was incredible driving me around on the first day to tour 5 apartments and loaning me her car the next day when she had to work to let me tour on my own), we went on a wonderful tour of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Distillery as well as attended an incredible concert by the Boulder, CO based acapella group Face Vocal Band.
I will feature some photos from Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Distillery tour in another post.
Oh and if you enjoyed the video by Face Vocal Band above performing a traditional song, here they are again performing a contemporary popular music hit. Note all the percussion sounds are done by voices of the performers, no instruments!
I so appreciate my friends Michele and her husband Blair introducing me to this fun band!
Okay so let’s get to the Black & White photos I threatened to share in the title of this post (smile).
Michele, Blair and I went for a lovely hike on the Sunday before I returned home. Here are some photos from that walk:
I thought I would start with my recent trip to Colorado as it is fresh on my mind, but I have a backlog of other stories and posts to come 🙂
Here is a follow up to my 03/01/19 post Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part I.
Last week I was in Seattle, Washington for a work meeting and while I was in Seattle I dropped of my 12 art quilts that will be in my solo show at the Seattle Municipal Tower in Downtown Seattle opening 04/18/19 and running through 07/16/19.
I had the pleasure of meeting with Patricia S. the Coordinator for the City of Seattle’s Ethnic Heritage Gallery and Blake H. the Curator and Collections Manager for the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. They seemed pleased with the art quilts I had selected for the show.
I got to tour the gallery space in the Seattle Municipal Tower in downtown Seattle.
Here is some of the gallery space (I took photos quickly as I had to get to a work meeting in another section of downtown Seattle):
Here is the reception area where the opening reception will be held:
And here is the draft flyer for the show which is titled “The Wardrobe Meets the Wall: Art Quilts Created from Recycled Clothing & Garment Manufacturing Samples”.
The show’s curator said he loved the title, the concept and thought the art quilts were beautiful (I had a “trunk show” in the lower lobby/gallery area for the Coordinator and Curator).
The show opens at 12 noon on 04/18/19 at 700 5th Avenue, Seattle Washington. See you there if you are in the area! (My head is still reeling that the City of Seattle invited me to have a solo show…)
I could not refuse the opportunity to take photos of downtown Seattle Washington in black & white while I walked from my meeting with the City of Seattle on the show, to my employer’s office.
I guess you could consider this postscript a continuation of my series of posts – Life in B&W.
And then there was the magnificent Downtown Seattle Public Library which I used to browse when I lived in Seattle 15 years ago:
This post is another installation on posts about my trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico in early November. My previous post discussed creative inspiration from visiting the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum for the first time (Creative Inspiration: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum).
Santa Fe was filled with inspiration and I was inspired to dabble in B&W iPhone photography again like in previous posts (see my series of posts Life in B&W).
So indulge me again and check out this photo essay of images from my trip to Santa Fe in B&W!
The first building I fell in love with in Santa Fe and immediately wanted to photograph in B&W was the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi in downtown Santa Fe.
I took a lot of photos of the exterior of the church and even tried different B&W iPhone filters:
And the amazing door, I had to photograph this door, as well as an interesting structure in the church courtyard:
While we wandering downtown there was a Mass in progress so I did not peek inside of the church, but there I did check out photos online of the interior which were amazing.
During our visit to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum I experimented with B&W photography. Most of the photos are not worth sharing but I do like this one of the windows in a section of the gallery:
I was absolutely fascinated with the rustic wood fences and adobe structures in Santa Fe. Here are some of my photos:
As I mentioned in the post Creative Inspiration: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, on our road trip back to Albuquerque, NM to fly home, we took a detour to visit a colleague of my friend Laurie who owns an amazing horse ranch/equestrian center.
On our route to the horse ranch, we drove through the quaint town of Madrid, New Mexico and stopped to wander around. Here are some B&W photos from that wander.
And finally, during our visit to the equestrian center outside of Albuquerque, NM, I took photos in B&W. I was fascinated by the displays of horse tack and saddles.
More photos (in color) of my trip to come.
Work has been very busy lately with end of year projects. I must admit I have not had much interest in being on a computer outside of work hours lately so although I have many posts in my head I have not actually written them. I also need to catch up on the blogs I follow.
I also need a nap.
Funny when you are a kid you never want to nap, but when you are an adult you would love to have a nap!
Speaking of naps, I will close this post with an image of my miniature schnauzer, Mike, taking a nap in the front window in his cushion that has been moved to the window area per his request (smile).
He is a “Napping Professional”.
Here is the final installment of the series of posts on the quilt retreat I attended in October.
If you are just joining us – here are the previous related posts:
This post is the fault of Claudia @Claudia McGill – she encouraged me to share more Black & White photography.
As I warned my readers in the post New York City in Black and White, the “Noir” setting on my iPhone camera is a dangerous thing in the hands of an imaginary photographer!
But Claudia just had to comment on this post:
“You’ve got a good eye. Enjoyed these. More, please!”
And, all I needed was a tiny bit of encouragement and now you all are stuck with some more…
During the quilt retreat I wandered around the retreat center and the surrounding rural areas and snapped endless photos in B&W. Here are my favorites.
And of course this collection of photos would not be complete without Abbey the Quilt Retreat Kitty in B&W!
This is sort of a follow up to the 10/21/18 post Creative Inspiration: Sunflowers!. but it really about the end of the “warm” seasons in Central Oregon (late Spring, Summer and early to mid Autumn) and the heralding of the Winter (aka cold) season.
A couple days ago on my daily walk I snapped this photo of the Giant Sunflower that I posted about in the Creative Inspiration: Sunflowers! post.
Here is what is looked like in September:
Here is what it looked like in Black & White in September:
Here is what it looks like now in November:
And here is what it looks like now, in Black & White:
I seems like Black & White is the right palette for the now stark and shriveled previously gorgeous sunflower.
It appears that all the sunflower seeds are gone from the sunflower head and I am not sure why the homeowners are letting it sit there to decay.
The decay reminds that Winter is coming…
There are many good things about Winter and Winter is important to the Central Oregon ecosystem and to our economy (we have Mount Bachelor which brings in the skiers and other Winter sport enthusiasts). Winter is also a great time for reading, nesting, crafting, reflecting, and the Winter holiday.
But today I am sort of wistful for the beauty of the other seasons and grieving the end of the tremendous beauty of Autumn in Central Oregon (see post Creative Inspiration: Fall Colors).
Right now all the leaves have fallen and everything looks stark, bare and dried out. I think the landscape will get more appealing once the snow falls and a lovely blanket of white covers the stark ground.
The “Noir” setting on my iPhone camera is a dangerous thing in the hands of an imaginary photographer!
Last year while attending Quilters Take Manhattan 2017 (see my series of posts Quilters Take Manhattan), I took a series of photos while wandering Manhattan (and on the Long Island Express train from Manhattan to Queens) in Black & White. Like yesterday’s post photos I recently came across these photos while cleaning up my photo storage.
So I will let today’s post be a photo essay of New York City in Black & White.
All images property of Tierney Davis Hogan. All rights reserved
Today I am continuing my series of posts on sources of Creative Inspiration and sharing some of the zillion (yes “zillion”) images I took in late Summer and early Fall of blooming sunflowers.
I am absolutely obsessed with sunflowers, I even have a sunflower themed quilt. I’ve added a new category to my blog, Sunflowers! , in case you’d like to look at my previous posts related to sunflowers.
Sunflowers are more than just creative inspiration – they just make me happy in general, I am not sure exactly why, but they do! The sunroom in my house is decorated with sunflowers including this corner which has a wonderful faux sunflower plant from my dear friend Michele:
Did you notice the little sunflower tea set in the above photo, yup, I am obsessed!
Well I would blow out my WordPress photo storage allotment if I posted all the photos I took of sunflowers during their 2018 Central Oregon season (late August to early October) and that would be silly especially after I posted tips on how to manage your WordPress photo allotment last month (see post WordPress Image (Photo) Management)!
So here are some of my favorite images from all the images I took.
In my neighborhood we also had the “Mother of All Sunflowers” – a serious Giant Sunflower with at least a 12 inch (30.5 cm) diameter (I bet it was even wider):
I became completely obsessed with it and I will not tell you how many photos I took of it (daily at times as I passed it on my walk every morning). I also photographed it in Black & White:
I also started photographing other sunflowers in B&W in full bloom as well as when they were wilting:
Smartphone cameras are a dangerous thing, eh?
Let me close this post with one of my favorite sunflower related quotes from one of my favorite inspirational people, Helen Keller. I remember reading her book The Story of My Life as a pre-teen and being blown away by her courage (and her amazing teacher Anne Sullivan who believed in her and taught her to communicate).
Keep your face to the Sunshine and you cannot see the Shadow. It’s what Sunflowers do. – Helen Keller
Originally I had another post in mind but got distracted and decided to instead share some random follow-ups on previous blog posts (the links to the original posts are linked in the headers).
My friend Kathy brought me wool scraps from the Isle of Harris during her trip to Scotland. Today she texted me a photo of what she did with her scraps:
She cut them into hearts using some type of fabric die-cutter and plans to use them in a picture frame. I am inspired by this idea as I have not decided what to do with my Scottish wool scraps yet!
Today was another glorious Autumn day in Central Oregon and during my morning walk I came upon another neglected apple tree, this time at an empty home for sale in the neighborhood.
Hanging and falling from the tree were Nature’s Neglected Bounty of delicious looking red apples.
I grabbed one to eat on the rest of my walk and one to take home and join the rest of left over rescued apples that did not make it into the apple pie I discussed in the post.
It will join its new friends in becoming an apple cake (I plan to try out this Fresh Apple Cake Recipe from allrecipes.com)
I continue to work on the Tango Stripe quilt and recently decided to make a change to my studio to give me more design wall space. I added another design wall next to my sewing machine.
The design wall was made by wrapping a large piece of poster board (from an office supply story) with Warm and Natural batting. I duct tapped it to the back and then screwed the whole thing into the wall.
I now have three design walls: a large one in the hallway; one on my closet door; and one close to my sewing machine.
This third design wall will make it easier to lay out piecing while sewing.
Although my secret project is done related to trees (an art quilt for a future Women of Color Quilting Network exhibit), I am still fascinated with trees and tree bark and continue to take photographs sources of creative inspiration.
They look wonderful in color:
But they are really intriguing in Black & White:
Wouldn’t those all make amazing art quilt inspirations!
September marks the 4th anniversary of our adopting our miniature schnauzer Mike from a rescue organization in September 2014.
Funny he was the dog I said “no way I am adopting him” when I met him due to severe behavioral issues, and now he is one of the great loves of my life.
Here is a recent photo of him, now at 8.5 years old, with his beloved ball!
Well that is enough random following up for one post, talk to you all later, T
Feature Photo by Terri Bleeker on Unsplash
I have created a new Category – “Pilot Butte Adventures” if you would like to read about my other Pilot Butte walks or learn more about Pilot Butte.
Friday, Sept 2 I took the day off from work before the Labor Day weekend. It was a glorious 66 degree day, slightly overcast but with complex swirly clouds interspersed between swaths of impossibly blue sky (it is the only way I can describe the sky in Central Oregon – impossibly blue). I decided it was a perfect day for a Pilot Butte hike.
Playing with my smartphone camera, this time I took photos in B&W during my hike up and down the Butte:
It’s amazing how striking images are when you take away the color. The contrast between objects in a photo is so significant in black & white. I use the B&W (mono or tonal) on my smartphone when I am trying to determine if I have too many mediums in a quilt I am designing. Taking away the color shows the value (light, medium, dark) of a fabric more clearly. Next Pilot Butte hike I plan to play more with B&W photography.
Besides taking photos during Friday’s hike, I listened an awesome audiobook, Spin (2010) by Robert Charles Winston. I am taking a break from nonfiction audiobooks and enjoying a Science Fiction audiobook!
This book is actually a “re-listen” as I first listened to it 5-6 years ago. It is an incredible tale of childhood friendship, longing and loyalty woven into an engaging and spectacular and unique apocalyptic tale. I forgot how much I enjoy being immersed in a well written fictional story!
Although this is a fictional tale, it does touch upon what I perceive as many truths about human nature and the different ways people would react to an end-of-the-world scenario.
The hypothetical science is fascinating and very accessible. I am glad I forgot how its ends and it is fun to rediscover this gem!
POSTSCRIPT
I am getting too influenced my reading all the wonderful blogs I follow. I find myself interested in English Paper Piecing (future post about that and yes I bought a book and a hole punch to make hexagons!) as well as working on a Sampler Quilt (yes a future post about that) and making a Delectable Mountain quilt. I am also tempted to start painting someday and pick up drawing again (which I have not seriously done since I was in Junior High School).
Hmm…following a bunch of blogs by creative individuals is just as bad (or good) as Pinterest binging! It must be the “Crafter ADHD” in me – I see it and I want to do it too!
Hope you are having a wonderful Labor Day weekend!
