Six weeks, ten boats, and Studio Room 222 ...

Traveling with good companions makes for a joyful time
along the road so when I decided on an impromptu road trip to Portland,
I included two very friendly books [seeing as how the Fluffy One could not come along, alas].

One book for inspiration ...

World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down ... 
which I first learned of  HERE  and proved perfect
for rest stops & ferry rides.   The other book was pure entertainment,

a downloadable Audio.  Where'd you go, Bernadette  did manage to keep me
thoroughly awake for many a driving hour
and I'm convinced this is a valuable way to [safely] travel solo.

I was looking forward to my first visit to the Oregon College of Art + Craft.

With a kindred name to my alma mater in CA, I suspected an environs lit up with

creativity and dedicated study, just like my old stomping grounds.

Although this time, I did have a very different purpose in mind.

Indigo-dyed shirt remnants

and

land-bound porcelain boats

were what I'd come to see ...

amongst other things.

My friend, India Flint, just completed a six-week Artist in Residence at OCAC

and decided to hold an *open house.*

Not wishing to pass up a possibly unreapeatable opportunity,

and knowing that soon she would be departing our western shores to head home

after three long months away, 

well ...  let's just say I can pack like a whirling dervish when needs demand.

In short,

there was no way I was not going to say "Three Cheers!" in person

and have a little look-see.

Here is what awaited in Studio Room 222 ...

~ dust coat left, wind songs [folded paper] right ~

India's poem, stellata, below

~ stitching detail, from dustcoat ~

~ blue angel, left ... hummingbird, right ~

I was quite taken with these magical frocks ... utterly sublime

and mysterious in their fragile way.

Completely stitched by hand, one could spend hours examining all the

folds and gathers.

These beauties [and others] are destined for an ancient castle high on a hill ...

opening on June 21st, 2014, The Nine Daughters of Eve, a duo exhibition

with Sally Stafford [painter, UK]

Evoramonte Castle, Portugal.

oh, to be a fly on those stone walls ...

~ detail, from blue angel dress ~

*** Side note:  should you wish to see more of India's dresses
there's a stunning array [and more] over at
Church Boutique  in Los Angeles ...
website page is HERE

~ sweet dreams ~

porcelain boats

Laid on a table, nine bisque-fired boats.  A fine story

must be developing here ...

~ detail, from sweet dreams ~

The studio being a bit small, filled as it was with all the lovelies,

India sat out in the hall, greeting visitors

and stitching on a lapful of indigo ...

I shall never tire of watching those hands work.

~ detail, notebook installation ~

~ notebook ~

~ unfinished blues ~

~ unfinished blues, alternate view ~

~ detail, from unfinished blues ~

~ detail, from unfinished blues ~

~ detail, from unfinished blues ~

: : :

The practicing artist is, by definition, someone who is able

to build a life around his or her own creative work.

Inevitably, such a person will have considered his or her

attitude to time.  What matters is not how much they actually have,

but how best to inhabit it and make it spacious:

how to allow room in which attention can take root.

Such choices are important for all of us, whatever we are

trying to create.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote of a "timeless region ...

lying beyond human clocks and calendars altogether."

It is a place that many of us have sought in vain, a place

of patience and apprenticeship, and, finally, of creativity,

a "small non-time space in the very heart of time."

~ from, World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down ~

by Christian McEwen

: : :

A mere six weeks and ten boats later, studio Room 222 was filled floor-to-ceiling

with new, inspired work ... all because textile artist, India Flint,

was given the gift of time.