NYC was a month ago

I am still struggling with how I want to blog, even though I know it changes all the time. I had intentionally scaled way back but then found it stressful when I had been away for so long because now I'm going to do a big dump of stuff in multiple posts. Not a great method, to feel stressed about not doing something for a while but thinking about it all the time, when I could have been doing it all along. OR, someday I will cultivate not doing it while not feeling stressed about it! Here is a duck family at Penn State.

Because Vagner lives right about halfway between my home and my family, it's a great way to break up the drive. I love visiting the arboretum with him and we can fantasize about all the things we could also do with our gardens if we had giant budgets and staff like this place does.

I went to NYC a month ago to shoot my new artwork and check in on my family, so that was all a success, albeit stressful (which is extremely normal). I gave myself ONE day for myself, which meant checking in with my dear friend Barbara who is always so good about making time and meeting me in a location convenient to me. Before I saw her on a rainy day, I went to the Willa Kim show at the performing arts branch of the NY Public Library. It was great!

Willa Kim was a costume designer for theatre, dance, and so on. She had a huge, long career with lots of successes and I had never heard of her. The show was full of drawings, videos, models for set design, recreations of both stage and studio, photos, documents, and of course, costumes.

This is for a vinegar commercial that played during the Super Bowl in 1989!

And this was a note she made on a script to correct a mistake about when zippers were actually incorporated into clothing. The videos have interviews with her as well as stage productions, and she said in one that she wants people to know that she was the first to use Lycra in costumes, which was a big deal. And another was her in advanced age talking about when she was young, being disparaged by more senior folks. She never forgot the hurt and also never lost the drive to prove herself. While I don't agree that great art only comes from great suffering, I was so glad to spend time with the work of an incredibly talented and prolific Korean American artist.

Then I ran across the way to the folk art museum and was SO delighted by the quilt show. I had been underwhelmed by their offerings since they moved but this one is great.

I know, I have given no context, and that's where I give up and try not to feel guilty: I am too committed to other things to go thru and give all the info. Which is why you should go see the show, so you can see a quilt that looks like a Puerto Rican flag, made of condoms tied together!

Vagner Mendonça Whitehead

Willa Kim exhibit (thru Aug 19)

Folk art museum quilt exhibit (thru Oct 29)