Here’s a hot tip: Thursday March 10 is the second annual Founder’s Day Sale, at Honey Girl Books and Gifts LLC! Original children’s books and quilts of all colors and styles. “Cozy, with an edge.”
That means 50% off select items… for one day only. Posted below are all the items that will be on sale!
… and a singing bird will come.*
The sunny weather makes this a perfect day for a Quilt Show on my back porch! Today I’m unveiling the brand-new “Seattle Quilt” no. 4, which sports a green Seahawks T-shirt in its center, alongside “Seattle Quilt” no. 3 (with a navy blue Seahawk jersey) and “Seattle Quilt” no. 2, an homage to West Seattle. All three are available now!
*Proverb recounted in Neurodharma, by Rick Hanson.
A pattern is now emerging. Making quilts designed by people who live nearby is creating a sense of roots sprouting under my feet! We are winners all in this game of life, when we share the joy of creating.
2. Winning quilt from November 20, 2021 Holiday Bazaar in the Alki Masonic Hall, West Seattle, WA:
Take your chance at designing–and winning–your own handmade art quilt, this Saturday, December 4 from 1-4pm, at the Holiday Makers Market at West Seattle Grounds coffee shop! The drawing will be held at 3:45pm, so don’t delay…
This misty grey morning, as I peer out at Elliott Bay and think about the voyage ahead–down the hill in the rain, onto the water taxi and across the bay, up through Pioneer Square to Chinatown where I’ll do T’ai chi at the Seattle Kung Fu Club studio, I feel energized and serene. Reading Peter Ralston lately has been inspiring, and to practice T’ai chi and make quilts at the same time seems somehow philosophically coherent.
As Ralston writes in Principles of Effortless Power, “Only the ‘form’ survives of anything created and then passed on in time, since creativity resides within what is formless and this formlessness cannot survive, having never existed. Therefore, only when the form is being consciously created in this moment is it truly useful and representative of its origin” (xx).
The form, message, and feel of a quilt become visible over time, as seen in the photos below, dated 11/20/21 and 11/26/21. Once created, it is. You can feel it with your hands and face, snuggle under its warmth, enjoy its bright colors and patterns. It may fade if left in the sun, or be stained by some accident, yet a quilt will usually survive a pretty long time.
The Form we practice in T’ai chi comes to life in time as well. Yet once created, it is gone, until next time.
So far, I’ve learned about 20 minutes of the Wu Form. When I practice, I feel like I’m inhabiting a timeless realm where themes and refrains repeat through space, spiraling and stepping to some unknown beat. Can’t wait for class!
P.S. These photos of the water taxi and Chinatown are from July 2018, when we had just moved here. They do not represent the world as it looks today, on 11/27/2021. the fog hangs heavy over the water this morning… making the world just a little more quiet.
Photographs by Megan Swann, Seattle, June 2021
Photographed at West Seattle Grounds coffee shop, the new hot spot (air conditioned) in the North Admiral neighborhood!
Quilts available exclusively from Honey Girl Books and Gifts LLC.
This year and from here on out, I believe it is appropriate to recognize Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Juneteenth commemorates the June 19, 1865 announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army general Gordon Granger, proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas, and is celebrated on June 18-19 this year. (Hope our government does the right thing and makes this a national holiday; yesterday’s announcement was a great step in that direction.)
To celebrate Juneteenth, I’m offering a discount of 50% off all custom-made “Respect” quilts and wall-hangings! Decorate your house with a soulful message. Two days only, June 18-19, 2021. Check it out on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/HoneyGirlBooksGifts
The quilts are made primarily of fabrics designed by and/or purchased from Black businesswomen in the USA, and $100 from every sale is donated to the Boys and Girls Clubs of the USA. Every Respect quilt includes the square seen above (though the “respect” is implied rather than shouted: it comes out indirectly, in the symbols, textures, and images on the quilt… “)
Hey everybody! Weird couple days, eh?
Since I’ve already expressed my view on the recent, lamentable events of the Trump regime, I’m ready to move on now. Got to cheer up. I began the day in the usual way.*
But today, before I sat down to work, I could not resist playing Janelle Monáe’s stirring anthem, “Turntables”— and sharing it here. I can’t be a pessimist and we can survive. You can survive. I LOVE THIS SONG! Click on that link. Get up out of that chair, listen to the song, look at the video, dance around, punch the air, punch the f****s, and get ready to move on, cause the tables bout to turn! 12 more days.
This song is totally in sync with “Respect” quilt no. 6 (above, in progress), which juxtaposes two vignettes in Sheila Bridges’ Harlem Toile de Jouy around the gorgeous silhouette of a proud Afro-wearing woman (designed by AphroChic), to show the power of art to change the world.
The square on the left features an elegant lady facing a maid holding a mirror. I added a gold crown on pink cotton, and a big bloom from a vintage bedsheet (thanks, Aunt Babe!) to lend an air of baroque excess to her coiffure. On the right there is the same scene minus the elegant lady, of the servant holding a mirror, but this one is printed on red. The mirror-holder is cut from the lady and juxtaposed to a strip of black and brown flames above a square of shiny red satin. Result? Instead of being a lady-in-waiting, the lady holding the mirror is now in charge. She’s an artist, a poet, mirroring the new reality of a world going up in flames.
Enjoy the inspiration, and get through the days as best you can, safely and kindly. We can do this!
* with “morning pages” and a conversation with great minds of my choice. This is a practice I began 23 weeks ago, inspired by J. Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way. Well, she urges the three morning pages. I added the great minds to think with. Today, I read around and found gems in Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit, Sir William Osler, Osler’s “Way of Life” and other Lectures, and Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air. Wonderful stuff.
Later on, I read the New York Times, and lamented briefly, despondently, about our nation’s leadership. Then I moved on. Now I’m going back to work, back to my art, and the community of sisterly souls (at least in imagination).
Audre Lorde once challenged us, saying: “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, in an essay that stands alone in the annals of feminist thought. It’s the ultimate conundrum, the inflexible status quo: our master patriarchy and its soul-mate capitalism. Their attitudes, expectations, their demands persist. Yet we try.
Lord knows I tried, during my stints in the ND administration. And now I’ve moved on, leaving the next generation of generous women to see what they can do.
Now I’m communicating in a different medium, of fabric instead of faculty meetings. Now I tell my views in the abstract, universal languages of color, shape, and texture, to convey wisdom, build community and share love. Now I use the tools of the mistress.
Yet the tensions live on.
Looking at “Respect” quilt no. 5 this morning in the frosty light, I see a visual response to Audre Lorde. The black arabesque lines of the black-and-white trim (formerly a duvet cover) now appear like wrought-iron filigree, the bars of a black gate, a baroque barricade. These vertical lines of fabric (inspired by the quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend), which are broken by the vibrant squares, reveal my interpretation of “Respect”.
They tell of strong women embracing life. Powerful metaphors–of grinning skulls, dancing feet, peace symbols, girls jumping rope, horses running, clouds, whirlwinds–are unleashed and draw in the eye, capturing the gaze in dream-like intensity. This story is bursting through the wrought-iron gates. And it will persist; it’s well sewn.
Happy hopeful holidays to all!
*Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” who dedicated both her life and her creative talent to confronting and addressing injustices of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and homophobia. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, a book of feminist essays, was published in 1979.
I came to love her feisty spirit in graduate school in the 1980s, inspired by the radical work I was learning about in Women’s Studies (estab. 1982), with strong, witty professors such as Christine Stansell, Natalie Zemon Davis, Joan DeJean, Kay Warren, and Sandra Gilbert. And that quote, that concept, that challenge, has stayed with me ever since, like a nagging reminder of the work to be done and a depressing reminder of how fragile progress is, how ubiquitous the forces of “order.”
P.S. “Respect” quilt no. 5 is destined to another person who inspires us: renowned artist, quilt-maker and writer Faith Ringgold. More on that to come! I’m hoping to be able to wish her a Merry Christmas and Happy Quilt Day on 12/25… gotta get back to work!
You heard it here first! The eminent scholar, author, curator, and expert quilter, Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, supports the “Respect” quilts I’m making; in fact she considers it “a very meaningful project.” Thank you Dr. Mazloomi!
***
The “Respect” quilt project: Post-election Update and Jubilation!
The “Respect” quilt is a result of Black and white creators working together to honor Black women’s beauty, history, and resilience. It is also a timely product for this moment, when we celebrate that a Black woman, Kamala Harris, has become VP-Elect of the USA!
ORIGINS: The first “Respect” quilt was created by a former teacher, a white woman, for a former student of hers, a Black woman in South Bend, Indiana. When in her class at age 15, the young woman wrote and illustrated a short story, Overcoming Adversity, which stayed in the mind of her teacher all these years. (Discussions are afoot about revising it and publishing it with Honey Girl Books and Gifts LLC.) “Respect” quilt no. 1 was delivered in October 2020; she loves it!
MATERIALS and IMAGERY: The “Respect” quilts tell little stories, each one different, through fabrics such as the historical vignettes of antebellum Blacks in “Harlem Toile de Jouy” designed by Sheila Bridges, and the stunning black on white AphroChic silhouettes (both of Brooklyn, NY), African fabrics from Cultured Expressions (Rahway, NJ) and other fabrics purchased from African-American business women across the USA, including Our Fabric Stash in the Pike Place Market (Seattle). The quilt backs are more overtly political: the red fabric is decorated with a swath of denim with a pocket, and three patches: a portrait in yellow and black of Malcolm X, “One Love,” and “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance.”
TIMELINE and COMMITMENT: “Respect” quilt no. 3 is now available! No. 4 is already reserved. Nos. 5 and 6 are coming along nicely. The series will continue indefinitely. After an abrupt realization of my own many privileges (again) this past summer, as I remembered that Grandma D. was born and raised in Rhodesia–a British colony, what is now Zimbabwe–and Grandpa D.’s family emigrated from England to South Africa, yet I no one ever told us why, or whose lives they impacted, I have vowed to make “Respect” quilts a part of my legacy. Maybe someday others will join, and “Respect” quilts will cover the country! This is meant as a way to give back to Black women and girls the love and admiration they deserve, now, and from this generation forward.
TWO WAYS WE GIVE BACK:
1. Retail sales (online). At $779.99 each, the “Respect” quilts sold on the HGBG Etsy website (below) are a fund-raiser for the Boys and Girls Clubs of St Joseph County, IN & King County, WA. For every “Respect” quilt sold, 50% of the proceeds, minus materials, are donated to the BGCA.
2. Inner circle & non-profit offer (by invitation): At $250 each (cost of materials), a “Respect” quilt can be made for a church benefit, political fund-raiser or given to a well-deserving person of your choice.
Warm wishes,
Julia, Honey Girl Books and Gifts
https://www.etsy.com/shop/HoneyGirlBooksGifts
https://www.honeygirlbooks.com/
Seattle, WA
Beyoncé is celebrating her birthday today, September 4!
I’m celebrating with her, by unveiling some blocks of the “Respect Quilts” which are coming to life, bit by bit, every day as I work on them. The white canvas fabric with black silhouettes is by Brooklyn designer Aphrochic; awesome, right?!
Aphrochic describes the fabric like this: “This striking silhouette is an homage to African American women of the 1960s and 70s, whose confidence, freedom of expression and beauty epitomized the “Black Is Beautiful” movement at its height. Presented in a modern, forward facing cameo, this pattern expresses the qualities that defined these women through two tumultuous decades while displaying Afros in all their glory.”
As my hipster son pointed out, they also resemble the oh-so-cool look adopted by Beyoncé in Austin Powers: Goldmember.
A great commentary on this, from “How can I control my hair?” who writes, “This has to be one of my all time favorite Beyoncé hair dos. Coming to the big screen as the lead lady in the hilarious Austin Powers: Goldmember. Beyoncé, as ‘Foxy Cleopatra,’ accessorized her gravity-defying Afro with hats and chopsticks to set the scene when Austin Powers finds her in 1975. She also sang on the soundtrack with her smash hit “Work It Out,” rocking a looser and more modern ‘fro.”
Fabulous ladies, looking marvelous: the theme of “Respect Quilts” and a suitable tribute to the birthday girl.
more to come
xo
J
Daily Joy with Honey Girl 