The Cheap Seats

Who sits in the sun when the heat index is above one hundred degrees? I could see those sun-struck people from my slightly more comfortable seat on the opposite side of the Nationals' stadium. They were a blur of yellow T shirts, made brighter by the last hour of unrelenting sunshine. Melting in my own seat, I climbed to the upper deck. Ah, a breeze, and a better view of a hazy sunset. The friends in yellow T shirts were clapping and waving, having a fine time. They may have been stuck in the hottest seats, but they were all in it together.

Chairs and Shadows

Sometimes the random photos are more intriguing than those I have set out to shoot. Every morning for two weeks, I climbed the stairs leading to the second floor classrooms at the Columbus College of Art and Design. The door opens onto a sunny landing with tall windows. Each time, a roving herd of snazzy turquoise-seated chairs greeted me as I headed toward the QSDS office. The metal frames and  openwork seats of those chairs threw intriguing shadows onto the concrete floor. The patterns varied, determined by the positions of the chairs. This is my favorite photo. Symposium attendees have drawn and stitched chair portraits and taken crayon rubbings of their backs. Chairs as inspiration.

Sky Lines

Today is the final day of classes at QSDS, the Quilt Surface Design Symposium. Traveling from classroom to classroom, I have been looking at a lot of lines. There have been colorful fabrics carefully pieced into impossibly skinny lines, parallel rows of machine stitching, lines cut and fused from bright, bold prints, hand-stitched lines and lines created  by drawing, stamping or painting. In a mixed media class, ridges of corrugated cardboard share tables with curving queues of colored staples. Walking across the campus, there is a spot where I can stand near a large ring-shaped sculpture and look up at the soaring red metal ART sculpture that is the local landmark. There they were, silver crossing red: lines set against a perfect sky.

Ornamented Dashboard

My friend Tracy loves all things sparkly. Her car's dashboard is a wonder to behold. Saints and hula girls wiggle and wobble amidst a garden of beads, jewels, glittery stickers and teeny tiny "yard art" figurines. Being an artist is a 24-hour thing. The creative drive includes the need to organize and alter one's environment. Most people spend a large part of each day in their cars, a cage of boring black plastic, chrome and vinyl. The impulse to decorate, to ornament, to arrange bits of glass and plastic in colorful patterns makes perfect sense to me. It's the car of an artist and a true Art Car.