Art, photography, marketing, and more from Carol Logan Newbill
Where would you go, anyplace in the world, if you had the time and money (and a spouse who would travel by air)?
I’d hate to choose just one trip, but I think that my first trip would be to Roma. I first fell in love with Rome some twenty years ago when I read a novel, When in Rome, by Ngaio Marsh. It wasn’t one of her best efforts, this book, except for the intricate and completely captivating description of the fictional Basilica di San Tommaso:
Winter is over. I wore shorts Saturday for the first time and Sunday I got my first (half-dozen) mosquito bites.
Now you must understand that mosquitoes will home in on me from a radius of approximately 17.2 miles, and that I am uncomfortably allergic to quite a few species of them. This evening I look like I have the mumps — both sides of my face swelled from the welts.
I’m also either allergic to or can’t stand the smell of every insect repellant on the market, so that’s not a solution I can live with either. Those of you who live in cold climates and are housebound for seven or eight months because of the snow? Cold weather is the only time of year I can go outside here. I’m housebound for that same seven or eight months, only in the summer, because of the heat, humidity, and insects.
We’ve already decided that when my husband retires we are moving to New Mexico. In all the time I’ve spent there, I’ve been bit by mosquitoes two times, both near an acequia, and neither one was a species that caused an allergic reaction. I love the desert and I can breathe at high altitude (no allergies!) and I do not mind the heat as long as the humidity is low.
Besides, I can’t get really good chiles rellenos anywhere in this part of the country — no Hatch chiles.
Of course, as I told him a couple years back, we can’t go back to the national parks for about a thousand years, until they build some more ruins. He’s already seen them all.
After posting my “historic marker” in yesterday’s entry on Sloth Day, I was reminded of an incident that occurred some six years ago.
My son and I were in New Mexico. I’d been there on business. When my stuff was done he flew out to meet me in Albuquerque and we spent another week together before driving home to Alabama. The original plan was for my husband to come too, but he’d got stuck with a project at work and wasn’t able to get away.
On this brilliant summer day in the desert, we were driving from Albuquerque to Alamogordo, heading east across US 380. The road was empty; no other cars in sight.
We passed a historic marker, and then another. At the third one, a car was pulled off the road and a man was standing near the marker. As we drove by on the highway and the car no longer screened him, we both noticed that the gentleman in question was — um — relieving himself on the base of the post. We looked at each other, surprised, and laughed, but said nothing.
Until we approached the fourth historic marker along the road, and my son said dryly: “Ah, yes, another place of historic interest. I wonder who took a whiz here.”
Thank you very much to everyone to commented on Tuesday’s post about collage. You’ve helped me clarify my thinking on the subject and put it firmly behind me. Collage can be nice, but at this point I don’t think it’s for me.
While I was mulling over those issues and opinions, I received a package that is leading to some new work. I hope to have some pictures in a day or so.
Meanwhile, for your reading pleasure, a post from last September about a recent stroll down Canyon Road in Santa Fe.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Santa Fe
I was on my way to Taos to teach a week-long class in surface design. Because of the high altitude, I always try to arrive a day or two early in order to acclimate a bit. This year I decided to take my couple of days in Santa Fe, a city that I love and come back to as often as I can.
I spent the morning doing some basic shopping and about 2:30 pm I went downtown. I stopped at the visitors� center to pick up my yearly supply of tourist literature. (They give away a fantastic assortment of art-related magazines and catalogs — great inspirational material!) Parked on Alameda and walked over to Canyon Road to take some pictures, then ended up walking all the way up to Thirteen Moons before coming back.
As I walked up the road, I was captivated by the display on the front of Canyon Road Contemporary Art. When a picture calls from across the street, it�s time to go look.
Well, after unearthing the World’s Most Hideous UFO yesterday, I challenged myself to figure out if there was anything – anything at all – that I could do to rescue or recycle it.
The red thread on black vaguely reminded me of lava, so I took the theme from there. The cracks are fine, but I’m not terribly pleased with the face:
The original drawing looked much more like an old woman with wrinkles. It lost something when I drew it on the organza.
On the bright side, I now know how to singe the edges of silk to seal them without letting the fire get away from me, so all in all, this little piece must be counted at least a minor success.
I love old buildings.
This is the Florentine Building in downtown Birmingham. It was built in 1927 as a private club, with the dining and meeting rooms on the first floor and a huge ballroom taking up the whole of the second floor. The original owner had lavish plans for expansion – the foundations were built to support ten stories.
Unfortunately, the Great Depression interfered with his plans and the additional floors were never built.
Here’s a better view of the terra cotta ornamentation on the second floor. Henry Upson Sims wanted it to look like the lavish palaces of Fiorenza and spared no expense in its exuberance. I can’t readily find the original cost, but one of my reference books states that it was the most expensive building per square foot built in Birmingham up to that time.
Every time I pass the Florentine Building, I am reminded of a line from Paul Simon’s song Call Me Al, the one about “angels in the architecture.” The cherubim are still there, looking down on the streets, a lovely terra cotta treat for those who lift up their eyes from the city sidewalks.
I found this painted on the side of a warehouse near downtown. Notice how the artist extended the tail of the ghost from the metal siding onto the concrete footing of the building?
I haven’t often seen graffiti showing that much attention to detail.
Downtown Birmingham, Alabama. It’s the narrowest little place in the world, tucked into a space that was once a shared staircase between the two buildings that flank it:Â Pete’s Famous Hot Dogs.
You open the door, which takes up almost the entire front of the building, and you go inside. There’s the grill and the counter on the right, the wall on the left, and just enough room for an average-size person in the middle. Behind the counter are Gus and Kathy, dispensing hot dogs and soft drinks in bottles.
My daughter knows them, and she can’t believe I’ve lived all my life here without ever having a Pete’s Famous.
The weather’s been absolutely beautiful the last few days: quite cold for Alabama, sunny and dry. It feels like midwinter in New Mexico.
And since I spent much of the day giving a program to a local guild and haven’t had a chance to work on much that was new, here is a mural on the wall of a business in El Prado, a village just north of Taos, taken early one morning in September.
Back with something textile-related tomorrow. :)
I’m having a mild case of creative block. I haven’t had time the last day or two to work on the Pepper Project and the Patchwork Grilled Cheese isn’t coming together as I want it.
So here for the moment is a travel tale from New Mexico.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Santa Fe
I was on my way to Taos to teach a week-long class in surface design. Because of the high altitude, I always try to arrive a day or two early in order to acclimate a bit. This year I decided to take my couple of days in Santa Fe, a city that I love and come back to as often as I can.
I spent the morning doing some basic shopping and about 2:30 pm I went downtown. I stopped at the visitors’ center to pick up my yearly supply of tourist literature. (They give away a fantastic assortment of art-related magazines and catalogs – great inspirational material!) Parked on Alameda and walked over to Canyon Road to take some pictures, then ended up walking all the way up to Thirteen Moons before coming back.
As I walked up the road, I was captivated by the display on the front of Canyon Road Contemporary Art. When a picture calls from across the street, it’s time to go look.
Art- and quilt-related posts. For other business-related topics, please visit my other blog.
