Pushing through

I haven’t been here for awhile. What happened;

• Sam came down with anaplasmosis from a tick bite and was in the hospital for most of 5 days.
• I went to Connecticut and New York to visit family and friends.

It’s felt like a whirlwind. There was a lot of uncertainty. First, over what was wrong with him – although really, it should have been obvious, ticks are everywhere here. Then over whether I should go away because he had just started doxycycline. He started to feel better immediately after starting the antibiotics, so I ended up going. I had to do a lot of planning at the last minute.

It was a complicated trip. The family part involved meeting my son at his dad’s house in Connecticut, arranging a restaurant meal for my brother, sister, self, and son, then driving son back to his dad’s house. Hours of driving…

The next day I took a train from New Canaan to Harlem-125th Street to meet my friend Suzanne for a visit to MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art. It was about 95 degrees in New York and we did a lot of walking. It was so physically strenuous that I didn’t register that much at the museum. We visited three exhibits:

• Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction
• Jack Whitten, the Messenger
• Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers

I was honestly most impressed and wowed by Jack Whitten’s work, an artist I never heard of before. No photos or videos can show what I connected to in his work. Let’s say it was in two things: grids and sparkles. Lots of sparkles. The weaving exhibit juxtaposed various non-woven art like a painting by Paul Klee (one of my favorite artists) and another painting by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Both of these especially said “quilt design” to me.

Hilma af Klint placed precise diagrams – circles and squares – on each of her botanical watercolors.

In its concatenation of plant drawing, diagram, and spirit, the artist’s unpublished flora conjoins two modes of investigation, two ways of knowing. It may seem that examining the visible world and envisioning a world that cannot be seen are at odds, but together they offer a perspective shaped by interconnectedness, a recognition of the immanence of all living things.

Jodi Hauptman, from exhibition catalogue

Looking back, I wish I had made a photo essay of all the squares and grids in those exhibits. I was interpreting everything in terms of how it related to quilting, patchwork.

The third full day of my trip, my friend and I walked in Rockefeller State Park Preserve and Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture. Another hot day but not quite as hot, and through some cooling woods. After lunch in Pleasantville, I drove partway home. Finished the drive on Thursday through rain most of the way through Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

I am very glad to be home. Sam’s almost done with his course of antibiotics. He seems a little tired and sometimes lacks appetite, but on the whole, he seems well.

I don’t remember what I saw that prompted me to say “I could make that design in stitch.” Maybe it was something in the museum, maybe something very ordinary. When I got home I stitched this square on my October quilt. French knots and radiating spokes of stitch that became daisies. There are about five more squares to finish on that quilt. I should just push through and finish it. But enough of pushing for now, time for some more lazy days of summer if such a thing exists.