Virginia A. Spiegel

In the studio and stitching away this week.  That sounds like no big deal.  But as I shared in my July art newsletter, I had six big artworks ready to be stitched in June and they proved unstitchable.  And I mean unstitchable.  I tried everything and the layers, the felt backing, whatever! just made it impossible to sew more than an inch without the thread breaking.  So I let them sit, went to the Boundary Waters, and decided (with reluctance and with considerable pain) to just chuck them and start again.

But when I went to my studio, I had a cone of poly/cotton thread on the holder from fixing a piece of camping equipment.  I took down from the design wall the piece I had been torturing with failed stitching attempts and gave it a whirl.  All good to go now.  So I’m a happy (and amazed!) camper now and have three pieces stitched and the fourth one (above) under the needle.

This is what the back looks like; I’m really just securing things at this point as I think about where to take them once this first stitching is done.

This is what the side table looks like when I’m working.  I can’t say any of these threads are the dominant colors of the six pieces, but I like to have a lot of thread out while I’m working.  Neatness optional.

Just back yesterday from a ten-day journey in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with my sister.  This was our 17th trip together and it was as beautiful, challenging, and inspirational as ever.

The mysteries of the wildlife in the Boundary Waters continue to amaze us.  We saw this bug-like creature (see right side of photo with one not yet transformed and one empty shell) crawl out of the water and then we watched the amazing emergence of DRAGONFLIES.  It seemed as though all the dragonflies of one type emerged the same day — safety in numbers??

We also saw two baby and mama moose, loons with varied sizes of babies, windup toy behavior of courting loons, a turtle coming to lay eggs on our site, beavers, otter, many eagles, the remains of the mayfly hatch, mergansers with ducklings, giant toads and spiders, and much, much more.  Ice out was six weeks later than usual in the BW this year and so our late trip was very similar (critter-wise) to previous ones.

We did however experience the joys of the SWARM which we usually miss in cooler weather.  Nancy, portaging the canoe, bravely faced her mosquito companions as they filled the boat.

We experienced every kind of weather from suffocating heat to tornado-like winds.  Every time we went out in the canoe it engendered whitecaps, so we resorted to just saying LTB (Launch The Boat) when we wanted to go journeying.  We were very lucky to always find a campsite just at the moment we thought it was REALLY (say 2′ waves) time to be off the water. We had time for our usual creative pursuits of photography and journaling/sketching and gave landscape drawing a try.  This is about as close-up as I want to show my first efforts at landscape, but, as you can see, I was happy with my efforts.

We ate better than I usually do at home with minestrone and broccoli/red pepper/chicken ranch wraps shown here.

I’m happy to say the BIG PACK hasn’t defeated me yet and I am looking forward to Trip 18 and much more inspiration.

Photo by Nancy J. Spiegel Rosman

If you would like to see more photos from this journey, subscribe to my free e-newsletter. It will feature a special slide show and should be out this week.

A “sister” to this photo was chosen for the exhibit Eye of The Quilter:  Inspiration to be held at International Quilt Festival – Houston, November 4 – 7, 2010.

The theme for the exhibit is Reflections. My artist’s statement:
This photo reflects my artwork in that it appears to be pretty simple, but is actually quite complex. The photo captures the sun reflecting off the black water of a lake sliding toward darkness. The water changes by the minute, by the second; the colors shifting and flashing. My sister and I are alone on this wilderness lake and celebrate that fact. This photo represents freedom, peace, and the the most beautiful kind of silence.

My sister and Mom were here this weekend to assist in hanging this changeable Inspiration Wall in Studio B.  Ingredients:  A box of recycled clipboards with funny labels on them that I acquired for free, a willingness to stand on the Ikea dresser, a long level, and a fair amount of math by three women armed with hammer and nails:

Just back yesterday from the Boundary Waters on the Canadian/Minnesota Borders after another inspiration canoe wilderness camping trip with my sister, Nancy. We both thought this trip would be an easy paddle in, a set up on our favorite campsite on a small lake, and a week spent day tripping here and there.

But Mother Nature knows how to keep you humble and on your toes.  About two minutes after launching the canoe, I took this photo:

And then it really started to be interesting.  It was honestly the biggest and nastiest water I have ever paddled in for so long.  So finally we said, “That’s it” and beat back to a campsite we had visited before.  We were one lake short of where we hoped to be, but very happy to be safely ashore.

Engineer Nancy set up with this tarp wind break that was a great place to cook and be out of the roaring wind and rain:

And so we spent the week on that one campsite with plenty of time for naps, lovely meals, sketching and a daily photography challenge. And in every kind of weather we had coffee break in the afternoon; you know that made me happy:

We also had two sunny days that let us survey our big lake and see mink, eagles, beavers, loons, and more.  Sometimes life gives you just what you need.

My August e-newsletter will be coming out before the end of the month with more exclusive photos and stories from the Boundary Waters .  Not a subscriber? Just send an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE as the header.

These maple seeds just turning pink were very interesting to me.  I photographed them again and again at different times of day and in different light:

My sister and I dubbed our latest Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness adventure “Lucky #15.”  Everything we needed came our way or we avoided potential trouble with seconds to spare.

Nancy portaging in the rain.

A beautiful trip despite some rain, wind, and cold.  Nancy and I shared so many moments of laughter, beauty, and adventure together.

Can you believe wool hat and gloves in June?  I’m treating our water with a UV SteriPen.

Some of the highlights included sharing our campsite overnight with a group of Boy Scouts and their Dads who were caught in a storm, seeing a bear on shore from our canoe, an up-close encounter with a mama moose and her calf, paddling nine miles in rain so hard that Nancy couldn’t see me in the front of the boat, and coming out on a power paddle ahead of big water and rain for which my paddling cadence was, One cup of coffee, two cups of coffee, … fifteen cups of coffee, switch.

I’m a foodie even in the Boundary Waters.  Real eggs scrambled with peppers, onions, and cheese with whole grain toast on the side. The view makes all BW food taste even better.

Cloudy evenings make for gorgeous sunsets reflecting in the water.

Of course, photos are always the best way to share the beauty and excitement of the Boundary Waters with you.  If you receive my e-newsletter, there will be more photos and news in the July issue being released soon.

I invite you to join the community of Patrons and Art Friends who receive my free e-newsletter. Send an e-mail today to Virginia(at)VirginiaSpiegel.com with the subject line: SUBSCRIBE.