Self Portrait With Boy

Art is rooted in experience, and artists plumb their lives for their art. I think of F. Scott Fitzgerald and how he appropriated Zelda's letters and diaries and story for his work, or Thomas Wolfe whose first novel Look Homeward, Angel caused a ruckus in his hometown that was so thinly veiled in the book. And I think of Elizabeth Strout's recent novel My Name is Lucy Barton whose character is told she must be ruthless in her art. Artists are faced with telling the truth or protecting others.

On the first page of Self Portrait With Boy, we are told the main character,  photographer Lu Rile, is described as "ruthless," single minded. Lu, looking back on what happened twenty years previous, talks about the trauma behind the work that catapulted her into the limelight.

The novel begins with Lu admitting that at age twenty-six "there were so many people I had not yet become." I loved that line because it reflects how I have seen my life since I was a teenager: life as a continual process of growth and change, so that we become different people as we age.

Lu was a squatter in an old factory inhabited by artists. She worked several low paying jobs and barely scraped by. She felt like an outsider, a girl who grew up poor and does not understand the world of the well-off and well-known artists around her.

Because she can not afford anything else, Lu became her own model and every day takes a self portrait. One day, she set the timer on her camera and jumped, naked, in front of the large windows in her unheated apartment. When she developed the film she discovered that in the background she has captured the fatal fall of a child.

The child's parents became alienated in their grief, the successful artist father moving out while the mother, Kate, leaned on Lu for support. It had been years since Lu had been close to anyone. She is unable to tell Kate about the photograph.

Weird occurrences made Lu believe the boy was haunting her and she became desperate to get rid of the photograph. Lu's father needed money for surgery, and she was pressured to join the others in the building in hiring a lawyer. Lu knew her photo was an amazing work and she struggled between reaching for success and the love she felt for Kate and her admiration for Steve.

Rachel Lyon's writing is amazing. I loved how she used sights, sounds, and aromas to make Lu's world real. This is her debut novel.

Self-Portrait with Boy: A Novel
by Rachel Lyon
Scribner
Pub Date 06 Feb 2018 
ISBN: 9781501169588
PRICE: $26.00

Intuitive Color & Design: Adventures in Art Quilting by Jean Wells, Updated 2nd Edition

Jean Wells started one of  America's first quilt shops in 1975, which she runs with her daughter, quilter and author Valori Wells. She has published thirty books, including the updated, second edition of Intuitive Color & Design.  

Wells begins with the basics of design and its application to quilting then teaches how to design and complete an original quilt. Assignments throughout the book offer readers a chance to learn through experience. The book is heavily illustrated, showing inspiration photographs, finished quilts, and line drawing showing the processes.

Inspiration for Quilt Design explains how Wells uses photographs, inspired by light and lines, for the basis of her abstracted interpretations. In her chapter on Journaling she illustrates how she uses journals and sketchbooks.

In Elements of design, she shows how to create abstraction from life, and use scale, shape, pattern, texture, value, and color.  Principles of Design explains balance, center of interest, repetition, variety and proportion, unity or harmony.

Color Through My Eyes considers inspiration, palette choice, color and pattern, principles of color, value and contrast, intensity, contrast, and volume. Palettes can reflect seasons, places, or personality.

The Design Process in the second part of the book leads quilters through tools and techniques used in art quilting, including piecing techniques, choosing batting, and finishing the quilt. Piecing techniques include intuitive angle piecing, rulerless butting and piecing, narrow-insert piecing, straight-line insert, detail piecing, and corner-curve piecing. Piecing techniques used for art quilts is very different from traditional piecing. Wells offers assignments to help quilters to master them.

Finishing the edges of art quilts include raw-edge finish, using a facing, creating a fabric 'matting' behind the art quilt, and creating 3-D quilts.

Wells offers Advice on What To Do When You Get Stuck and the critique process.

Fields of Provence by Jean Wells 

This is an essential book for serious art quilters.

from the publisher's website:

Jean Wells gives you the assignment of your life: put away your ruler and use your inner vision to design and piece spectacular, free-form quilts you'd never have guessed you could create. In this updated edition of best-selling Intuitive Color & Design, Jean’s workshop assignments get your creative juices flowing, giving you challenges to expand your quilting horizons. Start by learning to see line and color; study the nuts and bolts of design; develop your color work and composition; and when you get stuck, there’s expert advice on problem solving. You will never see quiltmaking in the same way again.

• Creative exercises take your use of color, line, design, and piecing in dramatic new directions
• Use photographs and journals to find inspiration and develop your ideas with Jean’s updated, expert guidance
• Learn innovative finishing techniques to show your quilts at their best
• Classroom-proven techniques make the adventure easy for any quilter

Available now from C&T Publishers in soft cover and ebook.

Daphne by Will Boast: Fleeing from Passion

When thirteen-year-old Daphne was reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy she was overcome with the wild passion of teenage imagination; first a buzzing sensation lit her body and then she dropped the book and was unable to move.

It happened, too, with sudden noises, fear, or strong emotions. She hid her affliction as best she could, for Dr. Bell's infinite tests brought no cure, only an unwelcome explanation: an autoimmune disorder had attacked part of her brain.

Daphne became an expert in tightly controlling her life--no unexpected jolts allowed, no passion--just routine, and her mantra and calming images to ward off the attacks that left her immobile and vulnerable.

Until into her life came a man, sweet and kind and patient. But can Daphne allow him into her life?

I read this short novel in a day. The inspiration is the myth of Daphne, a nymph pursed by Apollo who was saved from his lust when the river god turned her into the Laurel tree.

Apollo and Daphne by Bernini

Daphne grapples with numerous challenges along with her disability. Her father died when she was only five. Her mother has finally met a man and is ready to move on with her life. Daphne feels responsibility to her support group members, her childhood best friend who takes big risks for business contacts, and to her staff at her job in a lab which uses dogs as test subjects studies in longevity. She tries to keep boundaries up and yet she would also like to free the dogs.

When life seems too much to bear, she considers her options. Should she, like her support group friend, end it all? Return home, vanquished, admitting she failed at having a life of her own? Or accept that no one is perfect?

Daphne by Will Boast is a beautifully written book that caught me by surprise. I understood Daphne's weariness at being 'different', having grown up with a mother with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis; Mom once asked me if I had been ashamed of her. For all the pain and isolation of Daphne's life, the disappointment that no one can ever really understand her reality, she is resilient.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Daphne: A Novel
by Will Boast
W. W. Norton & Company
Liveright Publishing
Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
Hardcover $25.95
ISBN: 9781631493034

And a Little Child Shall Lead Them: Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

Zach is seven years old when his world collapses. A mentally ill man enters his elementary school with a gun. One of those murdered is Zach's ten year old brother Andy, a bright and vivacious child with Oppositional Defiant Disorder whose management had already stressed their parent's marriage. They are unable to agree on anything now: the mother bent on revenge, the father showing understanding of Zach's regression while he goes to work and carries on.

Zach is left on his own to deal with the conflicting feelings he is experiencing. In his secret hideout in Andy's closet he colors his emotions on separate paper; they are easier to handle this way. Red for embarrassment for peeing in bed like a baby. Black for for being scared and the bad dreams at night in which he relives the day of the school shooting. Green, like the Incredible Hulk, for anger. Gray for the sadness, like clouds on a rainy day.

He also returns to his favorite book series in which children learn the secrets of happiness.

Rhiannon's debut novel Only Child is written in Zach's voice, told from his perspective. The adult world feels distant and nearly unmindful of his existence. As adult readers, we understand the hints that pass over Zach's understanding. And we are heartbroken for Zach and for his parents as well.

It is marvelous that Zach is the moral compass of the story. He demonstrates a wisdom that the adults lack; caught up in their own pain they are oblivious to each other's needs. Zach seeks for healing and wholeness, and as the novel ends with Christmas time arrived, he is truly the light which comes to show the way to salvation for his broken family: forgiveness, kindness, thinking of others, and clinging to love.

The journey into the horror of a school shooting resolves by showing us how to live in this world. In the end, I was glad to have read this book, even now in mid-December when others turn to light holiday fare.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Only Child: A novel
By Rhiannon Navin
Hardcover $25.95
Knopf
Publication Date: Feb 06, 2018
ISBN 9781524733353

The Which Way Tree: Revenge and Obsession in the Old West

The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook commanded my attention from the fist page. I loved the voice and the story kept my interest.

In 1866 Texas, Ben is called to testify about a murder incident that occurred three years previous. The judge hopes to determine if  Hanlin murdered eight Union soldier prisoners. Ben said he had come across Hanlin at the scene of the crime and that he was also at Hanlin's death.

A natural story teller, the boy's statement starts at the beginning of his life and the circuit judge, needing to move one, asks the boy to write down his testimony and mail it to him.

In a series of letters the boy relates a tale of single-minded vengeance.

Ben's mother died when he was a few years old. His father brought home a former slave to take care of the home and children; Sam was soon born.

When Ben was eight a panther attacked Sam. Her Sam's mother fought the cat and hacked off several of its toes. She died saving Sam's life, but the girl was left hideously scarred.

After the death of their father, the children struggled on their own. The nearby Civil War prisoner of war camp have cleared out ready game. Ben must travel far for game and one day he happened upon Hanlin pick-pocketing the bodies of dead Union prisoners.

Sam is obsessed with killing the panther. While stalking the panther, the children come into conflict with Hanlin. They rescue his prisoner Pacheco. Hanlin now holds a grudge against them, but in Pacheco they have found a friend.

Ben's Testament is told in a series of letters, showing a fatalistic acceptance of his hard life in a hostile environment filled with danger from Secesh, Indians, and bandits. He works a job and takes care of their few livestock but Sam is idle and defiant. Her obsession with killing the deadly panther takes the children on a journey fraught with danger and filled with colorful characters who have lived ungodly lives.

Preacher Dob warns Sam that vengeance belongs to the Lord, and she replies, only if he can beat me to it. Preacher Dobs found religion and seeks to expiate his sins. The Mexican Pacheco knows all his mistakes are behind him.

Ben's life is filled with loss and hardship but there is something noble and perfect about him. He is unassuming and grateful and earns the judge's esteem. And the readers. He is a marvelous creation.

Ben is a natural story-teller and the judge comes to appreciate the boy's love of writing. When Ben requests more paper and ink, the judge readily provides them. When Ben complains about his worn quill pen, wishing he had a modern pen, the judge sends that as well. The judge's gifts increase, sending Ben books including Tristram Shandy.

When Ben threw ears of corn over the fence to the Union prisoners someone in return threw back his treasure: a copy of Moby Dick. The novel enthralled the boy and he mentions the book twice in his Testament.

Ben's tale is inspired by Melville's novel. There is Sam's single-minded obsession with revenge on the beast called El Demonio de Dos Dedos--the Demon of Two Toes. I also noted how Pacheco face scarred by pocks of black gunpowder parallels Queequeg's Maori tattoos. I had to wonder if Ben has embellished his Testament, writing not subjective truth but transforming his tale. Isn't that what writers do? Take life and tweak it, giving it meaning and form?

An Act of God, or nature, brings Ben's tale to a nail-biting conclusion, revealing at last what the judge wanted to hear at the beginning: why Ben is convinced that Hanlin was a murderer and is deceased.

In her Acknowledgement, Crook states that her manuscript came to Robert Duvall, who played Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. (A marvelous movie and book!) I can imagine Crook's book as a movie. Here's hoping!

I received a free e-book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

From the publisher:

Early one morning in the remote hill country of Texas, a panther savagely attacks a family of homesteaders, mauling a young girl named Samantha and killing her mother, whose final act is to save her daughter’s life. Samantha and her half brother, Benjamin, survive, but she is left traumatized, her face horribly scarred. 

Narrated in Benjamin’s beguilingly plainspoken voice, The Which Way Tree is the story of Samantha’s unshakeable resolve to stalk and kill the infamous panther, rumored across the Rio Grande to be a demon, and avenge her mother’s death. In their quest she and Benjamin, now orphaned, enlist a charismatic Tejano outlaw and a haunted, compassionate preacher with an aging but relentless tracking dog. As the members of this unlikely posse hunt the panther, they are in turn pursued by a hapless but sadistic Confederate soldier with troubled family ties to the preacher and a score to settle. 

In the tradition of the great pursuit narratives, The Which Way Tree is a breathtaking saga of one steadfast girl’s revenge against an implacable and unknowable beast. Yet with the comedic undertones of Benjamin’s storytelling, it is also a timeless tale full of warmth and humor, and a testament to the enduring love that carries a sister and brother through a perilous adventure with all the dimensions of a legend.

The Which Way Tree
by Elizabeth Crook
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 06 Feb 2018
ISBN: 9780316434959
PRICE: $26.00

Helen's Heir Finds Me! The Diary Is Going Home!

In 2001 I found a 1919 diary in a South Lansing antique/flea market and brought it home. The writer's personality enchanted me but I did not know who she was until December 31 when she signed off as Helen Korngold.

Helen Korngold photo from Normandy H.S. yearbook where she taught

Since that time I have researched to know more about Helen and to understand the people and places and activities she talked about in her diary. I held off sharing the diary and her story, wanting to fill in some gaps, including how Helen, a career teacher in St. Louis, meet and marry a brilliant mathematician who was teaching at Cornell University in New York?

I had decided to begin sharing the diary and my research on my blog this year as part of my Saturday posts on family histories, and was preparing my work to be shared.

Then--This week I was contacted by a woman who told me I had her great-aunt Helen's diary! She, like most of us do, was noodling around the Internet seeing what popped up when she typed in family member names. And my blog post about the quilt I made for Helen came up.

The quilt I made for Helen included scanned diary pages

I am learning so much about Helen and her husband Fritz Herzog. She was as lovely and fun to be with in real life as she appears in her diary.

Today I will be mailing the diary to her family, along with copies of my typed transcription and research. Helen is finally going home to her family.

Read my posts about Helen:

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/03/helen-korngold-quilt-close-to-10-years.html
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/11/researching-helens-diary-on-ancestrycom.html
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/11/researching-helens-diary-on-ancestrycom.html

Helen Korngold photo from Normandy H.S. yearbook

Tilda Sewing By Heart: New Patterns and Fabrics from Norway

Tilda Sewing By Heart cover with patchwork pumpkins 

These fresh quilts and sewing projects from Norway are ADORABLE!  

Tone Finnanger is the founder and sole designer of the internationally recognized Tilda brand, which she started in 1999 at the age of 25. She was at the 2017 Quilt Market in Houston, TX and won "Best Newcomer."

Bumblebees quilt on left. 

The book features 7 full-size quilts plus smaller sewing projects such as pillows, pincushions and  soft toys.

All the projects use the Tilda fabric lines including Cabbage Rose, Bumblebee, Circus, Harvest, and Cottage lines. You can view the fabrics at https://www.sewandso.co.uk/category/saq-tilda-crafts-tilda-fabrics?TRE00049.

Sewing From the Heart is the first Tilda book in English. Expert technical editing from Linda Clements, bestselling author of The Quilter’s Bible, offers in-depth instructions. The photographs are gorgeous and the book is filled with illustrations showing construction and fabrics used.

The instructions are detailed. There are 21 pages for The Bumblebee Quilt, 55" x 73," including:

• multiple full and close-up photographs of the quilt
• swatches of fabrics used and yardage chart
• preparation and cutting instructions
• overall quilt layout illustration
• cutting instruction with illustrations
• block construction instructions with color illustrations
• border construction with illustration
• and assembling and finishing the quilt instructions

I love love love this soft fox

The patterns have some unusual methods. For instance, the stuffed Santa doll's legs are made with pieced fabric. To construct, one sews the various widths of fabrics into one unit. The leg pattern is laid over the pieced unit, traced, and cut with seam allowances. Each leg has two pieces which are sewn and turned.

Projects include

• Bumblebee Quilt, pillows, pin cushion, and stuffed bees
• Flower quilt, pillows, and fabric flowers
• Circus Quilt
• Tree Pillow
• Applique Elephant quilt
• Cabbage Rose Quilt
• Patchwork squirrel and rabbit stuffed animals
• Birds and Sunflowers quilt and pillows
• Patchwork Fox stuffed animal
• Pumpkin Harvest Quilt and pillow
• Patchwork Santa and stocking

Cottage Quilt

Visit the website at https://www.sewandso.co.uk/product/tilda-sewing-by-heart/402389

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Tilda Sewing by Heart
by Tone Finnanger
F+W Media
SewandSo
ISBN: 9781446306710