The 2003 Journal Quilts are ALL available on the QuiltArt web site — many thanks to Judy Smith for doing all the grunt work of getting the images up with the names of makers etc. My own journal quilts are here (here for a larger view of the group mine were hung with) but you can see closer views via my own site, here. There are a lot of them, so bookmark it and go back often! These small quilts were made by subscribers of the QuiltArt mailing list, each participant making one small quilt a month from January to September 2003. We were encouraged to be experimental and try new things for us.

Here is a close up of my local friend Naomi’s, and the group her quilts were hung with. I wish they had chosen her May quilt — it was a wonderful view of a back view of herself when she has her hair all done in tiny braids with lots of “embellishments.”

Blues? yeah we got those.
Reds? Yeah we got those too.

And thanks to this site no one must suffer needlessly for their art. Or at least, not over the damn artist statements. Here’s the one I generated:

Work of Meta-Art in the Age of Generative Reproduction

The mind creates, the chaos permeates. In the synoptic reality, art objects are resurrections of the creations of the mind — a mind that uses the chaos as an organism to materialize ideas, patterns, and emotions. With the synergy of the electronic environment, the mind is superseding a point where it will be free from the chaos to realize immersions into the machinations of the delphic reality. Work of Meta-Art in the Age of Generative Reproduction contains 10 minimal flash engines (also refered to as “memes”) that enable the user to make textile audio/visual compositions.

measuring chains, constructing realities
putting into place forms
a matrix of illusion and disillusion
a strange attracting force
so that a seduced reality will be able to spontaneously feed on it

Mary Beth Goodman’s work investigates the nuances of modulations through the use of jumpcut motion and close-ups which emphasize the Generative nature of digital media. Goodman explores abstract and gradated scenery as motifs to describe the idea of infinite reality. Using great loops, vectors, and allegorical images as patterns, Goodman creates meditative environments which suggest the expansion of space…

Your mileage may vary, but I have to say, I’ve read worse…

What do you do when you have lots of blue squares but not enough blue squares?

Rummage around and pull out more blue fabrics that’s what!

This post brought to you by the color blue.

Maybe there’s hope for me yet:

The Hacker Attitude

1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
4. Freedom is good.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.

On the other hand, even if I don’t turn out to be a hacker per se, I think these are easily applied to other arenas and life in general. For instance it goes on:

Basic Hacking Skills

1. Learn how to program.
2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.
3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.
4. If you don’t have functional English, learn it.

The hacker attitude is vital, but skills are even more vital. Attitude is no substitute for competence, and there’s a certain basic toolkit of skills which you have to have before any hacker will dream of calling you one.

This toolkit changes slowly over time as technology creates new skills and makes old ones obsolete. For example, it used to include programming in machine language, and didn’t until recently involve HTML.

One more great quote which charmed me:

… trying to learn to hack under Windows [is like] trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast, I wasn’t kidding. Don’t go there. It’s ugly, and it never stops being ugly.