Corky LeTellier, Walking In Love Artist

Corky LeTellier

Statement:    I have been working in fabric since taking a Parks and Recreation beginning

quilting class in San Francisco in order to learn how to make a baby quilt for my firstborn.

After many years of being a traditional quilter, I have started branching out into embellishment

and original design and it has taken hold of me.  This was an opportunity to celebrate the vast

wonderment of Trinity County in a new way and I chose to portray the nature all around us.

We live in a beautiful place and need to be grateful each and every day for the mountains,

the lakes, the trees.   I feel so very blessed - walking in love to me is being outside.

Corky was one of the first people to give me an enthusiastic "yes!" when I asked her to make a panel for the installation. I saw her in Weaverville at a community concert given mid december 2010. Truthfully, her yes was the encouragement I needed to know this project would actually turn from a dream to reality. Thank you Corky! I have seen her quilting work every year at the Trinity County Fair. Last year she entered a marvelous and large dragon of her own design. I have felt Corky to be a kindred spirit in the realm of art quilting. It is a great pleasure to have her panel hang in the Walking in Love installation.

Feedback for the Walking In Love Installation

" I felt filled up with love."

"I want to make a panel!"

"The porcelain piece is an interesting addition. I had to hear how it sounds so I used my program to move it!"

"I came out of the walk a better person than when I entered it."

"Love the copper work."

"Great lighting!"

Over and over again visitors to the installation found me and raved over their experience in the spiral and all the people who made this happen. They were touched, amazed, in awe. Awe was a frequently used word. One woman decided that Awe is the word form of the fullness of love, something she experienced as she stood in the center of the spiral! I have to say it is gratifying when complete strangers to this work and anyone involved are profoundly moved. It validates the premise that art made while holding the feeling of love has the ability to impact the lives of those who experience it. It also validates the premise that my own personal experiences that led to this work are but one way in which love can be understood. Others who did not have my experience added their own deeply held and personal understanding and it all worked together.

The Sacred Threads show is arranged in general categories: spirituality, joy, inspiration, peace/brotherhood, grief and healing. Our installation was placed in between grief and joy. I overheard one woman say that to walk through the quilts depicting grief and then wander into the white room was relief. In my own personal life I know that the death of my mother, a woman who was my best friend, mentor, heroine, might have been intolerable had it not been balanced by the sure feeling of her transformation into that peaceful  energetically riveting crystalline light. I have not been a person who sought visions. It took me some time to have the courage to share this experience with others. At this particular show the people who found me wanted to know more. There is a hunger I think we experience as humans to understand something about what comes after this physical existence. I am by no means an expert on this. But I do know that when each of us has the courage to share those encounters with the mystical aspects of life we enrich everyone. Our culture, even the culture of our most sacred religious institutions, often disallow or downplay the more intangible aspects of touching the spiritual. I have found that the head knowledge aspect of learning with regard to spirituality is quite common. And yet we are so much more than only our brains. There are other cultures which view the heart as the seat of the 'brain'. I feel that the intangible is known intuitively through the heart, not the head.

The spiral work will grow. Several people asked how they can get involved. Lisa Ellis and Christine Adams set up a station outside the exhibition hall where guests were invited to write their prayers, hopes, dreams onto strips of white silk which were then tied to a potted palm tree. Lisa had the idea that these white strips could be a panel, the Sacred Threads panel. I say a big "YES!" to this. How wonderful to take these heartfelt thoughts/prayers/feelings and add them to the ever expanding Walking In Love Spiral.

Rachel Rickard, Walking in Love Artist

When Rachel and Jacob moved to Hyampom last summer with their baby Alora we met outside the post office. The post office is the one place where everyone in town is bound to come sooner or later since we have no mail delivery to homes. It wasn't long before Rachel and my daughter Sydney became friends. Not too much later they both made their first quilt projects, panels for the Walking in Love Installation.

Rachel is gentle, deep, humorous and a homesteader in the making. She takes on many different aspects of gardening, preserving foods and holistic health. Their home is filled with music and friends.

Rachel Rickard

This is my first fiber arts experience! My vision for this project was to capture the lightness and beauty of love. My quest led me to creating a 3 part mixed art piece. My inspiration, being a mother to my baby daughter Alora, who radiates pure love and joy from every fiber of her being! This project opened me up to the depths of a mothers love, as a mother but also as a child of the miraculously bountiful earth!" 

News from the Artist Reception for Sacred Threads June 25, 2011

Walking in Love is but one part of the entire show of Sacred Threads, an exhibition hall full of the amazing vitality that makes up our shared human experience all depicted through fiber. Celebrating our frailties, our strengths and joy, the quilts here radiate astonishing stories. Vikki Pignatelli founded this show and trusted it to the care of Lisa Ellis and Christine Adams and their faithful and talented committee who have successfully opened the first showing in Herdon, Virginia. How wonderful to Meet Vikki and hear first hand why she created this venue. A quilter who was accustomed to her work being judged, nevertheless Vikki was stung when a judge commented unfavorably on a quilt which was more spiritual in its nature. Vikki took something that did not work and turned it into a show that offers viewers a breadth and depth of the human condition that I have never seen anywhere else. Vikki and her husband Denny came out to  Herdon to pass the baton of Sacred Threads into the good hands of others who also care about showing the world art infused with the deepest feelings of life in this body.

The women I met, the stories they have to tell, encourage me to keep expressing all that I might otherwise bottle up inside. The Walking In Love Installation sits in the center of this jewel of a show. It was quite satisfying to hear complete strangers respond to the power of the art that was made holding the feeling of love. Two women who met in the center of the spiral spoke of how they were so surprisingly affected that they committed to speak with each other in a few months to talk about how Walking in Love has impacted their own fiber art pieces and how they create.

One lesson I came away with: if you have any desire to express yourself, do it. Peg, one of the artists, told me that she takes more risks now in her life. The risk to expose who you are and what you have experienced enriches everyone. What you have to share is important to us all. No quilt is too small, no emotion too trivial. However, I will tell you that when you dare to touch on, even dive deeply into, those topics which "polite and dignified" society (whatever that is) keep as taboo then you help all of us open up our hearts to a fuller and richer life. I met women who have been dealt so many difficult things in life. Betrayal, cancer, the death of multiple children, a childhood filled with the aftermath of a parent who suffered atrocities, addictions and more. These difficulties were transformed into stunningly surprising fiber art. The artists found healing for themselves while gifting the rest of us with brilliant fiber art to contemplate.

Themes  of joy celebrating natural beauty, the way light illuminates stained glass in a cathedral, ephemeral beauty of a time when beloved children walked wooded paths, women's retreats to replenish the wells. These quilts remind me to look around and take stock of all that is good and true and beautiful. Life is for living and nothing is to be pushed aside or hidden away. Great invigoration exists when we open up to acceptance that it is all good and worth sharing. Sharing it, whatever it is,  makes life better.

I learned all of this over the course of a three hour reception in which artists walked around visiting with each other and a delicious Italian dinner party afterwards. Friendships were forged, hearts shared, encouragement found. 

Faye McGough, Walking in Love Artist

I have known Faye through our local quilters guild, the Log Cabin Quilters, for many years now. Faye is an extremely productive quilter as well as a soap maker and the creator of many assorted crafts. I suppose her years of raising seven children and working full time as a nurse have something to do with her ability to multitask and get things done! I sure hope the lucky relatives who receive her quilts are grateful for her design and color sense. Her quilts are treasures as is her company. Faye is always ready to laugh at the absurdities in life. 

"When I hear the word love, I immediately think "family", hence the funky family tree.  It holds my 7 living children, 21 grandchildren, and 3 great-grands.  At the foot of our tree you will find 2 children from heaven.  Look up and down the trunk and you will see my message."

Faye McGough aka grammy

Working in a one foot by eight foot format can create some design challenges.  When viewed from a distance her family tree is reminiscent of a giant sequoia or a redwood and not at all funky. 

Frances Sherman, human or angel?

When Frannie told me she would be my adopted mother five years ago and I accepted neither one of us knew the roads we would travel together. Never did I guess we would share a bunk bed in Fortuna, California at Dixie McBride's Quilter's Escape. I had the top bunk. This is when Fran learned that I like to carry little rocks in my pockets. Ummm...because one rolled out of my pocket and fell onto her in the bunk down below. NO harm....just surprise.

I had known Fran for many years before she decided to adopt me so I guess we both had some inkling that we cared for one another. Yet most people know that once you commit to a decision things happen. We have walked each other through many things in the last five years. Illness, personal difficulties, all the dramas that most human lives have. There have been joyful laughter filled times playing canasta crammed in the tiny cabin we share with our other friends when we travel as a pack to escape everyday life and quilt with abandon.

When I offered an art quilt retreat series at my place Frannie amazed everyone in her joyful leap from meticulous traditional quilter into full bloom as the fine artist she is. What I experienced was her unwavering support of me in my own metamorphosis as a teacher. In fact Fran has been the most steadfast mother anyone could ever want.

These last few days as we waited expectantly for Travis to arrive with our trailer in his cross country journey, as we have run into technical difficulties with our copper room build, Fran has never faultered in her generosity, calm, humor and ability to let my stressed terseness roll off her back. Isn't it true that a mother is usually the one that children go to with their meltdowns? It is a measure of the grace with which Fran lives life that she loves deeply, hugely, solidly from the depths and forgets the less than perfect. I am blessed to have a mother that I can talk to in less than perfect and sometimes brusque ways and she loves with warmth anyway.

You would laugh to see Fran and I butt heads. I mean this quite literally. I have heard it said that what bothers me most about another is often a mirror back in to myself. When Fran and I put our foreheads against one another and push it is truly amusing. My goats do this. I suspect it has to do with establishing dominance. Something about testing who is the alpha. You would never know Fran is in her 8th decade of life when we butt heads. I have to tell you that I must push pretty darn hard in order to take the lead form this competent leader among women. Anyone witnessing this from the outside might think our process to be a little harsh. But we both know that this is the surface, not the deep down depths of our love for one another. For the two of us walking in love can be and often is walking in friction. Friction creates smoothness out of roughness just as iron sharpens iron.

There were many issues to be addressed this last day of our build for the Sacred Threads show and Fran, who came to Washington DC to be love, support and a person who climbed a ladder to hold up the plywood ceiling, was everything I could hope for and more in a mother. Thank you Frannie. I love you.

Inside the hall we begin to make room to Walk in Love

Ceiling

Our plan did not go forward quite as rapidly as we had hoped. We allowed three days to build and hang the show. It became apparent on the morning of day three that this would not be real. John and I had a very good conversation about walking in love instead of stressing in love which we both had indulged in a little bit. We reminded ourselves that this project was about process and how we worked together was very important. Now please understand that everyone on board is quite adept at creating finished product. There was no doubt this would occur. But we also knew that we were creating a prototype. Wikipedia dictionary defines prototype as follows: A first or preliminary model of something, esp. a machine, from which other forms are developed or copied. Of course! This explains why there were things we did not anticipate. Like the fact that the ceiling of the hall was nine feet 6 inches and we needed more space than that. Oops. We were not able to install the lighting in this first build. No room. I can't say that I was happy to accept that we would tear down the installation and then need to rebuild it again to finish the work. I don't imagine anyone else involved was too thrilled. But no-one complained. In fact people were good natured about it. "This is a prototype," became a mantra. The structure took four days to build. Many people helped, including those who had come to the artist reception we had scheduled for day 4. A party went on outside the hall! We ate well. Everyone got to witness our build and look at the panels as they awaited hanging on the many tables. I noticed one man moved to tears, to his enormous surprise, simply looking at one panel on a table. Frannie worked all of one day making white curtains to serve as walls. I know that everyone was grateful when Christina showed up one night with a dinner of the most delicious pasta I had tasted. Yum for the garlic! 

Inevitable challenges to Walking In Love

Building the structure for the panels all the way across the country without the many people who helped to make it happen in Hyampom is much slower. Once again a big THANK YOU to all you Trinitarians who made the first full build happen. Some areas of the build continue to have challenging issues and yet Travis keeps his attitude good natured and reminds me to do the same. Frannie lets me know when I am forgetting our mission statement: 


The Walking In Love Installation Organization is dedicated to the collaborative creation and exhibition of art that introduces artists and the public to a creative and joyful process infused with love.


I do believe I was tested about how to be in that place yesterday. The reality of the time shortened by travel delays, building with fewer skilled people than I had hoped to have with us, all of it added up to a difficult day for me personally. I have to say that Travis and Frannie both know how to keep their cool and just keep on. 


And, I simply would not be accurate in describing what happened if I left out the wonderful help from Cindy Stevens who shuttled me around when I needed the few things I forgot to pack and jumped right in taking care of the many little things needing to be done. Thank you to Sohail and Victor who offered their muscles to Travis when we needed them. The Sacred Threads people, Lisa, Barbara, calmly went about constructing their labyrinth of poles and curtains for the art that has arrived from around the country.


Today is for finishing the build and hanging our panels. This promises to be a sumptuous show. 

Play Hard, Work Hard

Can one day expand to be experienced as a week? I think so. Life is rich. A quiet morning soaking in the Mansion on O Street, thoroughly enjoying the soft couch looking out over tree lined O Street, a squirrel visits on a slim limb, snatching a seed blossom and nibbling it. I can't help but think that if this creature can exist in an urban place and find food, live a life, be beautiful, then how dare I worry? A simpler way of saying things is that I am filled with Gratitude for all life offers. To be able to live in Washington DC in a fabulous place for a few days truly fills the well. After writing and taking care of the refinement of the Walking In Love artist statement book that will accompany the exhibit I began to, literally, pace the street waiting for Travis to arrive. Wisdom in the form of Ross who cares for the valet service of the Mansion was nurturing to my mounting anticipation of the work to begin. Ross celebrates 'Walking' to receive his High School diploma twenty years after he left school. A great example to his children, congratulations Ross! I met his friends Jeannie and Steve on their way in to the Mansion to jam with the o street band. Wonderful people. Expectancy fulfilled as Travis turns the corner and finally arrives! Oh boy did he have adventures. Heavy rain in the middle of the country followed him in the form of water spouts, lightening storms and high winds. But he made it safely and so did our installation! Woo hoo!

Travis went straight to the shower and then to feast at the most fabulous brunch at the Mansion you could ever imagine. Rooms of food. One entire room dedicated to desserts. Hundreds of desserts. Cakes, scones, cookies, cheeses, fruits, and even bags of candy (nearly took one of my favorite Sugar Babies) after delicious fresh asparagus, figs, beets, snap peas (my choices) and, just about anything else you could imagine. Omelets made to order, smoked and fresh salmon and on and on. Three rooms. FULL. YUM! Fran and Travis and I ate then prepared to drive to Herndon to begin to set up Walking In Love. No time to waste.

Unloading the trailer in humid heat and drops of rain is the counterpoint to the luxury of the Mansion. We hustled to complete the initial structure build so we would be out of the way today when the rest of the crew shows up to create the surrounding show. The wonderful show organizers, Lisa Ellis, Christine Adams and Barbara Hollinger, met us, gave us the tour and then got out of our way. I had a few minutes of stressful fidgets before Travis and Fran set me straight. Hey! This is fun! Travis and the trailer survived thousands of miles of travel and here we are, creating the Walking In Love spiral for the east coast! Cool! actually, drippy sweaty hot, but good work.

Back to the Mansion and dinner. Travis and I blew off steam by walking to the Mall and the obelisk also known as the Washington Memorial. What a thrill it is to be there at night. Fully lit, it sits on a knoll looking one direction to the Lincoln Memorial and another to the Capitol. Truly a magnificent place. We cruised by the White House, dark for the night, before power walking back to O Street and deep sleep. Today we begin our ceiling and spiral installation. Serious rain outside.

Notes from the Road

My sister Jennifer and her two boys drove me from the wilds of the North State (does the rest of California know that those of us living past Mendocino have a different name for our state?) to the airport in San Francisco. Jen and her family live nearby so I had a day with them and was also able to visit my son who lives in Santo Cruz. The delight of the journey begins.

I flew out of the new terminal two at SFO. It is a step in to a new age. Gorgeous, technologically driven and yet the priceless art SFO is famous for was present in an extensive collection of gorgeously crafted silver from many eras. I flew Virgin America. From the moment I stepped in to the plane softly lit with purple and pink I felt transported to some magical place. Huh? Air travel with some glamour? Yes. This was a different ride. It is quite wonderful to have a screen in front of me with menu selections that I can enter at any time and have brought to me. As many times as I wish. No waiting for the cart to travel down the aisle.  This airline is doing many things in a different way. I enjoyed traveling with them.

Washington DC. A must visit place. As americans we travel all over the earth. I hope those who love to travel also come here. This city is simply magnificent. I have been gifted to a stay at an unbelievably wonderful and stunningly unique place near Dupont Circle. It is called The Mansion on O Street. Many Thanks to Ted Spero and H for your generosity. You have truly created a one of a kind experience. My life is greatly enriched because of you. To Karen for offering this connection: I love you!

My dear adopted mother Frannie has traveled here with me. We have been waiting for Travis to arrive with the show. He is currently 30 miles away from us. A few days behind schedule. But all is safe and good. He has adventures to share from his drive across the country. While waiting for Travis yesterday Fran and I decided to sightsee. We toured the National Galleries, east and west, soaking up, inhaling, feeling so much marvellous art. Highlights include the tunnel of moving lights which connect the two galleries. Whoever thought this installation up was inspired. We walked the moving sidewalk three times and each time found it a thrill. I could not help but bounce myself with a light run back and forth on the sidewalk and leap off the end. Lunch by the waterfall installation came as close to the rapids of the south fork of the Trinity River as I will ever know in an urban environment. I could put my face up close and imagine I was near the steep falls I love to visit every summer, the drops of water popping, the motion rapid and white. Once again I am thrilled by the power of art to create a change in emotions, feelings, sensation. Then of course the visiting Capitoline Venus in the rotunda, oh her lips! How can hard marble appear so soft? It is her first time out of Rome. Gabriel Metsu created an opportunity for my time travel in to another place. Walking through the intimate rooms filled with his quite ordinary and yet sweet everyday life images grabbed from a time so long ago filled me with the sensation of being in another world. Nam June Paik offered a retreat, an opportunity to embrace stillness, reflection. Frannie had a vision while in the tower with this installation of the Walking In Love spiral filling the space. Of course we had to sit and watch the gentle motion of a Calder swirling over all. Huge chunks of metal in graceful air ballet. I am inspired by the visions these artists possess. And then there was the "5 plates of steel and two rods" sculpture standing in exquisite balance below the Calder. I soaked up to full saturation a dizzying array of magnificent art. YUMMY!

A trip across the mall to the National Museum of the American Indian created an interesting balance point to the galleries. The most beautiful circle executed in stone and copper sits at the bottom of the rotunda at the center of this gorgeous building. I sat on the highly polished stone bench leaning up against the rough hewn stone back gazing up at the four directions created within the skylight in the ceiling. Max, a young boy from Tennessee asked me what I was doing. He then quizzed me about why I am in DC. He closed his eyes when I described the Walking In Love spiral and then asked enough questions to fill his imagination with a vision. He smiled with amazement and said he would love to see it. Was he an angel? I do not know. He brought me encouragement. I stood in the center of the circle while children ran around, adoring parents took endless photos of them in their delight. Of all the moving experiences created within this museum I was most enthralled with a wall full of arrowheads mounted in a flowing manner. I can't do it justice with words. It moved, like water, through various sizes, shapes, all arranged as water motion, yet rendered with rough stone crafted from hundreds to thousands of years ago out of many types of rock. Fran and I ate lunch by the 'river' created next to the cafe which serves foods of indiginous people. It was fabulous!

Just when we thought we were too exhausted to go any further we wandered through the Botanical Gardens. I felt the call to float across the lawns, my butterfly wings delighted by the blue globe thistles, orchids, water gardens and green. Frannie refused to wade in the fountain though her dogs were barking furiously. "It's just not dignified,"she told me. I wonder if we could all do with a tiny bit less dignity and a little more fun? She tells me that she stood in the fountain in her dream last night. I am so glad!

The Thrill of it all

Can't help it.
 Fire and metal are a huge draw for me.
 How many photos
of these bits and pieces
can tell
the fascinating story of copper and steel
taking shape
to become a room?
The perfect contrast
to the delicacy
of white on white panels,
is this grimy, sweaty, dirty,
hot and
 potentially dangerous work.
I will admit that
the sharp contrast
between the white work
and the metal work
had me
in a little bit
(correct me if I under exaggerate my response)
of stress
around
how the
'marriage'
would ultimately
come about.
These gracious guys
accepted the need
to clean the metal
once all the fabrication had been completed and before it would come in contact with the white work. 

Participating with, watching, staying out of the way, getting in the way, all of these things happened for me  while the build of the copper room that would house the white on white panels took place. Men, Many men (and a woman or two), with strength and brains, skills and practical know-how made the design John envisioned work. We were not people who have all worked together before, though many of us have overlapped on projects of all sorts in the years we have lived here. I do not know that any barn-raisings have occurred in this community in recent years, but I have seen many of these people build a barbeque pit for the hall. I watched the Petanque court come to life at the same time our show was born. I do not mean to be sexist about who did the work of copper polishing, grinding, welding and construction. It is a simple fact that this was largely the realm of the men. I am not a stranger to this way. I worked as an engineer for a dozen years in a male dominated field before I chose to work from the home to raise my two children. Prototype development was what I loved to do. Here was an amazing chance to play once again. I am so very grateful for these volunteers and how they worked together in very elegant and harmonious ways through snafu and delight until the room was built.  Charley, John, Evan, Tony, Jean-Pierre, Ebbe, Travis, James, Larry, Phil, Dad, Neil, Sydney, Karen, Fran and Susan Thank You from my heart.

Hyampom Community Hall

Our community hall is a special place. In our village, yes some people call us one of the last true villages, the hall serves as the place where everything happens. Weddings, memorial services, art and music festivals, school performances, church, town meetings, dances, yoga and fitness classes, countless potlucks meals and more. Being able to build the Walking In Love installation at the hall of my little community has been sweet. We took over the hall for six days. Others who use the hall graciously shared the space with this project. People from the community came and went, at times joining in with helping out, checking with the progress of the build.

This hall, even if not this exact structure, has been an integral part of the life of this community. In the days before electricity and phone connections the hall was THE place everyone gathered to talk about community events, share a meal and then play music and dance until dawn before returning to the work demanded by homesteading. In this day of e-mail, easy auto travel, television and pandora the hall still offers our small wilderness village all of the things it always has. When the Bee Eaters came to offer their particular form of magic music to us this past January the hall buzzed with life and drew many to share the special event. We ate a potluck meal first, per tradition. As our build progressed different people brought food, tea, music and encouragement.

Packing the Trailer

A gorgeous summer day blooms. Who could know what the weather would do this day? Rain and cold one day then heat the next. Lessons in "it is what it is". A phrase which pops up with increasing frequency in my world. From many different people. In many different situations. Well, what it is today, is a day to pack the trailer for the drive across the country to Sacred Threads. Punch lists, inventory, fix it kits, carefully packed white panels, tools, ladders. I am so very grateful to be able to send everything in one package. I do understand it is one of those 'all the eggs in one basket' situation but Travis Boland is someone who is able to do what he says he will do. One of those people that show up, take care of business, work in a solution oriented way and knowledgeable about how to deal with a wide variety of situations. I am grateful for the way life brought him into the Walking in Love world.

Friends tell me I am brave. Huh. Not feeling that this morning. There is this feeling of excitement standing at one edge of this giant country and preparing to go across to the other edge. And debut an art installation. OK, I can be a bit of a drama queen now and then. But it is a truth that nerves do accompany brave acts. I know about myself that I feel fear and do things anyway. I just want to see how it all turns out. Life is so varied and interesting. To do the same thing over and over again is not my cup of tea. While this is the third time the Walking In Love Installation will be shown, it will not be the same show again. Panels have left. New panels will be hung. Different people will help to set it up.  The feeling of this next show will be affected by the town it is in. It will also carry with it the hearts of people from Trinity County, the good will of so many wonderful people. My dentist told me he is happy to see Trinity County become known for something besides agricultural products, which is a euphemism for the cannabis cultivation which this region is world renowned for.

I get to meet new people and see how lovely life is away from my wilderness home in Trinity County California.

Tony Kendrew, Walking in Love Artist

Friends would stop by and comment, "Oh, so this is what making an art installation looks like." Maybe once a piece is finished in a gallery and the whole is witnessed the details disappear in light of the finished glory. So easy for those seeing the final product to be unaware of all it takes to make some ideas come to life. It is quite humbling for me to find out that so many people will just show up and volunteer their time to an idea. I have learned that I live in a community with extraordinary people. Tony Kendrew was the first one at the hall waiting with the key the morning we were to build. He has been in the midst of many of his own projects. He just recorded a CD to go with a book of poetry he wrote ( have not convinced him to make a poetry panel yet). He was working on a brand new petanque court in the front of our community hall. The grand opening games were the same day as our installation showing. But there was Tony, day after day showing up to offer his help with so much of what happened. Talented, quiet, funny and so generous to many within this small town. Thank you Tony for your steadfast way of showing up until the work was finished. It would not have happened so gracefully without you.

John Ritz Walking In Love Artist

The past few months have flown by. It is hard to remember that in January the Walking In Love installation had yet to be fabricated or shown. Only the idea for a spiral structure existed in my mind. Thank goodness John's name popped in to my head when I was wondering how the spiral could be made. I am so very grateful he decided to tackle not only the first simple spiral we attached to the ceiling of the Highland Gallery, but also decided to design and then build the second round, the copper room to house the white on white panels. It was a very great pleasure to watch John work with his son Evan, a young man my son Eric went to school with when they were children. John and Evan took the lead of engineering the installation structure and created something wonderful.

John Ritz

I've worked with metal for 35 years. As a welder, metal fabricator, blacksmith and sculptor.  I'm also a bass player, and as such it is my role to provide for the other musicians the solid rhythmic foundation and melodic support without which the song may not exist. One definition of Love is: To actively support the spiritual growth of another.  My role in "Walking in Love" is to provide the physical support for the other artist’s efforts so that others may experience the Love that went into their creations.  


THANK YOU JOHN AND EVAN!