Ode to Vinyl and Ode to Juline

2010 has ushered in the fabulous world of vinyl records back into my life!

Thanks to my wonderful friend Juline and the The Record exhibition at the Nasher Museum at Duke University, Rico and I have been reconnected with those funky, almost magical disks and the textural reality of music being produced by a needle gliding along spinning grooves of plastic.  Listening to music on our record player just feels so different than plugging our iPod into the sound system, you know?  It makes me regret getting rid of all of our albums when we lived in Chicago back in the 90s.  But there you go.

Juline is a creative whirling dervish and is constantly introducing me to new projects, artists and crafts.  I'm so lucky to have her in my life!  I remember meeting Juline at her office at the Nasher, where I'd come to record the audio guide for The Record exhibition, and she was playing vintage big band albums on a record player.  Remember album cover art? I pawed through the stacks of mid century albums in her office, marveling at the variety of images -- singers in leopard leotards, paper cuts of trombones and martinis. So many little works of art on cardboard album sleeves!

Juline's felt record necklaces (modeled at the beginning of this post by yours truly) are exactly my kind of whimsical, playful jewlery!  Check out the embroidered centers of the necklaces.

Aren't they the coolest things?

I swear that I'm I'm not trying to hawk OJ Designs merchandise, but Juline's necklaces are available in our etsy shop, if you're interested! (In October, Juline and I started OJ Designs, a little craft company featuring our work.  In 2011, we hope to participate in more craft fairs and expand our etsy shop, which is very thin right now.)

A little more about Juline and her amazing creativity... this year she has brought so much into my life!  She inspired me start my hand sewn hexagon quilt project when she showed me her gorgeous quilt.  Juline is driven as well as crafty -- she finished her quilt with amazing speed, including the hand quilting.  My quilt top is ever so slowly coming together and she has already started on more hand sewn hexagon quilt designs.

She taught me how to make pzyanky eggs (a traditional Ukranian craft involving wax, dye and eggs) a few weeks after she learned how to made them herself, and then went on to make 40 of her beautiful eggs as a unique gift to commemorate the 40th wedding anniversary for her parents. This woman is a crafting goldmine and she is so generous with her friends, teaching us how to make new things and pushing and inspiring us to attempt what we never thought we could do! What a jewel she is.

Back to the vinyl... The Record exhibition is still at the Nasher until Feb. 6, 2011.  If you're in NC, I strongly encourage you to check it out.  Get out there and see this show!

My favorite pieces are by the artist Dario Robleto who used old Billie Holiday records to create buttons for vintage shirts.  You can read more about this alchemical and amazing project here on the Nasher web site.

"Turntable," by Fatimah Tuggar

And yes, that is my surprisingly sexy voice on the audio guide that you can download here.  (Scroll to the bottom of this page to click on the link.)  Once again, this is the work of the insanely talented Juline who edited the audio guide and managed to make me sound so hot!

Go vinyl!  Keep spinning us all around in 2011!