Time Flies

Ah, time. It's the uniting aspect of the entire world. It's the one thing everyone has, and would like more of - but no one can control it, manufacture it, or stop the passage of it.

Is it time for a change? Daylight savings time ends at the end of this week. I have to get ready for very short afternoons!

Fact: TIME is the most used noun in the English language!(don't ask me to prove this as I don't know where it was first cited...I'm only passing along what I read!)

Here are two photos from The NY State Sheep and Wool Festival that should have been posted last week. I don't even know where last week went!
I tried to capture a sense of just how many people were there by early afternoon, but it was much more crowded than this photo shows!

And here are two photos from The Wednesday Group exhibition at the Two07 Art Gallery in NYC. I sat at the gallery yesterday and had the lovely surprise of meeting a woman from Washington State who'd come to the exhibit based on my recommendation through the Weave Tech group. She had posted asking what to see in NY, and she said I was the only one who answered. Of course I also told her to visit the exhibition at the Met as well as the Cloisters!
It's such small world! Then a couple came in who were visiting NY from northern Vermont. I've already forgotten how they heard about the show.

This is a group of colorful tapestries doen by Carol Bitner (the lower right), Annelisa deCoursin (lower left, center and upper right), and me (upper left)!













This is our group project called "Not Gone for Baroque." Weavers are Don Burns, Helen Gold, AnnaByrd Mays, Betsy Snope, Alta Turner, and me. I need to work on cropping this photo a little better

Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor

Tomorrow I will finally get to see the tapestry exhibit at the Met. Here's the NYTimes review. I've missed all the hoopla that the rest of The Wednesday Group has gotten to attend: a full weekend of symposia last weekend, and tomorrow night's lecture on Tudor tapestries. So at least I will get to see the show!

For the most part I don't care for this period of tapestry. There are some awesome things going on, but I think the tapestry artist himself was lost at this point and became simply the craftsman/artisan who slavishly executed a painter's image. I miss the freedom of expression that earlier tapestry weavers had. I miss the sense of making a picture do what weaving does best.
That's not to say that I'm not totally "blown away" by these works and the weaving ability of the unknown weavers.

Here's a quote from the end of the article that sums it all up for me:

But the real wonder surfaces when you stand up close. Then you see how one thread, placed next to another, which is next to another of different but related color, creates the shadow under the eye of a drowning man’s face, or the sparkle of a jewel on a ribbon on a shoe, or turns an all but abstract passage of color in a Rubens design into a brilliantly nuanced approximation of its painted source, which is itself the filtering of some sensation of the world through one artist’s eye.

In focusing on such details, you realize that the tapestry — so anonymous, so enormous, so specialized — really comes down to one person performing a task: the artist drawing the design, the spinner spinning the wool thread, the weaver passing one thread past another. If you want to regain the thrill of discovery that the Met’s first tapestry show provided, intimate attention to the riches in this one may be the way to do it.

The Wednesday Group show closes this weekend as well, so I will sit in the gallery on Sunday and take the show down at closing. It will be a long day, but my head should be full of images from the show at the Met and from visiting the Cloisters on Saturday. Not a bad way to spend a weekend!

Life's Little Surprises

I just spent the last entry whingeing/wining about life's challenges. By focusing on the challenges I almost missed one of life's sweet surprises, and you never know when one of those will come along! I almost didn't go to my local spinning group because of too many deadlines, too many obligations, blah, blah. Then I figured I needed to go as a little reward to myself and to recharge my batteries for the upcoming hurdles. Look what I found at the spinning meeting!

Bud and Patricia are certainly an usual team, and their vision of seeing the world is outlandishly creative! Their love for Della (the mule) is so poignant. I hope mules live a long time because they sure do adore her. I enjoyed talking to Patricia, and I loved watching the daughter of one our members saddle up for a ride on Della. I had NO idea mules were this large! Wish I had a photo which would demonstrate her size, but since I was not expecting this unique experience I didn't have a camera with me. Really, don't miss that link....got to: http://www.usonfoot.com/

This fall they are traveling up the Hudson River. It should be a wonderful trip if we end up getting good color this year. We have had a drought for some time now (2 months?...longer?), and in my area lots of leaves are just falling off the trees without turning at all. I wish them luck, and a safe haven for the winter.

So....how did I get these great pictures? A spinning friend (the one with the equestrienne daughter) took these. She has her own blog, where she shares her amazing creativity with lace knitting. Bad Cat Designs. Check her out!





Patricia - "It's always all about Della. Everything we do centers around her well-being. Where we spend the night, where we stop for lunch, where we spend the winters, it all depends on how we can accommodate her. Della is the heart and motor of our journey. "

When Life Gets in the Way!

Life sure can throw some hard balls. I wish I were a good catcher, but my reaction is to cover my head and duck! Everybody's health seems so fragile these days. I'm not going to talk about it here, but it's a hurdle. Then there are the many joys of my volunteer jobs, which are great when everything runs smoothly and everyone is happy. It's no fun at all when the best plans and hard work don't actually come to fruition. Guess which one I'm experiencing now.














I'm also having my first experience at organizing a group show of handwoven tapestry. (This is why I've been trying to finish Buddha!) I've certainly got a lot to learn about running a show. I've had great help from really savvy people. One member made the postcard, and it's quite an eye catcher, don't you think? (And if you click on it you'll get to see a lot more detail. My, we have some awesome weavers in this group!) Here are the details.






I just finished Buddha, literally put in the last pick. I want to celebrate, but I feel a little overwhelmed because I still need to hem and mount him. I can't find the raw linen material I want to use for mounting. I've looked in all the easy places, so now it's time to really start digging.

The garden is a mess. My dog has cancer. Every Friday I drive him to Connecticut for chemo treatments, but today my car has some serious problems so I'm without wheels for the weekend. I'm home alone since my husband is away on business, and I'm feeling weird. I need to run away....well, on the positive side, I just went digging for that linen fabric and found it. I'll get to work now.