Late, as usual!

This Saturday will be the closing reception of The Wednesday Group’s exhibition “Henry’s Hudson” at ASK! (Artists’ Society of Kingston).  I guess I’d better post some photos from the opening reception!

 

 

 

 

 

Archie, standing next to his tapestry, which is already sold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan standing with Betty Vera, and hey!..that’s my little Hudson River piece right between them.

 

One of my favorite pieces from the show, by Annelisa DeCoursin.

 

 

 

 

 

Several pieces in this show are real knockouts, but my camera battery was dying so I missed getting some of them.  The opening was well attended, probably our biggest crowd yet!  And ASK! is definitely the best venue we’ve had.  The space is perfect!

Eleven of the fourteen Wednesday Group members standing in front of Susan’s powerful work “Taxi!” (All those yellow spots are taxis!) Archie and Susan are back row, left side.  Helen and Alta, who master minded this exhibit, are front row left.  I am in the center.  It was a fun evening!

Soul Collage

A friend of mine invited me to join her at a one-day workshop on Soul Collage which I had not heard of.  I thought that learning some collage techniques might help my tapestry design, so I was looking forward to the workshop.

The collage class ended up being much more than I expected!  It’s a way to get in touch with many of our deepest, strongest, sometimes unrealized feelings…and how great is that for creating art?  The collage techniques were nothing compared to tapping into such deep seated emotions and powerful core beliefs.  I’m so glad I participated in this!…although by the time  left I had a massive headache! (I still seem to wilt every afternoon with aches, headache, nausea and exhaustion…what a flu!)

This is an image of someone else’s collage posted on the website.  Many of them are quite powerful.  I wanted to post one of mine, but my scanner refuses to scan right now.  It’s making a lot of noise and giving me error messages!  Hmmph!

Weavezine

What a happy surprise arrived in my inbox!  I got a message from Tien Chiu (co-founder of Weavolution) that her article on plain weave went online today at Weavezine. The article ends with photos of two of my tapestires: “NY 30’ Sailing by the Palisades” (misnamed in the article) in progress, which shows that sometimes tapestries are worked sideways, and “Stone Buddha.”  I was particularly thrilled that Chien ended her article with an ‘inspirational photo’... my Buddha!  Woohoo!

Meanwhile…. progress on Rob:

Falling Behind

Since July the Wednesday Group has had a heavy schedule of exhibitions.  It’s been very exciting for us!

I missed all the opening receptions except our most recent one, last Saturday.  But in late September we had a lovely reception at the Clifton Arts Center, and the exhibition closed on Halloween with a visit from art students at Skidmore College.

Here are a few photos from our Sept. 26 opening reception at the Clifton Arts Center in NJ.

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
      

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.
      

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
      

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Robert Frost

      

Spinning Dreams…

Several years ago at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival I got to sit at a dream spinning wheel, the Wyatt  ‘Norwegian.’  I’d never had such a perfect spinning experience, and I realized right then what some of my friends must feel when they get on a five year waiting list for a Norm Hall wheel.  This was my spinning dream…

That one brief encounter with Bill Wyatt has stayed in my thoughts ever since.  I can’t say for sure when it was…four years ago, maybe?  I run the conversation through my mind sometimes….when Bill learned my origins are in Texas he caught me up on the incredible changes along the Gulf Coast over the past several decades.  He talked of his career flying with commercial airlines, and his innovations in spinning wheel design.  He was noticeably a better spinner than I was at the time!  In fact, his spinning made me vow to work on my own spinning improvement, and I have. His ‘Pegasus’ wheel was actually too fast for me, but he could spin on it effortlessly.

I’ve kept the Wyatt Wheel brochure on the book shelf with my spinning books, and I have the website bookmarked in my spinning folder.  I was so sad when I learned he was sick, not only because of his wheels, but mainly because interesting people like him are so rare.  We all need people of his creative caliber to stay with us and influence us for ages, not fleeting moments… but I only got that brief encounter with him, so I replayed it often.

This week I’ve encountered another interesting spinning wheel maker, Myles Jakubowski, who was Bill’s apprentice. He is an ‘automation engineer’ who loves woodworking and will be continuing to make Wyatt Wheels to Bill’s specifications.  Not surprisingly, Myles also has some ideas of his own and is planning to make the first wheel of his own design this winter.  I can’t wait to see it!

So now I’m on one of those long waiting lists!  I’m in spinning nirvana thinking about the finite time before I have my dream wheel.  And although it was the Norwegian I fell for a few years back, I have decided to get either the ‘Pegasus,’ since my spinning prowess has greatly improved over these few years, or I will seriously consider the new wheel that Myles is designing:  a castle version of the Pegasus. 

It’s wonderful to have a dream, and I’m so glad that Myles has brought my dream back to reality!

H1N1

In the last 10 days of October I was on quite a roll, getting a lot of things done…weaving off a 16S network twill scarf, making progress on my current tapestry, knitting various things, and even spinning.  I felt unstoppable!….

“Shadow Baby” by Joan Somerville, using 2 shades of Tofutsies yarn. Check out the cute Gita Maria buttons! This sweater is for my new niece who will arrive in Dec!

My biggest accomplishment this month was tackling the details on Rob’s face!  I’m at the halfway point of the cartoon, but have completed more than 50% of the difficult areas now. (Lots of ‘hand-holding’ from Soyoo Park to choose skin colors and to work three interlocking sections on five warps for Rob’s mouth!)

A few other things with no photos:  a pair of jaywalker socks where I tried to get the pattern part out of one ball of Regia Color Effekt, by using a solid color yarn for the cuff, heel, and toe.  Didn’t work!  I ran out of the Regia before I got to the toe, so part of the foot is done in solid color.  Bummer.  At least that won’t show when I have shoes on!

I’m also brewing another avocado pit dye.  This time I’m attempting patience, how novel!  Each time we eat an avocado I finely chop the pit and add it to the brew.  Every second or third day I heat the dyepot to a simmer for 30 minutes as per Carol Lee’s instructions.  She says this goes on for months before actually dyeing. It’s a luscious red!

Then, on the penultimate day of the month I began to malfunction…and by the end of the day I was in bed with the flu!  Seven days later I can barely get out of my own way.  I’ve lost momentum…. and I”m in a funk….

The last time I had the flu (12 years ago), I ran to my LYS and bought some lace weight merino (Grignasco?) and got in bed with a Eugene Buehler pattern from Knitter’s Magazine. This time I’d been eyeing the recently arrived box of Icelandic unspun yarn in six colors from Schoolhouse Press.  So I went to bed with my little laptop tuned in on Schoolhouse Press’s current shawl KAL by Maria Von Keppel.

Sleep, knit, drink tea…..sleep, knit, drink tea…. 4 days later:

I was able to get out of bed on the day I did the crochet loops.  I graduated to sitting in a chair!