Blog Entries – Page 143

Busy Days…

It has been a busy but productive couple of days. Lots of social stuff, and progress in the studio.

First an update on the book organization. I now have all the spinning and natural dyeing books in one place, which follow the weaving books, which makes sense since there are a few ‘Weaving, Spinning, Dyeing” books. Especially “Early American”! And I have two copies of “Your Handspinning” from Elsie Davenport!

Did you every have one of those books, that just doesn’t fit on the shelf with the rest of the books? Either too tall, or too long? I’ve got a copy of Spinning and Weaving with Wool by Paula Simmons (I think that came from my mother in law’s stash), and The World of Wooden Bobbins, the Story of Old Wooden Textile Bobbins, both of which are very wide. So they stick out from the shelf about 3-4 extra inches from everything else around them. There are all kinds of stressors in life. (Yeah I know that isn’t a word, oh well, it fits!) And I usually am able to deal with each one that comes my way, I would like to think, with grace and flexibility. But I’m an organized and anal person, yes I admit to that, and these two books, that stick out on the shelf, make me sort of nuts. They are ruining the order in my system! Would it be too much to ask for publishers to have some kind of standard?

I spent the last two days polishing the new seminar on Website Success. This is a killer of a seminar to develop, one because I am trying to condense years of study into 2 1/2 hours, and because the information changes almost daily. I am scheduled to give it again at Convergence in Albuquerque in 2010, and I fear I’ll need to completely rewrite the seminar by then. What was I thinking?

I took a copy to my neighbor/friend, who is a media specialist at a local high school. Though website design is not her expertise, presentations are, and conveying the complex world of technology to a world of non technological people is well within her experience level. She was really helpful, though I didn’t want to hear it. “Way too much information” (Am I not famous for that?), “Boring slides”, she was correct, but how many visuals are there to explain such things as FTP, IP, ISP, Host Servers, HTML, etc. So I went back to the drawing board, and added lots of clip art, figures with question marks coming out of their head, guys looking at road maps, call-out shapes that ask questions the audience is probably thinking (like “What’s a .png”), construction sites, and whatever else I could find to jazz up the otherwise pretty static overload of information. I will admit, it is more colorful. That there is too much information, I can’t help. That I may run over my allotted time, I can’t help either, the first time through a presentation is always the roughest because there is no way to time it and know what things the audience won’t understand. So, I am plowing forward, and I have a cover, and I am waiting until my techie husband goes through it one more time to check for technical boo b00’s.

Last night we had the privilege of attending the opening night of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Summer Musical Program with the New Jersey Youth Theater Program, Sweeny Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. All I can say is WOW! First, this is a Sondheim musical, and probably his most challenging. It is almost all sung, and it is dark and difficult. Secondly, it was performed by the NJ Youth Theater program, which trains young adults for serious work in musical theater. My neighbor/friend (the same one who proofed my presentation) has an 18 year old daughter, who is very gifted, and was accepted to participate in the ensemble in this summer’s production of Sweeny Todd. All of the cast members were under the age of 24. Many were still in High School. The ensemble resumes alone are totally impressive. I will say it was every bit as good as the original production I saw on Broadway, and again at the Papermill Playhouse years ago. I’m so fortunate to be able to see good theater on a regular basis.

Today I drove to the shore. Actually that would be in Jersey speak, “Down the Shore”. There is a difference! There is an active weaving guild “down the shore”, called the Shore Fiber Arts Guild, and they invited me down for the day to teach a class in inkle weaving. I had 16 in the class, and an assistant, who was amazingly helpful. There were a lot of non weavers in the group, and surprisingly a couple of teens with their parents, there was a mother/daughter and father/daughter team. There were a couple mother/daughter teams, from what I understand. It was great seeing such a range of ages, and enthusiasm. Did I remember to take a photo of the group? No, duh…

Anyway, I sold 11 of the little Inklettes by Ashford, so there are 11 more small looms out there in the world to be woven on! 🙂 (Note to Rita, I do have a couple left if you are interested!)

So I’m unpacked, and catching up on my blog, my daughter is back from her second week of CIT training at the Girl Scout Camp. The fuchsia hair is fading somewhat! She leaves again on Monday for two weeks of volunteer work at the camp. This camp has probably been one of the best influences on her, teaching social skills, responsibility, confidence, and maturity. I would like to take credit for all of it as her mother, but her experiences at this camp have been amazing. It is great to watch her come home each summer, full of stories and adventures, and to be able to articulate them with a maturity beyond her years and still exhibit a sense of fun! Their motto as CIT’s is “If you don’t feel like a fool, then you aren’t doing it right!” Now isn’t that a quote we can all live by?

Wonderful Wednesday!

I woke up late this morning, I know I needed the sleep. The house was quiet, my husband had already gone into the office, my daughter was away at camp, and my 19 year old son, who lives in the basement, usually doesn’t surface until noon. So I did my usual routine, there were a couple of book orders in my email, I got those prepared to ship out. I had volunteered to drive my neighbor’s son to work, so I was able to ship the orders, and my article to SS&D, while I was out.

I blew through all the stuff on my to-do list for today, and then dove into my book shelves. I decided that I’d tackle one category of book every couple of days. So today, I tackled the weaving books. First I went to the shelves that were suppose to have weaving books on them, duh, and took off everything that wasn’t a weaving book. Then I searched the studio and my library shelves in the bedroom for everything that was a weaving book. Wow. Did I find stuff I didn’t know I had! Even a booklet that had been missing for four years! It was so cool to see everything in one place. I’ve acquired so many books in the last few years, some from my late mother-in-law’s stash, many from guild sales, and many from suggestions I just couldn’t pass up on Amazon. Not to mention I’ve been weaving since the 1970’s! So my copy of Davison is from 1971!

That left me with a pretty empty couple of shelves, and once I located all the weaving books, I carefully arranged all of them between two shelves. I tried to organize them by subject, all the pattern books, the warping books, the general weaving books, the specific structure books, but just having them all in one location made a big difference.

My neighbor/friend is a media specialist at an area high school and is a great resource for all things involving technology (software) I’m married to the best techie on the planet for hardware issues…

Anyway, she gave me a great resource, Library Thing, for cataloging your books online. I just type in the ISBN number, or when all else fails the author, and so far, it has found all of the books I’ve entered, in a great usable format, and I’m hoping to catalog all the books I have into one place. A huge portion of my books are out of print, so I am always surprised when they come up on a search.

My husband came home from the office late this afternoon, he usually works from home, but he had a meeting today, so in he went. My husband started working for the telephone company, climbing poles, in 1969. Through many company changes, and promotions, and the whole divestiture thing, he is still with the “phone company” but now he works for a communications consulting company that has global connections, and he is a software and systems analyst. That’s why he travels so much around the globe. Anyway, next month, he celebrates 40 years in the ‘telephone’ industry. Of course it is now the communications industry, but with his 40th anniversary, he gets to pick a special service award gift. What fun! He showed me the list of all the gifts he could choose from, a GPS, camping equipment, lots of jewelry, watches, luggage, clocks, golf clubs, more jewelry, and cookware. Guess what he chose! He came home today, with a huge box, and brought me a new set of Calphalon cookware. He chose that over a new set of golf clubs. I adore my husband….

So I packed up my other pots, which were still in decent condition, they were only about 15 years old, and the first one of my children who has an apartment and needs cookware will get those, but new cookware prompted a cleaning out of the cookware cabinet! 🙂

So I pulled everything out of the pull-out shelves I keep my cookware in, and reorganized them to hold all the new stuff. Notice my new crock pot in there as well! To protect the non stick finish on my old cookware, I used small linen napkins to separate the pots when I stack them. I needed to wash them, but decided that my new cookware needed a more personal type of mat to separate them, so I ran up to my studio and dug through the archives. I found a number of small “mug” mats I had handwoven in the early 1980’s in linen, that I had for sale in my craft booth.

I had woven a series of table linens, runners and placemats, in four colorways, which at the time, matched the Pfaltzgraff dishes that were so popular. I’m not sure why I made small mug mats from them, but I had a bunch in different bins in my studio and attic. These were perfect for protecting the pots, I actually use stuff like this when I stack glass and ceramic bowls as well.

The structure was a simple 6 shaft weave, plain weave for the background, and two shafts for each of the two sections that weave over and under each other. These thin little mats could really be made out of any fabric, they don’t have to be handwoven, but they provide an important function in the kitchen, to separate anything that could get scratched. And they look so nice.

Tonight I got a letter of acceptance for a Foto/Fiber show in San Antonio, Texas. I had submitted three of my artworks, to an exhibit that showed fiber with an obvious use of photography. One of the pieces, “Survivor 2” was accepted. This is one of the series I did on Breast Cancer, a very celebratory piece, and I was thrilled to be accepted. The show opens at Fiber Artspace, at the Blue Star Arts Complex, in San Antonio, TX on September 3, 2009. The show only runs for a month, so if you live in that area and get to see the show, see if you can sneak a photo for me since I won’t get to see the show myself.

A date!

I love Tuesday’s. Especially after a week away. Monday is always so chaotic, but Tuesday feels like the beginnings of a familiar routine. I tidied my house, dusted the downstairs, had my tea and toast (with Nutella, OK, I’m an addict…), checked my emails, read my favorite blogs, and then got everything together to finish up my next article for SS&D. I am writing a series of three articles for Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, about the three design teams who created ensembles for the Convergence 2008 Tampa Bay last year. If you are new to the blog, I was part of one of the teams, we were given yarn dyed for the conference in Floridian shades, and we had a year to create an ensemble. I spent the beginning of this year, recounting my yearlong experience, partnered with Loretta Dian Phipps, a surface designer and felter from Texas, whom I didn’t know, and I published that experience in a CD, PowerPoint or PDF presentation suitable for a guild program (without having to fly me there) which is available on my website.

Anyway, I am also writing a condensed version for Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, and the first installment, is going to print as I write, due out soon for the Summer 2009 issue. I just finished up the second installment, on handweaver Nancy Peck and pattern designer Diane Ericson. The third installment is due in mid-September, which will feature handweaver Irene Munroe and pattern designer Louise Cutting. It was really great fun for me to explore one of the other teams, and how they approached the collaborative process.

Of course, sitting at my computer all day, I can get into so much trouble. I am slowly working my way through all the non essential emails cluttering up my box from my week away, and I got another one of those wicked emails that I have to sit on my hands not to click on. I lost… This one is from Interweave Press, publishers of Handwoven and a gazillion other magazines and publications, and they were having a “Hurt” book sale. I am assuming these books have been damaged in some way, but a book is a book. And a sale is a sale. Curiousity got to me and $53. later, I have about 8 books coming to me I didn’t have on my shelf.

This prompted me to start looking at my book shelves, which span a couple of rooms, I have a serious addiction to books, since some of the titles on sale seemed familiar enough I was sure I already had them, but realized that my shelves were in such a disarray, I couldn’t find anything. I fear I’ve ordered duplicate books. I’ve done that before. All this means is I have to start reorganizing my shelves, and finding ways to make more space… I need all the weaving books in one place, the art books in another, the fashion, spinning, knitting, surface design, lacemaking, and sewing books, all in their own sections. We are talking major out of control here…

I did manage to finish one of the four scarves on my 8 shaft 25″ loom. I had showed the warp layout in the Color Class I gave in Iowa and in Massachusetts. It felt good to just sit at the loom. Once my article was put to bed, I packed it up to send out in the morning, and I went in to my husband and I said, “I’m done in the studio. Lets go out!” He works down the hall, and blissfully he was at a stopping point as well, and with no kids for the evening, we headed out, caught a movie, dinner, and just enjoyed each other’s company. A rare treat. So I went out on a date, with my husband, and for a brief couple of hours, felt like I came out of my rabbit hole and saw a bit of life. We went to see Hangover, which was hilarious, and poignant.

My friend just bought a Netbook, and I went to visit her last night and play with her new toy. Wow. I couldn’t get over the size. I took my presentations down, and ran through them, they read with no problem, and the keyboard was comfortable, actually it was bettered suited to my hand size. The Netbook weighs nothing, and we will be ordering one this week, as my regular travel laptop is having issues with the Power Button. Meaning it won’t turn on. After struggling with it over the weekend, and getting it to finally power up, I haven’t turned off the computer since, for fear it won’t work for the workshop I’m giving this weekend at the shore. So, I expect within the next couple of days, I’ll have a new toy, and some more books to play with…

NEWS Final!

I’m home! It is the Monday morning after, and I’m feeling the workout of the weekend! Surprisingly I’m in pretty good shape, I’m unpacked, and organized, the cutting table is clear, the bank deposit ready to go. Mail is sorted, (I still have a couple dozen emails to work through), but I’m doing better than I thought, and my wrenched shoulder is mending. I just have to be careful and not lift or reach with my left arm. No weaving on the big loom this week! (Not that there is anything on the big loom to weave…)

It was a very inspiring weekend, and I was grateful for the opportunity to teach some workshops I haven’t taught in awhile, ones that I think are important, but I don’t usually get asked to teach them because I’m more of the Go-To girl for sewing, and no one thinks to look at proposals from me on Multiple thread warping techniques, like the warping paddle, and Photographing your Textiles. I’m hoping that the variety of things I taught this weekend (which was everything except sewing, which is what I’m most known for), will help get the word out that I am not a one trick pony!

Somewhere in hauling my support materials from one end of campus to the other, I managed to pull a muscle, or wrench my back left shoulder, so by mid morning, I was in a huge amount of pain, and I was struggling to focus. During the break in the color class, one of the workshop participants did a bit of Reiki on me, and that really helped get me through until lunch! Plus the conference sent a couple of strapping guys to haul me back across campus for the afternoon session. That was a real treat, to be followed along by a couple of guys toting my supplies. 🙂

Speaking of campuses, Smith College, which I’ve never been to, is gorgeous! Like all New England campuses that have been around for the last 150 years, there is an architecture, a tradition, a landscaping, that creates a wonderful environment, and community that envelopes you with a tradition and grandeur that I know I didn’t feel on the campus where I attended college back in the 70’s. The main road into the campus takes you by the lake and boat house, and the Botanical Gardens. I did a couple of quick inspirational shots of the perennial wall along the road, and the glass conservatory.

My morning class was all about color and inspiration. Like the class I gave last month in Iowa, I love teaching this one, because it is just a jumble of color and texture and yarns, all thrown into the middle of the table and everyone is given a couple exercises where they get to loosen up and really play, without the constraints of the loom. These little warp wraps are like sketching exercises, and weavers don’t usually walk around sketching. One of the final exercises involved interpreting a magazine photo into yarn, and I snapped a couple shots of my favorites, including one that used a box of tea as the inspiration instead of a magazine photo!

I had to include one additional shot, from my infamous workshop participant Leslie, who is planning a 90th birthday party during the 2011 NEWS, the same Leslie who seriously sprained her ankle on her way to my Friday class in Inkle Loom Weaving. Leslie not only made it to the Color and Inspiration class, but she did a couple of beautiful interpretations, the one on the left of a honeybee in a flower, and the one on the right, a room interior, interpreted with Color-Aid strips to represent a color palette.

The afternoon class, was all about using multiple yarn ends together when winding a warp. I started the class by giving a demonstration on using the warping paddle on a warping mill (see photo right), followed by one on Sectional Warping, and then one on using the AVL Warping Wheel. I love my AVL Warping Wheel, though it is one pretty pricey piece of equipment. Thankfully I bought mine when they were first introduced back in 2000.

The class was finished by 4:30, and I had some really helpful workshop participants stay behind to get me packed up and down to the basement level of the building where I could pull up with my car, after retrieving it from the parking garage down the road. I was loaded in and ready to hit the road by 5pm. I listened to the rest of my book on tape, The Other Boleyn Girl, on the 3+ hour ride home, and once home, I got to spend some time with my fuschia haired daughter who had successfully completed her first week of CIT training at Girl Scout Camp. We took her back to the bus this morning to start week two!

Now I need to start thinking about the next conference in Durango Colorado! I leave July 30th!

Day 3 in MA.

This will be a really brief post. I am exhausted, and have had three glasses of wine, and am not sure that I can even type straight. Since I am teaching back to back classes with no break, my choice, I haven’t been able to get a break to see any of the exhibits or shows, or visit the vendors, or grab a couple of minutes to myself. And that isn’t really a problem, I am actually here to work, so there are no complaints on my part.

The classes today went really well, I didn’t get any pictures, so you will have to be satisfied with words. This morning, I gave a tour of the fashion show, static, which means that the garments worn in the show last night were on display gallery style, and I gave a technical critique of “behind the seams” which discussed construction decisions and design choices, and really helps the participants make better choices as garment designers. I started doing this kind of seminar at Convergence in Cincinnati in 2000, and I’ve done it many many times since, at many different conferences, and each time, it is different because it is given based on the body of work in front of me. Other than previewing the work there is no prep, the seminar is given totally off the cuff, and invites interaction between me and the seminar participants. The real difference this time, was the fact that I was one of the jurors. So I had a different role to play here, and one that invited even more feedback, especially when I explained how differently I would have judged many of the pieces if I had seen the actual fashion show before I wrote my comments.

So I talked about the garments for three hours, everyone was a great sport, asking a lot of questions, and challenging me to think up better ways to do things. I grabbed a quick lunch, and then relocated to a different building on campus, and began my afternoon seminar, which was a wonderful follow-up, a seminar on photographing your work. You can imagine how enlightening this seminar was, I had about 20 students, and there were a lot of questions. Some of the participants sent me their images of their work ahead of time and I was able to load them into my computer and then critique them after the presentation. It was a great learning experience for all of us.

I had a couple of minutes to catch the special exhibit installed in one of the rooms in the large, glass campus center. BFA and MFA candidates from UMass Dartmouth and RISD, had works on exhibit, it was a wonderful show, full of narrative works, and a refreshing treat from the traditional weaving that makes up the core of the handweaving community in New England.

We have had a lot of discussions over lunches and dinners about the handweaving tradition in New England. And it is with great respect that I say, that the handweaving community of New England is about preserving the tradition of the craft of handweaving. They are technically the most proficient of all the handweavers I encounter around the United States, and the tradition of handweaving is critical to their existence. You won’t find felting or basketry, or any other fiber discipline at this conference. This is the New England Weavers Seminar, and there are ONLY handweavers here at the conference. If they work in any other fiber discipline, that work is saved for another venue. It was amazing to see how many of those who entered work in the fashion show, used historical drafts. Many from the 1700-1800’s. There is a real sense of history and tradition in the New England States, and I have to say I have a new found respect for the passion of the tradition here. One of the specific criteria I had for judging the fashion show, was the timeless endurance of the piece, will it be around for generations to come?

I had many meals and discussions with some of the faculty of this conference, it is always great to get to know some of them in a more personal way. Jan Doyle and I were two of the three jurors of the fashion show, and we sat at breakfast one morning just talking about our professional lives. Jan is a professor, sadly I can’t remember what college she teaches at, it must be the wine, but I do remember her inviting me to join her teacher’s union. She called it the CEA Teacher’s Union. CEA is an Acronym for “Can’t Eat Accolades”. We talked about how hard it was to get a fair wage for what we do, to eek out some kind of living, and that lines on the resume don’t necessarily pay the grocery bills. We had a great laugh together.

Tonight’s closing keynote address was given by Betsy Blumenthal who did a wonderful presentation covering handweaving over the last forty years. She is a little older than I am, and started weaving a bit before me, but not by much. She did a lot of homework for this presentation, starting with, and interspersing slides of publications from every year from the 1960’s to present. In between those images were those of her work, and her growth as a textile artist/handweaver, and those of her contemporaries, including myself, Betsy had asked for slides or images from us ahead of time, and it was all woven together into a great retrospective of contemporary handweaving.

I ran into Leslie, the woman from my inkle weaving class, the first day of the conference, who fell off the curb and seriously sprained her ankle, but managed, in the true spirit of a handweaver, to finish my class. She is still at the conference, and doing well, getting around on her crutches, and looking forward to my Color and Inspiration Class tomorrow.

Silly me, I knew I couldn’t keep it short….

And, note to my husband, if you are reading this, I seriously need a NetBook, that weighs nothing, and an LCD projector that weighs even less. I have disclocated shoulders from carrying around a 40 pound bag of electonic equipment from building to building and then back to the parking garage at the other end of campus…