Blog Entries – Page 144

Day 2 in MA…

The weather is getting warmer here, more like summer. But there was a lot of commenting at breakfast at the almost record low this morning of 48 degrees.

I got my classroom set up for the all day Inkle Weaving class, and welcomed 17 students. We dove right in, and by lunch time almost all were ready to weave. One of my favorite New England Weavers, who is originally from England, is Leslie who proudly informed me she was 18 months shy of 90! She was happily working on her inkle loom when she said to me, “I wonder if there is a first aid station on campus?” I sort of looked a bit panicked, and she very gently said, in her lovely British accent, “Well I sort of fell off the curb this morning, and I’m afraid my foot is swelling up.” I looked down at the very badly swollen purple ankle, bulging out of her sandals, and we all jumped into action. Someone had an ice pack in a cooler, I pushed it into one of my little handwoven bag samples, with the inkle trim handle, and wrapped it around her foot while someone called campus security. Bless her, she wanted to stay and finish the class. They whisked her off to the hospital, and three x-rays later, on a pair of crutches, Louise came back to class by 2pm with her badly sprained ankle all wrapped up, and continued the class. We weavers all have our priorities… We laughed about it tonight at the fashion show, she said her friends wanted to come pick her up and she said no, she still had to take another of my classes…

I had been told by friends that Smith College has an amazing Art Museum right on campus. They weren’t kidding. Imagine my shock when I walked around the walls and saw a Georgia o’Keefe, paintings by Edward Hopper, Max Ernst, Diego Rivera, Ben Shahn, Robert Motherwell, and Willem De Kooning. And a wonderful sculpture by Louise Nevelson. I had never seen any of these particular pieces before in an other exhibits so that was a real treat. What a treasure. And in the lower gallery, there was an installation by Brooklyn artist and Smith alumni Lesley Dill. To say this artist’s work was powerful would be an understatement, her materials are largely found, and her voice huge. Take a look at some of her images on the website of the George Adams Gallery. And if you Google her name, there are lots of photos of images of her work available.

Lively dinner conversation, I meet such interesting wonderful people at these conferences, many who share their stories with me, especially since I bared my soul at my keynote address. Then it was off to the informal fashion show, followed by the formal fashion show, followed by the announcing of awards.

The informal fashion show was a treat, and one of the garments modeled was a great variation on the “Daryl Jacket”, the pattern I use for teaching my garment construction workshops. Marjorie Wheeler modeled her jacket, she made the bias yoke in the front and back, the fabric is all handwoven, and she looked so happy in the jacket.

The final garment in the informal fashion show, was actually not a garment, but a guild exchange from the Mainely Weavers. They paraded in a clothesline stretched from one end of the chapel to the other (odd place for a fashion show), and all the members displayed their miniature kimonos, made from what I understood to be three folded handwoven towels, based on an Erica de Ruiter article in Handwoven Magazine, which I believe they said was Nov/Dec 2007. I did a search on Interweave Presses’ index, and I think this is the article, though I’d have to confirm it when I get home. What a great idea for a guild exchange!

Three Towels or One Wall Hanging—
or Both! (de Ruiter, Erica).
ND07:56–57

The fashion show itself was wonderful, they always are, I don’t have photos, but as a judge, I can’t tell you how differently a garment looks when it is on the person who made it and coming down the runway, or in this case, the church aisle. So many of my comments during the judging would have been different had I seen the garment on the real body it was designed for. Looking at a garment on a table, or trying to try it on the body it doesn’t fit, doesn’t do justice to the garment or the maker. I’m looking foward to judging the Michigan Conference fashion show because I will get to see the garments on the runway before I make my final selections. Finally!

Oh, and the weaver/designer of that lovely plaid jacket I modeled in the previous post was done by Sharon Baker Kelley. I didn’t know the piece was Sharon’s until tonight, and obviously I couldn’t say yesterday that we had given it the ‘judges’ choice’ award! Congratulations Sharon!

Day 1 in Massachusetts.

Busy day, after a lovely breakfast at the Autumn Inn, I headed over to the campus, just down the road, and parked myself for the day in the jury room for the fashion show. I was one of three jurors, and we had to judge 48 garments on all kinds of technical criteria, and we worked hard. Other than a break for lunch, we worked until 4:30 pm, carefully looking at each garment, trying them on when appropriate, see photo at right, and then awarding all kinds of special awards, and I was thrilled that my co-jurors all had the same sensibilities that I did, and we quickly agreed upon the pieces that really stood out. Since this was all anonymous, I have no idea whose jacket I tried on, but it sure was lovely.

I had about 20 minutes to run over to the auditorium before the tech crew left, to do a sound check and make sure my presentation worked. Initially we couldn’t get my images to size correctly, they looked like they were stretched to fit a wide screen format on the stage, but I had an ah-ha moment, (my husband would have been proud) and I changed the output resolution in the PowerPoint program. So all was well, and I ran back across campus for the barbeque. I gobbled my food, had someone drive me back to the inn, changed into my gown, threw on some makeup, and back to the campus and the auditorium with five minutes to spare. I got all the equipment turned on and after the initial housekeeping anouncements, I was on stage and beginning my hour keynote address to officially start the conference. I had my buddies from Michigan drive to Massachusetts to hear me speak, (I’m sure that wasn’t the real reason they came, but it made me feel really good when they said it!) I gave them the camera and they got a few pictures of me in action. I am a pretty animated speaker, and most of the shots were hilarious, as I was caught in all kinds of awkward facial expressions. But some of them came out quite nice, thanks guys, and I thought I’d share them. When the image on the wall of my now infamous dress came up, everyone asked me to step out from behind the podium to model the real dress. It does look great on a stage.

I share some pretty personal stuff when I give a keynote address, especially about my journey with breast cancer, and more than one tear was shed, including mine. At the end, there were a couple of standing ovations in the back, which makes me feel like I made a difference for a brief moment, and afterwards, there were a lot of hugs and support and I think it all turned out well. Later there was wine back at the inn…

I’ve arrived!

I rarely drive to wherever I’m teaching, so this was sort of a treat, and I just headed up the interstates, guided by Thomas, the British guy who lives in my GPS, listening to a book, The Other Boleyn Girl. I’ve had it in my Audible file for awhile, and even though I saw the movie, and know how it all turns out, (she gets beheaded, duh…) it is a really good read.

I arrived at the Autumn Inn in Northhampton, MA, just in time for dinner, a lovely old inn, I have a beautiful room, private bath, and it is very quiet. I met up with the other fashion show judges, there are three of us, and the committee took all of us out to dinner at a wonderful restaurant in the heart of Smith College, called the Eastside Grill. For my dinner, I had the appetizer of Seared Tuna with Wontons, which was pan-seared spiced tuna on crispy wontons, with sesame carrots and creamy wasabi sauce. And I had a mesclun salad with Gorgonzola vinaigrette. What a great way to start the weekend! And of course there were lively conversations all around, weavers are so well read and informed and opinionated!

I have to share this photo, as I was packing the car, the red one parked on the lawn, we were having a new driveway put in, something that’s been on the list for years, we have lived in this house for almost 30 years and the driveway is way older than that. It was time. So the lovely smell of hot asphalt wafted through the house, I was glad to see it finished, with no cars parked on it, and leave.

I checked the schedule and room assignments for the weekend, and UGH! All five of my classes are not only in different rooms, they are in different buildings. So I don’t have a clue how I’m going to change classrooms/buildings every three hours, and my car will be in a parking garage down the street. Well, as it always does, it will work out…

Ready to Go!

As chaotic as the couple of days before I leave for a trip are, I sort of like the frenzy and the tying up of all the loose ends. And once I am on the road, I don’t have to think about anything that goes on while I’m away, I have a very competant husband, and the kids do just fine without me. As a matter of fact they appreciate me more I think. Course now, with a nineteen year old son living in the basement, he doesn’t have a whole lot of need for me anymore, and my daughter is away at camp. So my husband will get into all sorts of adventures while I’m gone, like having a new driveway put in…

The weather here has been glorious, and yesterday was no exception. After I did what I had to do in the studio, I took my lunch outside, and enjoyed the deck, except the neighbor decided to have a monstrous dump truck back into his backyard, and dump a gazillion pounds of stone down the back of the hill. I sort of needed ear plugs to enjoy my lunch. Once the truck left, I gathered my yellow legal pad, and a pencil, and the journals for one of the Designers’ Challenge Teams from 2008, and sat in my gazebo, listening to the birds, and the waterfalls, and the Mongolian wind chimes, and wrote my article for Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, the old fashioned way. There is something to be said for a yellow legal pad and a pencil albeit a mechanical one. (I love mechanical pencils, there is something about always having a crisp fresh point!) It felt good to get that out of the way, and really good to just sit outside and enjoy the gardens. I really tried hard to avert my eyes to all the myriad weeds that have sprouted with all the rains. We have about 300 maple trees springing up all over the place. They are only an inch tall, but they grow fast!

The crock pot is getting a much needed rest. I have quite a collection of beautiful shades of wool, and there is still one batch drying on the rack in my studio. There is plenty more fleece to dye, so I’ll crank that puppy up when I return. I did scrub the bathrooms down today, so I’m not leaving a dye ring around the bathroom sink. Since I’m dyeing the fleece in the grease, there is a bit of a lanolin ring around the bathroom sink, tinted with whatever color I used that day. Comet is a wonderful thing…

My husband figured the crock was never coming back to the kitchen, so he went out and bought me a new one from Sears. 🙂

So today I worked on updating my files in the laptop, moving over presentations, my keynote address, burning additional CD’s and pen drives, just in case. And this particular conference has me doing 6 different talks/seminars/workshops, so there is a huge amount of different materials to pack. Because I’m not getting on an airplane this time, I have more flexibility in the suitcases, and I’m bringing equipment I can’t fly with that I don’t normally bring, like a warping mill, and cone holder, for the class on Paddle Warping, and my larger inkle loom for the inkle loom workshop. I have a suitcase or totebag for each of the seminar/workshops I’m teaching, that way I can be organized for each changeover, and I never know if my classes will all be in the same place. I HATE when they aren’t!

I’ve printed out driving directions to the Amherst Inn where I’m staying for the conference. The conference itself will be at Smith College, in Amherst, MA. So I found an address for the college to plug into my trusty GPS. And I loaded up a book on tape, except now it is a book on MP3 player, to listen to during the three hour car trip.

Now that I’m working again, there is a big discussion about updating my electronics, exciting on one hand, but a huge roll your eyes headache on another, while I adjust to new equipment and a huge learning curve. I would dearly love to reduce my 25 pound computer/projector bag to just a few pounds, this is getting sort of critical with airplane travel. So I’m looking to get a NetBook, and a much smaller digital projector, and upgrading from my trusty Palm Pilot (Ok so I live in the dark ages, it works for me…) to an iPod touch. My tech savvy husband and girlfriend convinced me last night at dinner to try Google Calendar which syncs with my Outlook Calendar, and can also sync with my husband’s Google Calendar, and will eventually sync with an iPod Touch, and my head is already reeling… I want to go back and play with wool… So I tried to load into my Google Calendar two months worth of data, to see how I like using it, instead of the one I’ve used for years on my Palm, which sync’d up well with my computer. And of course I desperately need to upgrade my office suite to Microsoft Office 2007, (I’m still using 2003) and I have to install and move all my bookkeeping over to Quicken because Microsoft Money is no longer being supported… So much technology and so little time to learn it all. The stupid thing about technology is you work at learning something, finally get a working proficiency at it, and the software and/or hardware changes and you have to start all over again. Blissfully, handweaving is NOT like that. You can hand weave the old fashioned way and get great satisfaction from four shafts, throwing the shuttle back and forth, and watching the threads slowly become cloth. And sewing too, I have a high tech machine, but I sew my garments the same way I did when I learned 40 years ago, with a straight stitch, that goes forward and backward, a good pair of shears (now there is something that hasn’t changed since the beginning of time…) and a needle and thread, and yes, I still use a thimble. So, sewing and handweaving are my antidotes for the swirl of technology that leaves my head in a frenzy. And if the power goes out, I can still hand sew and throw a shuttle. 🙂

Parties and Prep…

It is of course a holiday kind of weekend, but it is also countdown to leaving for another conference. So in between the parties and fireworks, I’m trying to fit in the last minute prep, printing handouts, going over my notes and speeches, and getting my daughter her last minute items before she leaves for summer camp tomorrow morning.

Yesterday I went to central Jersey to a wonderful party, I will say that the weather this weekend has been glorious. Warm, breezy and dry. It doesn’t get any better than this. I’ve known my friends Karen and Geoff since 1980, when I met them at a craft fair. They were selling stained glass and I was of course selling my weaving. We hit it off and have been friends for almost 30 years. They still sell the most incredible glass, under the name of Sunflower Glass Studio, and their parties are always full of interesting creative people and awesome food. Another couple, Sy and Lisa, have been friends for almost that long, we attended their wedding and our children are close in age. They make leather bags under the name of Maple Leather Company. And I met Nancy, an amazing woman, who works as a real estate agent by day, and for her creative life, she works in print and film. There were myriad discussions of life as an artist, the struggle we all have of staying fresh in our work, and earning enough money to keep on doing what we love to do.

Today I warped one of my small inkle looms, can’t teach a class in inkle weaving with an empty loom! Fortunately they are very quick to warp, I made it up as I went along, and had this idea of adding a fat, supplemental warp, that wouldn’t actually be woven in, just float in and out as required. So I just passed it over the top of the warp threads, and then figured out later how to weave it in. This should be interesting…

The actual band is gorgeous. I used some of the leftover spools of warp from the Design Challenge Project I’ve talked about ad nauseum…

The color will move through the length of the band. I carefully started and stopped similar colors in specific design areas. You can get a feel for that in the photo above. Meanwhile, I got the idea of crossing the supplemental warps on top as I wove the band, and that’s kind of cool. The hardest part was keeping the warps out of the way when they drop under the band, so I ran to the garage and found a miniature bungee cord, and I just clip the cords out of the way while I weave.

When I bring the supplemental warps back on top, they just float up there out of the way, very convenient.

Meanwhile, I printed about 60 monographs for handouts, and worked on the binding, more to print tomorrow, but my daughter needed some last minute errands, and decided that she can’t go to summer camp unless she dyes her hair fuschia. So that was going on in the bathroom, and then of course, the chartreuse yellow nails complete the look. Gotta love her! My daughter loves color as much as I do, though I stick to dyeing wool in the crock pot and weaving with it.

Today’s crock pot color is a red grape color…

Off to the fireworks…