Just do it…

I’m in the final prep stages for my fall teaching extravaganza, I’ll be bouncing all over the country for the next couple of months, with sometimes only 48 hours to change suitcases and head out again.  I’d like to think I’ve got this, and having an assistant has really helped me stay on task and focused.  

I’ve spent the last week redoing all of the handouts I’ll be using, increasing font size, rewording things that could be worded more clearly, I do this kind of regularly, but this revamp involves hundreds of slides and there are days I’m completely cross eyed.  Cynthia and I laugh when we do really stupid stuff and can’t remember where we were and what we were working on.  I’ll apologize in advance for any minor mistakes in the rewrites because, well, you know that’s going to happen.  No matter how many times you proof something…

I had cut out a spread in the NY Times a while ago, and pinned it to my bulletin board in the mud room, of a couple exhibits I really wanted to see.  At the time, I thought, no problem, they are in NYC and I should be able to skip in this summer.  Hahahahahah…..

I revisited that article, and to my horror, one of the exhibits I wanted to see was closing on the 3rd of September.  I’m leaving on the 25th for Harrisville, coming back Labor Day weekend, have to immediately drive to Peters Valley to pick up my piece in the faculty show on the 3rd, and then ship it out to Blue Ridge Fiber Show by the 4th.  I’m not going to get into the city to see anything if I keep on this path.  

I woke up this morning to a rainy dreary Sunday, all set to jump back into handout edits and I thought to myself, just get in the car and drive into NYC and see the damn shows already.  Just do it.  

And so I did.

In fact, I hit four museums and was home by 2pm, knocking off a number of exhibits that had been on my list.  Driving into NYC on a Sunday morning is actually pleasant, the GW Bridge is beautiful and majestic and the Henry Hudson Parkway that follows the river south is dreamy with joggers running along the river on a Sunday morning, so NYC.  I parked under the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which put me in walking distance range of three of the museums with exhibits I wanted to see.

First stop was the MET Breuer.  There was an exhibit I had read about called Obsession: Nudes by Klimt, Schiele, and Picasso from the Thayer Collection.  These were mostly drawings and sketches, little known works from these artists, and rarely exhibited for a number of reasons.  But it is the 100th anniversary of the death of both Klimt, whom everyone knows, and Egon Schiele, whom almost on one knows, but is one of my most favorite artists.  And of course Picasso.  You can’t take photos of course, but I’ve gotten into the curiosity of well known artists’ sketch books, considering my own quest to draw daily (which I of course have not done, no surprise there) and it was a pleasure to look at these sketches and see the raw talent each of these artists possessed.  I actually hadn’t been to the MET Breuer, since the MET took over the building vacated by the Whitney Museum when it moved to the Meat Packing district in lower Manhattan.  I don’t know why, but more contemporary art, which it mostly houses, doesn’t appeal to me the way classic work does.   The original MET Fifth Avenue is still my favorite place in the world to spend an afternoon.  

Anyway, I walked about 10 blocks north to the Neue Galerie, Museum for German and Austrian Art.  The gallery is best known for its acquisition of Klimt’s portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I, known as the Woman in Gold.  They were also having a centenary exhibition of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele’s work, because they have a heavy collection of both artist’s work, and both artists died 100 years ago this year.  Schiele died at only 28 of the Spanish Flu.  Klimt was his mentor, and he left an impressive body of work for his short life.  His portraiture was erotic, raw, graphic and I fell in love with it the first time I heard about him.  And I even love his landscapes.  Since I’d been to that museum before I’d already seen many of the pieces and I was in and out of there pretty quickly.

I walked back to the MET 5th Avenue, and decided to pop in and give another once over, as long as I was there, to the exhibit Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.  This has to be one of the best fashion exhibits they have ever done.  And it ends October 8th.  When I went when the exhibit opened in May, it was super crowded and difficult to navigate, but the brilliance of it all was to incorporate fashion into galleries that the public doesn’t usually visit.  There were exquisite fashions placed strategically all over the medieval wing, you had to look up sometimes and and of course bump into people trying to capture everything on their tablets.  The background sound track was haunting and I did a quick cruise around before checking on a couple other exhibits that were on my list.  

One was a pretty obscure little exhibit, in a pretty obscure gallery, in the basement, called “The Secret Life of Textiles: The Milton Sonday Archive.”  So this guy Milton Sonday was a pretty big authority on the structures of handmade fabrics, particularly woven works and lace.  And I’m into weaving and lace.  Apparently he created little looms and paper weavings to illustrate basic structures, and large scale lace fragments to show the interlacement or path of the threads in bobbin lace.  I didn’t take any photos, silly me, except this one which I absolutely adored.  

Last spring I did a research piece for a recorder group I occasionally play with, on the works of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a Flemish painter, juxtaposed to musical works by Susato, who lived and worked at the same time as Bruegel in Antwerp.  Both lived and worked in the early part of the 17th century.  In my research I came across Bruegel’s mentor, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, a painter of considerable merit, but not one I knew.  So I was completely enchanted with this work that hung over a display case of paper woven works.

 The piece is called “Interlace after Pieter Coecke van Aelst and an anonymous lace designer, 2015.  It is woven completely of paper strips.

I went from that basement gallery to the second floor of the MET, the ultimate treasure hunt to navigate this monster of a museum, to an exhibit of drawings of Eugène Delacroix.  Again with the sketch book.  Small treasures that show skill and yet the beginnings of something wonderful with no regard to the end product.  I took a single photo here, of a lovely simple watercolor and pencil that is the kind of thing I’d like to see in my own sketch book, simple rendering of a lovely scene, captured quickly.  This piece was the size of a post card and still in the opened sketchbook.

I got back to my car, and decided that if I didn’t head up to the Cloisters and see the second part of Heavenly Bodies, I’d never get to see it, as it also closes October 8th and I’ll be traveling most of September.  The Cloisters is about 15 minutes up the parkway, only a few minutes from the GW Bridge, which I had to cross anyway to get back to Jersey.  I love the Cloisters, it is part of the MET Museum, and though I’ve been there many times, I had never seen the cloistered area gardens because I always seem to get there in the winter.  Usually for a concert or something.

So just seeing those lovely wild gardens was a treat.  Made me want to sit and paint.

And the Heavenly Bodies exhibit continued.  I have to say, this was even better than the first part at the MET 5th Avenue.  Everywhere you looked, contemporary fashion was hidden in a way that you totally believed it was there all along.  I actually did take a couple photos, since they were allowed, and this one, though not my favorite garment, looked amazing in one of my favorite galleries that houses the famed Unicorn Tapestries.  This is a Thom Browne wedding ensemble from the Spring/Summer 2018 collection in white silk organza with white mink.

I came into this chapel, and audibly gasped.  Ave Maria was playing over the sound system and I just stood there with my jaw dropped.  This wedding dress from the House of Dior from 2018 was apparently modeled after the original design from 1961.  It is also white silk organza.

And then I came upon these lovely pieces, there were about six in the collection, set up in a stone hallway that led to yet another outdoor cloistered area. 

 They were a series of ensembles from 2015 by Jun Takahasi for Undercover.  I was not familiar with his work.  But I was very familiar with the images printed on the fabrics, they are digital prints from Hieronymous Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.  I studied Early Netherlandish painting quite extensively back in the 70’s as part of my Fine Arts Degree, and this artist was front and center.  He died shortly before Pieter Bruegel the Elder was born, and his work heavily influenced Bruegel.  Bosch was a whack job, his images were all over the place, haunting, erotic, grotesque, but the kind of imagery you can’t look away from.  As a 20 something, I found a kind of naughty pleasure in his work. This is the triptych, it starts with the Garden of Eden on the left, and a grotesque hell on the right.  A total expose on the fate of humanity, we are all doomed…

I was pretty proud of myself for achieving the Triple Play, all three MET museums in one day. 

 

And so I had my fill of inspiration, that should last for a number of months.  I will be packing of course my knitting and my sketchbook and pencils and watercolors, and armed with newly updated handouts, and some new patterns and samples, I start with Harrisville in NH next weekend, followed by a five day class in Inkle Weaving at John C Campbell in western NC, immediately followed by Sievers on Washington Island WI.  That’s the 48 hour turn around.  I’m going to try not to unpack after Harrisville.  I immediately head to Arkansas and the Ozarks followed by three days of video shoots for Threads Magazine and then my retreat at the Outer Banks of NC.  My guild show and sale is in November (I’m the treasurer) and I end the year in December with a trip to the Milwaukee Guild.  And then I write an article for Heddlecraft.  I do love my life, and I especially love when I can spend an unexpected day getting inspired.  I’m madly trying to finish off this Krokbragd band on the inkle loom, so I can take it as a sample to John C. Campbell, and of course my shadow has returned, now that my daughter has moved back home to take a new job in central Jersey.  

And about that daily sketching thing…

I did manage to finish up a drawing I did of the kitchen, that I started while I was at Peters Valley teaching a couple weeks ago.  

But now I’m inspired to draw people.  I know my portfolio of life drawing subjects from the 70’s is floating around the attic somewhere…

Stay tuned…

 

The Cloisters

We left around 10:00am to head into NYC, with our friends Misa and Pat, just ahead of the blizzard that was making its way up the coast.  The snow wasn’t suppose to start until around 12:30pm, so we figured we could get into Manhattan, have lunch at the New Leaf Cafe in Fort Tryon Park, and then hear the Baltimore Consort at 1pm at the Cloisters and be home before the roads got bad.  The one thing working in our favor was the temperature.  It was well below freezing, so the snow would be drier, and with the winds, it would blow around a lot before it started to stick, and there wouldn’t be the usual problem we have with ice.

The Cloisters sit on top of a hill overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan
The Cloisters sit on top of a hill overlooking the Hudson River in northern Manhattan
The Hudson River view from the Cloisters, including the George Washington Bridge
The Hudson River view from the Cloisters, including the George Washington Bridge

What an amazing day.  If you live in the NY metropolitan area, I’m sure you’ve been to the Cloisters, it is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but located about 100 blocks north of the regular museum, built by Rockefeller in the late 1930’s to house a fantastic collection of works of art from the Middle Ages, including architectural fragments that have been incorporated into the fabric of the building itself.  The work here dates from 1000AD to about 1520AD.

For the rest of my readers, who don’t have a chance to see Manhattan, or if you do, you might not get a chance to visit this mythical place, I have lots of gorgeous photos, courtesy of my husband and his new camera.  Wait, wasn’t that a Christmas present?

Twelfth-century chapter house from the Benedictine abbey of Notre-Dame at Pontaut
Twelfth-century chapter house from the Benedictine abbey of Notre-Dame at Pontaut

Can I say that the architecture of this place is truly breathtaking?  There is a sense of reverence, and history that makes me feel like I am in a sacred place, and that each artwork has an amazing story, and that I could draw quiet inspiration from these hallowed walls.

The 12th century Cuxa Cloister.
The 12th century Cuxa Cloister.
The gardens of the Cuxa Cloister, in winter before the snow
The gardens of the Cuxa Cloister, in winter before the snow
Stained Glass from the 15th century Carmelite foundation at Boppard am Rhein
Stained Glass from the 15th century Carmelite foundation at Boppard am Rhein
The Gothic Chapel with French and Spanish tomb effigies from the 13th and 14th centuries
The Gothic Chapel with French and Spanish tomb effigies from the 13th and 14th centuries
Waiting in line with Pat and Misa, before the concert
Waiting in line with Pat and Misa, before the concert

We waited patiently in line, it was easy to be patient in a place like this, there is a calm wonder and awe that makes waiting in line a pleasure.

The concert was unbelievable.  If you can imagine early music instruments and the ethereal voice of the soprano vibrating in a space like this chapel which contained a mid-12th century apse from Spain, it is the most lovely sound I’ve ever heard.  Obviously I’m a fan of early music, I played with my recorder consort last night at a Christmas concert at one of the churches on the green in Morristown.  But this is truly magical.  The Baltimore Consort was founded in 1980 to perform the instrumental music of Shakespeare’s time and today’s performance covered Christmas carols in Latin, German, Spanish, Elizabethan English, Scottish, Finnish, and French.  The works ranged from the 12th-16th century.  I recognized one of the oldest of Latin/German hymns, In dulci iubilo, which I played with my recorder consort last night.

Entering the Fuentidueña Chapel for the Baltimore Consort Concert
Entering the Fuentidueña Chapel for the Baltimore Consort Concert

After the concert, we checked through the stained glass windows at the gardens to see if the snow had begun, and if so, was it sticking yet?  We saw a few flakes swirling around, so took advantage of the delay to see more of this spectacular building.

I had to take my husband in to the Gallery with the Unicorn Tapestries, woven in Brussels in 1500.  The light in the cavernous space is really dim.  And though photography was allowed, no flash could be used.  My husband took that as a challenge to see what he could do with his new toy, and I am completely impressed.

The hunt and capture of the unicorn
The hunt and capture of the unicorn
Detail of one of the unicorn tapestries
Detail of one of the unicorn tapestries
Detail of the hounds in one of the unicorn tapestries
Detail of the hounds in one of the unicorn tapestries
Detail of one of the unicorn tapestries
Detail of one of the unicorn tapestries

The colors remain rich and the detail, impressive.  As a weaver I am more than impressed, I am overwhelmed.  Every time I look at these tapestries, I am silenced by their detail, their expressive story, and their size.

The size of the unicorn tapestries is awe inspiring
The size of the unicorn tapestries is awe inspiring
One of the marble columns with a color palette
One of the marble columns with a color palette

My husband had a great time photographing not only the architecture and the artworks of the Cloisters, but some of the details, textures and colors of some of the stone work, especially the marble.  I looked at this photograph and stopped dead in my tracks.  I ran over to my cutting table and pulled a couple of palettes from the pile I created yesterday, did a little shuffling, and came up with a gorgeous palette, straight off the marble column, and right in keeping with the spring 2010 colors I described yesterday.  I think I am inspired enough to start mixing dyes.

Exiting down the vaulted corridor to the street entrance
Exiting down the vaulted corridor to the street entrance

We left the Cloisters as the snow was starting to stick, the roads weren’t hazardous yet, and we made it safely home. What an amazing day, and I am really excited about the inspiration for my first dyed warps.

We are expected when all is said and done, to get about 8-12 inches of snow. It is hard to say how much has fallen already, the heavy winds make the snow swirl around, but it is beautiful.  We have the wood stove cranked up, and we don’t have to be anywhere in the morning.  I have another recorder concert in the afternoon, actually we are playing one song as part of a Celtic Christmas Service at the Presbyterian Church on the Green in Morristown at 4pm, if anyone can shovel out and attend.  It is a beautiful service, very seasonal, and I’m hoping the snow is cleared away by then.

It’s December 1st and you know what that means…

It’s holiday time!  Time to decorate, time for making gifts, the annual Christmas missive (yeah, I actually write one of those…), and all festive thoughts aside, today is  Day Without Art, an international program to mark AIDS Awareness Day.  I logged on this morning, and my Google home page has all the blogs I follow, plus things like the MET artwork of the day, something from the vast archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Today I logged on and there was nothing but a black rectangle.  There was a note attached, “Today’s daily artwork will not appear. Day Without Art began on December 1, 1989, as part of a day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis”.  It hasn’t escaped me that this is a perfect day to reflect that we still have a lot of work to do in the arts community for AIDS awareness, as we gear up for the spending/decorating/eating frenzy that marks the last month of the year.

BriannaOn a brighter note, my daughter got with the holiday spirit immediately, she disappeared into the bathroom and came out decorated for the season!

And I started to play around with something I could make for small gifts for a few friends, I resurrected a technique I’ve written about in my Leftover’s Monograph, and climbed into my attic stash in the sky, and pulled out some circa 1986 scraps, and had a blast.  The idea here is to take 1″ scraps (on grain, no need for bias), and twist them around piping cord, like a barber pole, and coil up the cord, stitching it together, round and round, with a triple step zig-zag.

I’ll let the photos do the explaining, now that I found out how to put in a caption!

Cut one inch strips of fabric on grain.
Cut one inch strips of fabric on grain.
If the fabric is ravel-y, unravel a couple of threads on the edges, the effect will be something like chenille when the bowl is stitched.
If the fabric is ravel-y, unravel a couple of threads on the edges, the effect will be something like chenille when the bowl is stitched.
Start by wrapping the one inch strip around the tapered end of the piping, securing with a pin.  Wrap for about 6".
Start by wrapping the one inch strip around the tapered end of the piping, securing with a pin. Wrap for about 6".
Fold the tapered end back on itself and secure with a triple step zig zag in the machine.
Fold the tapered end back on itself and secure with a triple step zig zag in the machine.
Continue spiraling the wrapped piping in a coil under the presser foot of the machine, zig-zagging around to hold the piping together.
Continue spiraling the wrapped piping in a coil under the presser foot of the machine, zig-zagging around to hold the piping together.
As the bowl grows, start to shape the sides.  Keep adding one inch strips by overlapping.
As the bowl grows, start to shape the sides. Keep adding one inch strips by overlapping ends.
When the bowl is the correct size, cut the piping and taper the end, wrap with the fabric strip and taper to nothing around the top of the bowl.
When the bowl is the correct size, cut the piping and taper the end, wrap with the fabric strip and taper to nothing around the top of the bowl.