more news from Tampa!

The reception tonight for the ATB7 was just grand. Many of the artists were there, including Marcia Ellis who I met in 2001 at Penland when we were in the spring concentration class taught by Archie and Susan. Marcia's piece in ATB7 is stunning and I'll post photos of us (Marcia, Barbara, Kathy and me) standing in front of it when I get home next week. I took more shots around and about today, also, of a few other things in town.

Our regional group, Tapestry Weavers South, had a number of members at the convention center at the same time around lunch today; Terri Stewart, our president, had invited whoever could make it to meet up and chat at noonish.

The day was less hectic than yesterday...lots less traveling around and about, more time for taking in what we were seeing.

Tomorrow the tapestry events begin in earnest with the ATA forum from 11-2 p.m. Then we move on to Eckard College in St. Petersburg to being the 3 day workshops with Joan Baxter and Mary Zicafoose. It's all just very inspiring and exciting!

OH, and another fabulous thing happened today...my sister-in-law "boot camp" recruit called to tell me she'd just cut off her first hand towel from her new loom!! She then sent a photo of it to my phone...you're reading this, Joan...I think you've now been promoted a grade! Congratulations!!

here in Tampa...

Pat and I are having a great time in Tampa, having a day pass into Convergence and seeing the tapestry exhibits.  The ATB7 exhibit (which I was so disappointed to be rejected from) is absolutely AMAZING!  It's one of the best collections of tapestries I've ever experienced.  BEAUTIFUL works...all are amazingly done, wonderful concepts associated with each piece and the exhibit venue at the gallery shows all quite well.

I can't yet show the photos I took there (probably not supposed to,  but...) because I didn't bring my camera's connection cable...I'm using Pat's computer to post this.  I'll download those when I get home.

The ATA no-host dinner tonight was wonderful.  We saw so many old friends and put faces to many other folks we know through print or e-mails...it was so much fun!

On to tomorrow and all the wonderful things it will bring!

 

off to Florida for American Tapestry Alliance events!

summer begins...spring time continues in the tapestry

and even more...

Time's a-wasten' ! Or something to that effect. Convergence and ATA events are rapidly approaching and I need to get the spiral of the second fiddlehead done before the 15th of July!!!!! I'll be gone from the 25th of June and return late on the 2nd of July for Convergence/ATA so I'm going to need to turn up the volume on weaving time.

The tapestry will be used during the Southern Highland Craft Guild July fair as a demonstration piece and I want to be into areas that will not cause me too much strain as I weave it...after all, I need to be able to talk to folks as I show them how tapestry is woven! The concentration I need to bring to the fiddlehead is more than I can give in the midst of hundreds of people milling around at a craft fair.

So, the push is on to be about half-way through the piece when it goes to the fair. Today, a background shape was filled in. The color of today's shot is more like the actual color of the piece than yesterday's. I'm snapping quick digital photos and downloading into iPhoto, then exporting to Photoshop for image size changes. Sometimes I try to quickly adjust the color to what is more accurate but am not really making much effort to that effect.



My husband and I did take a bit of a break tonight, though. We saw the latest Indiana Jones movie at the local theater and had dinner afterwards at a restaurant in town. One of the wonderful things about living in a small town is being able to take advantage of walking to the town square, going to the theater for a movie or a performance, having a nice meal--and not having to GET IN THE CAR and drive somewhere!!!

more tapestry progress

Moving right along...

I'm taking lots of liberties with color in this piece and am really enjoying
the blending of four strands, three fairly small and one larger to make the color mixes.
The smaller yarns give a nice tiny line when they show up and are in value contrast.

I'm also meandering out of the horizontal with the weft. I'm not pushing the eccentric too much because I don't want too many problems with the surface once the tapestry is finished but I feel the curves of the lines are in the spirit of the color and the energy of the springtime I'm trying to celebrate.

trip and more

I'm back from a quick trip yesterday to Asheville, NC. I spent the night with friends, Noel and Patrick, at their 150+ acre property on the way back home. They are wonderful gardeners and their plants are thriving this year, as always. Cherries, blueberries, cabbage, and young Yates apples captured my camera's attention at this trip. I guess I've made thousands of photos at their place over the years. And many of my tapestry designs have been based on images I've collected there, either through photos, drawings, or paintings. It's always an inspiration to be there.

And, I did get a few minutes to weave when I got back:

detail

I didn't get through the first spiral yesterday as hoped. I had a frustrating day with computer stuff, including spending a couple of hours, total, on the phone with tech assistance about my DSL modem upgrade I'd just installed on my computer. The wait time to speak to a real person was around 30 minutes each time, long enough for me to s-l-o-w-l-y peruse the Woven Gems catalog (that was fun--the canned music provided for my entertainment while I waited was not!) In the time I spent waiting, the phone battery got lower and lower--and just as I'm sure the gentleman in India was about to give me the magic word to make my connection to the world work again, the phone pooped out!!

SO, I thought to myself--self, you can go to the weaving studio at school, get online and see if you can trouble-shoot the problem for yourself!! Off I go, unlock the outside door at the building where the studio is located, unlock the inside door into the studio itself, walk into the room where our two OLD Macs are housed--------and-------they're not there!! Neither of them. And the little cheapie printer was gone, too.

I called the fine arts department office to see if the computers had been picked up for some reason by the IIT folks; the secretary said she'd check but didn't know why they'd do that. In the meantime I went back to the house and got on the phone again to a local techie to see if he could walk me through the install (the problem that was occurring was that the Windstream set-up assistant insisted I must have Internet Explorer to proceed--which I don't have, don't want, and don't believe I can even get a version of for my Mac) through my system preferences.

As I was on the phone to him, I had an incoming call--which was the FA secretary calling to say IIT had indeed NOT picked up the computers and that the campus police were heading to the building and wanted to meet me up there.

Turns out, a window was broken and the computers removed...probably over the past weekend. I didn't even notice the broken window when I went in--I was so focused on the empty tables where the computers had been! And, as it turns out, the thieves overlooked another computer that we hadn't yet had installed--at least they didn't make a clean sweep of what little we have. It burns my buttons anyway...!!!

SO...the weaving time was cut to a bare minimum as a result of all the hoopla of the day. But I did get some way into the spiral and here's a shot of that. AND, because I'm posting this it's clear that I finally spent some "quality time" with another gentleman from India late last night and he was able to work the magic needed to get my modem to understand that working with a Mac is OK!!

Off to Asheville today to pick up a tapestry that's been away at a Guild exhibit for over a year--in the Appalachian Regional Commission Offices in Washington, D.C. along with the work of other Southern Highland Craft Guild members. Another piece of mine went to replace it in the next installation of Guild members' works at the ARC.

Here's a detail of the tapestry at this point:

filling in the blanks

Fiddlehead began today and so did one of the fern leaves. Tomorrow I'll be trying to weave most of the spiral of the first one, and finish the stem.

back to work on the fiddlehead tapestry

I worked on the tapestry for a short while today. I'll be starting the first fiddlehead spiral tomorrow--may be able to weave through it, in fact, if I start early enough. I'd like to have those two spiraling shapes completed before taking the loom for the July demo.

field trip for boot camp graduates

To celebrate Jean and Joan's successful graduation from the Scanlin Weaving Boot Camp we took a field trip across the mountain to the Folk School. Along the way we stopped at Track Rock Gap to see the petroglyphs; I haven't stopped in many years and have never had a camera along with me when I had. This time I took a few shots of the marked stones.

These petroglyphs are probably the best-known in Georgia. They were first noted in publication in 1834 by Dr. Matthew Stephenson, who is also associated with the 1800s gold mining in Lumpkin County, Georgia. In a quick google search this morning I came across quite a few links. These give brief information and more photos.

The Georgia Botanical Society, Wikipedia, Waymarking, Roadside Georgia

The iron gratings that were built over the stones to protect them unfortunately obscure much of the stones. Still, there's enough of the ancient markings to cause one to wonder about the people who made them, when and why. According to information at the site, the stones may date as early as 8,000 to 1,000 BCE or as late as 900-1500 CE or even to the Cherokee, the last Native Americans living in the area.

The interpretive page available at the site says the Cherokee name for the location of the stones is Datsu'nalsagun'yi (where there are tracks) or Degayeelun'ha (printed or branded place).

The most clearly shown symbol is identified as "Circle and Cross--Four cardinal directions on earth, four winds." The morning light caused the shadows of the protective grating to fall strongly on the stones so the other symbols in the markings were harder to see than that circle/cross found on one stone that wasn't covered by grating.

graduation day at weaving boot camp

Jean and Joan happily cut off their weavings about 2:45 p.m. yesterday. Here's an unsorted group of photos from the day. AND, we didn't get to the Folk School as planned because of all the work to do yesterday, but we're off to there this morning! Great fun and lots of learning this week!

Our cat, Raymond, wasn't too sure about the whole episode but he lurked at the edges of the room most of the week.



My husband took us out to dinner last night and presented his sisters with trophies and "awards of achievement" for their time at the first of the Scanlin Weaving Boot Camp experiences!!

boot camp continues...

Day four and a half at weaving boot camp begins shortly; recruits are over half way into their weavings and will finish the weaving today, I'm sure. Both are doing a fantastic job of craftsmanship with their first weaving experience. The designs are working out beautifully, too. This is so much fun--hard work that results in a wonderful product at the end. We've been hard at it from 9 each morning, taking only about a 30-45 minute lunch break at the studio, then an hour or so out for dinner. I go home then and J & J continue working into the wee hours. They're staying at the studio so can weave in their jammies, if they want to.

I hope we'll have time later today to drive over the mountain to John C. Campbell Folk School. I'd like for them to have at least a brief exposure to the place--see the grounds, the studios, visit the craft shop.

Yesterday I had time to work on my current tapestry for a bit. I'll be ready to tackle the first of the fiddleheads by the weekend, I think.

weaving boot camp

...a few photos from this week's weaving experience for my sisters-in-law. Both should finish their weavings by tomorrow...84" long x 12" wide runner and a 52" long x 35" wide rag rug. They're working hard!! Oh...the first two shots are of my husband rolling my smaller Kessenich loom down the street to the studio.

more of the current tapestry

And yet a few more inches along:


I'm using a bit more slightly eccentric weft in this tapestry than I do most times. I'm improvising with the color choices based on my design as I weave border and background areas. I'm approaching the first leaf and also stem of fiddlehead so will get a bit more specific to my cartoon as I move into those parts.

I'll be weaving only a few minutes at a time on this piece in the next week. I'm holding "weaving boot camp" for my husband's sisters at my studio, starting later today. I've offered to show them how to weave rag rugs and runners so they'll be setting up a couple of floor looms, ripping fabric into strips and weaving away. Neither of them have woven before so this should be fun for all (I hope!) Sort of like summer camp for adults, maybe?

I'll post a photo or two of the boot camp recruits later, along with a shot of my husband rolling one of my smaller floor looms down the street with a hand truck. I wanted to move the loom I've had still at home to the studio around the corner. At the time for the move, there wasn't anyone available to help out and he didn't think I could help with the lifting it into the back of his truck (probably he was quite right about that!). So, his ingenious solution was to tie it with sturdy rope to the hand truck and wheel it away--worked like a charm.

Penland fall concentration--tapestry course info

Information about the fall concentration class I'll be part of is now both on the Penland website at this link and also in the print catalog that just arrived this week. Pat Williams, Peggy McBride and I will be team teaching during the eight weeks of the session. Penland is a wonderful location for learning and sharing; a glorious setting in the mountains of western North Carolina combines with high energy and creativity from participants and instructors from around the world to make for a fertile mix of minds and spirit.

Here's the class description from the catalog:





Pat, Peggy and I are looking forward to spending much of the fall at Penland.