Lots happening today... residents and other guests visited my studio this afternoon. I spend some of the morning getting ready for the guests... including unwrapping several tapestries I have with me from a previous exhibit. I usually don't travel with finished tapestries but the timing of my retreat here and the end of the exhibit made it possible that I have several works with me. This afternoon around 4 p.m. twelve people came to visit. Nancy Fichter, the Director of the Center, had prepared wonderful appetizers. And Martha Bishop provided the drinks. I was in my "school teacher" lecture mode while talking to the guests as I demonstrated at my tapestry loom... something I acknowledged to them as I realized my voice was louder than in normal conversation!
I didn't get any photos of the group... something I'd intended to do. But... here's the tapestry at the point they saw it today:I've gotten several inches woven on this since I've been able to concentrate on the tapestry from last week on. I've got two more full days here at the retreat so I hope I'll get this about 3/4 of the way completed before I leave.
The work I have with me, that I'd picked up from my two-person exhibit in Asheville on June 17, I was able to show... here's the stack on my bed before the guests arrived:Martha Bishop, who's in the cottage next to mine, was intrigued with my tapestry weaving when I met her at Hambidge Center a couple of years ago. I had my Archie Brennan-designed loom with me and she built one for herself after that. Since that, she's built another wooden loom that has a tension method and also this stand to hold it.
She's weaving while she's here--as well as composing music. She weaves out on the porch of her cottage when the light is good in the afternoon. 
Now, other photos from the early morning walk... Here are holly berries.
This plant near the Lillian Smith memorial plaque may be galax...this is the last retreat I'm going to without my plant id books! The ones I checked out at the library in Clayton don't cover as much as I need.
Gills on the new mushroom I saw today.
It seems so calm on the outside to have such a beautiful underneath!
When I walked around the corner to see the red door this morning, this was what was there...
When I got closer I saw it was a musical score so I KNEW who'd place it there... Martha! She'd heard me talking to Robert about the red door photos!
It's appropriate that the pages of her composition she chose to post on the red door are given the direction to be played "rambunciously"... indeed, Martha's spirit!!
More of her notations about this score...
Back to today's photos... here I am again, shadow in the rhododendron...Two more working days before I leave... hope to make the most of both of them!
Plant ID - looks like you have captured a bit of wild ginger (the heart shaped leaves with the whitish veins and Galax, the smaller roundish leaves. Galax has a punguent smell and the ginger, if crushed has a distinct gingery smell. I am vacariously enjoying your weeks there. Hope the next few days are productive and rewarding to you
ReplyDeleteI am curious... will you be leaving blank spaces on your calendar tapestry for this time away? Or did you bring it with you?
ReplyDeleteGood idea to take your plant books with you. I am that way about birds and trees; always wishing I had my field guides along!
How nice of Martha to "play" along! Seems to me that tacking a note to a red door is rather historical. LOL
ReplyDeletehey your tapestry is really growing and looking alive, those leaves are climbing.
ReplyDeleteThe red door has a secret life of it's own too, and i love the word 'rambunctiously' on it, the mystery deepens.....just what is behind it? i hope you find out before you have to leave. kaite