Ready for the exhibit at Quinlan

The car is loaded, inventory sheet is completed, artist statement and bio are done.  I'm delivering the work tomorrow to Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, and it will be exhibited there from December 8, 2011 through February 19, 2012.

I've put a lot of effort into the preparation stages for the show--hope it all looks well when hanging!  So here's how it looks right now:

p.s.  the pieces wrapped up  IN the basket are my work... NOT the basket!

I was asked to give a title for the show and I chose "Threads of Time" since my work is often about aspects of the passing of time.  Here's a snippet from my artist statement:

My art work is about time, about seasons of change, and about accumulation of parts.  I do handwoven tapestry, a process that in itself is a time-consuming medium.... Each tapestry is, by its very nature, an accumulation of parts.  The tapestries on exhibit show different approaches to the concepts of time, change, and accumulation.  Several record a daily passing of time....  others ... celebrate the seasonal changes in the natural world. 

By working daily with ... tapestry ... and by looking at, thinking about and designing from the world around me, I am weaving my own threads of time.

I hope some of you can stop by Quinlan in the next couple of months to take a look at my work and that of the others who'll be exhibiting in various galleries there.

Yay! Love the little frames

These small frames were custom made for the pieces... I'm quite thrilled with the way they look.  They're exactly what I wanted... Jeff did a great job with them.

All the work will be delivered to Quinlan on Monday.  I'm almost through with the pieces--am stitching on the last of the tapestries now, the large quilt one.  Artist statement to go and inventory of the works I'll be showing... maybe I'll be able to enjoy the day on Thursday and not feel so rushed to complete everything after all.  Fingers are crossed!

Upcoming exhibit

For the past couple of weeks I've been preparing work for an exhibit at Quinlan Arts Center in Gainesville, Georgia where my tapestries will be in one of the smaller galleries. A reception will take place on December 8th at 5:30 and I'll be speaking briefly about my work at 5.

Here's a link to the Quinlan's website:

http://www.quinlanartscenter.org/quinlan-exhibitions.html

The process of mounting small tapestries is almost as time consuming as weaving them (no, not really... but it begins to feel that way after days and days and days of prep work!)  I've just posted some photos of the steps at the Tapestry Share blog so won't repost the same ones here.  But, here's a few others that will show a bit of what I've been up to since returning from the class in Asheville.

Whole lot of stapling going on!  I've gone through 2 new boxes of 3/8" staples... let's see, 1000 staples per box... so that's 2000 staples that have gone into mounting boards!

And then I've stitched...

... and stitched some more.  

Curved needles and assorted thimbles have become my tools lately.  I found the black thimbles, called 

"Nimble, the Soft Thimble" to be the best to use.  I had one on my thumb and one on my index finger, plus bandaids on all the rest of my fingers to get the task accomplished of mounting eleven small tapestries--the tapestry diary pieces for 2011, and the one from May of 2008.  

And, there they are... plus another one that's not diary (the one with pink at the right side of the table).

NOW... tomorrow, I begin to stitch the next ninteen!

Then there's the larger quilt tapestry in the background here... it still has to be stitched to its mounting board.  All of these pieces are due at Quinlan on the 28th... lots more work to do before I'm ready to load them in the car.

Arrowmont summer 2012 classes--sneak peek published

I just received an email with a link to the Arrowmont School of Crafts schedule for the summer of 2012. Here's a link to that:
http://www.attackmonkey.net/arrowmont/2012_workshops_arrowmont_sneak_peek_final2.pdf

I'll be teaching a tapestry class at Arrowmont, June 24-30.

The John C. Campbell Folk School class that I've got on the schedule in January has plenty of space in it right now. So if you want to take a look at that course description, go to the link here:
https://www.folkschool.org/index.php?section=class_detail&class_id=5269

So... come on to JCFS or Arrowmont -- or both! -- and join me for a class!

Tapestry workshop at Sutherland Handweaving Studio

Here are a few photos from the workshop that was held this past weekend at Sutherland Handweaving Studio in Asheville, NC.  Pat Williams and I co-taught the class at the shop that's owned by Barb Butler and Karen Donde.  They've got a wonderful retail and classroom space in the River Arts District at Asheville.  Pat and I appreciate being asked to teach here and hope to do so again.

This class had 15 people in it and it was a fantastic group working together.  Everyone put their whole energy into the process and, I think, went away from the weekend enlivened about tapestry making, in some way.

Here are a few photos from the weekend:

Back to tapestry...

... almost back to this point... soon I'll be back to the loom.  But first...

...Halloween foolishness over for this year.  Now, it's back to what I'm really doing in the studio right now.  And that's working on preparations for the upcoming workshop in Asheville.

Lists get made, boxes and baskets pulled out and filled, handouts are revised and printed, yarns stashed in suitcases.  As most teachers do, I'm sure, I spend quite a bit of time getting organized for workshops and classes.  It usually takes about two weeks of work before the workshop days until I feel ready to do instruction.  In fact, I spend more time in the before than I do in the during.  That's the way I feel most comfortable in approaching classes and it's the way I'll continue to do it, I guess.  Even a class I've taught before will have a revamping of materials.

So that's what I'm doing now.  My tapestry diary work is continuing although I haven't photographed the finished month of October yet.  I was able to start November's diary yesterday on a warp that was already in place on a frame loom.  I'll be finishing the months of 2011 as separate pieces to be hung together in some way.  I'll be writing a statement about the tapestry diary process in a few days.  It's something I've been thinking about for quite awhile and I've just about gotten my thoughts together in a coherent way to describe why I began doing this and why I continue weaving a daily bit.

More to come next about the workshop this weekend!

Boo!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

OK... HAPPY DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN... but you get the picture!