Week Six is OVER!

These days are now flying past!  When we began it seemed that eight weeks stretched out before us like an endless highway.  Well, that was then and this is now.  TWO weeks before the end of this concentration!  But, as Bhakti was saying to the students on Saturday morning... think about this as if it were the beginning of a two week class (what the summer class length typically is).  So much can be accomplished in two weeks.

Here are photos from a few of the things we did this week.  Each and every week here in concentration seems like a lifetime, in some ways.  And yet they seem to also flash by so that it's hard to remember from one day to the next what's happened before.  But let me give it a try:

Monday--Rebecca Mezoff visited at the end of a residency she had at Hambidge.  She very generously did a day of dyeing with us with acid dyes.  She wrote more about her stay with us at her blog at this link.

Sidsel Moreb, who has Norsk Fjord Fiber, was also visiting over the weekend and stayed through Monday.  She brought some yarn and also a few of her beautiful tapestries.  She brought a loom and wove along with us through a couple of days.  And also helped with Dorina's unwrapping of an ikat dyed warp:

Tuesday--mostly we worked in the studio.

Wednesday--field trip to Oriole Mill in Hendersonville, then back to Asheville, where I gave a presentation for the Textile Study Group that meets at the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design.  We went back to Penland in time for Nina Ruelle, our fabulous assistant, to be among the studio assistant presentations of slides at 8:15.  Below are some photos from the Oriole Mill visit.

Thursday--work, with some discussion of suppliers of yarns, dyes and equipment for weaving in the evening.

Friday--Jessica Smith, from Savannah College of Art and Design (and former student of Bhakti's) gave a fascinating presentation about overshot history, and also discussed the project she and Susan Falls are doing as they curate the exhibit, Fold Unfold that opens at Lyndon House Art Center this June.  (The exhibit will be at Lyndon House Art Center at the same time that "Time Warp and Weft" will be there... the exhibit of time work weavings by Janet Austin, Geri Forkner, Janette Meetze, Rebecca Mezoff, Kathy Spoering, and myself).

Jessica showed us some of her experiments with overshot that will be exhibited.

Bhakti will have a piece in the exhibit.  She finished weaving the fourth panel for her large overshot coverlet while here at concentration.

Saturday, several of us went to Haywood Community College to visit the Professional Crafts Program in Fiber and talk to Amy Putansu, the instructor for that program.  Below are several photos from our visit.  Beautiful facilities and Amy's students are doing wonderful work.

Now it's Sunday night, 11:15 p.m.--time for me to call it a night and a week.  Tomorrow, we'll start the next/last two weeks of this grand adventure.  Lots more to come!