Happy New Year! Even though it's now not quite as new.
But so far, it's a good start to the year for me. The antibiotic suppression therapy I mentioned in the last post seems to be helping with the ongoing pain resulting from infection and inflammation from the hip replacement surgery in 2023. Driving for 45 minutes each way, daily for four weeks to have antibiotic infusions became easier when I started thinking of it as "commuting to work"—after all, I'd commuted for about the same distance for six years when I first began teaching at North Georgia back at the dawn of time. My job this time for the commute was to make myself better. I have good doctors now and I'm hopeful that their care will keep me out of another surgery to replace this hip replacement in the future. So far, so good as I'm about four months into the daily oral antibiotics now.
Since the last post my new book, Marking Time with Fabric and Thread, was released and I've had several good reviews of it. In fact, I've spoken about it a couple of times in Zoom meetings and it will be the topic of the virtual book club sponsored by the Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance on Tuesday night, the 21st. The book's available from Schiffer Craft and through other book sellers.
I'll be doing a workshop at John C. Campbell Folk School in May to focus on ways to mark one's time with tapestry. But that's not the workshop I want to write about today! Instead I want to mention an upcoming workshop in March here in Dahlonega that Dana Wildsmith and I will be co-teaching. It's a short version of the Folk School session we'll be doing in August that I mentioned in the last post.
Here is information about the March workshop:
Weaving Your Words
A workshop in writing and weaving
March 14-16, 2025
Instructors Dana Wildsmith & Tommye Scanlin
All skill levels are welcome
Join a writer and a weaver to explore interwoven words in a three-day workshop. Engage in writing exercises and select excerpts to turn into paper weavings. Use different methods of designing the paper you fill with your words, including gel plate printing and other printing and painting methods. Additionally, share portions of your writing with your fellow students to create collaborative works. No experience necessary in either writing or weaving!
Location: Georgia Appalachian Studies Center, University of North Georgia, Vickery House, 24 Vickery Drive (just off Main Street), Dahlonega, Georgia
https://ung.edu/appalachian-studies-center/historic-vickery-house.php
· Dates: March 14-16, 2025
· Times: 9 am to 4:30 pm each day
· Cost: $150 per person for the three days
· Workshop is limited to 8 people
· Materials fee: $10 for shared materials to be paid at the workshop
· Suggested supply list will be sent with registration
· Lodging & food on your own, available a few blocks from campus. Visit https://www.dahlonega.org/places-to-stay/ for options.
· Apply through Well Made Dahlonega, by February 28, 2025.
Contact Megan Smith Noble at wellmadedahlonega at gmail dot com or at instagram.com/wellmadedahlonega and she will send an invoice.
· For more information contact Tommye Scanlin tmscanlin at gmail dot com
Instructor bios:
Dana Wildsmith is a frequent instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. Dana’s most recent collection of poems is “With Access to Tools.” Her environmental memoir, Back to Abnormal: Surviving with an Old Farm in the New South, was finalist for Georgia Author of the Year. She is also the author of five additional collections of poetry. Dana has served as artist-in-residence for Grand Canyon National Park and Everglades National Park; as writer-in-residence for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska; and she is a fellow of the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. Dana teaches English literacy through Lanier Technical College.
Tommye Scanlin, Professor Emerita, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA, has been weaving for over 30 years and has explored many different techniques of creating images with woven structures. She is a frequent instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School. Scanlin is a Fellow of the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts and of the Lillian E. Smith Center and is a juried member of Southern Highland Craft Guild and Piedmont Craftsmen. Her latest book is Marking Time with Fabric and Thread: Calendars, Diaries, and Journals.
In early November I was able to go to the Hambidge Center for a two week residency. I explored lots of ideas for the workshop, including doing many variations of gel plate printing. Here are a few photos from those weeks:
Maybe you'll join Dana and me in Dahlonega in March! Or at the Folk School in August!
Oh... and although it's not finished-finished, as in ready to hang, here's my 2024 tapestry diary just after I'd cut it from the loom on December 31. A year of kudzu, from dormant vines of January and into March, to full leaf of summer and the blooms of late July and early August, and to withered leaves by the end of the year. It was quite interesting to watch the changes.
