A Book, a Workshop, and a New Year

 

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.

A Long Time Coming

 

It's been six months or so since my last post. Why? I've asked myself that often throughout the spring and summer. Not much to write about I'd like to remember later, I guess.

I was able to make it to Convergence in Wichita, Kansas earlier in the summer. I had a seminar first session on the first day of the event. I only stayed a couple of days because of the pain I'll describe next.

 Mostly I'd like to forget some of the months of the past year as I've continued to work through problems resulting from hip replacement surgery I had last year. Since then I've had ongoing pain that the orthopedic surgeon could not (or would not) address. Seeking relief from the pain, my primary care physician referred me to a rheumatologist who gave me tests for RA and lupus, among other things. After multiple blood work showed high inflammation markers, she sent me for an MRI that showed inflammation in the hip and thigh. Finally, some clues—after weeks of PT last summer following the surgery, and months of visits and assurances from the man who did my hip replacement surgery that it "just takes time in some cases" for the pain to go away, I found another surgeon. And it turns out I have (and probably have had) an ongoing infection in the joint, the source of the inflammation and ongoing pain. 

I've started suppressive antibiotic therapy with an infectious disease specialist recommended by the new orthopedic surgeon. This is in hopes it will keep infection at bay and allow me to avoid a revision surgery (something that sounds ghastly since it involves not one but two surgeries, including removing the existing replacement joint, putting in a temporary one for a few months with antibiotic spacer, then removing it and inserting a new prosthesis—all with no guarantee that I wouldn't develop yet another infection!)

Creative thoughts and actions have definitely taken back seats in my life during this past year. But, thankfully, I was able to finish work on my new book from Schiffer Craft, Marking Time with Fabric and Thread: Calendars, Diaries, and Journals, that will be out in October. I've also written an article about plain weave inlay for Little Looms magazine that will be published next year. 

Slowly I've continued to work on the large tapestry that's been on the loom for over two years now, although that's on hold again since I've been told not to weave while I have the peripheral IV line in my arm for daily antibiotic infusion for the next four weeks. But I am continuing my tapestry diary work on a daily basis. But that's about it.

Here's the tapestry as it stands now, a little over half-way up the 72" height. It's 45" wide.

The monthly images in this year's tapestry diary is about the seasonal changes of kudzu. I'm working on seed pods for September, getting a little of it done each day and not straining my arm much.

Before the antibiotic infusions were started last week I was able to get to the Lillian Smith Center for several days. I worked more with gel prints, doing many leaf stencils and layering each print a number of times. I cut up several of those to weave with and then others I turned into small booklets. Those are samples for ideas to use in a class Dana Wildsmith and I will be teaching at John Campbell Folk School next August. I'm looking forward to working with Dana and seeing what we can come up with that might inspire students with both written words and weaving. The course description will be listed sat the JCCFS website later.

So, here's hoping for success with the antibiotic suppressive therapy and that I'll be back to creative fighting form soon. And maybe even writing blog posts more often!

Happy Fall Season!

 

RIP-student, colleague, friend

This has been a hard post to write. I'll have to begin with a few words from her obituary written by her beloved granddaughter:

Joann Cox Wilson passed away peacefully in her home in late February 2024. A dedicated educator and lover of art, Joann’s passion for teaching and creativity touched the lives of many. Joann found simple joy in the elegant movement of dragonfly wings and the delicate melodies of dulcimer music. She cherished the many friendships that she gained through the various arts. During her lifetime she explored and seemed to master almost every art form you can imagine, painting, pottery, basketweaving, beading, quilting and weaving, just to name a few.

I first met Joann who knows how many years ago when she enrolled in a workshop I was teaching at John C. Campbell Folk School, Brasstown, NC. It was a beginning tapestry class, if I remember correctly. Joann was already a tapestry weaver but she cheerfully joined in with the basic techniques I was showing and made her sampler. It might have been in that first class that she began to ask her question "What would happen if...?" 

I continued to teach workshops at the Folk School and each time when I received my roster of students I began to see Joann's name included. After awhile, I automatically looked to the bottom of any roster I got from anywhere I'd be teaching to see if Joann Wilson's name appeared (and hoped it would be there). The workshops I gave were all around the southeast: in addition to John C. Campbell Folk School, I taught at Lake Yale for Florida Tropical Weavers; Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, TN; Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC; Winter Park, FL for the Weavers of Orlando; Aya Studio in Stuart, FL; Tapestry Weavers South retreat/workshop in Elkin, NC. Joann was there. 

In fact, after she'd been in about four of my workshops she began to call herself my "groupie" but little did she know how important she was to me—she was the person in the class I could depend on to ask the very challenging "What if...?" questions. And the answer(s) we came up with together would not only benefit her but also the other students—and especially me. 

At a two week session at Penland in 2019 I asked Joann to demonstrate paper weaving as a designing approach so that her hands and the weaving could be photographed (by Chris Dant) for a book I was writing. If you have Tapestry Design Basics and Beyond you'll find Joann's hands featured on pages 130-131. In fact, the photo on page 131 is also featured on the back cover of the book. I also used her notan design explorations and two small weavings based on those in the book (page 136).

In October 2023 Joann joined another class I taught bringing her back to Arrowmont once more. That was the last time I saw her. 

In late February I learned of Joann's sudden and untimely passing from a good friend of hers. They often traveled together to my workshops (and others). In fact, they'd been scheduled to return to the Folk School in the following week for another tapestry class being taught by MJ Lord. But that was not to be.

I looked through my years of photos to find ones of Joann in various classes. Here are only a few from those times and many places.

I'll end with a final bit from Joann's obituary. These words describe her so well. 

 

Joann will be remembered for her laugh, her generosity, and her unwavering love for her family. Her legacy lives on in the countless lives that she enriched through her teaching and her appreciation for the beauty in the simple things in life.

 

Rest In Peace, Joann Cox Wilson, student, colleague, friend.

 

Three weeks into 2024

 

Three weeks, 21 days into the new year and today I completed the finishing for my 2023 tapestry diary, 22 days after cutting it off on December 31. I'm having it photographed tomorrow. But I had to do a quick shot of it with my phone and here it is:

 

 

It's 51" long x 11.5" wide. Linen warp sett at 8 epi and the wefts are natural dyed wool.

The tapestry diary for 2024 is underway. I finally decided on the images to use throughout the year. I'm going to be weaving a year of kudzu! Yes, that invasive plant has once again invaded my thoughts and I'm going to design and weave it as it goes from its current dormant stage through its renewal throughout the spring and into the full leaf of summer. The elusive kudzu flower (that I've woven before) will be there, too. At least that's the plan for now.

Here's where it stands today:

 

 The sketch I'm working from is one I drew from a photo I took of detail of a tangle of kudzu vines earlier this month. I zoomed in even more to simplify from the sketch. 

Earlier kudzu tapestries are shown below. The sizes range from large to small, some more realistic and others abstracted. 

Life Force, 2010, 24" x 60"

Revelation, 2021, 46.5"  33.5"

 

Vines and Leaves, 2021, 22" x 12"

Kudzu Flower, 2022, 8" x 5"

Kudzu Leaf Patterns, 2022, 8" x 5"