desertsong studio

follow me!

2009-05-12T13:05:00.001-07:00

Hey, what are you doing hanging out here? My blog has a new home, please come along-- www.desertsongstudio.com !

See you there…don’t forget to bookmark & subscribe so you don’t miss my new posts!

retreat ahead

2009-04-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

Spring is in full bloom & I am in the midst of preparations to once again journey to Janie Hoffman’s place on the Blue River in the White Mountains of AZ. Janie & I have organized a tapestry weaving retreat… there will be 7 of us attending, hanging out together in the mountain spring weather, weaving, soaking in the sights & sounds of nature, & talking about all things under the sun that could possibly interest any fiber artist!

I finally completed canyon night. It was difficult to finish, it felt as if all motivation I had to weave suddenly dried up and blew away. The lack of fanfare with its completion is a direct reflection of the ambivalence & dissatisfaction I have been feeling about my design process. I did submit it & painted hills for IWC’s Fiber Celebrated, but I am not sure they will be accepted, especially with my poor batting average as of late. Yet another rejection notice today, received from the Tucson Museum of Art for their Biennial exhibit.

I am not upset in the least by these rejections, they are just confirming what I’ve been feeling… my artistic soul is experiencing a period of fallowness. With the exception of IWC & the upcoming Tohono Chul fiber art postcard exhibit, I have decided to stop trying to exhibit right now. Sometimes we need that thwack on the head to wake up & say, “Yeah, I knew that.”

Time to renew, regroup, reinvent, rethink. I have begun that process, it is in the rumination stages. I am researching new design methods, I hope to greatly improve upon my weaving skills by taking Kathe Todd-Hooker’s tapestry workshop at IWC this summer, & I have registered for a couple of other non-tapestry workshops that I hope will allow for deeper design & creativity explorations. I plan to make major changes to my blog & website. I am ready to dig deep to find my true artistic vision… it’s in there & just needs encouragement to rise to the surface.

I am viewing this upcoming retreat as a door opening to a new & exciting place. While I am there I will be reading about design methods used by collage & journal artists, & I have a new camera, a Nikon P80, that I have started experimenting with & I will take it with me… some of the first images I have taken with it are below. I am preparing a cartoon so I can work on a very small piece while I am there, it will be a postcard for the Tohono Chul exhibit, & it is a depiction of one of our bobcat kittens from a previous year. This particular bobcat mama would leave her kitten in our courtyard lemon tree while she went about her business for the day. We discovered this when one day, as Dennis went out to water, he looked up & was startled by this tiny bit of fluff staring at him with amber eyes through the bright green leaves. Below is my design sketch, just started, using watercolor crayons & pencils. I am working from a cropped version of the photo Dennis managed to take & also getting inspiration for stylized versions of lemon leaves from a Frida Kahlo painting I admire.

Now I am off to continue preparing for the retreat… I will keep a diary of my time there & will look forward to posting about it all upon my return!

happy equinox!

2009-03-20T13:24:00.001-07:00

Vernal equinox, Spring’s beginning, equal day & equal night; surprisingly the beginning of our driest season as the days grow longer still. In years of plentiful winter rains, we experience an abundance of wildflowers. This past winter was another of non-abundant moisture, yet it is always amazing that life pushes its way up through the baked, crusty desert earth in bits & pieces here & there, thriving in spite of those seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Seems humans would do well to stop to notice what’s underfoot, as Georgia O’Keeffe once said.

Desert marigolds & globe mallows visually punctuate the dun desert with their vibrant colors, penstemons wave their flowered spires at the sky, blue belly flowers & purple lupines hug the ground. Not in profusion, but just enough to make us notice the desert coming to life. The air is tinged with the sweetness of citrus & acacia trees flowering. Scented geraniums bring beauty to our back door, & the star jasmine’s creamy blooms have filled our bedroom with an exquisitely heavy fragrance that graces our pillows as we fall asleep each night. My insomnia is greeted by the nightly owl hootenanny, coyote choruses, & the unearthly yowl of our resident bobcats. Soon to follow in the spring parade will be a cascading & quick procession of strawberry hedgehog, prickly pear, palo verde, pincushion, ironwood, & saguaro blooms. Life must move quickly here before the intense summer heat arrives to wither & desiccate—the desert does not coddle late bloomers.

Earth, our planet, our only “ride”. Such beauty this planet provides for us to abide in. Yet, we take & take, giving so little good back in return. How long will she continue to love us if we continue to treat her like this? Here’s a wonderful way to tell her thank you, the only cost is an hour of your time…

same tapestry, different deadline

2009-03-12T11:13:00.001-07:00

So, what I had planned to write in this post was that I had come to my senses after the weaving frenzy over the weekend, realizing that it wouldn’t be humanly possible to meet IWC’s March 15 deadline for the Fiber Celebrated exhibit, not for this human, anyway. I had decided instead to shoot for a different deadline & submit canyon night for the 2009 Arizona Biennial exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art. Not a shabby proposition by any means, but I was disappointed because I thought painted hills & canyon night would complement each other so well if they were accepted & exhibited together at IWC.

But, suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, or an answered prayer to one of the many saints of weaving (my favorite out of the many I recently discovered searching on Wikipedia is St. Maurice, who besides being the patron saint of weavers & dyers is also the go-to guy for soldiers, swordsmiths, armies, & preventing menstrual cramps), I received a wonderful email from Rebecca Mezoff informing me she had discovered that IWC has extended the deadline to April 25th!!!!

You rock, Rebecca, for recognizing & understanding the angst of a sister tapestry weaver & coming to the rescue with the only thing that could possibly assuage the torture at this point--- a deadline extension! Wooo Hoooo!

sonoran spring evening

2009-03-05T12:44:00.000-08:00

warm day wanes

cool air flows over skin

smell of warm sand

tart kiss of red wine

sunset blushes the Catalinas

dove coos his evening song

gila woodpecker tucks into the saguaro high rise

dogs investigate bursage for errant lizards

early spring

2009-02-26T12:53:00.000-08:00

I had a thought the other day when we started getting these warm temps that spring isn't green in the desert, it's yellow. Our desert is green all year... not that Kelly green crayon box green, but chartreuse, sage, silver, avocado, & army greens. Spring in the desert, I thought to myself, is really yellow. Yellow prickly pear blooms, yellow palo verde blooms, yellow creosote blooms, yellow cassia blooms, yellow fiddleneck blooms, yellow desert marigold blooms, yellow brittlebush blooms, & even more plants with yellow blooms that I cannot think of just now, none of which are really blooming just yet, but which will soon if the warm weather continues.

It is early spring.

It feels like early summer with the 80 degree temps we've been having. This is the desert, but even that is unseasonably warm for this time of year. I am not complaining in the least, it feels fabulous compared to the highs in the 30s we experienced while visiting my parents in Illinois during the family reunion to celebrate their 50th anniversary. It is quite cruel to force desert dwellers to visit locations with those kinds of conditions!

Here's a photo of all of us gathered together after a wonderful anniversary meal at one of my parents' favorite restaurants, Zapatas. I am usually skeptical of Mexican food outside of the Southwest (it tends to be what I think of as Amerxican). Not bad for Illinois, not bad at all. There are 6 of us offspring (I am the oldest, there is a 12 year span between myself & my youngest brother) & we all attended along with most of our respective spouses/children. Two old & dear friends of my parents, whom they met when they were stationed in Cheyenne, WY together, were also able to join us. This is the only family photo from that experience I will subject you to & I'm not even going to say who's who in it. If you are dying to see more, which unfortunately includes the strange gringo habit of drinking margaritas & donning sombreros, visit this set on Flickr.

Today, however, as I meandered about outside enjoying the sun, I started really noticing things, like waking up from a fog. And I noticed more than yellow, although yellow was first-- the photo at the beginning of this post is of the eensy-tineensy electric chartreuse flowers on a zig-zag cactus.

Here are others...

A diaphanous purple vinca bloom

Pink tinged newly unfurled pomegranate leaves, sunlit & glowing against a blue blue sky

Chinese star jasmine buds; slender, rosy, & soon to burst into little twinkles of white that will fill the air with their divinely sweet, heavy scent

My hot orange kalanchoe kettle

The always sudden & astonishing beauty of fuchsia pincushion buds... one day it's just a little cactus, the next, a tiny jewel box

Plump indigo purple velvety Texas Laurel blooms that smell exactly like sweet sweet grape Koolaid & make me think of hot sticky summer days of childhood

And Roger & Mo on lizard watch & wondering why I am crawling around on the ground with that little metal square box pointing it at things.

canyon night is still underway, you can actually start seeing the forest for the trees. If my cartoon looks odd, in case you missed an earlier post-- I decided to create & use what I've dubbed an "X-ray cartoon", a black & white color inverted version of the original that allows me to see the detail in the trees much easier than tracing them onto vellum would ever have done. The IWC Fiber Celebrated deadline is a little over two weeks away... will I make it? Weave, weave, weave...

rejected, but not dejected &... accepted!

2009-02-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

Yes, I also received my "Dear Artist," letter on Tuesday from ATA. Thanks to Kathy Spoering's subliminal post, I was prepared. It is only my second rejection since I've been exhibiting, so I feel fortunate. I also knew that it is notoriously difficult to be accepted into ATA's juried exhibits, whether you are a master or novice weaver. At least this letter was tempered by Kathy's wonderful handwritten message... thank you, Kathy, I know that must be taking quite a bit of effort!

My first rejection was several months ago after I submitted several works to a gallery in Tempe for a Contemporary Craft exhibit. Guess I was either not contemporary enough or crafty enough, but I wan't dejected about that rejection either. However, I did become quite irritated when the same gallery quickly started inundating me with requests to support them (as one of their artists!) with monetary donations. Let's just say I communicated to said gallery my desire to stop receiving those solicitations in as an adult way as possible.

Yesterday I received another letter from another exhibit I had submittted work to. Uh oh, the envelope felt awfully thin, so I steeled myself for another Dear Artist letter. But, instead it told me they had accepted one of the three tapestries I had submitted, my monochrome macro: agave, one of my first tapestries. The exhibit is "Of The Earth" & is being held at the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Missouri which happens to be very close to where my parents are living in Illinois & where I am headed next week to attend a family reunion that I put together to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, the exhibit won't be up until March, so I won't get to visit it in person, but I am very happy that they selected this tapestry to be included since it is one of my favorites.

I am fresh from a weekend in Bisbee which I spent with Shirley & Lynn, two of my first students who are now special friends, helping them to stay on track with their tapestry weaving. Lynn was getting back into weaving her impressionistic wetlands & Shirley was learning to use her new Mirrix & starting a tapestry of a sunset on a special "friendship beach" near where she lives in Alaska most of the year. What could possibly be better than a weekend of weaving, friends, & wine? I was so involved with helping them that I forgot to take photos with my own camera, but luckily Shirley shared hers with me...

Work continues on canyon night, although the trees are still looking a bit ambiguous at this point. I am planning to submit it to IWC's Fiber Celebrated exhibit & it will now have a companion, as I think Kathy's suggestion to consider submitting my recently rejected painted hills to the same exhibit is most excellent! Great idea, Kathy, & if they are both accepted I will get to see them in person since Janie Hoffman & I will be attending together & taking Kathe Todd-Hooker's "Color & Tapestry" workshop she's teaching there. Anyone I know planning to attend?

shine on, new year; rock on, mr. president

2009-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

Although the new year is well underway, the shine hasn’t dulled yet. It is full of possibilities, promise, & plans, especially with our new president at the helm who will be turning the ship around & charting a more rational course. Watching the inauguration was inspiring, amazing, & emotional. Obama is going to do great things. I sense an innate goodness, fairness, & extreme intelligence emanating from him whenever I see him. That feeling is also present with Michelle Obama… she is going to turn “First Ladyship” upside down. They will bring us into the 21st century, even if some people have to be dragged kicking & screaming.

On January 20, 2009, the world became a bit more beautiful.

I always like to stop and reflect back on the year that has just passed. It’s a time to remember the events that have brought me to where I am right now at this moment in time, poised & ready to start another journey around the sun…

It is so astounding to realize that a whole year has passed since our little Roux died. During that time, a new dog era has begun with Mo & Roger, shaking up our world a bit with the changes their two personalities have brought into our lives. Dennis & I cannot imagine our home without the studio, which will mark its 2nd year this May; I spend most of my day in here, soaking up good energy, weaving, writing, exploring. I taught my first tapestry workshop, giving new weavers a start & making wonderful new friends as well. I was able to get to know Janie & DY better during the many times we were able to spend together. The place where I learned to weave tapestry, Desert Weaving Workshop, where I also met DY & many other wonderful people & took several wonderful workshops, closed its doors. I continued my journey in tapestry & my work was included in several local exhibits. Dennis experienced his first participation in an exhibit. I wrote several articles for ATA’s Tapestry Topics & continued my volunteer role editing the online digest. I became a National Park Service volunteer, thanks to Barbara S., a member or our local guild who created the opportunity for those who were interested to become involved in a textile storage project at the Western Archeological Conservation Center here in Tucson (check out the slide show at the end of this post). I feel my weaving has improved & that it is starting to take direction. And, I must confess, I started cheating on my looms with another thing with strings… I’ve started to learn to play the cello, recently buying my very own.

The new year is already ramped up & charged with activities…

I’m presently coordinating the theme for this year’s first issue of ATA’s Tapestry Topics, which has involved defining the theme, choosing & inviting artists to write, reviewing the articles, & submitting them all to Linda Rees, the editor. The theme title is Sustaining Creativity, the articles are fabulous, & that’s all I’m going to divulge. If you’re a member you’ll see it when it hits your mailbox, & if you aren’t, why in the world not? I’m headed to Bisbee at the end of this month to give Shirley & Lynn a tapestry workshop. I have three submissions in place for three upcoming exhibits (ATA's Connections; The 9th International Triennial of Mini Textiles in France; The Foundry Art Center's Of The Earth). I wove the 9cm x 12cm after the monsoon for the Triennial. My parents’ 50th wedding anniversary is in February & I’ve organized a family reunion to celebrate it with my 5 younger siblings & their families. Janie Hoffman & I have planned another tapestry retreat for early May at her place on the Blue River— there will be 9 of us this year, including Pam Hutley who is coming all the way from Australia to join us!!! Janie & I have also sent in our registration for the Intermountain Weavers Conference which will be held in July in Durango, CO. We’re planning to take Kathe Todd-Hooker’s workshop, Color & Tapestry; I haven’t taken a tapestry workshop since early last year, so I am very excited!

I have a new tapestry, canyon night, in progress on my Shannock loom now & I’m planning to submit it for IWC’s Fiber Celebrated; it would be wonderful to have it accepted & see it there in person. Inspired by Tommye Scanlin, I will soon be submitting an application for an Artist in Residence position, but I don’t want to reveal where just yet. The Mountain Spinners & Weavers Guild of Prescott, AZ has asked me to give a presentation on tapestry weaving, which will be in November. My cello teacher, a member of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, tells me if I continue doing as well as I have been that she will invite me to join the adult ensemble she directs this summer, although I’m not as convinced as she that others will want to listen to what is coming from my cello. Whew, can I have a bigger plate, please?

Here’s a little more about my current tapestry, canyon night. My cartoon is a photo I took at dusk during one of our trips to our NM mountain property. Instead of trying to trace the intricate & not so clear branches of the fir & cedar trees onto vellum as I usually do, I decided to invert the colors in the photo & tile print it onto cardstock. Reminds me of an x-ray image. So I must weave what appears dark as light & light as dark, using the actual photo as a guide for the sky’s color gradations. Not hard if I don’t think about it too much! I will post with more photos as it progresses.

Lastly, here is a slide show of images from my volunteer activities at the Western Archeological Conservation Center. Click on any photo as it appears to see a description. For a brief explanation of what we are actually doing, visit the WACC photo set in my Flickr photo album.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

got thanks?

2008-11-25T13:36:00.001-08:00

I do!!!

As my most favorite holiday approaches, I have much to be thankful for...

After what has seemed like a very long struggle, painted hills is finally finished, mounted, & submitted for ATA's new juried small format Connections exhibit!

I think this tapestry really represents what the entire year has been about for me (which is about how long is has taken to complete). Although it isn't visually apparent just looking at it, both this little tapestry & my life this year have been filled with beginnings & endings, false starts, sorrow & joy, rethinking how to do things that have been automatic, & explorations. Life changed after Roux died, bringing Roger & Moka into our lives. I have come to an understanding about my parents' health issues & their emotions as people, not parents. I've formed wonderful new friendships & strengthened others that were evolving. I've journeyed to beautiful places. I am having new experiences. I will write more about these last few events near the year's end (my other favorite holiday), the time when I really love to reflect on what has passed & what is to come.

I am always filled with thankfulness when I think of Dennis & our home. I will never forget that he became such an important part of my life just as the knot in the end of my rope was about to slip through my hands. Because of Dennis, my world changed into something I never thought possible before, & that is still happening.

I now have much hope that I can feel proud to be American again, something I haven't been able to feel for the last 8 years. It is good to know we now have someone who isn't asleep at the wheel to guide us into the future. Obama has a huge, tangled mess awaiting him, but I have the distinct feeling he is chomping at the bit to get started untangling things. I know things are a bit grim now, but I see a shining future awaiting us.

Got turkey?

blue river retreat fall 2008

2008-10-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

Did you blink? If you did, you missed it, the not so subtle transition from summer to fall. It happens like that here in the desert, a place of extremes which can evoke both fascination & frustration. Over the weekend, during a time period of about 48 hours, we went from temps of high 90s & low 70s to temps of low 60s to low 40s, so quickly as the weather is wont to do this time of year that I always wonder how our reptiles don’t get caught with their pants down & freeze, so to speak. We’ve now tempered a bit to our more normal fall weather of low 80s & low 50s, & lizards have come out of hiding, skittering about at midday much to Roger’s & Mo’s delight.

Signs of seasonal changes can seem imperceptible here in the desert for those who are accustomed to more flashy fanfare, but they do exist, & their subtleties are what I find so beautiful… the sun rising lazily over the Catalina Mountains; our pomegranate tree's branches bowed under the weight of its dusky red fruits; turpentine bushes turning their brassy gold blooms into buff colored fluffs of seed; the sudden proliferation of coyote scat looking ever so much like thick piles of raspberry jam studded with seeds, the coloration resulting from gorging on the abundant bounty of luscious, ripe, wine red prickly pear fruits; those same fruits laying scattered about half eaten & oozing red juice & shiny black seeds, a testament of nightly feasting by the desert's denizens; the sky putting on intense blue coloration so brilliantly bottomless it doesn’t seem it can possibly be real; the rarefied atmosphere bringing into sharp focus the craggy features of the mountains encircling the Tucson basin.

Luckily, I had a little prep time for this weather change a couple weekends ago when I joined DY Begay, her friend Peggy, & Janie Hoffman at Janie’s home in the Blue River Wilderness for a little retreat. Just a couple days, enough for us 3 desert dwellers to get a bit of a respite from the heat that was still plaguing us then. We hiked on Escudilla Mountain through groves of aspens, their golden autumn leaves shimmering in the breeze, & enjoyed an al fresco lunch of crackers, cheese, & apples on an open hillside with spectacular views of sky, evergreens, aspens, & golden grasses encircling us. Peggy, DY, & I spent time in Janie’s magical garden, collecting dyeplant blooms & veggies before the first frost claimed them, enjoying the lush greenness of the plants, the beautiful blooms, & the industrious insects. DY, Janie, & I also got in a little loom time in Janie’s studio. DY was working on the first weaving in her new Parfleche series, using a cleverly procured “For Sale” sign frame as a portable loom, Janie was beginning the second to last tapestry of her Sky Island collage tapestry, & I continued work on my painted hills. And, of course, our visit was also spiced throughout with wonderful shared meals, good wine, lively conversation, & much laughter. We’re already planning another retreat in May next year… want to join us?

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

road trip to taos

2008-09-08T14:16:00.001-07:00

Dennis & I ended August & celebrated his 51st birthday with a road trip to Taos. We haven't been on a trip like this in over 4 years... when our dog Bear died in 2004, we had just bought our New Mexico mountain property near Cloudcroft & started taking camping trips there with our other dog Roux until she died at the beginning of this year. Now, our "new" dogs, Roger & Moka, are young, healthy, & perfectly able to stand the trauma of being left with the pet sitter for a few days, so we packed up, hopped into Dennis' Corvette, & jetted up to Taos. I couldn't believe we were actually going some place together where I could sleep in a regular bed, have a shower every day & not have to cook a single meal!

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House was a fabulous place to stay, & served the best breakfasts I can remember ever eating during a vacation. It's quirky, it's beautiful, it's historic, it's got character... & it's a little bit shabby here & there, kind of like an old fashioned grandmother's house. Thinking about the interesting conversations that must have taken place between Mabel & some of the house's renowned guests-- Ansel Adams, D. H. Lawrence, Mary Austin, Willa Cather, & Georgia O'Keeffe --had me daydreaming about what some of the old giant cottonwood trees around the house must have heard & seen. Still an artist's retreat, there are no televisions, no phones, & no obnoxious people talking on their cell phones. If you want a generic, sterile, homogenized place to stay, this may not be the place for you. We LOVED it!

We spent our time in & around the Taos area... driving through the beautiful high desert country visiting many different places:

The Tierra Wools weaving cooperative is in the tiny community of Los Ojos on the other side of the Tusas Mountains. The rugs, wools, & looms were a feast for a weaver's eyes & soul. Dennis was in heaven driving his Vette the way it was meant to be driven on the twisting roads... he said he knew he reached optimum speeds when he saw me grabbing the door handle. I think not being able to see the speedometer from where I was sitting was a good thing.

The Earthship Headquarters-- getting to see the inside of a "model Earthship" & watching a sugar coated video about how "easy & fun" it is to build one yourself by just collecting old cans, bottles, & tires. Interesting, but the video forgot to mention that swinging a sledgehammer to pack those tires full of dirt might just kill you if you're over 45, not to mention the effort it would take to hand plaster the entire structure. Oh, yes, & we were able to experience firsthand just how hungry mosquitoes in isolated areas can get if water is left standing in unused tires when we went outside. Still, we were very intrigued by the structure & it was great to be able to experience the interior of one & see the wild & strange looking community of Earthships scattered around the area.

Seeing the views from the Rio Grande River Gorge Bridge, or at least Dennis did. I was so struck by panic & fear when I caught a glimpse of the abyss through the open railing when we were partly across the bridge that I almost crushed Dennis' hand, broke out into a jello-legged, hyperventilating, stomach churning sweat, & couldn't look. When cars drove past the bridge trembled, & I grabbed the rail, knowing I'd never be able to walk back to the car. Luckily, some other tourists came right up next to me & started talking about a group photo... in dire fear that they would ask me to take the photo (Dennis had left me clinging to the rail to go across to take pictures of the other side), which meant I would have to let go of the rail & LOOK, I was able to pry my hand loose to run over & latch on to Dennis, who kindly took me back to the car.

We drove through the tiny Arroyo Seco community & up the switchbacking curves into Taos Ski Valley on Taos Mountain, then back down for lunch in Arroyo Seco. We spent only a little time looking around Taos since most everything there is more or less "tourist trap" type merchandise, with the exception of Weaving Southwest where I bought some nice chunks of natural indigo for dyeing & La Lana Wools where I bought walnuts for dyeing & some beautiful roving for my friend Stacey who is learning to spin. There was a very disappointing "Art Fair" in the park on the weekend, but in walking to it from Mabel's House we discovered the old tiny Taos cemetery where we were able to see graves & read headstones of Kit Carson, some of his cavalry buddies, & Mabel herself. In the evenings we enjoyed delicious meals, good microbrew beer, & smoky mescal at Eske's Brew Pub & the Adobe Bar, accompanied by the vibes of good local musicians.

We made a journey down to Santa Fe to have lunch with Kathy Perkins & Bengt Erickson, & to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum where a fabulous exhibit of both her & Ansel Adam's works were on display. Dennis said I had found my "mecca", but he was just as absorbed as I in the pleasure of viewing these two artists' works. It was quite an experience to look at O'Keeffe's paintings in person & up close, so close in fact that I was thrilled to be able to discern her brush strokes & notice that she had used different techniques for the effects she created in each work.

Finally, the time came when we had to leave the wonderful Taos climate to journey back home to the desert heat. It has still been breaking 100 here, but I feel & see that fall is on its way. Mornings have been cooler & the light is changing. No longer thin, searing, & white-hot, morning & afternoon light now have a rarefied, golden quality... evidence of the change in the Earth's tilt as it makes its way to the end of another year's journey around the sun.

Below is a slide show of images for you to enjoy of our journey to one of the most beautiful places in the west... to see photo captions, just left click with your mouse on the photo.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

dog days of summer

2008-08-21T17:27:00.000-07:00

We are in the midst of the dog days here. It is miserable to go outside. Roger & Mo have totally adapted to studio life & know how to handle it.

The temps I see posted for most of the rest of the country on the national weather reports fill me with a great deal of envy. Although our humidity has been dropping this week, making the heat a tiny bit more bearable, 105 is HOT, dry or not!

But, I am grateful we have had substantial rains this

monsoon season. The desert is very green right now, with many "volunteers" such as this Devil's Claw sprouting up seemingly from nowhere. If you look into the photo's background, you can see the green "claws" which are actually the plant's seed pods still in their sticky green skins, reminding me of a warped okra. When the pods dry, the skins split & the interior structure curls outward into two curled prongs. The Tohono O'odham use the claw to weave black designs into their exquisite baskets.

I have been organizing my files in the studio & cleaning up, not much weaving taking place. Now that everything is in order, I have started working again on painted hills; I will post photos when I've got more to show! I had started it around the time I went to Alpine for the tapestry retreat, & took it with me to Tselani, but I didn't get much accomplished on it either of those two trips. I am feeling like I will be digging into it seriously now & I hope to be able to submit it for ATA's newest small format exhibit.

In between organizing tasks, I completed my ATA volunteer duty editing the next Tapestry Topics newsletter for the online issue excerpts. One of the perks of doing that is getting to see the newsletter content before it goes to print. Since I just skim it for the excerpts, I get a good taste of the theme. By the time the actual newsletter comes in the mail enough time has passed so that I enjoy reading it thoroughly. This issue is fabulous, the theme of small format tapestries received wonderfully written submissions from many tapestry artists. I am very excited to have three articles that I wrote included in this issue.

I delivered sensia to Tohono Chul at the beginning of the week for the "Please Touch, Again" exhibit which opened today. I am honored to have it represent the exhibit (along with another artist's work) on the exhibit's promo postcard. The artists' reception will be in October & I am looking forward to it because by then the weather should be much more bearable.

I've decided to submit most of my previously completed tapestries for a couple of upcoming local exhibits, Arizona Designer Craftsmen's Craftsmanship: 2nd Annual ADC Juried Exhibition, held at Arizona State University in Tempe, & Mesa Contemporary Arts Center's 30th Annual Contemporary Crafts, in Mesa. Both cities are large suburbs of Phoenix... I can't wait to see if they will be accepted as I am not sure that they have had much tapestry represented in those venues. I feel the need to start spreading my wings locally & get my work into more locations than just Tohono Chul.

Next week, Dennis & I are taking a road trip to Taos for a few days! An escape from the heat! We will have fun exploring around Taos, driving out into the beautiful high desert country, & experiencing some of Taos' eclectic night life & tasty cuisine. We also will go into Santa Fe one of the days we are there to do some sightseeing (I am ecstatic about visiting the Georgia O'Keeffe museum) & to have lunch with tapestry artists Kathy Perkins & Bengt Erikson. Dennis is worried that I will turn the whole trip into a "fiber head" extravaganza. I tried to reassure him, but then I remembered that New Mexico has a fabulous publication, New Mexico Fiber Arts Trails, which is free & maps out rural fiber arts destinations all over the state. I now have a copy of it in my possession... after all, many of those places are right on the way & it would be a shame not to stop, wouldn't it?

tres tejaderas: retreat in tselani

2008-07-31T15:53:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of July, just a few days after Dennis & I returned from our NM camping trip, I had the incredible pleasure of spending several days with DY Begay & Janie Hoffman at DY's hogan & studio on the Navajo reservation in Tselani. Located about 30 miles SW of Chinle as the raven flies, Tselani is quite a bit further by road... as DY said in one of her emails to Janie & I, "Bring plenty of wine! The nearest store is 96 miles away!"

I'm not even sure how to begin describing our time together there; it was so wonderful, words do not even seem adequate, but I'll try...

The hogan & studio are located on DY's family lands; she grew up here with her many brothers & sisters, surrounded by other family members; many still live there or nearby. She climbed, ran, played, hauled water, learned about plants & their uses, & memorized a landscape punctuated by junipers, buttes, & mesas. Even though DY didn't tell Janie & I this in so many words, it's readily apparent that she comes back here to ground herself, to decompress from city life, to allow her creative energies to thrive unhindered.

Mornings were for hiking, following DY up canyons, clambering over sandstone & shale, inhaling juniper scented air, drinking in the vistas. She told us about many land features, plants, old home sites, & little bits of what life was like growing up & living there, even of meeting her first English speaking person. We collected quite a few dye plants on our hikes-- sage, chamiso, cota, mistletoe, juniper berries --& collected pocketfuls of colorful pebbles. Tselani means "many rocks" in Navajo & it is easy to see why it is called so. The heavily eroded sandstone cliffs are banded & striated in every color one could imagine & some you'd never think of. Colored boulders encrusted with rainbow colored lichen are strewn about the canyons like a giant's bag of marbles. DY & I traded Navajo & Spanish words for the plants & objects we encountered, leading Janie to christen us the "Tres Tejaderas", the three weavers.

Afternoons we lunched, napped, & retreated to the studio to weave, listen to music, & talk. The studio's rectangular windows were carefully placed low & on the horizontal so DY has spectacular views of the landscape & horizon while she is seated at her loom weaving. We examined & talked about what we each had on our looms, admiring each piece & making observations, & discussed our future weaving plans.

Evenings we enjoyed an ice cold beer or chilled glass of wine on the hogan's broad deck, soaking in the ever-changing view of the mesas on the horizon. We took turns as cook each night & enjoyed scrumptious meals of lasagne, chicken chef salad , & chile verde pork posole.

How exquisite this experience was... all three of us share a passion for weaving, natural dyeing, & the natural environment which made it very easy to spend time together & strengthen our friendships. Our visit felt timeless, yet the hours seemed to fly by.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." Anaïs Nin

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

a touchable tapestry

2008-07-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

sensia...

smooth, silken, soft

rough, ribbed, ridged

thick, thin, thirled

desert life fragments

human made trinkets

tangible & visible feast

a NM trip & new tapestry

2008-07-20T16:22:00.016-07:00

At the end of June & through July's beginning we took our first trip of the year to our New Mexico mountain property. It was also the first time Roger & Moka have gone there, & for Roger, probably the first time he's ever been on a trip at all. Moka's foster owners, Lisa & Kurt, had taken her on a brief camping trip just before we adopted her. So, this was more of a "shake down cruise" than the laid back relaxation we had enjoyed when we took Roux in previous years. After all, she was, as Dennis put it "an old lady" & knew how to behave; in sharp contrast, Roger & Moka are two rowdy teenagers & needed constant supervision! Their senses were in high gear, seeing, smelling, & hearing all things new & wonderful. They did pretty good overall, although they became quite vocal over turkeys that passed through our clearing on a couple of days & very agitated with a bold vole that kept dashing through the middle of camp & seemed to know just how far Roger & Moka could stretch their ropes. They were tired & quiet at night, very ready to come into the camper & settle into their beds. The biggest issue we discovered turned out to be Roger's inability to cope with riding in the vehicle in a calm manner, so this is something we'll have to work on so we can better maintain our sanity when we travel with them the next time!

I did do a bit of gathering on this trip, collecting more stinging nettle-- the last I collected was in late summer on a previous trip; early summer is supposed to give slightly different colors, so we will see. I also collected elderberry leaves & branches to bring as a gift for DY when I made a trip to her hogan in Tselani with Janie Hoffman--- that trip will be the subject of the next post!

On a walk down our road with Dennis & the dogs, I was surprised to look down & see a spiral shape amongst the rocks... I found a cephalopod fossil! What a special find, I did a small sketch of it with my watercolor pencils & crayons, inspired by Tommye Scanlin's ferns. I think I would love to design a tapestry based on my sketch! I also did a sketch of a vervain bloom, New Mexico's state flower, & one day worked just a little on my painted hills tapestry, unweaving some of what I had woven previously because the colors weren't working, & began to replace those areas with yarns that I just dyed this past spring which worked much better.

Before leaving on our trip, I had started working on a mixed media tapestry, entitled "sensia", for submission to the exhibit, “Please Touch, Again”, the third in a series of award-winning, hands-on exhibits at Tohono Chul Park. The series is intended to give everyone a unique opportunity to experience art using multiple senses, reaching out to people in the community who have vision loss. Once we returned from NM, I was able to finish the weaving & submit it. It is constructed of linen warp, wool, linen, & sea silk weft with mixed objects woven in. Some found & picked up here on our desert property & during walks with Roger & Moka & others from my stash of "art stuff"-- seed pods, cholla & saguaro skeleton fragments, a snake backbone, desert luffas, wood & glass beads. I also used a few different weaving techniques with the wool & linen weft in areas to add texture-- soumak & a looped weft Coptic technique. Now I need to finish the hems... I have been considering several different methods & will choose one this week to complete it.

a retreat, a studio gathering, an exhibit, & getting my head on straight

2008-06-23T18:16:00.018-07:00

It has been a long time since I last posted, but life has been overflowing the rim...

Back in the beginning of May, I & several of the women who were students in the beginning tapestry class I taught in Bisbee early this year, Darquise, Shirley, & Lynn, made plans to go to Janie Hoffman's Blue River Retreat for a tapestry retreat. We were there for 3 days and it was a wonderful & relaxed experience for everyone. Morning walks in the woods & birdwatching for those who wanted to go, gathering informally by mid-morning to weave the rest of the day with breaks for lunch. I didn't actually do a whole lot of weaving because I don't focus well in a group, but I helped them when they had questions or needed to learn a technique that hadn't been covered in the workshop. Janie also gave assistance at times which I appreciated since I think learning from more than one teacher can be so enriching & she was also one of my first teachers. On some days we invaded Janie's studio, exploring her space & admiring her work. This was the first time any of them had visited an actual tapestry artist's studio & it was a great experience for them to see some of Janie's finished tapestries, her work in progress, her cartoons & watercolors, her yarns, & her library. Some of these encounters led to in depth discussions about many things related to tapestry, inspiring for everyone! In the evenings, Janie & Don invited us into their home to gather at their dinner table to share our communally prepared meals. I was absolutely astonished by how well they were all weaving; their tapestries in progress were the first they had attempted since taking my workshop! We all decided it was an experience worth repeating next year, so when the time comes around I will post an announcement on my blog for anyone who might care to join us! I had so many wonderful photos, I created a slide show so I could include more--

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

After returning from the retreat, I hosted an informal studio gathering in my studio for friends & fellow weavers... unfortunately, I was so excited when everyone started arriving & had such a great time, I forgot to take pictures! Thank you to everyone who came, you all brought great energy into my space.

A week later was the artists' reception for Artful Insects & Inspired Arachnids at Tohono Chul Park's museum. My tapestry, pinacate shuffle, was included in the exhibit, but the highlight for me was seeing the drawing, Butterfly Magic, done by my husband, Dennis, his first exhibit. He was so low key about it all, I took it upon myself to secretly invite his father & "step-mom", so it was a very big surprise for Dennis when they appeared. And, luckily, they persuaded him to allow them to take a photo of him with his work, because he had forbidden me to do so!

During all of this, I was steeling myself for a visit to where my parents are living... they both have been having major health issues the last 8 months or so. I had recently seen my mother at the beginning of this year when she came to visit one of her sisters who lives nearby, but I hadn't seen my father, who is the most ill, for a little over a year. I wasn't sure how he would look, and let's just say my nursing experience was making me think the worst. As fate would have it, our hot water heater sprung a leak just prior to my visit... I had been storing practically the whole mother lode of our family's photos in the same space for my parents when they were traveling in an RV after my father's retirement, so I had to go through ALL of them to make sure none had gotten wet. Luckily, none were damaged, but I went down a very, very long walk on memory lane. Some of the photos were so old of my parents when they were children, & then there were all of those of myself & my 5 siblings as we each were born & grew up. I laughed, I cried, I felt so very nostalgic. Now they are all stored in a plastic bin instead of cardboard boxes! When I called my mother to tell her what had happened it proved to be good timing since my father, who is quite depressed over his condition, had been asking about specific photos he wanted to see again. So, I selected a few albums to send & used my scanner to scan in, blow up, & print a few photos from those albums. The box arrived in the middle of my visit there & one evening I persuaded my parents to look through one especially old album. It generated many good memories for them, & I heard many stories, some I'd heard before, & others new & surprising. It was, for the most part, a good visit. My father's condition is not ideal, but he did not look as bad as I had imagined. I cooked dinner for them most nights I was there, pulled weeds in the garden for them, did a temporary fix on a leaky AC pipe & got them to call for repair; we had a serious discussion about considering assisted living & I am going to research it for them. Although I am still worried about them, I feel a weight has been lifted because I have a more accurate image of how they are living & how they look.

My mother, 1st on left, the captain of her high school cheerleading squad.

My father playing his bass in a high school jazz band (I have this very same bass displayed in a prominent place in our house).

The only weaving I have done since the tapestry retreat was to weave an alpaca lap blanket for my father (I was there during Father's Day). In amongst all of the above, I was working on my volunteer job editing the ATA's Tapestry Topics newsletter for the online digest, putting together the final Desert Tapestry Weavers newsletter, & writing several articles for the next ATA newsletter. With all of that, along with the worry about my parents, I had no desire to weave or be creative... I was experiencing a complete creative block-- mentally, physically, & spiritually.

Now, I feel the block starting to crumble... Dennis & I are planning our first trip to our mountain property this year next week. We'll spend close to a week there; it will be the first trip for Roger & Moka. I am bringing my Mirrix with the painted hills study in progress that I had started during the tapestry retreat, also my watercolor pencils, crayons, & paper. Our camping is primitive, but I make sure to bring good food, and we both love spending our days outside in the mountain air & out of the desert heat. I always feel renewed after a trip there, so I am looking forward to bringing that feeling home to the studio.

In sorting through all of those old photos, I came across one of a place we used to live on a river in rural New York from the time I was about 8 until I was 12. It was a tiny old cottage perched on a steep river bank; my parents moved our trailer home next to it & built a connecting hallway into the cottage. It was the only place we lived where I had my own room, & my room was in the cottage. A bed of lily of the valley bloomed outside my window in summers & I could smell it all night. The old German couple who sold it to us had planted many interesting plants on the property & there was a patio landing over the river where we went fishing. A study room surrounded in plate glass windows overlooked the river & the cow pasture on the other side. If the river froze solidly enough in winter, we could skate on it. I always loved that place & cried when my parents decided to sell it after my father rejoined the military. In finding this photo that I had not seen before, I realized it embodied the essence of how I felt about the cottage. It was where I learned to love nature, to see it, to smell it, to listen to it, to taste it, to experience it. I now have a copy of that old photo, enlarged & hanging on my board next to my desk so I can see it every day.

dye run - spring 2008

2008-04-18T11:40:00.008-07:00

After preparing & organizing all last week -- choosing & weighing dyestuffs from the 33 I have on hand, most that I gathered myself, weighing & labeling the skeins, readying all of my dye worksheets & sample cards --I was finally able to start the dye run last Thursday! This was the largest since the one I did in spring of '06 & it was fun, but after 4 days I am happy it is finished. I decided to give Burnham's tapestry weight wool a try this time & also changed from using natural white to bleached white. I also always overdye grey skeins along with the white, they are so wonderful to use for shading & blending.

In the middle of the dyeing, I received good news... John Jenkins the wood artisan who creates fabulous tapestry forks (along with other beautifully crafted wood items) now has a website...

Magpie Woodworks, LLC

Everyone who sees my tapestry forks wants to know where they can get them, just as I was struck with fork lust the first time I saw one, so here it is.

And more good news, Jan Austin has joined the world of tapestry weaver blogs! Bravo, Jan, I think you'll be a natural. As far as I'm concerned, the more tapestry blogs, the better. It is so wonderful & inspiring to see an artist's work from planning stages to cutting off, so much more enlightening than looking at a photos of a finished piece in a book! Visit Jan's blog-- http://austintapestry.blogspot.com/

Every dye run has its surprises & this one was no exception...

The cutch given to me by Kathy Perkins produced a beautiful coppery brown & smelled of slightly burned cooked carmel. After dyeing my skeins I even threw a white washable linen skirt in that I love the feel of but don't wear much because of the color in the cooling dyebath to soak overnight. The "cutch skirt" has come out a beautiful light coppery brown.

However, the lichens were a complete failure, producing absolutely no color in the dyebath after simmering for an hour & no color on the one skein I threw in the dyepot! I had good directions to follow from a source that reported using New Mexico lichens. Hmmm. Well, that skein was rinsed & joined the skirt to soak overnight in the cooling cutch exhaust. Don't think I'll be one of the lichen dye junkies as I now have no desire to harvest any more, even though what I collected was from deadfall on our NM mountain property. Too many other plants out there are easier to harvest, more predictable in the colors that they produce, & less precious.

As far as the avocado, the results were a little disappointing. Even at 200% wog, the colors were very subtle, barely beige from the peels & a light apricot from the pits. I did an ammonia assist with one pit skein with no change. I did follow the instructions very carefully, including heating them once during their soak time to prevent mold growth. My feeling is that I did not let them soak long enough, just 7 days. The author of the recipe goes on at length about the longer they are soaked the deeper the colors, but she is quite vague on just how long is long enough! If I were to attempt it again, I think I would just collect the pits since they seem the most promising. You would have to be quite attentive & diligent about heating the soaking dyebath every few days to keep mold from growing, so I'm not sure how happy I'd be having to do that for a long period of time!

The eucalyptus did not give me the hoped for oranges, but instead a green tinged gold. No matter, it smelled quite heavenly. I was quite happy with all of the other dyestuffs I used as well those I've already mentioned... mountain mahogany roots, elderberry leaves, nettle, & brasil wood.

Now I am looking forward to a Bisbee trip with Dennis to celebrate our 15th, then soon after that a trip up to Janie Hoffman's place on the Blue River for a tapestry retreat with several other weavers!

Live to dye another day; respect our Earth; live, love, weave!

livin' la vida moka

2008-04-15T18:31:00.037-07:00

Life has been taking the fast track lately & I feel like I've been holding onto the ragged edge by my fingertips! But, it has all been good, if a bit hectic...

Spring seems to have come & gone, since we've had temps in the mid-90s already! Fold up that fuzzy sweater & pop on that bikini, would ya? The change in season has brought a quick succession of flowers bursting forth as is wont in the desert-- the heady perfume of the waxy blooms of citrus trees; the dark, rich scent of jasmine; the bright scattered spots of color from desert marigolds, mallows, & lupines; and now the cactus & palo verdes are starting to join the floral chorus as mesquites & acacias don their millions of tiny green leaves. Dennis barely had time to get outside to attend to his "yard chores" before the high temps hit! We are hoping this is not the harbinger of a very dry & hot summer.

Spring also brought us... Moka! She is our newest dog, another rescue, born on & rescued from the reservation, adopted as a puppy & then returned to the rescue organization by her first owners. She is about a year old & was very shy & skittish when we first got her, owing to whatever kind of treatment her first owners did or didn't give her. She lived with foster owners Lisa & Kurt for three weeks before we got her & they did wonders to help her become adoptable. The name came with her, although it was originally "Moca" (which I didn't like because it is way too close to a Spanish word for a bodily fluid I am not fond of), then became "Mocha", which I decided to change to "Moka" because she is way too hip for such a common name & she isn't brown! Good thing dogs can't spell. She has now been with us for just over two weeks & has completely made herself at home. She still has some skittishness at times, but she is quickly learning she can trust us & she absolutely loves Roger, who is a bit of a stick in the mud about playing, but who allows her to steal the cushiest bed & fling toys around & on him without much grumbling. All of the old stuffed animal toys have all had very precise sqeakectomies performed on them, Moka is quite the little surgeon. Both dogs love the daily 3 mile walks, are getting in good shape, & have learned to drink from the water bottle when we are walking. Bunnies went out of fashion after Easter, now their latest obsessions are ground squirrel holes & lizards. Needless to say, one must have a tight hold on the leashes or find oneself going for an unplanned flight into the cactus!

I finished pinacate shuffle just in time to get the loom warped up & a header woven for the Hernmarck method workshop I took during Arizona Federation of Weavers & Spinners Fibers Through Time 2008 convention. Here it is while in progress & the cropped shot I took of it for the Tohono Chul exhibit it was woven & accepted for--

Burnham's Two Grey Hills & Native Brown were perfect for the sand!

Dennis also had one of his works accepted into Artful Insects, it will be his first exhibit! He works in watercolor pencil and pen & ink. Here is his Butterfly Magic before framing.

The Fibers Through Time convention was 3 1/2 days of fiber, fiber, fiber & it was held here in Tucson. The first day was registration & tours; I took the AZ Historical Society & Arizona State Museum tours which were fabulous since we were allowed to go "behind the scenes" to see textiles that were not currently on display. At the Historical Society we saw many items of hand stitched clothing from the early 1900s worn by people who were living here then, & at ASM, known for its textile collection, we saw breathtaking pre-Columbian textiles undergoing restoration & exquisitely old Navajo weavings. That evening instead of going to the wine & cheese event I decided to go home, partly because I was very tired & partly because I have learned to trust my premonitions & instincts when they come on strongly... something in Dennis' voice when I called to see how the dogs had done after being left alone during the afternoon was not reassuring when he told me that someone (Moka!) had gotten into my yarns & he wasn't sure what color they were. I arrived home to find that Moka must have had quite the soccer match with not just any yarn, but the special yarn I had just bought & carefully packed for the workshop. I was winding what I could out of the mess for 2 1/2 hours just to get enough to use! It is somewhat humorous now, but wasn't at the time! While I was winding & thinking bad thoughts, Roger made sure he came into the studio & told me he had absolutely nothing to do with it, honest!

The workshop was taught by Diane Wolf, who has studied with Helena Hernmarck, worked as her assistant during convergence, & was encouraged by Hernmarck to teach the class. Here is our workshop space, a shot of my loom with my piece in progress (it's a silver U.S. Navy pitcher, the photo was taken by Diane), & a detail of the weaving. It is a very intriguing & time consuming method, requiring much consideration... I still have most of it left to weave!

I entered 3 of my works into the exhibit that coincided with the convention... I was quite honored to have recuerdos de georgia selected to receive the Juror's Recognition Award For Tapestry.

My friend Janie Hoffman taught the natural dyeing workshop during the convention & after the convention's end, she came to stay for a couple days before heading back to Alpine. We had a field trip day, driving up into the Santa Rita Mountains on a very narrow single lane dirt road that switchbacked up close to the peak of Mt. Hopkins before we reached the security gate for the Whipple Observatory at around 8000' elevation. It was a slow going, sweaty palm drive up with very steep drop offs, most with no guardrails, & spectacular views-- thank goodness the road was very well maintained! The reason for our trek was for Janie to get some photos of the Tumacacori Mountains across the basin from the Santa Ritas for her Sky Islands tapestry that she is working on. She got some great shots & so did I, along with having most of the day to enjoy each other's company, the mountains, & the desert.

Now I am in the midst of preparing for a dye run that is overdue... I also want to get the dyeing done before it gets any hotter! I will be dyeing with 8 dyestuffs, most which I have not tried before & most from my own collecting efforts. The most unusual of them all will be the avocado peels & pits-- these photos were taken immediately after I covered them with boiling water to begin a week long soaking process, wow!

I hope to be able to post the results of the dyeing session before Dennis & I take a mini-trip to spend a couple days in Bisbee to celebrate our 15th anniversary. It will be the first time Roger & Moka will be left with our trusted pet sitters, so we are hoping all goes well so that we will be able to enjoy future trips together occasionally in non-dog venues!

february was a fiber filled frenzy!

2008-03-11T13:14:00.054-07:00

I am not sure how the shortest month of the year could have held so much fiber related activity!!! I am still recovering from it all, but in a blissful, not devastated state. I am also very behind on reading my favorite blogs, so I hope to catch up soon on what everyone has been doing! This post will be loooong, so better get at it...

The month started off with the grand opening of the Land, Art, And The Sacred: Three Perspectives exhibit that I have been eagerly anticipating. I do not want to write much about it in my blog because I am working on an article about it for The American Tapestry Alliance's Tapestry Topics newsletter, but I will say it exceeded all of my expectations (which is why I feel driven to write an article about it!)... I was also able to spend time with DY & meet her dear friend Peg while they were in town for the reception, & I got to know Claire a little better, something I've been hoping would happen since meeting her briefly last year. I had the serendipitous pleasure of visiting the exhibit many times during the month, so I was able to really absorb & enjoy it.

In preparation for the beginning tapestry workshop I taught at the end of February, I drove the 2 hours to Bisbee one day to check out their frame looms that would be used in the class... I discovered it was a wise thing to do because they were a bit dusty & in need of a good tightening. I was also able to ferret around in their fiber room to see what was available to weave with. The next day my sister, Susie, arrived for a week long visit. We spent much of the time in the studio, where I put her to work weaving a sampler to improve & expand on the weaving techniques I had taught her last year.

While Susie was here, we, along with my friend Stacey, took an overnight road trip up to northern Arizona, traveling north through the Salt River Canyon route to visit Burnham's Trading Post, where, as the snow started to flurry outside, we indulged in a flurry of yarn buying & gaping at the beautiful Navajo weavings & turquoise jewelry for sale. I found the most beautiful turquoise bracelet I had ever seen & was able to buy it for myself because the price was right, along with purchasing yarns I needed for my next tapestry... my idea of heaven! Stacey & I have quite the love affair with Burnham's since we are devoted to using it in our tapestries & I use their natural white & grey exclusively for my natural dyeing... if we are ever in the neighborhood (oh, say within a 100 miles or so), we always go out of our way to swing by. We can mail order it, but it is just SO wonderful to buy it in person. The skeins that are vegetal dyed by Navajo women come in a rainbow of beautiful, earthy colors. The first time you walk into the yarn room, it widens your eyes & takes your breath away. Thanks, Janie, for turning me on to Burnham's, I am trying to return the favor by spreading the word! In fact, if anyone reading this has thought about trying Burnham's wools for weaving, but hasn't taken the leap yet, you should know that their yarn sample cards are free & also that during the entire month of April all of their wool yarns are on sale!

After Burnham's, we headed for Flagstaff to spend the night. By the time we got there, we were in a blizzard, but we braved the foot deep drifts to walk 5 or so blocks for dinner & afterwards to check out the few stores that were open. We awoke the next morning to a magnificent sight of snow covered San Francisco Peaks outside our historic bed & breakfast window & a scrumptious home cooked gourmet breakfast. Stacey made me laugh when I noticed that, a true desert dweller, she had rolled up her pant legs to keep them out of the snow. I even had to scrape quite bit of snow & ice off the Rover before we could leave to sled off back south, taking a convenient detour through Oak Creek Canyon, which was completely & breathtakingly covered in snow, & the red rock country of Sedona.

When we hit Phoenix, we made our way to the downtown Heard Museum to see a newly installed tile mosaic representation of one of DY Begay's weavings... it was stunning, DY! We also enjoyed a very delicious lunch at the museum's Arcadia Farms Café. By the time we got back home to Tucson, we were a very weary, but very content bunch of fiber addicts! A couple days later Susie left, with new yarn stuffing her suitcase & new tapestry techniques packed into her head.

The very next weekend, I was off to Bisbee to teach my very first tapestry weaving workshop & I kept a little journal on my mini computer...

thurs, 2-28-08
How odd that the first tapestry workshop I will be teaching should fall on a leap year... but this has been an odd week, precipitated by a phone call from a lawyers' office asking if someone at my residence was related to my ex-mother-in-law & could "handle her affairs". Quite a shock to receive that call, considering that my ex & I did not part on friendly terms & I haven't seen him or any of his family in over 15 years. Receiving that call & realizing that she was no longer alive prompted me to do a little online investigation & I discovered that my ex-father-in-law had also died, but 2 years previously. Learning all of this caused the resurfacing of many, many memories of people, times, & places that I have not thought about for 20 years or more, some good & some bad. Needless to say, these reminisces occupied my mind so much for the last couple of days while I made final preparations for the workshop that I had no time to think about being nervous. I loved teaching patients & their family members when I worked as a nurse & I had hoped that perhaps I could one day teach tapestry weaving, but I never thought the opportunity would come so quickly. I met the Bisbee guild's "education recruiter", Joan Ruane, when I was in Bisbee for their fiber festival last October; when she learned I was a tapestry weaver she asked if I would consider coming to teach a workshop for them.

So here I am in Bisbee, on the eve of my first beginning tapestry workshop. It will start tomorrow & run for 3 days. I came a day early to prepare the space & pull yarn out of the guild's fiber room. Bisbee is a tiny, quirky little historic mining town, converted in modern times to an art town/tourist destination perched on & in the nooks & crannies between the Mule Mountains & the Naco Hills at an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet. The Bisbee Fiber Guild is fortunate enough to have their own permanent studio space in the basement of the historic YWCA building where they have looms set up full time for members to weave on, a fiber room, a library, several storage rooms, & giant steel utility sinks for dyeing. It is a 2 hour drive from where I live in Tucson, through mountains & across high desert grasslands. It was an especially wonderful drive today-- the sunlight warm, clear & sharp; the sky very blue; the landscape a color study of duns, ochres, & greys... the high desert grasses gleaming wheaten gold & rusty red, the mountains looking dry & craggy with their canyons & drainages shadowed in sharp relief, and the creosote flats glowing with the chartreuse of tender new leaves. You can see across the basins for 50 or so miles & your eyes are constantly straying to take in the view, so much so that you have to remind yourself to be more careful to watch the road.

I have the pleasure of staying in a guild member's guest cottage while I am here, only a few miles from the guild's studio, but in the hills without a neighbor in sight. It is a spacious one room with a bathroom & "closet kitchen", surrounded by alligator junipers, Mexican oaks, manzanita, rolling hills, & bird song. This afternoon & evening I set up the student workspace in the guild's studio, set tapestry looms out, & selected yarns from the fiber room, arranging them by color family on a table. My efforts were awarded when a guild member who came in to do a little weaving on one of the floor looms was immediately drawn to my "yarn table" & began exclaiming over the display. Most of the guild's fiber has been received through donations & I was very happy to discover a nice selection of wools suitable for tapestry weaving. The frame looms the students will use also belong to the guild. They are simple frame looms made of hard wood with a nice tensioning beam on top & cylinders with grooves routed into them affixed to top & bottom beams for warping. The workshop begins tomorrow at 9 am, but I will arrive early to have a pot of coffee ready for those who need it & to put out class notes, spools of cotton seine, & bobbin kits. Let the weaving begin!

fri, 2-29-08
I arrived at the guild studio an hour before the start of class, set out all of the class materials, got my ipod set up with its portable speaker system, & started a pot of coffee for anyone who would be in need of caffeine when they arrived. One by one my 7 students trickled in, with the last two arriving just a little late. Today they were able to get warped, weave a header, & learn the first technique on the agenda, pick & pick. I feel very pleased that all of them are so very eager to learn & that my teaching seems so far to be effective. Everyone appeared to be intently enjoying the learning process & I felt I was able to give each person the attention they needed during the day. We worked from 9 to 4, taking frequent breaks & a lunch break. I cannot wait to see how it all goes tomorrow... with the difficult process of warping & getting the sampler started now accomplished, I hope to make good progress working through the other planned techniques so that they will be able to do a bit of weaving on their own, & cut off & finish their samplers on the last day of class.

sat, 3-1-08
This morning all of the students arrived with big smiles on their faces & eager to get back into the weaving so I must be doing something right! Good progress was made today & I noticed that everyone's dexterity handling warp & weft was improving as the day progressed. We managed to cover all of the techniques I had planned except for eccentric weft, so we will start with that in the morning. Then they will have the rest of the day to weave on their own & hopefully we will be able to cut off & finish the samplers as well.

After all of the students left at the end of class & I had packed things up, I headed out to walk around town & grab a bite to eat at a little café I had noticed driving back to the cottage yesterday. Across the street from the café I had also been noticing a building with a big hand painted sign advertising a musical comedy play, Annie Get Your Gun, being presented by the local actor’s troupe. I had been thinking it would be fun to go see it & in the café I saw a flyer that gave the time it would run. Dennis & I have driven up to a small town north of Tucson to see plays put on by the actor's troupe there, so I knew how good & fun a small town production could be. After finishing my meal at the café, I walked around, found a place to get a small espresso so I wouldn't be too tired, & headed back to get tickets & a good seat. The play was good & funny. It was so enjoyable to watch it on my own, just sitting quietly & absorbing it all without having to talk to anyone after having been talking all day during class!

I am looking forward to tomorrow... I can't wait to see what everyone chooses to weave when they are turned loose to weave on their own!

mon, 3-3-08
Too tired to write last night! Luckily I had already anticipated how I would feel & had planned to spend last night in Bisbee. Everyone arrived yesterday for the last day of class tired, but still smiling. We quickly covered the last technique, eccentric weft, & they all got down to the business of weaving. It was very apparent that everyone was intently enjoying finally being able to weave on their own & I was so very proud that they did so with minimal assistance from me. I walked around & observed, giving out reminders & prompts when necessary. Everyone also had a chance to at least quickly review the books I had brought so they could think about which one appealed to them most if they ended up acquiring one for themselves. Throughout the workshop they were also requesting that I come back soon & teach them more, expressing much interest in learning to design on their own, learning how to prepare a continuous warp, & learning to use a cartoon. I encouraged them to get together, decide what they would like in a next class as far as length & content, & to approach their education coordinator with a proposal. I would love to come back to teach them more!

As the day neared the end of the workshop time, several of the students decided for themselves they were ready to stop weaving & finish their samplers off so they could make the drive home to the nearby towns where they lived. Everyone was able to weave as much as they wanted & to cut off & finish their samplers which made me extremely happy. Several who actually live in Bisbee were already making plans to meet today at the guild's studio to help each other warp the looms for their next piece... wow! My encouragements to continue weaving & practice their newly learned techniques must have made quite an impression!

After all of the samplers were finished, the wool returned to its place in the fiber room, & the looms put away, 3 of the students & I went out for a drink & dinner. For most of the time we continued talking about tapestry, & I discovered they were quite passionate about soaking up more experiences... we ended the workshop & the evening as new cherished friends with a great idea to plan a trip to Alpine to have a "tapestry retreat" at Janie Hoffman's place on the Blue River.

Charla

Randy

Jan

Shirley, Lynn, Darquise, Joy

Since the workshop, two of the students, Shirley & Lynn, came over to Tucson to do a little shopping at the Desert Weaving Workshop; I met them there & we went for lunch together & then to the Land, Art, & Sacred exhibit. During that time, we decided we would definitely try to plan a tapestry retreat at Janie's... since they are both "snowbirds" who come to Bisbee for the winter months-- Shirley from Alaska & Lynn from Seattle, they both had to see about adjusting their travel schedules. Now the date is set for early May, and Darquise has also decided to come along. Janie & I had started contemplating the idea last year of having an informal retreat at her place but until now we hadn't found anyone who wanted to make concrete plans. I am so thrilled that it is finally going to happen!

The two exhibits I recently had work in at Tohono Chul have come down...my earth & sky tapestry was sold so it went home with someone else. I felt a startling bittersweet pang when I learned of the sale. I was surprised it had sold; I had begun to feel it was my favorite that I have woven so far, & in the original photo I had used, the image included Dennis & Roux because I took the photo when we were hiking, & it is one of the last tapestries I wove while Roux was still alive. But, the feeling has passed, mostly because I think the person who purchased it must have been very moved by it & will treasure having it in their home. I am beginning to learn just how closely a tapestry can be connected to the weaver's life, a wonderful, if a bit unsettling, discovery.

During all of this wonderful madness, our new dog Roger has settled in nicely, no longer has separation anxiety attacks when I leave, enjoys hanging out in the studio all day (with an occasional cookie to break the routine), & loves our daily 3 mile walks which have helped shrink both of our waistlines! Dennis & Roger walk on weekends when Dennis is home from work, those "guy walks" being a bit more hard core & good for them both!

Now I have my small Shannock loom warped up & a tapestry under way for another Tohono Chul exhibit, Artful Insects. It will depict a pinacate beetle crossing the sand, leaving a wake of footprints-- as soon as I chose the image I christened it pinacate shuffle. So far I've gotten the header woven & when I've completed more I'll post again with photos. The deadline is early April, but I have incentive to finish it much sooner because in early April is also the Arizona Federation of Weavers & Spinners biannual conference, Fibers Through Time. I will need the Shannock for a workshop I'm taking to learn the Helena Hernmarck technique of weaving being taught with her permission by Diane Wolf, a weaver who has studied extensively with Helena & has been her assistant during workshops at HGA's Convergence. After the workshop, the Shannock will be put to work again... I've been invited to create a piece for an upcoming Tohono Chul exhibit, Please Touch Again !, being held specifically for the visually impaired so that they may feel & touch the items on display.

March is well underway... fiddlenecks, mallows, & desert marigolds are beginning to bloom, our windows are thrown open to warming temps & birdsong, the light is taking on the rarefied & luminous quality inherent to desert spring & fall. I've been sharing my tapestry passion not only through my blog, but in real life. Life is feeling very good again.

goodbye & hello... good things come in large packages

2008-01-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

Almost exactly 24 hours after we said goodbye to Roux, we had the most spectacular sunset we've had in quite some time... I like to think of it as Roux's sunset. Gentle rains followed for a couple days. I always look for signs from my environment during times of sadness or stress... a special bird, or animal, or sight... something to tell me things will be fine or right themselves soon. I take this as one of those.

Now, I have a new guy in my life... he's a good listener with soulful eyes, who kisses my tears away when I am sad for missing Roux, who lays his great, warm head in my arms, who looks at me & says, "I know how it feels to be sad, but I'll help you feel better & I'll love you with every fiber of my being all of my days on this earth because I am so happy to have found my forever home"...

meet Roger!

Roger was dropped off with 3 other dogs by the same person at the county animal shelter & then rescued by a local no-kill group. I found him by looking at Petfinder.com . I cannot go to shelters myself because it is so overwhelmingly sad for me, even on a good day, that I cry. Roger was advertised as a 1 year old mastiff-retreiver mix, but our vet is quite sure he is about 2 years old, mostly Rottweiler & with his black spotted tongue & soft coat, maybe retriever with chow or sharpei?

All I know is that he is a 90 pound love sponge, with pretty good house manners, a yarn fetish, a fascination with birds & bunnies, & a little bit of separation anxiety, which I am working on. He loves hanging out in the studio, although he does need to learn not to put his head into the working parts of looms.

I found out about the yarn fetish when DY Begay dropped by for a visit... she was in Tucson to bring her weavings that will be included in the 3 women artist collaboration exhibit, Land, Art, and the Sacred: Three Perspectives, being held here at Pima Community College. It will be quite a dazzling exhibit, already on display, but I am waiting for the gallery talk & artist reception so I can savor the anticipation of seeing it for the first time. DY came by to let me choose & purchase a saddle blanket woven by one of her relatives on the reservation. We presented it as a gift to our beloved vet, Dr. Nunn. We gave his partner, Dr. Koski, a small blanket I had woven from local Alpaca yarns, & the staff a couple pizza certificates to thank them for all of the care our pets have received from their clinic since we moved here.

So, about Roger's yarn fetish... as DY & I were looking at the blankets she had brought, I heard a noise that sounded like Roger was rolling on his studio bed & playing with a toy. Well, he was rolling on the bed, but he was rolling around with a ball of yarn in his mouth! When he ran through the studio with it wrapped around him, I figured it out pretty quickly, especially since that particular ball was attached to a poncho in progress on my triangle loom! I discovered that wrestling with a 90 pound dog that flops on the floor thinking it's part of the game to keep grabbing the yarn once I got it pried out of his mouth can be challenging, especially with a guest standing there watching the whole thing! Luckily, DY has a large Akita, so she understands & she even helped untangle Roger.

He has tried making off with other balls out of my yarn baskets, but I've caught him before it was too late. When I was putting away newly wound yarn I had just bought from Norsk Fjord Fiber, I had my yarn cabinets open & Roger sat gazing into them like he was looking at shelves full of chocolate. Wow, well I guess most of us feel like that about fiber, now that I think of it. When he went to the old dog toy basket & rummaged around, the toy he brought back to the studio was a sheep. Hmmmmm.......

Earth, Air, Fire, Water opened at Tohono Chul two weeks ago & the exhibit is ¡muy fabuloso! The reception was crammed with people. I immediately saw my earth & sky & Bengt Erikson's Rincons since they were displayed near one another, but then a friend mentioned there were two other tapestries in the exhibit... I turned around & gasped as I saw Michael Rohde's two magnificent tapestries, hung on either side of the exhibit hall's large picture window. They extended nearly floor to ceiling. How exciting to have other tapestries included in the same exhibit! I especially loved how my tapestry was displayed alongside some beautiful jewelry pieces, one with a large chunk of polished agate. All of the tapestries garnered much interest during the reception & I talked to many people who were quite intrigued with the process of tapestry design & weaving. Although earth & sky was quite small compared to most of the works in the exhibit, many people came up & told me they were drawn to it from across the room because of the colors & subject (The Vermilion Cliffs).

The other Tohono Chul exhibit, Turquoise, opened the following week without a reception in the smaller gallery. I have a tapestry in there as does Deborah Komisarek, a fellow Desert Tapestry Weavers member. Surprisingly, neither of us knew the other was submitting... we both designed geometric tapestries based on the concept of inlaid turquoise jewelry & even had very similar titles-- hers, Inlay 1, & mine, inlay 9. I have visited that exhibit & our tapestries complement each other very nicely. I hope to revisit the exhibit & get some photos to post of both our works on display.

And, speaking of Michael Rohde, he is in town teaching a rug weaving workshop at the Desert Weaving Workshop. I had the exciting pleasure of attending with my dear friend, Stacey, a slide & video lecture he gave last night on his trips to Tibet & Lithuania that explained the inspiration behind his body of work, Houses for Nomads, which was exhibited in a solo show in Lithuania last year. A wonderful lecture with fabulous photos & videos with audio that he took of the people & many festivals that were going on during his visit, along with photos of all of his tapestries. It was very inspirational to hear how he was inspired by the people, their lands, their culture. He brought a few of the tapestries with him, how very special to get to see them! I hope to make it into town tomorrow evening to the little gathering they will be having after the workshop is finished for the day.

So, Roger & I are settling into a routine of morning walks, helping him learn to be comfortable & learn the rules in his new home, & working in the studio. Right now I am working on writing my class notes for my upcoming beginning tapestry workshop I will be teaching in the nearby town of Bisbee at the end of February. My weaving consists of weaving a sampler on one of the frame looms the guild is providing, one, so I will know how their looms work, and two, because it is helping me while I am writing. So, I weave a bit, jump up & go the computer, write a bit, & repeat, while Roger snoozes (& sometimes snores quite loudly) on his studio bed. My sister is coming for a visit in mid-February & as I have been helping her learn to weave, we'll be able to get some hands on time to help her advance her skills. I also hope to take us on an overnighter field trip while she is here up to Burnham's Trading Post so she can see some beautiful examples of Navajo weaving & we can buy MORE yarn!

You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog as large as myself that my father bought me. They are better than human beings, because they know but do not tell. ~Emily Dickinson

another road on life's journey

2008-01-07T14:40:00.000-08:00

Life, for the last month of '07 & the first week of '08, decided to take a sudden turn down a bumpy road. Since this is supposed to be my journal, & a journal's purpose is to record events in one's life, I think it is important to also include sad times as well as happy, upbeat ones. It can't all be a reflection of the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind... these bumps in our lives are what make us grow, what help us learn about our own true natures & the nature of others in our lives.

The period of time after Thanksgiving & before New Year's Eve has never been my favorite. Not only do I miss the daylight hours that have been replaced by darkness, I also have come to dislike Christmas. Although I am spiritual, I am neither religious nor believe in any unseen deity, & I am saddened by the wasteful consumerism that has come to mark the season. What makes me happiest at this time is the passage of the solstice, marking the gradual lengthening of daylight hours. My feelings about this time of year are usually enough for me to deal with, but life decided to throw a few barbs in as well.

My father was hospitalized for almost 2 weeks in the beginning of Dec for pulmonary/cardiac edema & to try to save his leg from amputation. He had refused to go in for treatment for 5 weeks, so they had a mess to deal with when he finally went (because he couldn't breathe). Upon returning home, he resumed his smoking, drinking, & not elevating his legs as much as he should. On Christmas day, my mother had a minor stroke & was hospitalized for a couple days. Luckily there were no residual effects for her. Both of my parents are nurses & have knowledge of how they should care for themselves, but I have come to terms with recognizing that they are the only ones who can make choices about how they live their lives. I have siblings who live near my parents & they help out during these times. I am closer to my sister who lives there, so I stay in close contact with her, explaining the medical things & giving my "nurse perspective" on the situation. Needless to say, a very stressful few weeks.

Which brings me to the last little bit... we finally had to have our old Roux put to sleep on Friday, January 4th. Just before Thanksgiving, she had labs drawn that indicated she was headed into kidney failure. We declined taking her in for 3 days of IV therapy because we thought that being there away from home at her age (14) would kill her faster than staying at home where she wanted to be. So she did quite well until the last weeks of the year, when we started seeing a rapid decline. We finally knew it was time to make the decision we have been dreading since her cancer diagnosis a year & a half ago. What was great was that since Dennis was home so much (he always has lots of time off at the end of the year & had extra to burn), we got to spend lots of time being together here with her & taking her for walks around our property. She got to eat turkey at Thanksgiving one last time. She played with her toys & chased Dennis down the driveway. Her last day was perfect, so warm & sunny we could open the bedroom window, she could smell the light breeze & hear the birds singing. We took turns hanging out on the bed with her. She ate cookies in bed & played with her favorite toys a little. In the late afternoon, when we took her out to use the bathroom one last time, a pack rat jumped out in front of her from the bushes & she almost nailed it. It was just a little too quick for her, but she felt like a young dog again, if only for a few minutes. The last couple of hours before our wonderful vet came here to perform euthanasia at home, I laid with her & just kept petting her the whole time. My arm never got tired. The vet came & it all went smoothly... she went very quickly & peacefully. As her heart stopped beating, our vet said, "She's on her journey now" & he was crying as much as I. Poor Dennis couldn't bear to be in the room, so after he walked the vet out, he came in & had his moments with her. It was so hard to let her go, but we know it was the best for her... we didn't want her to get so bad that she was really suffering, so it was better to do it while she still had some of the "old" Roux spark. We buried her here on our desert property, in a very sunny spot with a good view in all directions.

We will miss her little paws, her pointed ears, the mischievous glow in her amber eyes, the swagger in her walk, the rocks she used to carry around & try to sneak in the house. But most of all we will miss her love. Roux's passing has also brought back many memories of our other dog, her buddy, Bear. He died almost 4 years ago very suddenly during our first trip to our New Mexico mountain property, and we still think of him very often. He is buried there, in a shady spot under the fir trees.

A dog era has come to a close. While our hearts mend with cherished memories, we are looking forward to the time when we will welcome other dogs in need into our hearts & home.

I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?
Sir Walter Scott

To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace. Milan Kundera

inlay 9 underway

2007-12-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

It has been raining intermittently, yet steadily, for almost 4 days now, a very good thing in the desert. It is always so amazing how quickly things can change here... for the last 2 days, the temps have not made it out of the 50s, yet just before Thanksgiving we had some days near 90. The birds outside seem to enjoy wet weather so much, increasing their usual cacophony of birdsong while they are feeding at the feeders. The studio windows have been continually streaked with rain & because of the flat roof I can hear the rain if it is coming down hard enough. The clay canales that drain the studio & garage rooftops have been continually trickling & at times gushing water. The surrounding mountains are either lost from sight when the clouds engulf them, or they are strikingly illuminated when the sun manages to peak briefly through the thick cotton of rain clouds. The Catalinas have also had brief dustings of snow on their peaks which melts quickly if the sun stays out for long.

On the Shannock frame loom, inlay 9 is finally in progress, after a bit of tweaking of the design. Inspired by Tommye's latest post, I'm including images of my designing as it progressed. I don't sketch very much for most of my tapestries because I use images that I take with my digital camera & then trace the main shapes & outlines onto vellum to use behind the warp. But, this tapestry is geometric, so I had to head for the graph paper & then to my CorelDraw.

Here, my first conception while I was still in the process of choosing the palette. I had originally envisioned it as a horizontal design...

Which I then transferred into CorelDraw & modified to come up with the final design & palette, with some of the shapes changed & the alignment now vertical...
Here the final design has been transferred to graph paper with yarns attached to their respective color areas. I can keep it near the loom to track of each shape's dimensions; since the overall size is 9" x 22" & it is such a simple design, I didn't want to waste paper & ink printing a cartoon out from my printer.
With each new tapestry, I tend to try to incorporate a tapestry technique that I have not used much before so I can push my envelope a bit & become more proficient in my weaving skills. In earth & sky, it was pick and pick-- in this tapestry it happens to be interlocking joins, which I felt it was necessary to use because of the precision of the shapes & the size of the slits that would make it difficult for me to control draw in or "bulge out". Two of the shapes are using a wool yarn that is much larger than the other wools, bamboos, & cottons, so I am weaving those in basket weave (over 2, under 2) to compensate. Although the overall design is simple, I find that the preciseness of it requires that I am very mindful of all of my joins & selvedges.

busier than a one-legged woman in a butt kickin' contest!

2007-12-04T13:27:00.000-08:00

If you didn't know that I pretty much grew up in the South, the above phrase should be a good clue, although I have "genderized" it & cleaned it up for public consumption... I have other phrases that aren't really printable here. Let's just say I have to assess who is within earshot before those phrases are uttered.

So, what have I been doing???....

Getting the latest Desert Tapestry Weavers newsletter & announcements out.

Doing my volunteer bit for ATA (I help do the excerpts for the online version of Tapestry Topics).

Gave a fabulous presentation to my guild, Sources of Inspiration, to share the experience & how I benefitted from attending a Sources of Inspiration workshop at the Desert Weaving Workshop back in January taught by DY Begay, Madeleine Darling-Tung, & Barabara Heller. The guild awarded me some CE funding to help with tuition & the presentation was how I was to "pay them back". I say it was fabulous because I learned to use Power Point for the first time & because everyone seemed to love the presentation... at least I didn't see anyone "pecking corn" (the jerking movement one's head does when one is nodding off while sitting upright). Thank yous to DY, Madeleine, & Barbara for sending me images to use!

Volunteered for an entire day at the Tucson Museum of Art Holiday Market in our guild's booth. The first half of the day I was a sales person & the second half I demonstrated tapestry weaving on my little Mirrix. So much fun to be around people ALL day & I picked up a few trinkets as well while Dennis stayed home to tend Roux.

Had a peaceful, happy, Thanksgiving with just myself, man, & dog. We thought we would be euthanizing our little old Roux instead of enjoying turkey... it has been 16 months since she was diagnosed with bladder cancer & now according to her recent bloodwork she is going into kidney failure. She is 14... we decided to fore go the horrible treatments, which would be torture for her, just to eke out a few more weeks of life & instead we are letting her enjoy a normal dog life for whatever time she has left. We thought she was headed downhill after the lab reports, so I made a call to the vet to discuss options for at home euthanasia... that evening we walked into the bedroom to discover her "paddles up", rolling around, wrestling with toys & pillow, just having a merry old time. Entirely living up to Dennis' description of her as a "tough old bird". I think she knew there was a big, juicy bird awaiting roasting in the fridge! As of now, she is still hanging in there & enjoying life.

Went to Vail to visit my friend Bengt Erikson & help him out by taking some digital images of a couple tapestries he didn't have images for. He & Bill will be moving away soon, to Santa Fe, since they discovered they are not happy here in the heat & in the isolated area in which they live after relocating from the Pacific Northwest. And, I bought his 2 ft. Shannock collapsible frame loom from him when I discovered he was interested in selling it! He primarily weaves on his 6ft. Shannock now. To see more of his work, visit the online ATA exhibit, Tapestry On The Edge.

Above, a detail of Bengt's Rincons.

Made the decision NOT to torture myself trying to crank out opuntia for submission to ATB 7. I decided instead to torture myself by cranking out a small tapestry for another upcoming Tohono Chul exhibit, Earth, Air, Fire, Water. This newest tapestry, earth & sky, is from a digital image I took when Dennis, Roux, & I were hiking along the base of the Vermillion cliffs during a trip there in '06. Bengt is also submitting his Rincons for this exhibit, so I am hoping to have his tapestry there to keep mine company! For more on tapestry & torture, please visit Kathy Spoering's blog to learn more about this fiber-related affliction. Remember, Kathy, we love to weave!!!

Was offered & accepted my first teaching job by the Bisbee Fiber Arts Guild! I will teach beginning tapestry weaving, & my first workshop will be in March of '08. I am in the planning stages now...

And, finally, I have started a new tapestry for yet another Tohono Chul exhibit with yet another looming deadline, one I just couldn't pass up, Turquoise. I will be weaving it on Bengt's old Shannock, since opuntia is languishing away on the Tissart. The header is started & my palette & design are ready. It is a geometric design, inlay 9, rectangular in shape & composed of 9 geometrically dynamic squares & rectangles based on a 9 inch square in 9 different shades of turquoise . I love turquoise jewelry of all kinds & this design makes me think of inlaid rings & bracelets. The "9" denotes the number of letters in the word "turquoise" & I chose the shades based on pieces of turquoise I own. I will post images of it once I have woven more!

The desert has finally settled into winter... after weeks of temps near 90, just at Thanksgiving the weather turned & since then it has been very pleasant 60s & 70s during the days & 40s at night. We had a giant storm roll through a few days ago, rain all day & all night, the most we've received in over a year and hopefully more on the way with the upcoming front on its way here from Alaska!

After this flurry of activity frenzy passes, I hope to be able to return to work on opuntia in a more leisurely manner, since it is the biggest tapestry I've woven so far. I plan to submit it in the Juror's Choice exhibit that accompanies Arizona Federation of Weavers & Spinners Fibers Through Time conference being held in Tucson this coming April. I should have plenty of time, right, Kathy?

give peace a chance

2007-11-11T12:56:00.000-08:00

Please consider creating your own 4" x 4" work to submit for this collaboration... they are still accepting entries and are in need of more than 1600 to help them on their way towards completion of this project!

“COUNTDOWN TO PEACE” Project
Artists Call to PEACE

Inspired by collaborative projects like the Aids Memorial Quilt and Sonya Clark’s Beaded Prayers Project, we invite you to help create the “Countdown to PEACE.” Presented in calendar format, the project will begin with March 19, 2003 (the day the war in Iraq began) and will end when the war ends. At this point we are into the fifth year of the war; the calendar format allows us a way to measure the full extent of the war and gives us a visual sense of its continuing scope.

CRITERIA:
Each calendar month will be its own presentation board made up of 4-inch squares, 7 across and 5-6 rows down. Each entry will represent one day of this war. We are inviting artists to send us entries that are no larger than 4-inches square and no deeper than 1 inch. Limiting size will make display feasible. Work that is included in this project will become the property of the project. The entries will be permanently attached to the “calendar” pages for ease of transporting.

Any media is acceptable. Remember that since only one side of the work will be seen, 2-D approaches are preferred, however clay or metal works done in relief (for example) will also be accepted.

We intend for the project to be POSITIVE in nature. We are mainly interested in your personal VISION OF PEACE. Please do not use imagery and/or text that is specific to any government officials or policies. Please keep the focus on PROMOTING PEACE rather than on decrying war.

Entries that do not meet the criteria in terms of size or content will be returned to the sender.

WHAT TO DO:
Send your work, along with $10. PER ENTRY; the entry fee is non-refundable. Make checks payable to “Countdown to Peace.” Mail your entry and check to:

Countdown to Peace
PO Box 145
Ayden, NC 28513

Email questions to:
Jodi Hollnagel-Jubran at jodijubran@yahoo.com
Catherine Billingsley at mailto:billingsleyca@ecu.edu

For complete prospectus & entry form, click here.

Money collected from the entry fees will be used STRICTLY to defray the costs of display materials, promotional information, shipping, and insurance.

Our website, COUNTDOWN TO PEACE, is under construction, but it will provide information on current developments and will also give participating artists a link to their websites. Our first exhibit is scheduled for the month of November at the Mendenhall Gallery on the campus of East Carolina University. As part of the exhibit, there will be a book that will include:

1. an alphabetical listing of all contributors with the day, month, and year where each entry is displayed

2. a chronological listing of entries along with artist’s name.

Submission is ON-going. UNFORTUNATELY, WE NEED ONE MORE ENTRY WITH EACH PASSING DAY OF THIS WAR. PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH YOUR FRIENDS.

dyeing, weaving, and peace

2007-10-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

So, what did I really do first thing after we returned from our mountain trip? Even before blogging about it? Of course, what any sane weaver would do, I did a little bit of dyeing because I couldn't let my fresh dyestuffs ruin! Even though it was a small dye run, nonetheless, it was the first for the new studio. And I could further rationalize dyeing instead of cleaning up & putting away things from the trip because I pulled out several bags of sunflower heads that had been in my freezer, so it created more space in there for actual food. (We won't mention the fact that other frozen dyestuffs are currently still occupying 9o% of the bottom shelf space, & we also won't mention that there are only two shelves in my freezer.)

I used the mullein, dock, & sunflowers, obtaining a very muted but beautiful palette. As luck would have it, the dock provided the exact shades that were missing from my opuntia palette, which are the two skeins already wound into balls. Most of the colors for opuntia will be from my natural dyed wools-- pomegranate, ponderosa pine, chaparral sage, peach, marigold-madder. As I weave, I will remember where & when each of those dyestuffs were gathered: the pomegranate & sage from our property here in Tucson; the ponderosa pine during a stop outside Show Low during our Marble Canyon trip; the peach leaves & tender branches from our NM neighbor's orchard; the marigold-madder from a post dye workshop mini dye session when I was assisting Janie Hoffman.

Opuntia has been started, & it is already glowing. It is being woven on its side; when it is finished & displayed, the pollen head area will be in the lower right hand corner. I have spent the last couple of days not really weaving, but mostly weaving & reweaving the first pollen head because I wasn't getting the effect I was seeking & I wasn't feeling very well. Today, as I have started feeling better, I have also figured out how to weave the pollen heads. I wanted a raised texture, but didn't want to use a technique that would take eons to weave. So what I have come up with is to intersperse single picks of basket weave within passes of regular weave, using a double strand weft of two different, but similar colors. Now, with two pollen heads woven, I like the effect I see, & I have also decided that the pollen heads that are deeper within the flower will be woven as the rest of the tapestry, with a 1 strand weft to help them appear deeper than the textured heads.

Over the last few weeks, some wonderful things have been happening, like little unexpected gifts out of the blue...

I've been visited in my studio by two good weaver friends-- DY Begay, a Navajo weaver who lives in nearby Mesa, & Olga Neuts, another tapestry weaver here in Tucson. What wonderful visits we had! It is like a good cool drink of water that quenches your thirst when you are able to spend time visiting & talking with other weavers who share your passion!

While a friend & I were attending the Bisbee Fiber Festival, I was approached by members of their guild to come teach a beginning tapestry class next year. Of course, I said yes... what a great opportunity! One of my favorite things I did as a nurse was teaching my patients. Since I retired to pursue my weaving I always hoped that some day I would be able to teach others again. It has come much sooner that I dreamt it would!

I have solved a dilemma that had been pestering me since the last time we had cool weather. I like to weave barefoot, & when it's cold, my feet get cold. I just cannot weave with shoes on & socks slide around on the treadles. So what's a poor, barefoot weaver girl going to do? Get some toe socks! And not just any toe socks, yoga toe socks with tread! They are very sticky, & yes, they obviously pick up dog hair, but my feet will be warm when I am weaving this winter-- heaven! Feets don't fail me now....

And, like an extra dollop of hot fudge on the sundae (forget the cherry-- give me more chocolate!), I just found out this week that the Countdown to Peace Project is planning on using my peace dove on the postcard announcing their first exhibit. They now have a website & some of the artists' work has already been posted. My piece was assigned the date of 3-30-03, kind of cool! They are still accepting submissions, so if you are reading this & you are an artist, think about creating a 4" x 4" work to send!

a mountain journal

2007-10-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

9.22.07 travel day

Yesterday was a day of travel & we weren't sure how things would turn out. This area of NM, in the Sacramento Mountains just east of Alamogordo had received much rain over the

summer. It's been over a year since we've been able to come to our property, the last visit happening last July with our friend Stacey & her son Mikey. I had emailed our neighbors who live here permanently just below our property & they reported their road had washed out. It seems to have been a tradition in the 4 years we've owned the property that each trip has been marked by some unforgettable event... our very first trip when our dog Bear died right after we arrived; Stacey & Mikey's first trip with us when the maple syrup exploded on the way up the 4 wheel drive road & Mikey fell & broke his arm on our last evening here, just to recount a few of the more memorable ones. On arrival in Cloudcroft, a wonderfully fragrant drive down the canyon, marveling at the greenness & the smell of balsam fir, like we do with each trip, being the desert dwellers that we are. We started up the mountainside on our road to find that the grass had grown almost to shoulder height on the road; our neighbor's cows were no longer around to free range & keep things under control with their grazing since he had to get rid of them due to his health problems. The road was a bit rutted in places, but my Land Rover on its maiden voyage here pulled the trailer up quite easily, more so than my Chevy 4x4 used to. The big surprise that awaited us was the large evergreen that had fallen right across our normal camp spot during our absence-- our first thoughts were that maybe it had been a good thing we hadn't been able to come over during the summer! Mullein was growing almost in thickets, some at least 2 ft taller than we were, the wild yarrow was the tallest I've ever seen it, & there were some late blooming wildflowers all about. After a cold beer & popcorn, we retired to the camper & fell asleep with temps in the mid 40s. Quite a change from the low 70s or so we've been having in the desert!

9.23.07
This morning we awoke early, enjoyed our coffee & breakfast al fresco, & did our hike down & back up our rocky road. The wind is blowing through the tall evergreens, clouds are scudding across the sky, & I am lying in my hammock writing this, about to have a wonderful nap & then lunch.
In the afternoon, Dennis was a man on a mission. Determined to regain our regular camping spot with its wonderful view of the natural meadow (in the middle of which we had to set up camp on arrival), he broke out his chainsaw to cut up the fallen red fir. Quite a job, as it had been about 80' tall. While he was cutting away, Roux & I wandered around the meadow's perimeter, gathering lichens & tree moss from fallen logs. I had noticed on the fallen fir that it was very plentiful & I plan to try dyeing some of my wool with it. Afterwards, I helped Dennis clear the limbs & branches & together we rolled the large log sections aside. Some of the limbs were rather difficult to remove as the force of the tree's fall had driven them a foot or more into the ground. As soon as he made his last cut, the chainsaw stopped working! We would be able to move camp, but if another tree falls in an inconvenient spot we will have another adventure on our hands. After enjoying cold beer, wine, & another good meal, we watched the sun sink below the tree line. The eerie yet beautiful sounds of elk bugling echoed through the canyon as large dark clouds rolled in. We spent a snug night inside our camper listening to the intermittent sound of rain on the roof.
9.24.07
A day of high winds & fast moving clouds. Big cloud shadows kept sweeping over us & we enjoyed listening to the wonderful noise the wind made as it rushed through the evergreens & oaks while they swayed & rocked. The sound reminds me of how it was to spend the day at the beach windsurfing & the sound of waves when we lived near the Gulf of Mexico or the sound of a rushing river in the Smoky Mountains where we used to backpack.

Yesterday I had the horrible realization that I had forgotten to bring my dye plant identification books, paper sacks & my cutting shears... how could I? Well, I am already planning on how to collect & bring dyestuffs home without having them mold or turn to mush. I am drying out my lichen/tree moss collection from yesterday & will collect more tomorrow since it should be a dry, clear day. I have seen some dry dark red stalks that I think are dock & I will ask our neighbor Loveta tomorrow when we go over to visit her & her husband LeRoy. I will harvest the thick felt-like mullein leaves on our last day here & let them ride home in the camper's refrigerator. I have even realized that I already have some premordanted wool on hand leftover from my last dye run, so I can fire up my dyepots when I get home & use everything I collect while it is still fresh.

Today we did just a little hiking about, down an old dim logging road on our property & over to see an old shack cabin on an adjacent property. Dennis was sore from his tree cutting episode & Roux was stiff from forgetting she's not the young maniac dog that she used to be. Dennis napped in the hammock in the afternoon while I started warping my small loom for the Skin tapestry I have planned. The linen I ordered to use for it from Star Loom Room arrived just in time for our trip.

This evening, the wind suddenly stopped just as if someone had turned off a big wind machine, it became very cool & the skies very clear. We could here choruses of coyotes echoing from all over the canyon & elk song continued all night long in the bright light from the full moon.

9.25.07
After a leisurely breakfast, we took a short hike with Roux down the dim logging road again, then went over & had a nice 3 hour visit with our neighbors, LeRoy & Loveta, who live on the slope below us. In their 70s, they are very cool people & live here full time. They built their home here in the 1970s after he retired from the military using passive solar techniques & local lava rock. LeRoy even walked the woods until he found just the right curved piece of wood to use for the spiral staircase banister. Before they even began building their home, they lived at the bottom of the mountain in a trailer while they planted their orchard of cherry, apple, peach, & pear trees, hauling water to them by hand. They received permission from a local family who had a natural spring on a nearby property to tie into it & run it down the mountain to water the few cows they wanted to raise for help keeping the grasses in the natural meadows in check. LeRoy ran & buried over a mile of piping through the woods over unforgiving, rocky terrain. They have been a font of information about the area, gave us an easement to run electric from their property to ours, & helped us learn what it takes to get & maintain a well in this area. Last year they gave me all of the prunings that I wanted from their orchard to use for dyeing & they almost always give us something delectable from their garden as well-- one year it was mixed greens, another rhubarb, another apples, & this visit we left with a bag of pears. They honor & cherish their land, only using natural methods to maintain what they grow, such as bees for pollination, turkeys & chickens for bug control, & at season's end allowing their cows in to eat the leftovers. We feel so lucky to have them as neighbors.

Loveta confirmed that the plant I had found was dock, so after returning to camp & having lunch, I set about collecting more lichens & tree moss from the trees accompanied by Roux while Dennis logged more hammock time. Later, he found some beautiful flowers to sketch-- Roux was very glad to lend her assistance by napping nearby in the tall, cool grass. I continued plant collecting, as Dennis terms it "in a weed frenzy" clipping dried dock flower stalks with a pair of wire cutters from Dennis' tool kit.

For dinner we decided to give the cook a break & drove the 12 miles into Cloudcroft to order a pepperoni pizza from the little pizza joint & brought it back to camp to enjoy. I had fun driving my Land Rover down our 4x4 road, putting it through its paces. Just before reaching town, we always enjoy the sudden view of Sierra Blanca, a 12,000' peak that makes our 8100' look like small potatoes in comparison. Roux enjoyed the ride there & back, hanging out the window huffing mountain smells (including a stinky skunk spot) & gawking at cows in the pastures & near the road. After dark, before retiring, I got my loom out in the camper & attached the heddles, hoping to get into actual weaving tomorrow.

9.26.07
Ah, roughing it in the wilderness with nothing but piñon nut banana bread toast smothered in natural macadamia cashew nut butter & New Mexico piñon coffee for breakfast! Afterwards, we enjoyed a slow 1 mile hike down our road & up a little of LeRoy & Loveta's, then back up to camp. I had a specific purpose for going up their road, I was looking for roots. Mountain mahogany roots. Their road is deeply cut into the mountainside, leaving many roots to grow out into the roadway. The roots need to be cut back to allow their vehicle to pass without getting all scratched up. One year, Dennis cut the roots back for them & I took a bagful of roots home to share in one of Janie Hoffman's dye workshops. Now, I want more, & although they grow all over the mountain, I don't kill plants when I harvest; getting exposed roots from the banks doesn't kill the plant & more roots grow out over time. I was able to get a few roots & then on the way back up Dennis spotted a small sapling mahogany that was dying with its root center halfway out of the ground. He easily pulled it out. Its root center was larger than a softball, so with the other roots I collected, there will be plenty for a couple of dyeruns at least. I always freeze my woody dyestuffs after a dyerun so that I can reuse them later. Along the hike, I also took some photos of a few wildflowers & the mountainside view of the opposite side of the canyon, where the sun was creating wonderful patterns of shadow & light in the wall to wall evergreens... perhaps the subject of a future tapestry!

Now back in camp, the day promises to be a bit cool, with lots of puffy clouds drifting overhead. Dennis has taken his drawing kit & headed back down the road to sketch some more wildflowers. I also took macro shots of them with my digital camera for him. This way, he can start several sketches & then finish them in the studio at home. He uses primarily pencil, pen & ink, & watercolor pencil. His style reminds me of colorful botanicals, which I like very much. I am readying to set up my table & loom, hopefully to get Skin started today.

9.27.07
I am in the town of High Rolls at the local (& only) general store which functions as the market/fast food joint/laundromat/video rental. High Rolls is the second town down the mountain from Cloudcroft, which doesn't have a laundromat. Not washing our clothes, but rather laundering the washable chux pads I use for Roux. She was diagnosed last year with suspected bladder cancer & has a problem with leakage when she sleeps. We were about to run out of clean pads, so here I am, in a laundromat for the first time in years, leaving dog & man behind in camp.

Yesterday I was able to finish the header on Skin & start the actual weaving, but I am not happy with the one scale I have started & will rip it out to start over if I get to weave today. We are supposed to go over for another visit with LeRoy & Loveta this afternoon; we usually visit them just after we arrive & just before we leave.

Last evening just before starting dinner, a lovely eau de skunk drifted rather strongly through camp. Although we didn't see Mr. (or maybe Ms.) Stinky waddling around, we know it was near because, besides the wonderful odor, I had seen a skunk our first day here digging around in our neighbors cow pen. We kept a close eye on Roux, who was enjoying the smell but didn't budge from her spot in the grass. This morning during our hike before I came into town, I spotted Mr. /Ms. Stinky's footprints in the dusty dirt of our road, so at some point the skunk had passed through there, thank goodness not when we were also walking! Just before we reached camp, I heard a hen turkey calling, & she sounded very close. About 15 minutes later as I was preparing to leave for town & Dennis was enjoying a little cold air basin bath, we were treated to the sight of several adult hen turkeys & about 23 young turkeys running & flying from our neighbor's cow pasture through the edge of our clearing & into the woods. In all the years I've spent outside in the woods & hiking, I don't think I've ever seen that many at once. It was such a beautiful sight.

No weaving today-- by the time I was able to return from town & we had lunch, it was time to go over to LeRoy & Loveta's for a last visit. As always, the visit was wonderful, lasting over 3 hours as we talked about many things. It ended with a wonderful invitation for us to go over tomorrow & pick as many apples as we wanted to take home with us. They will not be home, having to go into Las Cruces for the day, but we will go & get just enough to have to enjoy at home.

A quiet dinner & then into the camper for the night after watching the sun set & seeing the first stars come out. I climbed into bed with Roux for a long bedtime reading session. One light in the camper works from our electricity here, but everything else runs from the battery which we keep charged with a solar panel. During the first two years of coming here, before we had our electric, we ran entirely off the solar panel. We did put in a well the year before last, but had it capped since we aren't able to be here enough to keep it maintained, so we still must haul all the water we will need for the trip with us.

9.28.07
On our last day here, the morning started out with a wonderful experience after breakfast... Dennis had just finished washing the breakfast dishes & I was in the camper taking a basin bath when the campsite was invaded by turkeys, the same flock we had seen the day before yesterday. When we come here, we always bring some wild birdseed to put out for the birds so we can enjoy seeing them—Steller’s jays, dark-eyed juncoes, mountain chickadees, nuthatches. The turkeys had discovered the bonanza & moved in to feast, much to the displeasure of the other birds. We didn't even twitch a muscle so as not to scare them away & enjoyed the sight & sound of the hens & mostly grown poults for 15 minutes or so until an older, wiser hen showed up to warn them away. It is after all, getting pretty close to Thanksgiving! They filed off through our meadow & out of sight down our road in an orderly fashion, probably going off to their roost for the day. We enjoyed seeing their splayed tracks on our dusty road when we took our morning hike a short time later.

After returning from our hike, we headed over to our neighbors' orchard to pick apples. We only took what we felt we could consume back at home-- a dozen eating apples & a little more than a dozen cooking apples which Loveta had told me freeze & keep very well once they've been cored & sliced. Dennis is hoping for one of my "tarts for two" soon after we return home & I am also thinking of a nice apple pie for Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of the year & one of the only ones we actually celebrate. As Dennis & Roux headed back to camp with the apples, I meandered slowly back & collected the big fuzzy mullein leaves. I ended up with two gallon ziplocs completely stuffed full which are now resting safely in the camper fridge. The day has so far been quite warm, so after getting heated up with all of that gathering, I am now enjoying the mountain breezes in the shade of the hammock with a cool glass of tea while Dennis sketches nearby, Roux is stretched out in the grass napping, & ravens fly high overhead squawking & calling to one another. I may break my loom out later on & we are contemplating taking a late afternoon drive up the canyon towards Cloudcroft so I can get some photos of the gold aspens on the other side of the canyon.

I do get my loom out, but heavy eyelids from warm temps (mid 70s) combined with cool breezes and the realization that my unhappiness with the weaving's start is due to not having a certain color, cause me to abandon the loom for the hammock. Dennis has set up his sketching nearby & Roux joins us. I am covered with my sheepskin & slightly rocking in the breeze and just as I have that delicious feeling of sinking into a nice nap, it suddenly begins to rain. We have a mad dash to rescue sketching materials, my loom & weaving stuff, the hammock & dog to get it all back up to the camper to dry safety. We continue to have showers, hail, thunder & lightening the rest of the afternoon, evening, & part of the night. No ride through the canyon to see aspen & "emergency soup" inside the camper for dinner, but, nonetheless, we enjoy seeing the rain come sweeping through the canyon, watching the sudden drop in temperature to the 50s, and hearing the rolling, echoing booms of thunder. Just before dark, our hummingbird feeder receives a very brief & ethereal visit from the magnificent hummingbird! One look at this sparrow sized bird lets one know how it received its name. We play cards, crazy 8s, into the early night before retiring. Dennis is very gleeful that he has won almost every hand during this whole trip since it is usually the other way around.

9.29.07 going home
During the night the rain subsided & winds began. We awoke early to a damp, cool morning to enjoy our last cup of coffee under the camper's awning. Always at this time, the day we travel back to our desert home, we have mixed feelings-- ready to go home for real baths & a very comfortable bed, but knowing we will miss the quiet solitude of our mountain paradise when we are back in the business of city life in the Old Pueblo. It has been over a year since we have visited this property. The events of our lives this year kept us from visiting as often as we normally do. But it was here waiting for us, even though it lay half forgotten in the back of our minds. Now, we have refreshed ourselves by disconnecting from the routine of our normal lives & we have also refreshed our connection to this little piece of the mountain that we feel so lucky to own. We are already looking forward to next year's visits. With camper in tow, gear stowed, & rover ensconced safely in the Rover, we head down the mountain back home to the desert with dreams of cabin building in our heads.

part 1: aaahhhhhhhh! & part 2: warped & ready

2007-09-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

Aaahhhhhhh!!!

That's the sound of the end of summer approaching, the end of the craziness (hopefully), the sound of a studio finally put together (now complete with A/C), the coolest morning we've had since May today (64!), the feeling of fall coming, knowing we are finally going to our New Mexico mountain property for a week, the planning of tapestries to come.

The craziness, besides the studio construction, first involved trying to cope with no A/C in the studio. My husband, Dennis, was hoping I could "suck it up" until we could get one installed in the off season. But, I wasn't sucking anything up, I was sweating. Somehow, when it's 90 degrees, it's hard to do anything... move boxes, move looms, & certainly not work with wool. Providence stepped in, & Dennis was suddenly struck with an attack of kidney stones (I did not wish for this). Although the whole stone ordeal took 4 weeks to pass (pun intended), he only stayed home the first week, but it was quite long enough for him to discover the studio was VERY HOT. Voila, now I have A/C & I've been chillin' for about 4 weeks. He also turned 50 last month & we were supposed to take a mega road trip to celebrate, but our old Roux is still hanging in there & the trip would have been too hard for her. Thank goodness, or else the stones would have made an appearance shortly after we would have started out. Oh yes, & somewhere in the middle of all that, a bobcat kitten decided to come down our chimney & into the fireplace at 2am one morning, and Kathy Perkins & I founded Desert Tapestry Weavers. So, just an average summer.

Here are some images of the studio so you can see how it all turned out...

Well, during that time while I was dealing with it all & trying to get the studio organized, I was so very glad for the blogs of fellow tapestry weavers Kathy, Debbie, Meabh, Marilyn, & Tommye. Visiting all of your blogs really helped me know that soon I'd be back to normal, working at my loom, too! And I discovered another gem, Syne Mitchell's WeaveCast, a podcast for handweavers. You can listen to the episodes, even if you don't have an ipod, so visit her site to learn more. I download them to my computer & listen to them in the studio. One episode has a wonderful interview with tapestry weaver Mary Zicafoose, & all episodes are about fiber in one form or another.

The tapestry I was working on during studio construction, recuerdos de georgia, was accepted for a Tohono Chul exhibit, Día de los Muertos: The Gift of Remembrance & is now installed in their exhibit hall. I went to see the exhibit & it is wonderful. I am looking forward to the artists' reception that will take place in late October. Our local PBS station did a segment on the exhibit that you can view here to learn more about the Mexican customs surrounding Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) & to catch a glimpse of the exhibit. My piece didn't make it into the segment, the focus was on more traditional designs.

This weekend we will load our little tent on wheels (a very small Scamp camper trailer) & head for heaven at 8100' elevation: our little piece of the Sacramento Mountains in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. It will seem quite cold to us-- temps are still in the high 90s here during the day so we will be like shivering lizards in the much cooler 60s & 70s there!

Speaking of lizards, I always take my small loom with me & my planned project is a very magnified view of one of our resident P.L.s (porch lizards) that I was able to snap a photo of.

I am planning to weave it entirely in linens to give it that tight, glossy look that lizards are famous for.

Awaiting my return so it can get underway will by my biggest tapestry yet, opuntia, the second in the monochrome macro series. While not really big by some standards, it will be big for me. I was inspired to go larger by Tommye's works & also by another tapestry friend who lives near Tucson, Bengt Erikson (see some of his work here).

My photo of a prickly pear (opuntia) bloom will be used as the cartoon reference. I tile print it out when I want it to be this large, then attach all of the tiles together. The palette will largely consist of my natural dyed wools for this piece, with colors obtained from pomegranate, ponderosa pine, chaparral sage, peach, carrot tops, & mistletoe. The dark greens are synthetic dyed from Norsk Fjord Fiber.

Getting warped...

A close up look at the cartoon traced on vellum. The photo is still behind the vellum.

See you on the other side of the mountain...

rain comes to the desert

2007-07-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

mountains
draped with green velvet

sky
studded with heavy clouds

birds

singing with joy

plants
swelling with life

earth

drinks

desert

sighs

monsoons

have arrived

meanwhile, the studio move continues...

weaving madness & monsoon weather

2007-07-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

The heat has hammered us (we have had temps of around 112 for the last few weeks), but monsoons started unofficially over the weekend (with thunderstorms) & were officially declared as upon us this week after we had three consecutive days with a dew point over 54. This usually means cooler temps, below 110, & rain! We have had quite a bit of plant & animal activity in anticipation of this long awaited event, including the discovery that we have 2 bobcat families sharing our property (1 mama has two kittens, the other has one).

I have just completed my latest work & have submitted it to Tohono Chul park's museum for consideration to be included in the upcoming exhibit Día de los Muertos: The Gift of Remembrance. This Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead, is celebrated on November 1st; its purpose is to remember and honor ancestors & deceased relatives. Many festivities surround the day-- cemeteries are visited & grave sites are tidied up; special foods are cooked & left out for the ancestors; shrines are created with mementos, candles, religious artifacts, flowers, and family pictures.

For this exhibit, I chose to create a mixed fiber media piece, using a tapestry as its base. It is a shrine commemorating Georgia O'Keeffe. Having just finished reading a second biography about her life when I heard about the exhibit, I immediately knew I wanted to design and create this work. Like many people & artists, I admire & am inspired by O'Keeffe, but more so by who she was as a woman and how she embraced her creativity than by her artwork. There are many things about her personality and some aspects of her life that really resonate with me (we even had the same address number). Her accomplishments as a woman during the time period that she lived her life are remarkable.

recuerdos de georgia
10" x 13"
techniques: tapestry, appliqué, paper folding
materials: natural & synthetic dyed wools, linen, bamboo, photographic image on cotton twill, silk paper

Now that recuerdos has been completed & submitted (I should hear next week if it is accepted), I can get back to the job of moving into the new studio space. We have sealed the floor, painted, finished the window's wood trim, & laid tile. I had to stop at that point to weave or I would have become too distracted with moving & cleaning. Along with the move will come a major house cleaning to resurrect our home from the pit it has become during construction back to its former glory as cozy abode (yes, I neglected household chores to weave... it's a rare disease known as fiber fever).

And, like Kathy Spoering, I also had to prepare & ship my agave tapestry to Durango for inclusion in the Intermountain Weavers Conference Fiber Celebrated 2007 exhibit being held at Durango Arts Center in Durango, Colorado.

So, until I can take some photos of the newly inhabited studio (complete with looms!), I will be enjoying both the nesting process and the monsoon storms. Our desert lies in anticipation of that long awaited cool drink.... bring it on!

as the dust settles...

2007-06-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Six weeks ago marked the beginning of a construction project to turn our existing garage into my weaving studio and build a new garage to replace it. The construction crews are gone, taking with them the noise & invasion of privacy, but leaving me with a new studio space & a house full of drywall dust. Dennis & I are doing the remaining finishing on our own, which includes sealing the studio's concrete floor & painting the interior. In about a week or so, I should be able to start moving in. I find myself happy in heart and spirit, but very tired in body, especially with our temps now over 100 every day!

As if on cue, as soon as the last construction workers left, visitors started arriving at the new studio...

First, early one the morning as I opened the window to begin sealing the wood frame, a very large sandy colored spider with chocolate markings and long legs popped over the top & tried to gain entry. The very same spider that made one of the workmen scream like a girl when it popped out at him the day before. Instead of scaring me, I felt quite honored to be visited by a fellow weaver, & I carefully brushed it back outside.

The following morning, as Dennis was turning off the hose after watering, he caught a movement above his head and looked up to see a bobcat kitten hanging upside down from the roof staring back at him. A little later that same morning we had a performance of loud thumps as the kitten had a gymnastics session on the studio's flat roof. Mama bobcat is the kitten that was raised here by her mother 3 years ago & she was the first to play on the roof. Last year & this year, she has continued the tradition by bringing her kittens (we are sure it is her because of her unusual spotted markings). After the roof tussling, the kitten then found a shady area on the roof & proceeded to have a nap.

Last year Mama B had only 1 kitten and we assumed the same was true this year. But upon arriving home from errands this afternoon & entering my old studio room, I was greeted by the sight of what appeared to be a furry body stretched out on the exterior windowsill (the window & wall is completely covered in catclaw vine, which makes it shady & cooler). It turned out to be two furry bodies-- two bobcat kittens, smaller than house cats, in "spoon" position, knocking back some serious Zs. Incredible!

Although it was a struggle at times, I managed to do some weaving during construction--

peace dove, the 4" x 4" piece I was working on for The Peace Project is finished, just needing my signature tag attached to the back. It will fly on its way to be included with other artworks of the same size that are being formed into a calendar to mark each day of the war since its start until the day the war ends.

I also began a tapestry for another Tohono Chul exhibition-- Día de los Muertos: The Gift of Remembrance. I just finished reading a second biography about Georgia O'Keeffe, Roxana Robinson's Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life. I greatly admire O'Keeffe not only as an artist, but as a woman who was extraordinary for her time. I designed the tapestry to be a remembrance of her, entitled recuerdos de georgia (memories of georgia). It will be a mixed media piece, with a tapestry of a photo I took of an old skull on a shed wall at the home of my friend, Janie Hoffman, as the background, and a photo of a younger Georgia printed on twill fabric stitched to the surface. The tapestry's edge will be lined with marigolds, which I will make out of silk paper the way Mexican paper flowers are made, to give the piece the look of a shrine. I started to weave it during construction, but now I can hardly wait to be in my new studio where there will be so much wonderful light. Like a kid camping out, I have dragged in a card table, covered the windows with old sheets (waiting for the solar blinds to arrive), and brought in just enough weaving implements to survive. Dennis has been threatened with death if a single dot of paint touches any of it, so the entire set up gets covered when I am not weaving and moved around to accommodate painting.

week 3 - i've got the sweetest hangover

2007-05-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

bliss [noun] -

1. complete happiness: perfect happiness

2. spiritual joy: a state of spiritual joy

cereus expectations

This is how I've been feeling since attending the artist's reception for the Queen of the Night & Sea of Cortez exhibits at Tohono Chul this past Thursday evening. And the hangover is from sheer excitement, not alcohol or illicit substances (those days are long over!). It was the first reception I have been able to attend as a participating artist-- I have 2 tapestries included, 1 in each exhibit... cereus expectations & desert island- espíritu santo.

desert island - espíritu santo

I only expected to actually know a couple people there, but many of my weaving guild "sisters in fiber" attended to show their support (thank yous to those who I know-- Barb, Mary, Lura, Adrienne, Evelyn, Marie Lynn, Barbro, and also to those whose faces I recognized, but who I don't know well yet), several very good friends, & my husband Dennis! Within the first 30 minutes of the reception's opening, already in the process of being swept away by seeing & conversing with so many I knew & wowed by the beautiful & amazing works by all of the other artists, I was shocked & delighted when desert island- espíritu santo was purchased by Mary as an "early birthday present" for herself. My very first tapestry sale!

Words are so very inadequate to express how I felt during the course of the whole evening-- the anticipation of arrival, that first glimpse of seeing my tapestries formally displayed, animated conversations, being able to talk about my tapestries with those who were curious about the process (it is a mixed media exhibit, but mine are the only tapestries in it!), meeting other artists. I was so involved in the many conversations, I didn't get to see all of the other works, & refreshments were long gone by the time I could make it to the table! So, dinner ended up being the 1 glass of wine I did manage to snag & a bowl of chocolate hazelnut gelato with Dennis & few friends after the reception closed. I will have to return so I can really see the exhibit!

What a very needed lift after an extremely full week --- in addition to the excitement of the artist's reception, a collaboration I've formed with Kathy Perkins, an accomplished New Mexico tapestry weaver I recently met at ATA's Silver Anniversary symposium, resulted in the initial kick-off to found Desert Tapestry Weavers, a regional tapestry group, and the completion of the 3rd week of my new studio construction . All of this is helping me to resolve my patience that soon the upheaval of the building process will all be over & I will have a new studio in which to weave more tapestries & continue on my weaver's journey. As I write, I hear the electricians running the wiring for the outlets & lighting in the new studio, & I am kept company by the small 4" square tapestry I have on my Mirrix, peace dove (the design came from a pin my mother & then later I wore on our student nurse uniforms), which I am weaving for the Peace Project.

week 2 - lizards scamper & construction continues

2007-05-18T17:05:00.001-07:00

The last of of the prickly pear blooms open, white-winged doves incessantly call "Who cooks for you?", the first cicadas begin their metallic drones, & lizards skitter about as the heat of summer settles in. Now will be the rare day that temps are below 100 as the desert bakes & waits for monsoons to arrive in July.

No new progress on the studio construction this week, as the focus has shifted to preparing the slab for the new garage. I am happy & excited about the new studio, yet I feel slightly unsettled & on edge since my big loom is bare.... I cannot concentrate to prepare the next tapestry since my energies are directed at managing the construction process & resourcing necessary accoutrements for the studio. Framing of the new garage will be next, which I hope will then be followed by running the electricity & finishing the studio's interior. Soon, I keep telling myself, soon....

week 1 - the ice breaks & a studio is born

2007-05-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

As saguaros hold their heavy bouquets at the ends of their arms & the deliciously sweet scent of honey mesquites spices the air, construction has started on my new studio space.

The ice on the Santa Cruz river also broke this week as temps hit 100.... Of course, there is no ice in the desert at this time of year & the Santa Cruz river is now a dry river that only flows during heavy monsoon rains, but "ice break" is a quirky Old Pueblo annual event when we all try to predict the first day the thermometer will hit 100 degrees.

After a week of being invaded by sweating, swearing men, this is what has been accomplished so far.........

The 9" concrete apron slab was jackhammered into rubble.

Colored concrete poured & smoothed for the new floor.

The old garage door opening framed & awaiting the new window. The original plan was to have a sliding glass door & 2 windows, but after the concrete was poured, it turned out that the height of the opening was too short for a door. Instead, it will now be 1 large window, 12' x 5', divided into 3 sections. The two 4' wide end sections will be solid glass & the middle 4' section will open with casement windows.

A new garage to replace the old one is being constructed simultaneously, & its footers & forms have been prepared for the concrete pour.

As I kept appearing to check on progress during the first couple of days, the workers were trying to bite their tongues & stem the flow of foul language. I finally let them off the hook by saying, "Look, I have 3 brothers, I worked as a bartender in a redneck bar for 3 years, and I worked as a labor & delivery nurse for 6 years. I've probably heard any horrible thing you could possibly say, in two languages. You're not going to offend me!" After that, followed by plying them with coffee, lemonade, & a radio cranking rock music at high decibels, I was just one of the guys. If good construction work & swearing profusely go hand in hand, swear away!!!!

empty looms & new forks

2007-05-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

I arrived home from the ATA celebration to find my new weaving forks awaiting & empty looms staring at me. I cannot wait to get warped up so I can try them out!

I saw these forks for the first time when I took the Inspiration workshop-- they belonged to DY Begay & I immediately experienced a surge of "fork lust". I love my wooden weaving forks, but I usually weave at 9 - 10 epi & the wooden fork tines tend to push the warp around & distort the weaving, especially in small areas. DY generously shared her source with me, so now I must share it with all who might like to have forks like these. The tines are tapered, hardened stainless steel taken from pet combs & embedded in the hand shaped handles using epoxy resin. You may specify the tpi (tines per inch) you would like & what type of wood (from what is available). Here is the artisan's contact info:

John Jenkins

Magpie WoodWorks, LLC

316 Parkwood Drive

Grand Junction, CO 81503

970-256-1257

magpiwdwks@aol.com

The larger fork is the Begay fork (2 1/4 " across at its widest area & 8 1/2 " long including tines) & the smaller fork is the Mini (6/8" across its widest & 9" long). If these dimensions don't suit you, I think John will make them to your specifications. You must also check the pricing with John because I believe he is in the process of re-pricing.

A double-edged sword.... I cannot wait to start weaving my next tapestry, but construction to convert the garage into my new studio space starts on Monday, which will first involve using a jack hammer to chip away the 9" concrete apron in front of the old garage door. Plus, the boss of the concrete crew is as hyper as a ping pong ball in a tile bathroom, so I think he bears watching. Well, it will all pass soon & I will be left with a new studio space to show for the interrupted serenity.

ATA's Silver Anniversary bash

2007-05-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

The ATA celebration coincided with the ATB 6 exhibit & the Gloria F. Ross Tapestry Center's annual lecture and was held in San Jose, CA, at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, Friday, April 27th - Sunday, April 29th.

Friday evening was the Gloria F. Ross tapestry lecture, which was very interesting-- it was given by Dr. Alice Zrebiec (she's the former curator of textiles at the Dept of European Sculpture & Decorative Arts at the Met Museum of Art). Her lecture & slides focused on discussing the history of American tapestry ateliers from the late 19th - early 20th centuries, with info & photos she had gathered during the 10 years of research she did for her PhD dissertation (she became so interested she is still working on this project since some of the tapestries have still not been located). The ateliers' production methods & work ethics followed the French models, but the interesting twist was that they were depicting American flora & fauna. Some of the tapestries are still installed as part of the woodwork in the homes that originally commissioned the pieces (most are in NY & the New England area). Some were even in a college (in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, I think-- can't remember the name of the college) & the college didn't know what treasures they had.... there were vending machines pushed up in front of the tapestries when Alice visited! She also found many of the tapestries rolled up & forgotten in attics. Kind of the American version of the Unicorn tapestries being discovered in use as a covering for potatoes! It was very fascinating & some of the tapestries were so large it was mind boggling.

Saturday was the ATA symposium & ATB 6 reception. It began with informal networking with representatives of the regional tapestry groups: TWINE, TAPS, TWW, TWS, TAPIS, CTN, & weavers from the southwest (we don't really have a group, but maybe we will, soon!). Speakers & their topics during the symposium were: Jean Pierre Larochette (Weaving in the USA: A Personal Experience); Melissa Leventon (former curator of textiles at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco - the tapestries in the musuem's collection were her subject); Barbara Heller (Tapestry Grows Up); ATA: Celebrating 25 Years of Contemporary Tapestry-- Jim Brown, Marti Fleischer, Joan Griffin, Christine Laffer, Mary Lane, Judy Schuster. All of the speakers had great slides to go along with their talks. This was then followed by a panel discussion of the ATA members who had spoken-- Mary Lane coordinated questions that were directed at each person; most of the questions sought to discover how each of them envisioned ATA's future. Barbara Heller had donated a tapestry which was raffled off, (a former student of hers won it) & we were surrounded by the ATB 6 installation. The space at the San Jose Museum was small, but very wonderful; many people were saying that it showed the tapestries off to their best advantage, much better than the previous venue they had been exhibited in. The wall that functioned as the "backdrop" for the slide show & panel discussion was covered with Christine Laffer's "Cloth of Construction" tapestry. All of the tapestries in the exhibit were glowing like beautiful jewels.

Sunday was the studio tour... we visited Christine Laffer, Jan Moore, Tricia Goldberg, Jean Pierre Larochette & Yael Lurie. A bus had been arranged to take us around--- Tricia was the perfect "den mother", herding us from place to place like a precious bunch of chicks. It felt like we were a Brownie troop on a field trip, with lots of chatter & laughter on the bus. Every weaver we visited was very gracious, answering many questions & allowing us to take photos. Most of them had many of their tapestries hung so we could view them. Lunch was al fresco at Tricia's & she outdid herself-- the tables all had tablecloths & vases of freshly cut flowers from her gardens. The last stop was at Jean Pierre & Yael's... quite a few people left us there to take the BART to San Francisco airport for their journey home. It was sad, like the last day of summer camp when you have to tell your new found friends goodbye. Many hugs & waves goodbye, then we journeyed back to San Jose, arriving tired, our minds fuzzy with fiber thoughts, but happy!

summer is coming & life is good

2007-04-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

The white winged doves have arrived in full force, calling "who cooks for you?" all day-- a sure harbinger that the heat is on.....

More signs of summer, as the desert swings into full gear, with everyone & everything trying to get their blooming, pollinating, mating, & nesting done before the real heat descends...

Our first saguaro blooms are opening, which will soon turn to red, juicy fruits. A white winged dove usually starts sitting on top of the saguaro arms, monitoring the ripening like a nervous chef. The birds will peck holes into the fruits to stuff themselves, sometimes the smaller birds even upending themselves inside the holes to get every morsel!

The pizza pan cactus' blooms glow ethereally in the late afternoon sun. They are a species of "paddle" cactus whose pads are the size of pizza pans & sometimes larger.

Our pomegranate is loaded with its thick, waxy blooms, which quickly begin to form the fruits. Their hulls make a wonderful bronzey green dye & it looks like I will have a bumper crop this fall.

My new website, www.desertsongstudio.com is up & running!!! My web hosts, Other Peoples Pixels have a wonderfully easy & beautiful set up that makes it fun for someone like me who wants to DYI on a budget. The nicest webhosting package I was able to find, & I am very pleased with the results.

I will be packing my bags to head for the American Tapestry Alliance's silver anniversary bash on Friday, & I am very excited to be going. I will be submerged in a sea of tapestry & fiber, & I won't want to come up for air!

For now though, I am looking forward to a very lovely dinner tonight with my very significant other, Dennis, as we celebrate 14 years of life together.

everything is not as it seems

2007-04-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

It seems this is the theme to my life as it exists this week...

My latest tapestry, desert island - espíritu santo, woven for a local exhibit about the Sea of Cortez, may at first glance appear that I had taken great artistic license with mother nature's color schemes, but in comparing the tapestry to the actual photo taken by Patrick Fulton, seeing is believing...

Many thanks, Patrick, for giving me permission to use your photo!!!

What appears to be a pile of dead weeds in a scrap of garbage is in reality a treasure--

Dried sacred datura pods with some seeds still inside that I found on my walk this morning. I was also fortunate enough to find a scrap of old plastic to wrap them in to carry them home, so I didn't lose any precious seeds or get repeatedly punctured by their thorns. One of Georgia O'Keeffe's favorite subjects, the flowers are very beautiful. My hope is that Dennis will be able to coax them to grow so I can weave a tapestry.We often bring home "found seeds" & dead flower heads from desert walks to plant them on our 5 acres of natural desert... it is illegal in AZ to dig up wildflowers & cactus, but not to collect seeds... we never collect the whole plant, only a few pods or heads so that it may regenerate itself where we found it.

What appears to be a pile of rocks & gravel dwarfing our already small camper trailer is another treasure.... 14,000 lbs of beautiful sandstone flagstone in peaches, rusts, tans, & purples and 2 tons of "rosa grande" crushed granite to replace the crumbling Mexican adobe pavers in our courtyard & back door porch. Our dog , Roux, is quick to exit areas of apparent construction (or deconstruction, as the case may be!). Dennis has been hard at work...

Here are the stacks of old pavers he has already removed... they will be recycled into a low wall here along the small wash that runs through our property. Gambel's quail have already been making themselves at home, parading across them in the morning sun. It also has been sounding like we have 80 species of birds inhabiting our desert space, but it's really just mockingbirds & curve-billed thrashers competing to see who has the biggest repertoire of mimicked songs & noises.

I will be able to see the wall from here.... what appears to be our garage, is in reality a long held dream of mine that will soon realized several months from now: my new weaving studio!!! The new studio space will have 2 large windows & a sliding glass door where the old garage door is now & a ramada to shade it from the intensity of the summer desert sun-- desertsong studio will soon exist as a physical entity & not a scattered collection of looms & fiber in our house! Dennis will also have a dedicated area within the studio space for his pen & ink and watercolor pencil drawing (thank goodness his choice of media doesn't require the space that a weaver's does!!!). A new detached garage will be constructed in another part of the driveway at the same time.

cereus expectations measures up!

2007-04-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

cereus expectations
(~16.5" x 16") wool

Fresh off the loom, with the fibers still relaxing, cereus expectations was accepted for the Night Blooming Cereus exhibit to be held May 3rd - June 12th at Tohono Chul Park's museum, our local botanical garden!!!

I am thrilled for a number of reasons... I love this little park (its name means "desert corner" in the language of the Tohono O'odham Indians who are indigenous to this area of Arizona); Dennis & I have been members since we first moved here 10 years ago; their small gallery & exhibit hall have hosted some exquisite exhibits, & inclusion is by invitation-- they seldom have open calls for entry. When I first began pursuing tapestry weaving seriously after retiring from nursing 2 years ago, it was one of my aspirations to be invited to exhibit at Tohono Chul.

This tapestry's subject is a digital photo I took of a bloom from a cereus cactus we purchased at Tohono Chul's greenhouse a couple years ago. Tohono Chul has an annual celebration surrounding this humble cactus that opens its spectacular blooms at night. The celebration must be timed each year to coincide with the bloom period. Although the original photo was beautiful, I decided to use my graphic design software to "posterize" it-- I wanted to capture the electricity surrounding the festival & it is also how I imagine the moths might "see" the blooms' luminosty as they visit to drink its nectar during the night hours. Another interesting feature of this tapestry-- some of the fibers used in it were dyed with blooms from a sunflower plant we purchased at the park about 5 or so years ago.

Now, I am digging in to the next tapestry, also to be presented to Tohono Chul for consideration for inclusion in another exhibit, Sea of Cortez: A Desert Sea, that will coincide with the Night Blooming Cereus exhibit. So far this year, I have had 3 tapestries accepted for exhibit, & I am hoping the trend will continue...!

spring & tapestries are blooming!

2007-03-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

Spring is coming! And it usually comes quickly in the desert... bees buzzing, inca doves calling, cactus wrens chugging, & lizards creeping out of hiding to sun themselves. We will probably have one more chill before April ends, but temps are climbing & I am no longer freezing... last night we had to take the extra blanket off the bed! And, I have been able to open windows for fresh air & birdsong.

While most of our plants are still trying to recover from the hard freezes we had, a couple brave ones are putting forth blooms, the mallow & a few pincushion cactus.

My tapestries are blooming as well... I finally feel like progress is being made on cereus expectations.

The most wonderful news of all is that I have been accepted into my first juried exhibit! My monochrome macro series: agave, will be included in Intermountain Weavers Conference's Fiber Celebrated 2007 at the Durango Arts Center in Durango, Co this July.

geometry + wool = tapestry?

2007-03-02T12:16:00.000-08:00

Gather the following ingredients: golden squares & rectangles, equilateral triangles, harmonic subdivisions, palindromic sequences of Fibonacci numbers. Add a dash of Johannes Itten's color theories. Weave in some wool. What do you end up with? A taste of what it is like to experience one of James Koehler's Color & Design workshops! And an experience it is, one which I would highly recommend to any weaver who is serious about taking her or his weaving to the next level. I had the good fortune to attend his 5 day workshop which was held here in Tucson at the Desert Weaving Workshop. Koehler is well known for his exquisite geometric tapestries, but the content of the workshop can be easily applied to any style of tapestry, whether it be geometric, intuitive, or representational.

James demonstrates technique at the loom.

The workshop palette.

Although I am tired, my mind is still buzzing with all that I learned & with pondering how I will use my newly gained knowledge in future projects! To view more photos of this workshop experience, visit my flickr site.

I'm anticipating future opportunities to attend other workshops he teaches, but for now I must return to my own loom as I have weaving to attend to!

winter wanes

2007-02-15T16:58:00.000-08:00

As we enter the second half of February, I can feel winter waning. The light is changing from watery thin to vibrantly clear, and the days are lasting longer. I am looking forward to the warm, & yes, even hot days! The winters are not as harsh here as in some parts of the country, but, nonetheless, I've heard that this winter has had the coldest temperatures since the early 1980s. And, winter's mark has been felt.... many plants were quite frozen & may not recover.

My poor sunflower, which I use for natural dyeing, now wears a coat of bronze & silver instead of its usual verdant green & gold.

With the not so good usually comes some good, & for this winter it has been in the form of badly needed snow on the mountains & rain in the Tucson basin. We need so much more, but not wanting to upset the rain gods, I am thankful for what we have received so far!

I have started work on my next tapestry, cereus expectations; this is the image I am using as a guide to weave from. It is a digital photo I took last spring of our night blooming cereus cactus. I then used my graphic design software to "posterize" it for a more abstract look. I have been invited to submit it for possible inclusion in Tohono Chul Park's upcoming Night Blooming Cereus gallery exhibit. The park has hundreds of these cactus & holds an annual nighttime festival during the "Queen of the Night's" bloom time. Since the bloom cannot be predicted exactly, everyone holds their breath while waiting for the announcement that the blooming has begun! I hope to post a photo of this tapestry's progress very soon!

This year has been so busy already! At the end of January I attended a 5 day workshop, Sources of Inspiration in Tapestry, which was co-taught by Barbara Heller, Madeleine Darling-Tung, & D.Y. Begay at the Desert Weaving Workshop here in Tucson. Three phenomenal weavers, three styles of weaving, three ways of approaching design, three points of view regarding inspiration in weaving. Talk about inspiring!

In just a little over a week I will be attending another workshop at Desert Weaving Workshop, Color & Design, which is being taught by James Koehler. I am looking forward to having a great experience (& getting great photos to post!).

tapestry postcards

2007-01-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

desert birds postcard series - verdin

The second bird in the series is now complete! The verdin (Auriparus flaviceps) is a small, approx 4" long, insect eating bird.

They are very enjoyable to watch as they are very active, climbing & hopping nimbly & acrobatically around in dense vegetation in search of bugs. They nest in the prickliest of desert plants, including cholla cactus.

The birds I am choosing for the series are very common here in the Sonoran desert, & often live in close proximity to people's homes.

Unfortunately, many people are unaware of the existence of these birds & the benefits they provide to the environment. When people think they are "cleaning up" their properties by digging up & disposing of what they feel are "undesirable" cactus, such as cholla, prickly pear & other native plant species, leaving large patches of bare soil, they are eradicating a crucial part of this very special desert. Desert plants grow very slowly, they help to hold in moisture & reflect the intense heat, & they are home to many of the birds I plan to depict in this series.

I was inspired to create this series after weaving the first bird, a cactus wren, for a fiber art postcard exhibit held last spring at our local botanical park & museum, Tohono Chul Park. All entries had to be the exact size of a postcard, 4" x 6", & had to be mailed to the museum as actual postcards, sans envelope, box, or wrapper of any sort! I so enjoyed weaving this first small tapestry that the idea of the series was born.....

The cactus wren (Campylorhyncus brunneiecapillus) is one of the largest wrens, between 7" to almost 9" in length. Another insect eater that loves to nest in cholla cactus, it is also Arizona's state bird. They are very active, curious, & intelligent. Their distinctive call, which has been described by some to sound like the "chug, chug, chug" of a car engine trying to start, is heard throughout the desert in the spring.

More birds will be added to the series... I have so many favorites, I'm not sure when the series will end or how many birds will end up in it! It is my hope that seeing these birds will make people stop & think before they make the choice to destroy the desert where these birds live.

2007 - a fresh new year, a fresh new tapestry

2007-01-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

monochrome macro series: agave

As the new year begins, I have a great start on my weaving goals! My first piece of the year is completed & it is the first in a new series of four I have planned.I wove this from a macro digital photo I took of a leaf of one of our agave plants. During growth, the leaves unfurl from the center rosette, revealing impressions of their marginal spines on the surfaces of the younger leaves underneath. These are the actual colors of the agave.... nature's "natural abstract"!

I am submitting it for consideration to be included in the Intermountain Weavers Conference sponsored exhibit Fiber Celebrated 2007, held in Durango, Co this July.

detail of monochrome macro series: agave

More completed works to be added soon...

winter in the desert

2006-12-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

Winter is here.... one of my favorite winter sights is our startling blue winter skies framing the now golden leaves of our pomegrante tree & the dark red, leathery hulls of the fruit hanging empty after the birds' fall feasting. Our lemons begin to turn yellow & weigh down the branches of the lemon tree. This same tree was the "babysitter" during the past spring & summer for our bobcat kitten who is now half grown & has a new little sibling. Desert life slows as the solstice approaches & I eagerly anticipate the lengthening of days after its passage.

My etsy store has finally generated a sale; my weaving guild craft market sales were minimal. So, my venture into the world of production apparel has had its rise & fall. I believe I am really meant to weave tapestry, but I will probably do a few shawls here & there occasionally as I enjoy weaving them with my naturally dyed alpaca.

This is my current tapestry in progress, the 2nd bird in my desert birds postcard series. It is a verdin, a bird which is very common here, but often overlooked.

I have a few other tapestries planned as I have goals of submitting works to several exhibits in 2007, so please come back after the new year for more photos!

Here's wishing everyone a peace & love filled end of 2006!

cooler temps have arrived & my Etsy store is open!

2006-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

While it is still pretty warm here in the desert during the day, the nights have been cooling off. I've needed a shawl to sit outside for my morning coffee, the birds have been singing with joy, & we have been invaded by clouds of butterflies visiting our blooming plants---Aaaaaaaahhhh!!! The coolness is a relief after our hot summer, & I have been very busy weaving for my new Etsy store which is now open-- http://desertsongstudio.etsy.com (to go there, click on the link "visit my online shop" located on the right under "about me"). I'm also weaving items for my weaving guild's booth in the Tucson Museum of Art Craft Sale which is held every November. I have even managed to squeeze in a little tapestry weaving time in the midst of the weaving frenzy. I will let the photos tell the rest of the tale........

A stack of my tofu thinny scarves-- tofu because the fiber is made from manufacturing waste from tofu production, & thinny because they are skinny & thin, just right for the desert & other warmer climates! I am also weaving them in other soy fibers, cotton & organic cotton, & merino wool.

Bamboo tablet woven belts.

My shawls are woven in naturally dyed alpaca, cotton, & organic natural colored cotton. The fibers for this one were dyed with marigold & madder root.

Weaving progressing on my first piece on my large upright floor tapestry loom -- a rug woven from some of my natural dyed wool. The colors you can see came from using trimming from our chapparal sage.

summer is finally coming to a close!

2006-09-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, hot summer, with most time spent inside weaving! My busy weaving assistant, Roux, is demonstrating how we cope with the heat. But now temps are only climbing to very tolerable low to mid 90s (which is heaven compared to 110!), nights are cooler, & the white wing doves have left-- a sure sign that fall is coming! I have been busily weaving scarves, belts, & shawls in preparation for the Tucson Museum of Arts craft fair in which our local weaving guild participates twice a year, in November & March. Pictures of those will be posted soon!

Here is this year's bobcat kitten, hiding in our lemon tree while mama forages for dinner. We've had a bobcat family here every summer for the last 3 years-- one of the many desert residents we are fortunate enough to share our home with!

My other project this summer was the restoration & construction of this old LeClerc tapestry loom that I bought in the spring. It stands 5'10" & has a weaving width of 45". She was in rough shape, but with a little TLC she's now warped & I have my first project started--- a rug, which I am weaving with some of the fiber I dyed back in spring--see the color palette below.

welcome to desertsong studio!

2006-08-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

This is the back ramada where I do natural dyeing & these skeins are the result of my first dyeing session of the year, back in May. The fibers included in this batch were wool, for tapestry & rug weaving, alpaca, & silk. All are naturally dyed, some with plant materials harvested from our 5 acres here. I respect all plant life & do not kill any plants during collecting, unless they are parastitic & need to be erradicated. With our 100+ degree temps in the summer, dyeing is best done in the spring & fall.The next dye session is tentatively set for November!