Green Fiber

As I was listening to NPR this morning, I heard an Earth Day related story about the Textile Museum's current show.  Since I seldom hear about handmade paper, spinning and wool felt on mainstream media, my ears perked up and I even remembered to look up the art that was being discussed.  Take a look and see what you like.  I'm partial to this 'basket.'  The artist Jackie Abrams uses recycled silk blouses, coiling them and securing the coils with waxed linen thread.  This is a time honored technique, whether the colied material is reeds, pine needles or fabric.  I love it.

I also really like this piece, entitled 'The Grass is Always Greener.'  Real wool felt and fencing.  While you are at it, watch the video below as Faith Hagenhofer speaks about her art, making felt, raising sheep and the creative process.  there are a number of other pieces in the video

This on line show is very engaging and I found it difficult to pick just a few pieces.  I will be in Washington before the show closes, so I hope to go see the pieces, particularly Nancy Cohen's Estuary: Moods and Modes.
 

My Trip to Washington

Twice a year, I go to Washington to meet with members of the consortium with whom I work.  I usually go up a day early - why not?  It's not like I can fly in on an early Monday morning plane and get in on time.   This time I visited a couple of cool museums - and not just the National Gallery of Art.  I did go the NGA - my favorite exhibition was a group of small German drawings.  Some were sketches for larger works, but many were just sweet and lovely works that stand on their own merit.  Portraits, landscapes, nature drawings - some simple others with a considerable narrative like this 1765 Canaletto.  Really nice.

Before I went, I heard about the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef - now on display in the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum.  It was wild and fanciful - exciting to look at and explore.  One young woman was pointing out pieces that she had made.  Really nice!  Read more about how this project brings together science, math, craft and community at crochetcoralreef.org.  No pictures, as I want to respect their copyright statement. It's on tour - maybe it will be coming to your town.

My last visit was to Julia Child's Kitchen at the Museum of American History.  It was delightful - and now I know what color to paint my kitchen - a mellow blue-green.  It won't make me able to cook quite as well, but it was quite a lovely space and will fit nicely in the era of my home.

One of the best parts of travel is the time for knitting - in this case about 6 hats.  Getting ready for SAFF - Set up is TOMORROW!  Yikes!

Western Jaunt

I did not fall off the earth, though I was in something of an internet brown out.  I just returned from a business trip to Denver with an additional hiking extension.  Of course I knit through it all (except the business meeting!) coming back with 7 hats and a sock and a quarter.  Disregarding my theory that socks are the supreme travel knitting, I took a good bit of hand spun and commercial yarns and knit a number of hats for warm heads all over western North Carolina while I was riding in the car through the Rockies as well as in the airports & airplanes.

While in Denver we visited friends and walked over to the Denver Botanic Gardens.  They are having a year-long Henry Moore exhibit with big honking bronze sculptures all over the park.  Late summer in Denver is beautiful and the Moores were nicely set among the plants and ponds and lawns.  The deal is that you can see the work around the year, in every season.  If I lived there, I would.

The trip was partly work for me, but my sweetie went with me.  I had not been to the Rockies in a long time.  We walked and walked and walked in the Rocky Mountain National Park.  We saw big mountains and pretty lakes, darling chipmunks and cool birds.  The mountains were really big and it was windy above the tree line.  But the coolest thing was a little evening stroll  - really, just a leg stretcher - I didn't want to get caught out after dark.  As we crossed the Big Thompson River near the Cub Lake trailhead, we came upon a head of about 50 elk.  Just hanging out, browsing, traveling fairly slowly.  Rather unafraid of the humans - they were about 10 tards from us.  The big guy had about a 5' antler spread - amazing.  This is not our picture, it's from the NPS, but this would be the picture that we took.

Back in Denver, we visited the Denver Art Museum, another fine museum - well funded and nicely curated.  My favorite piece was this delightful group of foxes.  There are almost as many foxes invading the restaurant as there were elk.   Lots of other fine art too - an amazing pre-Columbian collection, as well as western works (cowboys, Indians, buffalo, etc) that you would expect.

Everything about the trip was good.  It makes me want to start hiking again here - the Blue Ridge Mountains are smaller and less dramatic, but no less beautiful.  Being in nature is good for my soul, even if it means walking through the urban forest to the Asheville Botanical Gardens just about a mile from my home.

Break Time

I took a wee break from my day job.  At the end of the regular semester, before the summer workshop season kicks in, I usually need a bit of a break.  It's also my work anniversary, and I usually have vacation days to burn before they vanish into thin air.  I wanted a vacation that was relaxing - no big cities, no plane rides, no fancy clothes.  Reading, knitting, spinning, perhaps a bit of dancing - - essentially chilling out.  The obvious choice is the beach, but my skin isn't made for bright sunshine.

So it was off for a dutiful family visit to my boyfriend's family in Columbus, Ohio, which is a big city, but in a good way.  We drove up, mostly on 4 lane, non-interstate roads.  We ate, we talked, I knit, we took old people to the doctor and we visited a couple of museums.  The Columbus Museum of Art is under the cloud of renovation, so only the Chihuly Glass exhibit was open, but it was fabulous.  I've seen his work before, but the 'baskets' don't travel very often, so this was a real treat.   The Wexner Center for the Arts featured a show by LA artist Mark Bradford.  I won't try to decribe his remarkable work.  Check it out here instead.  Way cool.

When we started planning this trip, I suggested that perhaps there might be a Wright Brothers Museum over in Dayton. Maybe an old plane or 2. I like the Wright Brothers.  They were inventive, creative Ohio guys who changed the world!  Because they went to Kitty Hawk to play with their great big gliders, North Carolina stole them.  North Carolina likes to 'borrow' famous people and claim them - Carl Sandburg, for instance.  I recently heard that Steve Martin bought a house near Brevard.  Better banjo playing round these parts. 

Ummm, how about the Air Force Museum - with lots of planes, including some of Orville and Wilbur's fine work.  A bit heavy on war (after all, it is the US Air Force!), but it was fascinating.  Perhaps my favorite part was the collection of Presidential Planes.  You take a bus over to a hangar on Wright-Patterson AFB to see the cool experimental aircraft and you can go aboard a couple of  Air Force One.  The one that brought tears to my eyes was the one used by several presidents.  This was the plane that carried John F. Kennedy's body back from Texas.  The famous picture of  Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office, with Jackie Kennedy as a witness, hangs in the plane where the event took place. 

I knit like crazy too.  I knit about10 hats.  No socks, because I couldn't concentrate enough to follow a pattern and I needed a break from socks. I even ran out of yarn (well, sort of...) and had to go to a yarn shop.  But I'll save that for another day.  I may even take a picture or 2!

Random Tuesday

It's been a while since I posted.  The semester has been a long time ending, but we've put it to bed.  Good night!

The garden is mostly in - and looking great.  Peas are happy and climbing their fence.  The radishes are yummy and everything else is small but sturdy.  We are having a touch of 'Blackberry Winter right now - a cold and rainy spell that hits when the blackberries are in bloom.  A good day for chili.

I made chili for dinner.

Sockapalooza continues.  I finished the Happy Waffle Socks (all but the toes) and begun and nearly finished a pair of Slippin' Stiping' Socks [Rav Link] in a colorway I can only call Carrots and Broccoli - an orange variegated yarn striped with a forest green.  If you like the colors of 1970's appliances, you'll love these socks.  And since I'm knitting from stash yarns, I hae reversed the colorway a bit so that one sock has green toes & heel and the other orange.  It's a bit off-putting, so I think I need to keep them.  In my shoes, no one really expects things to be too normal.

A couple of days in Washington, DC last month found me visiting the National Gallery of Art.  Great shows - I was particularly charmed by the paintings of Hendrick Avercamp.  The exhibition features paintings done in the 'Little Ice Age' of the late 18th and early 19th centuries when the rivers in Holland regularly froze - and life went on.  This delightful group of paintings forced me to spend a bit of time in the galleries that show the Netherland's school.  Quite a change from the contemporary work that usually draws me in. 

I've been dyeing and carding, but not spinning too much.  When I get around to it, I'll have plenty to spin. The local yarn shops have been selling my yarn, so I think it's time to spin again.  Enough with the socks already!  Get to spinning!

Loves Me Lots

I dye fiber several times a week and ship it to my Etsy customers (thank you very much!) and to local yarn shops ( thank you very much!), but then I often lose track of it.  Roving gets spun into yarn or made into felt, patterns get knitted into hats and worn with style and grace or get lost on the school bus, never to be seen again.  But it finds a life of it's own.  But these simple dyed Romney locks became part of a lovely work of art.

Spin Drift Studios in Maine took a few ounces of moss green locks and felted them to become the background for 'Loves Me Lots,' a hand made piece of art that truly declares love.  In her description the artist states, 'The daisy petals are created from a handmade felt of silk caps and merino wool rovings. A real daisy was used for the petal templates. They are embroidered sashiko style with fine cotton thread.'  Already framed and ready for hanging, 'Loves Me Lots' is available in SpinDriftStudios Etsy shop.  What a perfect wedding or engagement gift!

What have you made from Smoky Mountain Fibers?  Let me know and I'll be happy to feature it here!

Art Walk in DC

I just returned from a trip to Washington, DC - one of my favorite places to visit. The trip was work related, a semi annual meeting of consortium members from colleges that use the digital resources of the Library of Congress to enhance teaching and learning. The program, Teaching with Primary Sources, is a terrific resource to K12 schools and colleges. I'm happy to be the person on the ground here in Western North Carolina. I enjoy my colleagues very much and always return from those meetings energized.

I usually go up to DC a day in advance - It's hard to fly from Asheville to DC on Monday morning in time for a 10 am start. While in DC I always go to museums. This time it was raining, so I spent more time that usual in the museums, rather than strolling about. The highlight of the trip was the Louise Bourgoise show at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden. It was a huge show of large and small works, sculpture, paintings and drawing. One of her recurring themes is the spider. Bourgoise's mother was a tapestry weaver and both her earlier and later works use the spider and fibers in a number of different ways.

I have been visiting the Museum of the American Indian on nearly every trip. One of the current shows is Fritz Scholder's Indian/not Indian paintings (and more sculpture). Even with some disturbing images and his claim than 25% of something is nothing, he really changed Native American art.

The newest exhibit at the Library was the Lincoln Bicentennial exhibit 'With Malice Toward None.' This is an amazing collection of primary source documents - hand written notes, newspaper articles, drawings, photographs - even campaign buttons and banners. You can seee the online version here + the interactives will go up very soon, if not already. I saw anumber of other cool things, but these were the standouts of a fine trip.

Official fiber content: Nothing like time in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms to get serious knitting done. In this case, sleeve #1 of the Classic Lines Cardi in the rusty shades of Chipotle and Spice. Perhaps a bit too close in tone, I really like it.

Tonight is the monthly fiber group get together. I'll bring sleeve #2 and a tossed salad. We will be small. but mighty!