Of waterdogs and black berries…

Fall is here!

The rain is back!

The term came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year"

  Classes start again. Tomorrow will be the first day of Better Bones and Balance. Can’t believe how badly i have missed that class. It so hard to exercise on my own, but I do.

Nostalgia strikes or is it really?

The leaves are turning colour. So many things not done. So many things ended forever. Autumn always brings a sense of relief. The hot weather is gone. Summer ended. The beginning of the rush to be ready for winter.  School begins and schedules change-not so much anymore now that Spencer is retired. But, Autumn always feels like change.There was a time in my life when summers end meant hours of canning and preserving.

Dad, Grampa and not so happy Chene at Giant Springs overhang.

The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form. The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain, ache". It was described as a medical condition, a form of melancholy, in the Early Modern period, and became an important trope* in Romanticism. Liberated from Wikipedia *a word that I love.

I no longer do this. I have been liberated and no longer have the time or feel the need with home life being just Spencer and I... To be truthful-Something I mostly, slightly, actually, very little regret. I grow a few vegetables, because tomatoes, cukes and peppers never taste the same as the store  “botten”-even when purchased at the farmers market. Makes me me wonder how much of the taste is real and how much the romance of the doing.  Wondering how much is enough  to last through winter and late springs? It was an urgency I inherited from my Grandmother who lived as a subsistence farmer in the Mountains surrounding Blachly. OR for part of her life-the later years.

 Time is viewed differently when you live as your ancestors lived. Her only concession was to build a house that overlooked a valley with old houses covered by Blackberries that made great places to tunnel into and read and draw. We only played in them by day because the cougars roamed and screamed too close and the waterdog protectors retreated into the safety of the mud or shapeshifted into something else at night. 

 Of course, we were also required to pick the blackberries, can,bake, dry, make fruit leathers with the berries, dye with the berries, and dig them out of the places they always seemed to be, but weren’t suppose to be…Check out those thorns. Occasionally, we were set to work dredging blue  Camas and eliminating white Camas from my Grandmothers pastures. Once we we were old enough and responsible enough to safely dig and separate the two. White Camas is deadly, Blue Camas is edible.We had to wait for them to go to seed, before we could dig Camas. So, that they could replenish what we ate.

         Good Blue Camas-edible-right

We picked and dried nasturtium leaves and seeds to substitute for black pepper and pickled fake capers. Then it was time to go to the Todd’s and my other Gramma was always so horrified with the deep stains and scratches on our hands, but even worse she hated nut stains from hazelnuts and walnuts that stained our fingers yellow like we had a serious nicotine problem. To her way of thinking Ladies might work and play in the sun, but should always protect themselves so it doesn’t show. Gramma Todd  was always concerned with freckles, but I have never had one in my life- a gift  or a legacy from my other Grandmother-that and copper eyes. She was always threatening that I would get freckles. AND,  so frustrated that I didn’t have any from not doing what I was told and wearing a hat.  Shane seems to have inherited all of the freckles with his red hair and light coloured skin.  Would I want to relive these experience? no. My mothers death last month has made things float through my mind to be reexamined and laid to rest-again.

My childhood was often not a pleasant place to be, but It made me what I am and I can truly say I am easy with the past and I have no regrets-now.  The biggest gift from my Mothers side of the family was thinking in symbols and symbolic languages, a firm belief in the unreal and myths and things that are not to be told but hinted at. Not a total loss.  

A piece I had forgotten about that was returned to me from my Mom’s estate. Done sometimes in the early 90’s for a mini textile show at Anger’s  in France that I was in. It’s 5x5inches.

Best of all's-

I have woven constantly for the last two weeks-6-8 hours-a day.  I am a fourth of the way done with my piece. I will weave every day for the next week. It is 19 inches wide. I am at the 7 inch march.Yes it is really going to be at least 24 inches tall- It just needed to be.  I hope to be a third done by the time I leave a week from Thursday. I will be leaving  to teach at EGLWC Conference in Chautauqua, NY. Unfortunately the class at Mirrix Looms didn’t fill. It would have been so much fun weaving with Claudia and all. SO, I won’t have the week in between for Museums and visiting friends. Next time.sigh!

  I thought I would have a Month before going to Albuquerque and teaching at Village Wools. Enough time to get very close to finishing the piece. It will be nice to see Diane and Shelley  and others-again. My plan is to arrive a day or so earlier then my class to do some research and visit friends. Two days in in Santa Fe, Albuquerque the surrounding areas. Yes, I am bringing Chene and Spencer.

 Then “And He” all slows down, but in a good way. I will be weaving as many hours, if not more, but on two pieces, two different formats and two different designers.BUT, instead, I am going to weave on a piece with Shelley Socolofsky- 3 days a week in her “studio” and 3 days a week at home. Shelley and I have woven several pieces together and it is always interesting and mind boggling. She designs and I weave. the last piece we wove together was based on  Fata Morgana  and other things or what between us we call Kathryn's piece. It was in the Corvallis exhibit of the 4 teachers and their students that she and I were in along with Dee Ford Potter and Rosalie Nielsen this summer. I am so excited the new tapestry includes Rya and is Shaped and it looks to be pretty large. I’ll know a whole lot more about it when I began on Saturday. 

My spare time for the last several weeks has been on finishing my PowerPoint presentation on warping the Mirrix loom for tapestry with a continuous warp. Haven’t quite decided whether to leave it as a slide show or make a brochure or small book showing the way I warp the mirrix. It’s something I get a lot of questions about. It has almost 50 slides and I need two more slides of turning the warp with a tapestry on it around the bottom beam and then it is done.

Chene trying to stay warm and hiding his bad haircut after being felted-accidently.

I am also in my spare time reweaving several samplers that disappeared while I was at the ANWG conference teaching. It’s the first time I have ever had samplers disappear from a class I was teaching. I keep hoping someone accidently picked them up and will return them. SO, I am taking time I don’t really have  reweaving my soumack sampler  and a small sample that illustrates what happens when you unbalance weft bundles. It is a series of hatches done in inch increments with different size weft bundles.

                                                       Gone Missing!

Please feel guilty enough to drop them in envelope no questions asked and return them to 604 first Avenue East, Albany, Or 97321.

FFP

is beginning to work on another booklet that will be ready for publication by Convergence 2012 at which Pat is teaching. Pat and I had fun choosing a name for it today.

It’s to be called-- 

The Viking’s should’ve. It’s  Pat’s  exploration into using felting, Viking knitting,  felting beads, felt dreads and other things. It’s really  cool. Viking knitting is a interesting metal working process that  is probably relate to nalbinding.  It’s really fun to do and Pat has some really interesting ways to use it with felt. The dreads as in dreadlocks are just plain fun.

Giant Springs on

a sunny day in

August!

Tell Next time!

kathe

Functioning-sort of.

No name-finished before I left
one of three done on new Mirrix looom

So many things have happened in the last 3 weeks I feel like I am on sensory and emotional overload. So many good things have happened and so many not so good things have happened . I really just want to retreat into weaving and not deal with the rest of the world. There is a novel(Feehan’s Water bound) that I have been reading-one of the ones that I use to relax with-probably more related to the pulp fiction dime novels of the past-nothing else to recommend it-other then it holds my attention and has nothing to do with reality, but it does end the continual mind cycling that I can get into. The heroine is a high functioning Autistic. There are some  beautiful descriptions of her retreating  and what she is retreating into in her own mind.  Being soothed by pattern, patterns and flow of water and her internal world of colour and sensation

Kona Pink

Kona Orange

that I can identify with when I weave. So tempting, soothing, focused, and comforting. On the other hand she also reaches a point where too much external stimuli effects her in extremely negative ways. She retreats back into the patterns and her safety net regime. I think I am ready…My loom and all its promises is warped-unfortunately, it has been warped  for 3 weeks and nothing has had time to happen. The only thing standing in my way of weaving  is finishing this blog as per my promise to myself. Doing  it every 2 weeks that had has slid to 3 weeks this time with just too much and too many events happenings etc. . 

Marge and Chene-a visit both enjoyed for almost 2 years.
Marge helped me train him to be gentle with fragile people.
He always minded her and protected her from all perceived threats
-some times good sometimes not so good. 

Marge and favourite Hagen loom

By now many of you know that my good friend Marge Crueger died while I was in Albuquerque. Next week would have been her birthday. I am so glad I got to see her again and tell her much I cared for her before I left. I am re posting a couple of her pictures and a little of her work. She was so ready. She hated being bed bound and not being able to do something with her hands. She left a small tapestry undone that I will finish weaving for her as promised. She  hated the idea of leaving a tapestry unfinished so it's now for me to complete. .

4 of Marge's pieces including Skunk Cabbage

It amazes me how age effects different people. My Uncle Ray and Aunt Donna are roughly the same age as my father. They are still snow skiing and running all over creation. My father is the same age is house bound and can barely walk and function. He does love the puppy I found for him a couple of months ago. It is so odd watching people talk around and over him like he’s not there by people who are professionals that should know better. It’s like one becomes invisible when one reaches a certain age. it's either that or people lapse into baby talk with the elderly.  It’s no wonder that some of the old retreat into themselves. The bad part is that we do it in love, kindness and duty. I need to keep telling myself this while trying to deal with another family member. It all makes me wonder how Spencer and I’ll approach old age. Does make one think.

So Sought After, First place Small Expressions

All this has been tempered with the really great events of my life. My trip to Albuquerque was definitely beyond imagination. My show at Village Wools looked really good. I don’t usually do one person shows, because it takes so many small pieces to fill up a space. There were 19 pieces. I also had a piece in the ATA small format exhibit. There was some amazing work in the show. The catalogue is fantastic. They were able to photograph Kona Orange well. My colour palette can be difficult to photograph accurately. Who would have thought that the It’s about Time exhibit would still be going on after all these years or who have thought that the fundamental  nature(large format) of popular tapestry would have changed so much to allow small format!!!! It has gone from no venues to many venues-so cool-often in the same shows. Asa’s Rock's was in Bedazzled. In Small Expressions I took a first prize! I have now been in Small Expressions’ 13-14 times (I think) won a first(2?), second, third, and was disqualified for a third prize last year because there was problems with my framing. I saved the letter to use as an example about the wisdom of using good framing and mounting techniques.

Village Wools  Class, Albuquerque, New Mexico

My Village Wools class was so much fun. I really like teaching this class and will offer it again. It was fun working with students that had done some tapestry weaving. We were able to get in to more advanced techniques. The mind does some interesting things. There was this dressed headless mannequin that every time I would walked by her it was like it was a real person. It would startle me every time. It was like having an extra class member-rather spooky.

Favourite Cartoon found on my loom one morning in Albuquerque with Fluffy becoming Chene. In case you can't read the text it says Chene/Fluffy decided to test a long standing rule: Never mess with Grandma while she is weaving.

So many Clouds, taken in the midle of a cloud burst

Sadly the one class didn’t have enough students, but have been invited back to teach another time-date not set. Would love to teach again at Village Wools-so maybe…

Silver Repousse Milagros

In the Craft Museum in Santa Fe I saw some beautiful silver work both modern and several hundred Milagros.

More Silver Milagros

Detail of Irvin Trujillo's Ikat

The Whole Rug-Thanks for allowing me to use these images Irvin!

Chamayo purses woven by Shirley Gallegos

There were so many exhibits to see, but I did manage to see all of the tapestry exhibits. Really enjoyed them. It seemed that every place I looked there was tapestry. Many of the small towns we traveled through at several weaving shops with people weaving. What a trip! I loved seeing Lisa and Irwin Trujillo and Centinela . My husband now owns a T-shirt that he acquired from their shop. I have two beautiful Chimayo style purses for Pat and myself. The craft museum had 6-7 of his weavings of Irvin's. It was so nice seeing old friends at the ATA get together Saturday evening. I also enjoyed the lectures and the digislam. Attended lectures by Lynne Curran and James Kohler all work in such opposite ways. I could never work in either’s style or way. I prefer my contained disciplined  chaos.  The digislam is always a curiosity to me. It's nice to see the different styles of weaving. BUT,  I am with Lynn it’s really kinda of scary seeing small format work magnified so many times. Interestingly a good design will always be a good design no matter how many times it is enlarged. I had some interesting reactions to the majority of modern  South West weaving that  I saw. It has so little detail. It’s big bold, flashy, beautiful, erudite, but it  never seems to feel quite personal and then leaves me wondering. Intellectually I understand it and it's beautiful.  I never seem to feel that way about the more traditional SW weaving as embodied in the Trujillo’s weaving-both Lisa and Irwin’s and the historical work that I saw. I really loved the Ikat designs and was amazed at the skill it takes to get it right.

I acquired a lovely beater that fits my hand nicely and is the right size for my hand from Al Snipes. Thank you- AL- I love it. Your work is so beautiful. Also, the wooden needle that I am going to be sharing. I can hardly wait to receive the 3 other beaters that I am purchasing for my students to try-a left handed, right handed and an ambidextrous in beautiful cherry and walnut. Still love my Shannock and fork beaters. The shaping of All’s beaters may be a little easier on my hand though. I am definitely looking at more hand surgery in the very near future. My thumb decided to finish locking up on this trip.

Storm Clous and Hoodoos

Spencer and I had a lovely evening with Dianne Kennedy and her husband at Zia in Santa Fe. She was so full of historical information and first contact information that I am so interested in. We are going to try and hook up when I teach in Arizona in September and see the dancers in my break between classes. Spencer really enjoyed talking with you all to.

Hopi Embroidery or Brocade

When I was Albuquerque we went to the Pueblo Cultural center and I was finally able to get a closer non- picture oriented look at Hopi Embroidery. It is so related to soumack, but pictures of the finished product have always been really bad. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right or which side was the right side. Just not enough detail. My picture that a friend gave me what seems like a hundred years ago-Sorry Yella, but you even apologized at the time. I can now say that I was/am doing it correctly. Waht a relief!!!

It’s going to take me weeks to sort all of my information out and get it in a useful fashion. I managed to overload both cards in my cameras-2 gigs each. There were many things I didn’t get a chance to photograph because it rained and thundered the whole time we were there. In Oregon when it rains I can still usually take pictures through the rain drops, but these were mega drops that flowed over everything. Next time I think I’ll borrow Kathy’s underwater camera. It would have been a great help.

Enough for now!! There is just so much more, but it was good to get home to Chene. I really missed my mutt. Ready for a ride in his carseat.
TIME TO WEAVE!!!- Besides-I have totally messed up the program I am working in and It's shifting all over the place.

Cheers,

kathe