I am in love with the London Drawing Group, a trio of women dedicated to doing and teaching art.  When I saw this workshop on Matisse's cutouts--only £7 or about eleven bucks, and only 1 hour--I thought, what a great way to stimulate creativity.  So I signed up and had an absolute blast.  We made a number of cutouts in only 60 minutes, only a few of which I used for this photo.  Here's the black and white version from my phone before I ran it through the Painnt app posted above this paragraph:

But I wasn't alone in attending.  There were people from all over the globe.  Two of them were good friends from my rug hooking groups--I had contacted them to tip them off in advance to the workshop and they both signed up.  We all knew it would have immediate uses for rug design.  And it certainly did.

Here is the work of one of my buddies, Kathleen K., who also attended.  Rather than cutting paper, she cut her shapes directly from wool fabric.  I love her results.  She gave me permission to post this:

And below is the contribution from Lynda F, another rug hooking buddy who also gave me permission to use her photo:

"I wouldn't mind turning into a vermilion goldfish."
-Henri Matisse

This lovely lovely mirror (with a portion of mirror part papered over to minimize distraction) was designed and made by a much-adored and longtime friend of mine, Paula Garbarino.  The inscription, "Il faut fertiliser notre jardin," can be translated to mean, "We must pollinate our garden."  Thus the honeybees, a favorite of mine. 

That sentiment can be taken on so many levels.  The garden of friendship.  The garden of kindness.  The garden of interconnectedness with each other.  The garden of the Earth itself.  We all need to pollinate, to tend, and to care for each other and for the Earth. 

We all know how hardworking a honeybee is.  Indeed it often takes a lot of work to tend and care for each other, especially at a troubled, stressful time like the time we are in now.

Normally Paula designs and makes fine-art furniture, and marquetry--a form of "painting with wood," is one of her specialties.  She has been at it for decades and I hope you'll take time to go to her website and browse her luscious designs in the photo gallery there.  Her work has been displayed in museums and is owned and collected by numerous people.

She does not normally make small pieces like this, though she has made a few.  This mirror, about 17x10", showed up unannounced in my mail as a gift about two weeks ago and it took me a while to determine a place in my home to hang it so that I could see it frequently every day. 

I am one very lucky friend indeed.  Much gratitude to Paula.  You are yourself quite like a honeybee--incredibly hardworking, kind, and of course, always building something oh-so-sweet.

The final photos from Deerfield's (MA) Memorial Hall Museum.  Enjoy.  See the previous 5 posts for the rest. 

This post has some additional textiles and some non-textile surprises.

More photos from the recent show which included pieces from their permanent collection, at the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, MA.


See the previous four posts for more goodies.

I'm pretty sure this was called "The Last Rose of Summer," and is in their permanent collection.  Embroidered.

Beautiful textiles from Deerfield's Memorial Hall Museum continued.  This is the fourth installment--and there will be at least two, possibly three more.

And, here we go with more wonderful textiles and other goodies from Deerfield's Memorial Hall Museum.  Some are particular to this exhibit which I think is over by 8/31 but others (most of these today, I think) are part of their permanent collection.

If you want to see the first two posts I did on this, they are from yesterday and the day before.

Last--and very definitely least (by comparison), here is my own bedspread.  It's mass-produced and frankly, cheap.  But when I was making my bed this morning, in between working on this blog post, I suddenly "saw" it for what it is--a pale imitation of these blue and white Deerfield embroideries that I've admired for decades!  And I never even made the association before.  DUH! 

It gave me a huge laugh.

Stay tuned for more Deerfield treats over the next few days.  I look a LOT of photos.

A lotta cats copy the Mona Lisa, but people still line up to see the original.
--Louis Armstrong

More from the Memorial Museum's current exhibit in Deerfield MA.  For the start of this series, see the previous post.

Last week I saw some truly lovely textiles at the Deerfield Memorial Museum.  Here's a small portion of what I saw.  I'll post more when I can.

I am heartbroken over losing a good friend to COVID 19.  She had a long, gruesome struggle and it's finally over.  At some point about two weeks ago it became obvious that she was too damaged to come back to us, but the struggle went on.  And on.  And on.  Horrible.   She finally died last week and I have to say I was relieved on her behalf.  Now the grief sets in. 

But, there are still plenty of other wonderful people in the world.  One in particular--my 97 year old next door neighbor--called me last evening and told me she wanted me to come over to her property and cut myself a bouquet of her lilacs, "Since you don't have any on your land."  I went over this morning and did just that.  She even loaned me her garden shears.  I adore her, and she has absolutely no idea that I just lost a friend.  But somehow, she reached out anyway.  It just made my entire day.

You can imagine--I hope--the fabulous scent spreading through my home from her marvelous lilacs.  Thank you, Erm!  Kindness makes all the difference.

I've learned that people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did; but people will never forget how you made them feel.
--Maya Angelou

This is indeed a silent spring, though not entirely in the way Rachel Carson envisioned in her book.  I mean the term literally:  traffic is down, people are staying in their homes, all due to Covid 19.  It's very quiet out there.  For all the suffering and misery it is causing, and the fear, the few benefits from this pandemic experience are mighty:  the lowering of air pollution, the increased awareness of our interconnection with others.  New appreciation for nature as many people are getting out on walks, not to mention sleeping longer, spending more time with kids and pets.

In honor of that I include two photos friends have sent me, of two marvelous harbingers of spring.

I always enjoy these wonderful reminders of Spring when I see them in the woods.  This year for a number of reasons I won't be in the woods, so it was lovely to get the photographs.

Yesterday I got a small package with something I had ordered from Etsy.  Inside were the things I had ordered, along with a slip of paper I found utterly charming:

What a fun message.  And I'm sure it's true. 

If you, like me, are "Staying Home to Save Lives" during this pandemic, and if you're ordering things online I hope you'll consider buying from a small business when that is possible.  You know they need the help.

(And no, I do not sell online.  But I do like to buy from small businesses when I can.)

Two years ago I started hearing about this show, which is only run every other year.

Because I was sick, I missed the 2017 show and was determined to get to this one.  I made it to Vermont today and am glad I did.  This show is held at the Pompanoosuc Mills home base in Vermont, a gigantic workshop building where their signature furniture is made and the location of their flagship showroom. 

Why a rug & fiber show there?  Because Ed O'Keeffe, the Showroom and Web Manager, is also a rug hooking artist.  Ed teamed up with Jennifer Davey, another rug hooking artist and a past president of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild (GMRHG), to mount this show on an "off-year" from the big show that is put on biannually by GMRHG.  Because the Pompy showroom is simply immense, there is a lot of wall space.  It's the perfect place to hang rugs!  And hang they did--check out these wonderful pieces below.  Note that I did not get pictures of all the rugs, only about half of the ones on display.

I should add here that all these rugs came from the talented members of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild.  I'm thinking that Jennifer and Ed selected them from the Guild's bi-annual show and curated them for this display.

Another of Dana's astounding rugs, Red Riding Hood, was also on display here, but I have already dedicated an entire previous blog post to Dana. Her Red Riding Hood rug is so spectacular that an Australian rug maker did a blog post on it that's in-depth and quite good.  Don't miss it!  You can find it HERE.  And to see more of Dana's work, check my previous post about her HERE.

Despite these many photos, there were at least as many, if not more, rugs and wall hangings on display (and of course, the beautiful furniture everywhere as well).  If you are in the area, this show is well worth a visit. 

Details on how to get there and the duration of the show are on the postcard at the top of this post.  Enjoy!

My form of church, that is. 

I left very early today to meet a friend and fellow textile artist on a rural road 45 minutes from my home.  Each with rugs in tow.  Our goal was to drape the rugs we brought over the stone wall that looks over a meadow and then down, down, down into a huge reservoir (part of which is just barely visible over the tops of the trees and under the surrounding hills) and get a decent photo.  I ran the resulting picture thru an iPhone app and got this.  I'm pleased.  It's a mix of a few of my rugs and a few of her rugs. 

This picture describes my spiritual life--the natural world plus a meditative form of craft such as traditional rug hooking.  

The light, the earth, the stones, the colors, the sun, the clouds, the wind, the water, the trees, the hills. 

I can't think of a better place to be on a Sunday morning in the autumn.

“The sun shines not on us but in us.”
― John Muir

This image adorned the cover of my old 1979 calendar, one of the many I bought annually from rubber stamp artist Susan Riecken, who seems to have disappeared; I can't find any online presence for her and the last calendar I was able to get from her was in the early 1990s.  After that she closed her Cambridge studio and I couldn't find a trace of her.  Here is the actual cover of that calendar:

I completely adored her work.  Each calendar was a labor of love.  She carved the stamps from erasers and in the early years I *think* she hand-stamped each calendar, though I'm not sure.  Pretty soon she had the hand-stamped pages reproduced so that she could produce the calendars in bulk, but that never interfered with the delicious colors or the funky marvelous designs.  She was/is an art idol of mine.  Wishing her well wherever she is, and hoping she's well and happy and making more art, even if I cannot find her.

About my interpretation/copy of her sunflowers:  I knew when I ran across this calendar the other day that I wanted to try making a "stamp-like" design by scratching away on an Art Scratch tile.  Using a wooden stylus would, I thought give the same chunky effect as a carved stamp.  I think I was right.

First try at the Trinity (the Celtic-Knot appearing tangle) and Balloya (the one with the multiple lines).  I enjoyed doing both, and could certainly get better at both with practice.  Why did I choose these two?  Because they both began with triangles.

But never mind that.  Look what just arrived from my kind and unbelievably talented friend AE.  She MADE this.  Since I can sew but only very badly, this boggles my mind.  She sews like a pro, weaves wonderful things, beads exquisite pieces, does punch needle rugs, dyes her own yarns, and I know I'm forgetting other talents.  And all of it beautifully.

I love this!  Am I lucky or what?

A good friend who is also a CZT (Certified Zentangle Teacher) was here this week and stayed long enough for both of us to take the same online class via the TangledYogi--aka Romi Marks, a very good teacher.  I'd encourage you to check out her work, including her YouTube videos.

Below you will see our results.  The first two are mine--think of them as Draft 1 and Final.  Here is the draft:

Romi refers to this as the "Aloha Waves" piece.  The design is hers, but drawn by me, and then the color choices are mine.  In a moment you can see the final result below, once I'd had time to mull this one over.  I hope you can see what I added. 
The piece was done on one of Romi's hexagonal tiles, which are available on her website (see the link at the top of this email).  She has them made from high-quality card stock and they are very smooth and accept colored pencil well.  They are also larger than the standard Zentangle® tiles (made from Fabriano Tiepolo printmaking paper, softer and tooth-ier).  The two most recognizable tangles here are Pokeleaf and Crest, along with a Zengem.

My finished piece is below, and then below that one you can see the gorgeous result of my friend's work.  Two identical tiles, drawn by two different people, with two completely different coloways.

But wait--there's more.  She also decided to take up punch hooking and got her equipment together while she was here, designed a piece, and began punching.  I can't wait to see what she produces.

The good news for me is that I think I'm about to start work on another rug and have something textile-related to show soon.  It's been too long.

A lovely calming meeting today with rug hooking friends Diana, Lynda, and Judy.

Actually, make that utter shock.

I went to Elaine Huffman's studio today for a "Bitty BookZ™ maker event," thinking I would pick up a lot of tips from those more experienced.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered none of the other 5 participants had ever made a bitty book.  I was even more surprised to end up in the role of teacher for this group.  Without any planning or rehearsal. ("Planning" and "Rehearsal" are my two middle names.)

Elaine could have taught the class--but she gave us her studio for the day plus fabrics and all the other supplies...and while we worked, she was madly cutting things for us in the background.  Without Elaine, none of this would have happened.  So what did happen?  This:

And below is a view from the side, so that you can see them slightly open:

See below for a couple of pictures of the books as they move thru the stages of creation:

And yes, those are chocolates at the top of the photo.  Surprisingly, people were so absorbed that I never saw anyone eat one...
On to the next stage:

And here below we have the entire group after their books were dry and we got to un-clamp and un-elastic them.  From left to right are:  Janeen, Jane, Carolyn, Cheryl, Laura, and the scamp at the bottom in the violet shirt is Elaine herself.  Elaine deserves huge applause for enabling this to happen.

Interested?  If you'd like to try it yourself, you can get Chris Titus's very helpful pdf describing what supplies are needed and how to do these from start to finish.  Click HERE to get the pdf ($10 US funds...well worth it).

You really CAN do this without a class, just from the pdf.  Take it slow, expect some mistakes along the way, and don't expect perfection from your first one.  But by the time you make the 2nd one, not only will it go faster, but you'll have it totally figured out.

Meanwhile, Janeen (a Certified Zentangle Teacher from Seminar 3!!!) filled her Bitty Book with ten of her own paper pages which she had made using the ever-popular "Shaving Cream" method of coloring and marbleizing the paper.  It's all over YouTube--just type in shaving cream + paper.  Here are a few of her tiles (now inside her beautiful book):

Janeen had a funny story about wanting to show her grandson how to color papers with the Shaving Cream method.  Except, her grandson had been doing it for years in his school and HE ended up giving HER tips and hints.

Of course, you can use plain white or black or tan tiles for your own book, or you can take your already-completed tiles (ones you've already tangled) and use those for your pages.  The possibilities are endless.

There is a Facebook page for BittyBookZ (oriented towards people who do Zentangle®); it's a closed group but you can ask to join if you want to join the fun.

It's been that kind of week--labyrinthine.  So many twists and turns.  We keep walking and we trust we will find our way in to the center and then out again on this challenging journey. 

I hope we are in the center now and will soon find our way out to resume our lives. 

I am still far from home, helping out my friend who is receiving daily treatments.  She is close to the end, however--only three more and she will be done and we will return to our respective homes.  A huge complicating factor has been the sudden illness of someone in her family; it certainly has increased the pressure on her to finish here and go home.  There is much uncertainty.

And yet, we know we just need to keep walking along on the path before us, and trust we will get where we need to be.  In fact, we are already where we need to be, and we just need to remember that.

It took me a few days to do this piece as it's so large.  I learned a lot in the doing and will try again for better results.

My friend also tangles and finds it therapeutic as she waits for appointments.  She is talented and here is one of her latest efforts, a Zendala done on a tile which she had pre-treated with a Fine-Tec paint gold wash.  Isn't this spectacular?  (I have her permission to publish this photo)

Those metallic Fine-Tec watercolors are so inspiring.

Away from home in this very cold midwinter week, I've been doing just a little tangling.  And watching a good friend do her weaving.  While yet another good friend sent me a wonderful photograph.  Below are my latest tangles, my friend's weaving, and my other friend's photo.  Enjoy.

Below is my friend's weaving--two "mug rugs" for my coffee cups.  Love the patterns and subtle colors she chose, and I feel lucky to have these gifts!

Finally, this wonderful Currier & Ives-type photo taken by a good friend who was out on a walk during a snow squall near our homes last week.  Is this not beautiful?

"Silence is true wisdom's best reply."
--Euripides

Here's another short post on OTHER PEOPLE'S WORK (not mine).  My buddy Cheryl is a Rug Rescuer--she takes partially completed traditionally hooked rugs from people who cannot complete them (usually due to age, illness, or unknown reasons) and finds a way to finish them.  She's a genius at it! 

Here are a couple of her rescued rugs, then a 3rd rug that she hooked NOT as a rescue but just for fun for a grandchild.  And finally, a rug in progress from another wonderful rug artist, Cynthia (not a rescue--her own design).

I got to see these lovely rugs, and others, at our meeting last Friday.  It was hard to tell which was more fun--the rug hooking, the conversations, or the fabulous groan-inducing foods.  We met at Cheryl's amazing and stunningly decorated old Victorian house.

"When life gives you hands, use 'em to make stuff."
--Anon.

None of these are my work.  But I am a sucker for lotus flowers, and these are so stunning I have to share them.

First is a photograph taken by Paula Swenson at a botanical garden in Thailand:

I am in love with that photo.

Next, two images of lotuses in watercolor painted by Walter Cudnohufsky of Ashland MA:

I'm lucky enough to own both of these paintings.

They will help me to remember...
"No mud, no lotus."
--Thich Nhat Hanh

Remember the very strange story of the hula girl figure  from last August/September ?  (click here to refresh your memory)  She mysteriously appeared atop our mailboxes one day, stayed a few weeks, then disappeared.  But she reappeared in September (it's all in the link above). 
Here is a photo of how she looked then (just below). 
But read on to see how she looked as of this morning...

She was appropriately (if scantily) dressed back then. 

But.  Well. 

It is now November and we have already had two snowstorms...and winter's barely begun.

On my way to do some errands this morning I stopped at the mailbox and...

I nearly swallowed my tongue laughing when I spotted this:

A few days ago, I shared a post called "Inspired By Others," in which I showed some work done a la Ernst Haeckel at our recent zenAgain2018 conference.  We didn't stop there, however, and today's post shows two very different artists whom we also explored.  Talk about crazy fun--this was a highlight of the conference for me.

Indeed, Keith Haring, one of Molly Hollibaugh's favorite artists when she was a child.  After wondering what, if anything, we could do with tangles and his work, Molly experimented and came up with this instruction at zenAgain2018, and below you see the tile I did as a result.  I was SO surprised - and delighted - by this choice of artists!

My own version of a Keith Haring-style tile.  Was this ever fun to do!  Done on a black Zendala tile with White Gellyroll pen #10.  Permission to break all the rules here, and just have a good time.

And if that alone wasn't enough, have a gander at the mosaic below.  Bear in mind that this is only  a partial photo of the whole mosaic.
Prepare to drool.

But wait--that's not all we did.

The next tile couldn't be more different.  (As is true for the "Ernst Haeckel-style" tile we did which I presented a few days ago)

Yes indeed, Master Klimt himself.  I couldn't do him justice--none of us could, really, but we all gave it our best shot and my tile's below, along with a partial picture of the group mosaic.

This is truly only a very small portion of the class mosaic, enlarged so that you can see the detail and the contrasts.

"What inspires me to paint? ...revisiting some old greats like Sargent, Homer, Whistler or local masters... thinking hard about a new approach or idea; or seeing a new painting on a friend's lounge room wall."
(Amanda Hyatt)

ERNST HAECKEL
was the inspiration for this:

At ZenAgain this week we experimented with tangling that was inspired by other people's work.  This sea creature above is inspired by the work of Ernst Haeckel, and was it ever fun to draw. 

Below is a mosaic of the class's work with this assignment.  We were each given some General's Chalk Pencils to use--we each received different colors and were required to work with whatever colors we got.  Once again, you can see that all of them were similar, and yet, each is distinctly different. 

This was only one small portion of a much larger table with these tiles displayed.

Maria Thomas, one of the founders of Zentangle®, has a remarkable poster with her own version of Haeckel's sea creature on a portion of it.  See her poster below.  I believe this is for sale but am not certain.  (UPDATE:  Yup, it's for sale at the Zentangle® website.)

And finally, below, is a photo of a book about Haeckel's beautiful work (the master himself).  There are many books available about him.

"All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Yes, this makes three blog posts in one day.  It's true.  Deal with it!  <g>

Ratoon is a new tangle from Molly Hollibaugh CZT (one of Maria Thomas's talented daughters) released earlier this week.  The title of the tangle actually comes from some research that Maria was doing to prepare for ZenAgain this week.  A "ratoon" is described thus:  "a new shoot or sprout springing from the base of a crop plant."  The theme of workshop was SEEDS--all the seeds from our art-ancestors that we use in creating art today, and all the seeds we are sowing as we do our own art and as we teach others.  You can see the seeds represented in the tangle above.

Just as those seeds have and will continue to sprout, so all art stands on the shoulders of all previous artists.  In making our art--even if it's bad art!--we honor them.  One of the many things I love about tangling is that I never know where something is going to go, how it will develop, and the highly calming effect of the process.  We all get the same instructions, and yet all our pieces, while obviously related, are so delightfully different.  I will put a partial mosaic of this tangle as an example of that below (partial because there were so many of us that I couldn't get the entire view).