Intermountain Weavers Conference

I have just returned from a great weekend at the Intermountain Weaver's Conference in Durango, CO.  First of all you have to realize that I love Durango, so pretty much no matter what went down at the conference, I would have had a good time just looking at the La Platas and browsing Maria's Bookshop (yes, I did have to apply a credit card to be released from the store).  But there was so many more great things about the weekend!  For example, Emily came with me which really was an unexpected and fantastic addition to my time there--and not just because she bought me gluten free pizza!  We stayed in the dorm--flashbacks to Kohler Hall at Lawrence University... cement block walls and gross carpet.  We shared a bathroom with the unestimable Margo who was a vendor and very happy to let me take a shower just a few moments before I dashed off to class in the morning.  Turns out she is also allergic to wool.  Doing conferences with tapestry weavers must be tough!

Fort Lewis College (site of the conference) was doing construction on the student center... Imagine the fiber art installation you could do from this crane!  I had convinced my instructor that using my grandmother's 28 inch Macomber floor loom was a good idea... as I watched the rest of my class slide their pipe and Mirrix looms into canvas bags and jaunt off down the sidewalk, I glanced wistfully at the crane and then, with a little help from a kind weavers husband in the parking lot, hefted it back into the car.  
It is still in the car in fact.  I'm hoping Cassy will lift it out for me and bring it down the non-existent sidewalk into the house where I will glance occasionally at the sampler gathering dust on the loom thinking that I should practice a few more things on it... until one day I just cut the thing off--likely the day before putting a warp on the loom for the next workshop.

  I entered the Intermountain Creations show with the piece I just finished, Emergence.  Here it is hanging in the gallery. This show turned out really well--and many kudos to the women who worked non-stop to hang the show on Thursday and Friday and then tore it down again on Sunday.  It was beautiful!  My piece won a 2nd place People's Choice award.  Thanks you all!

I also entered Fiber Celebrated 2009 which was a juried show.  Two of my pieces were in the show: Contemplative Garden and Inscription.  Here they are hanging in the Center of Southwest Studies (far left is Contemplative Garden and far right is Inscription).  
The gallery and show looked fabulous... 

The reception for this show was Friday evening.  I managed to win an award for best use of color for Contemplative Garden.  I was so excited I forgot to avail myself of the catered reception which apparently included wine! ... and grateful that due to the press of people in the gallery and the lack of any microphone or stage, no one could really see or hear me.  I'm not even sure I remembered to shake the juror's hand (Emmie Seaman).

Here I am with Contemplative Garden in the gallery.  I felt like a rock star after this reception--people kept telling me how much the liked my piece.  You know, that is kind of fun!  I promise I won't let it go to my head. 
 I am afraid I am going to have to start weaving more though!  If you can't find me, I'm in my studio buried in papers hoping a great design will come out of the mess.

The class I took was Color and Tapestry and was taught by Kathe Todd-Hooker.  Kathe did a great job with organization and with managing a class that contained just a few too many beginner tapestry weavers.

Lyn Hart was in the class--so great to finally meet you Lyn, as well as your posse (Jane and Susan).  Also great to laugh with the three of you.  I'm changing the contents of my coffee mug at evening events from now on.
Lyn won the Fiber Celebrated People's Choice award for her piece Canyon Night.  Sorry for this horrible photo Lyn, but you can undoubtedly go to her blog and find a better photo.  The award was well deserved!
Photos of the class working.  Mine is the only floor loom there.  Floor looms ARE good for tapestry!  They're just a lot harder to carry around.  The crazy among us shall remain nameless.


Fiber Celebrated 2009

I'm getting my pieces ready to ship off to the Fiber Celebrated 2009 show and thought I would just mention here that that is happening!
Show specifics are here:

I just realized there are a few little details I haven't attended to... like somehow these pieces escaped official tags... and that I don't have a box that is 50 inches long to ship Inscription.  Fortunately there is a very nice and helpful young man at UPEX in Los Alamos who swears he can help me out with that little problem, and on a Saturday no less (as my week has been nutsy beyond belief and I can't possibly get there until after my morning pancakes day after tomorrow).  And he can even take care of the specifics of paying for return UPS shipping up front.  I'm not even going to get into the reasons I have to drive to Los Alamos for some simple shipping problem.  It is sort of like the DMV thing.... but that is another story entirely.

My cousin Julie


This is not the sort of thing I usually say, but I want to send a big shout out to my cousin Julie.  She is my only living relative (that we know of) who also has celiac sprue.  

My cousin Julie absolutely ROCKS!  (And that IS something I would say.)  She made me (and my aunt and uncle) the best gluten free dinner I've had in forever... something amazing of the indian variety with lentils (she gave me the recipe.  I haven't dared look at it yet as I'm not sure I'll be able to come anywhere close... but maybe by the time I get home I'll get up the nerve to give it a go.)... she also made GF bread which is always a feat.  Add a little wine to this and I was completely overcome with the gastronomic delight of the whole thing.  Seriously overcome.

BUT THEN!!!!  She asked me to go to her favorite restaurant for lunch the next 
day--which I believe was only yesterday, though I'm losing track of time in this whirlwind trip around the US...  The restaurant is in Grand Rapids, MI and is called Maria Catrib's.  I was so impressed with the place (and especially Maria) that I took a picture of it when I left.  Maria who runs the joint brought us GF cookies as an appetizer.  I tried to buy her remaining stock when I was leaving the restaurant, and to my dismay, the remaining stock had gone into my stomach earlier in the meal and there were none to carry away in my suitcase.

I ate a grilled cheese sandwich.  This may very well not be something that impresses those of you who are not gluten intolerant.  For those of you who are, you completely understand me.  I was able to go into this restaurant and choose between something like 12 sandwiches AND I had a choice of THREE different kinds of bread.  I'm teary eyed just thinking about it more than 24 hours later.  And after my cousin returned to work, I had a big piece of flourless chocolate cake--to make up for the fact that I couldn't take any cookies home with me.

The joy and pain of juried shows...

I entered two pieces into a juried show this spring.  Actually, I had a stack of shows I was going to enter--I think 5.  The Durango show was the only one I actually entered... largely because I'm going to the IWC conference and thought it would be most excellent if I got lucky enough to get into Fiber Celebrated a second time.  Both pieces were accepted.  Thank you to the jurying gods for that one!  I'm kind of a neophyte when it comes to juried shows and also when it comes to fancier get togethers involving the "art crowd."  Fortunately, fiber artists seem to be a little less "art crowd" people than some of the folks I've met in Santa Fe... and it is kind of fun to see my pieces hanging in different places.

Sometimes the hardest decision is...

I'm going on a little trip soon.  The largest decision about this trip so far seems to be what knitting project(s) to pack.  The trip involves some time visiting a friend in the south (I do not anticipate any knitting time during this phase), a visit to my grandparents and aunt/uncle in Michigan (I see some knitting time emerging here), a drive circumnavigating Lake Michigan (I'm flying into and out of Chicago and I do not knit while I drive, honest), and a cousin's wedding in Wisconsin (again, I promise I won't knit at the actual wedding, but I can't make any promises about the reception... kick me if Aunt Matilda thinks I'm being rude).Of course there are three legs to this journey and I anticipate having time to knit on the plane.  I just checked the "what you can bring on board" page on Northwest's website--and indeed they say you can bring knitting needles onto the plane again.  Heaven help us all if someone like me gets cranky due to long lines, irrational airline rules (WHY do you have to take your shoes off to go through security?), and lack of gluten free goodies readily available in airport kiosks-- and starts brandishing her 16 inch #7 circulars!!! ...likely with scarf or hat attached.  Of course there is the possibility of getting trapped in one of those seats in front of the exit row that doesn't recline, squished between the window and someone who, shall we say, doesn't quite fit between the armrests of their seat.  Knitting does take a little elbow room.

We all make mistakes...

Sometimes we don't make the best decisions in life.  Take, for instance, this cabin.  I have some land in Colorado, and about a half mile away at some point last summer, a man came and put up this cabin which is about 8 by 12 feet.  I thought it went up pretty quickly, so I went to examine it after he was gone.  He had put cement blocks right on the sand, seated 4X4s in the blocks (no poured cement as far as I could tell so far) and attached the deck floor of the cabin to those 4X4s.  In no way was this structure tied to the ground.  I believe the man who did this must not be from around here as he seriously underestimated the force of the winds on the south side of a 14,000 foot peak in southern Colorado.  Just this week, less than a year later, this is what his cabin looks like.  I fear he will be unhappy when he returns to put the windows in and inhabit his little summer dwelling.  I hope he likes mice also because they are likely already friendly inhabitants.

We do all make mistakes from time to time--or perhaps just miscalculations of large proportion.  I just hope if I ever decide to build a little cabin in southern Colorado, I'm smart enough to use some concrete.
Mostly this post is for my sister... she'll understand why.  As an architect and city planner, this cabin rankled.  It ticked me off just because it marred my view, being exceptionally ugly and poorly built.  My guess was it would last a few years, but to have the wind push it over in less than a year really boosted my admiration of the ferocity of southern Colorado winds.