Dixon Studio Tour and Weaving Southwest show

I always try to make it to the Dixon Studio Tour--first weekend in November. Dixon is a little town that I love and their studio tour is one of the best around. This weekend was beautiful and we spent yesterday in Dixon. I didn't get any pictures of the crowds, but I couldn't believe the number of people packing the streets and studios.

Metier gallery is a weaving gallery owned by Irene Smith. I have enjoyed going there for years. The stone house is fantastic and the gallery is right in the middle of town. As far as weaving on this studio tour goes, Irene is about it!
I visited Stanley Crawford's garlic farm for the first time. Admittedly I mostly wanted to meet the guy who write A Garlic Testament, and he didn't disappoint me. I didn't know that he has written other books. He is most famous for Mayordomo and A Garlic Testament, but he has written a lot of fiction and I took the opportunity to pick up a few of his other books. The garlic was all in the ground for winter but he had squash and books for sale.
One of my neighbors in Velarde is a singer songwriter and she and her band were playing during the studio tour. We caught them at Zuly's, a new cafe in town. Fletcher and John were fun to listen to--I love their celtic/folk style.

Today I was in Taos and went to see the new show at Weaving Southwest. It looks great. There was a lot of work I hadn't seen before from Mary Zicafoose, Skaidrite Mckaeg, Karen Benjamin, Sherri Coffey, La Donna Mayer, Michael Rhode, and others. I loved seeing La Donna's new work as she was an apprentice with James Koehler the same time I was. Her new work is very enjoyable. Way to go La Donna!
And I am hoping this blank wall above the entrance to the yarn room will have a few of my pieces on it soon. They are currently held up in customs in Frankfurt for some unknown reason. Hopefully they will be freed soon and on their way back to New Mexico.

Re-entry

I have been home from Germany for over a month now, but somehow I still feel like the pendulum hasn't swing back to the center yet (Ever read The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe? He was one of my favorites as a kid--my Dad had a scary story-telling voice. And no, I'm not exactly saying that my job is like the Inquisition). Perhaps it never really stops swinging though. Of course finishing a 3-year project and pulling together two major shows was a lot of work. I forget this. I forget that recovery time is needed and that it is okay to relax... to review the photos, write the articles, come out of the foggy glow left by a fantastic European trip... and hopefully come back to the loom again and start to weave.

I started a small piece on my Mirrix last week and ended up tearing out a bunch of it. This is called frogging when you're knitting, but unlike knitting, the weaving has to be undone one pick at a time. When you're tearing out a pretty fair isle sock, you just rip. Anyway, the weaving had to be ripped back since the colors weren't working. Maybe I should just be glad I have learned enough to know when the colors aren't working while I'm still weaving it! (photo is before ripping... we'll see what the new colors look like this week)

Anyway, un-weaving seemed to go with my general struggle the past month. I was reading an excellent memoir by No Way Ray Echols titled A Thru-Hiker's Heart (about his hike of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada)... I tend to read hiking books when I am feeling a little bogged down. At the end of the book he talks about his return to his "regular" life. He says, "...There is an undercurrent, like a sub-sonic speaker, creating an indefinable itch, a tension in the neck and shoulders. It's fear... and anger. I am afraid that I will not be able to hold on to what I've found these solitary months along the trail. That I will, all too soon, be once again trapped by the non-essential, embroiled in the unimportant, snared by responsibilities of living in a world where others must be taken into account. I fear that in the coming weeks it will all be come fuzzed and gossamer. I will become more and more entangled, like a freeway driver in rush hour traffic, until all that seems real is the shouting and the honking, the grimacing and the groaning...."

I am afraid that I will forget the experiences of the summer and fall--of being part of two fantastic shows, of completing a long project, of forgetting what I have learned before I really understand what that was. Hiking, especially long-distance hiking, is an activity that quiets your brain and makes you realize how simple life can be in any given moment. It is hard to hear the quiet when squirming under an unmanageable job, too much driving, and the call of so-many-things-that-have-to-be-done. So I am starting at the only place I can start. I am asking the important questions: "What are those things that I think really have to be done?", "Is that really true?", "What things do I not have to do?", and "Where can I get gluten free cinnamon rolls?"

Some pictures from Chama, NM where I stay during the week. Ostensibly the For Rent sign used to have a trailer behind it, but they have been pulling trailers out of this subdivision this fall--the one next to mine and one on the next street just in the last few weeks. I hope they don't take mine while I'm at home some weekend. My Mirrix is in there.







The colors are beautiful... and since this photo was taken a few days ago, most likely covered with snow now.

Halcyon Days II


Here is a piece I finished last spring. I realized while searching my blog for a photo of it today that I never put it there or on my website. This piece was in both the Interwoven Traditions shows in Albuquerque and Erfurt, Germany. Actually, it is still in Germany. That show comes down the end of October. This was one of those pieces that I did not immediately like but that grew on me the longer I looked at it. There is a period where I have to put a tapestry away when it comes off the loom. I think I have been too close to it for too long and invariably I am disgruntled with it when it initially emerges. I am not sure if this is because of the inordinate amount of time (usually much longer than I had planned) that it takes for it to be finished, or because the finished piece doesn't look like the tapestry in my minds eye.

So I put it away for awhile. Then eventually I do get it out (for a show or because Teresa has managed to sell all of my tapestries), do the finishing, and hang it up in my living room. Usually at that point I start to see the initial idea-- the inspiration that sparked the piece. And sometimes when I look at it for awhile I see something completely different in the work and I like it even better. I like the adventure of that.

Here she is...
Halcyon Days II; 26 X 40 inches, hand-dyed wool tapestry



What shall we call this October 11th?

Some call it Columbus day, but that seems disrespectful to the people who lived here before Columbus came...
The school in which I work (in a native american community) calls it Jicarilla Cultural Day--which is a good name for a day we are going to get off--federal holiday, public school...
Today is also National Coming Out Day... a good day to remember the things we are hiding and perhaps should not.

Here is the yarn I dyed last weekend for the next couple pieces. I think you'll find the palette unsurprising.
I know there are now photos floating around out there of the ATB8 show in Lincoln, NE. The opening was this past weekend and I wish that I could have gone! I very much wanted to attend the Textile Society of America symposium, but the timing was off for me. So if anyone has photos of the show, I'd love to see them!

Instead, I went on a somewhat cheaper adventure this weekend to southern Utah... a nice camping trip, fantastic weather, lots of friends and family...


October in New Mexico


Colors at Cumbres Pass on the border between NM and CO.

I am starting to get back into the swing of work and weaving after the trip to Europe. I earn my keep by working in the public schools in rural NM. I am currently staying in Chama and this week is THE week that the colors are changing.

I love hiking long trails, and often, especially after school (work) has started again for the year, I wish I was out on the trail somewhere. I have seen a few SOBO CDT thru's in Chama lately and wish I could spend the day listening to their adventures.

Despite the burning of a trestle this summer a few miles out of Chama, the Cumbres and Toltec railroad is still running. They are busing people up to Cumbres pass (shown here at sunset) and running from there.
I also have managed to get some dyeing done the last two weekends. I am hoping that once I start weaving the next two pieces, I will find that these colors are okay. Here are a few shots of my dye set-up. I certainly hope for my own dye studio one day, though this works for now. Carports are great things.


Taos Wool Festival was also this weekend. Emmy and I went yesterday and visited the alpaca, llamas, and angora bunnies. There was also some good yarn for sale as usual. Since I just bought a suitcase full of knitting yarn in Germany, I didn't buy anything this year at Wool Fest (can you believe it?).

Sometimes the cows DO come home!


Sometimes the cows DO come home! We were very fortunate in the timing of our trip to Reidenberg, Austria. We were able to witness the traditional cow homecoming celebration (and I wish I remembered the Germany for that!).

But I get ahead of myself. We planned a 5 day trip to Austria in advance (okay, Conni planned it for us and we were very grateful). Emily, Conni, and I took the train south to Kuftstein, Austria, hopped a nausea-inducing bus for Landl, and walked 6km up the mountain from there to Reidenberg. We stayed at the Gasthaus Wastler, a small guesthouse and restaurant in this little village that Conni's family has been visiting for years.


Kufstein train station with castle above.

Landl and the sign to the Gasthaus Wastler where we would be staying... after we hiked 6km up the hill.


There were a lot of Christian icons on the roads. They didn't seem like descansos, but perhaps they were.


And I will admit right now that hiking in the Austrian Alps and staying at this guesthouse were one of the best parts of the trip to Europe for me. It was really fantastic. (I tried to move this photo down and Blogger isn't working well today, sorry.)


When Conni expressed some concern about the tennis shoes we brought to hike in in Austria, trails like this might have been what she was thinking of!


Our first day there we hiked to Ackernalm where there was a place that made cheese and buttermilk. I tried the buttermilk--it was really good. I couldn't put away a whole pint like however. The sign by this cow trough says (I believe), Park at your own risk. Risks, I suppose, include the unending cow poop, the cows propensity to rub their faces on things, and their general friendliness which you might not like extended to your vehicle.




We were so fortunate to see the the cow homecoming celebration. We hiked up the road and met the cows coming down. You could hear them for a long time as they had these huge bells on them. The traditional dress was wonderful. The woman in this photo took care of the cows up on the mountain all summer with her young daughter. As we were standing by the road watching them pass, she offered us all slugs of schnaps--homemade of course. THAT was strong stuff.

The cows are almost home.


There was some fantastic traditional dancing and a lot of yodeling--the more schnaps disappeared, the more yodeling there was.


The last day there we hiked to Buchackeralm and had this view of the alps and the valley below.

Austria was fantastic, and I only saw a little bit of it. I hope to go back some day to see more of those mountains!