Young artists and occupational therapy

This is Megan.  I wrote another post about her here when she wove this watermelon tapestry last summer.  Megan is now 11 years old (and definitely smarter than me if you go by IQ scores) and I'm hoping she is going to come here again this summer to weave another tapestry.  (Oh wait, that last part might just be my goal not hers.)

I work in a rural New Mexico school system, and as I wrote on that post last summer about Megan, I was hoping to do some weaving with the kids this year.  I was not able to pull together a tapestry weaving project due to my heavy caseload, but I did pull out an inkle loom and interested a few kids in weaving inkle bands.  Some kids who tried this had a great deal of difficulty sequencing raising and lowering the warp, putting the shuttle through in the correct direction, and then beating before going the other way.  I found that it was a great exercise in so many ways: fine motor skills, visual-perception, cognition, attention, self-regulation...  a great task for an occupational therapy session.  I think my older kids could handle a small tapestry or something on the cardboard looms in Sarah Swett's book Kid's Weaving.  Hopefully next year.

This child did the best of any child who tried it, but she is also the one who doesn't qualify for OT!

This is another amazing young lady I had the privilege of meeting last weekend (see blog post here).  Railynn is a natural artist who jumped right into our art journaling retreat.  Quite frankly, some of her work looked much better than mine.  I think that is thanks to lack of inhibition and no fear of failure.  I think most adults should take a page from the kids book of life... especially artists.

This is an art piece I saw hanging in the elementary grade 3-5 hall last year sometime.  I was never able to find out who the artist was, but it is one of my favorite pieces of art ever.  I want to weave it just like this, but fear that plagiarizing a 10 year old is probably not going to increase my karma any.

Kids are amazing (and I don't have any of my own, so maybe that is partly why I feel that way).  They will often tell you their bottom line without any prompting--oh how I wish sometimes adults would do that.  When it comes to being an artist, children have no inhibitions (until we implant them) and they believe in what they can do.  My preschool, kindergarten, and first graders have great opinions of their abilities as artists.  It is when I start asking 4th and 5th graders that I hear how they are "bad at art" or "can't draw".  I think the world would be a better place if we never taught children things like that.  If every kid graduated from high school thinking they were creative or artistic in some way, we would have given them the greatest gift possible.

Studios...

What does it mean to have my own studio (besides that I feel great when I tell someone I'm "working in my studio")?  For me it is a space for work and reflection.  A quiet spot where (if I remember to turn off the phone and computer) I can get lost in the work of making art.  Sometimes time even slows down.

James' studio was a place he built himself.  It was a beautiful space full of tapestries, yarn, looms, and creative people.  It was a welcoming place where a lot of learning (and a lot of skut work) happened.  Not to mention the amazing tapestries he created there.  It is hard to think about everything being dispersed.  His studio sale was May 2nd and so now he will have to live on in our memories and through our work.

James Koehler Studio, Santa Fe, NM

First spring flowers in front of James' studio, March 2011. We'll miss you James.

The much-awaited tapestry retreat

Arizona, specifically the Navajo Indian reservation, is a fantastically stunning place--quiet and slow-moving, full of mesas and sandstone formations, but also full of big trucks and rutted roads (perhaps the roads help explain the quiet).  It is a huge reservation and I have only been in a few parts of it... but the places I have had the privilege of visiting are undeniably beautiful.

Searing sunshine
Sand storms that will make you weep
Huge expanses of sky
Snakes, coyotes, elk, and of course sheep and horses (the last two are domestic)
Mud and the dryest clay
The reddest rocks
A wide array of plants and flowers
Juniper and sage scent released in the rain storm
Fantastic sandstone formations in all shades of tan, red, and green

I grew up in Gallup, NM where many who live in the southeast corner of the reservation go to visit what was, when I was young, the largest Walmart in the world.  I saw the huge lumps of mud left behind in the car washes, I attended a boarding school with mostly native children, and I took the yearly trips to Canyon de Chelly National Monument and Hubbells Trading Post with my family when I was growing up.  But I never really got a chance to feel the reservation any deeper until last weekend.

I was invited to a small tapestry retreat by a group of friends who have been supporting each other's art for years now.  I am still honored to have been invited.  Thank you Lyn Hart, Jane Hoffman, and DY Begay for your welcome, your wonderful gluten-free cooking, your advice, and your laughter.

The retreat took place at DY Begay's reservation home not far from Chinle, AZ.  We brought art supplies and got a whirlwind workshop from Lyn on art journaling.  This was so much fun for me.  This mixed media pursuit was something that made me let go of my notions of how things "should" be and allowed me to play.  I felt myself letting go of all my recent stress just hours after I arrived.

Here are some photos of our retreat.  I even got my Mirrix warped.

DY shows one of her latest weavings. (My abject apologies that I cannot remember what the title is.)  The color in her work is so rich and deep.  Photos don't begin to capture her use of natural dyes and color choices in the weaving.

Lyn Hart showed us her condor project.  She was an artist-in-residence at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon last summer and as a result of that she is weaving a full sized condor to hang in the visitor's center there.  In case it escapes you, a condor's wing span can be over 9 feet.  Lyn's tapestry is 6 feet wide and 10 feet high.  The sheer magnitude of weaving this boggles my mind, but Lyn seems to have the whole process well in hand.  I can't wait to visit it when it is installed.

Initial drawing for condor piece with condor photo on transparency

Lyn Hart

It was wonderful to get to know Jane Hoffman a little better.  Her gentle spirit and vast knowledge of all things fiber were inspiring.  Here she is with her art journaling portrait.  Jane is a natural dyer and weaves wonderful tapestries.  She has also done a lot of teaching and gave me some good tips.  She made this pipe loom adding many custom touches.  I'm not sure you could find a better portable loom than a Jane Hoffman!

Here are some examples of the art journaling process we were exploring.  This WEAVE page is unfinished in this photograph, but you can see how we created a ground color then added elements.  Eventually most of this was painted over!

This spread was done in an old journal I had.  The pages were too thin so I had to glue several together.  I attached a map of the reservation and added a pocket for a piece of DY's naturally dyed yarn.

Detail of the right page.  You can see how I used pages torn from a dictionary and then painted gesso and acrylic paint over top so that the original pictures were obscured.  My morning tea fortune also made it onto this page.

This creation was done on top of a painting that was in this old Heron Dance journal.  I liked how the aspen trees made a background for my sketch of the mountains.

We all dreaded and I think finally enjoyed the portrait exercise.  I know this looks nothing like me, but it was fun to do and I'll probably do it again.

DY's niece came to the studio Sunday afternoon and made art with us.  She is only 8 years old, but clearly has a very artistic spirit.  It turns out Lyn is a good teacher of both eccentric tapestry weavers and elementary-aged children.

The group with our portrait pages.

The beauty of the Arizona desert and the calm surroundings of DY's home (as well as her spirit) left me feeling rejuvenated.  In fact I may have stopped at the art store in Taos today to get a few more supplies!

I stopped along the north rim of Canyon de Chelly on my way back east.

Donna Loraine Contractor's new show at Weaving Southwest

I had to go to Taos today so I stopped by Weaving Southwest to investigate Donna Loraine Contractor's new show.  I was unable to be at the opening last weekend, but I hear it was well-attended.  

I had heard that the show was going to be hung from the ceiling, but I couldn't quite envision how this was going to work.  To be honest, I was a bit skeptical.  But I have to say (at least in the bright light of day) that it was quite effective to see all those window pieces hanging from the ceiling (but watch out lest you walk into one!).  Teresa Loveless and her trusty crew hung them on monofilament--the filament went through the hollow lucite bars that Donna uses to hang her pieces.  With the pieces hung from two points on the ceiling, this allowed them to be leveled easily (especially when the wind had other ideas).

On the back wall from left to right are three pieces each of Letitia Roller, Mary Zicafoose, and Robin Reider. 

Here is my grouping: Emergence II (the one with the blue square and spiral), Inscription (two green panels), and the small one underneath is called Spaces: Pause.

These three pieces are by another favorite tapestry artist of mine, LaDonna Mayer of Santa Fe.  We are all anxiously awaiting her city-scapes... though I fear we may have to wait awhile to see them unveiled!

These three pieces are by Michael Rohde, another favorite tapestry artist.

And here is a somewhat clearer shot of Letitia Roller's three pieces.

And finally here is a photo of me and my new haircut...

Oh wait, sorry, that is Hilary Swank.  My teeth aren't that white, but otherwise the resemblance is uncanny, don't you think?

A fantastic find in Portland...

Today I reached a life-long dream of visiting Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland, Oregon.  It was raining and then HAILING, I had no umbrella and had 10 blocks to walk from the MAX station, but I was not going to be deterred from this destination under any circumstances.

There were maps of the store.  Yes, maps so that when you circled the 8 aisles of cookbooks and couldn't find your way back to travel, you might be able to find your way back to the front of the store.  Of course under the armload of books I was toting and lacking a compass, I was forced to use my cell phone to locate Emily and call for assistance.  I might still be there otherwise.

I was so impressed with this (independent!) bookstore.  They had two entires shelves about pirates.  Here is the evidence:

I don't actually read books about pirates, but the fact that there was a two-shelf section devoted to them was impressive to me (Dad, they had 10 shelves about sailing and nautical navigation!).

Here is a photo of most of the books I came home with--a bunch were on sale too!  I have wanted the Diary of Frida Kahlo for awhile and they had a nice used copy.  I am excited about the John Berger book.  It looks to be about art and the way we see things--a favorite topic of mine.  And the Making Color Sing book was a difficult decision.  It is written for painters, but seemed to have such great suggestions for color use that ultimately it came with me too.  It didn't seem quite like your average color book that just goes over color theory.  She has examples of how to make certain areas of a painting pop out using color and other tricks that I haven't seen anywhere else.  I just hope I can translate paint to dye pot.

Throw in a climbing book, a Portland guide and a book about Crater Lake which I hope to see later in the week (the lake that is as I already have the book)... and you have a nice little load to put my suitcase over the weight limit on the way home.  

And for those of you New Mexicans who have never seen a jackalope, I saw one who had visited a taxidermist and now lives in the Old Curiosity shop in downtown Seattle.

Chimayo weaving with Lisa Trujillo

The American Tapestry Alliance offered a workshop in conjunction with the opening of the Small Tapestry International 2: Passages show at Weaving Southwest.  The workshop was April 3-5 at Weaving Southwest in Taos, New Mexico.

Lisa Trujillo taught a class on Chimayo weaving.  Lisa and her husband Irvin Trujillo own Centinela Traditional Arts in Chimayo, New Mexico. Both are internationally known for their weaving.  Their business employs many local weavers which allows people who wouldn't otherwise be able to sell their weaving to make a living.

There were 6 enthusiastic women from all over the country who came to Taos to relax and learn some traditional weaving from a master weaver.  Lisa proved to be an exceptional teacher and I recommend taking a workshop from her if you are interested in traditional hispanic weaving.  I'm hoping she'll eventually make her beautifully written handout into a technique book.

After a bit of a fight to tie up the big Rio Grande looms (Rachel Brown style Rio Grandes) to two treadles instead of four (they were four harness looms), we were off and running.  The class was full of people who had done a lot of weaving and they quickly picked up the Rio Grande techniques.  Some amazing little weavings were created in just a few days.

Lisa Trujillo at Weaving Southwest with the Small Tapestry International show behind her.

Barbara Richards in front of some great tapestry.

Judy Sutton

Erika Scott and Terry Olson creating some complicated designs.

We did figure out that the beating of the Rio Grandes was enough vibration to knock all those small format tapestries askew.  I kept fixing them until I realized that they were crooked again immediately.  I'm sure once the looms are gone the tapestries will stay put.

Small Tapestry International 2: Passages Opening

Yesterday evening was the opening of the American Tapestry Alliance's small format juried show, Small Tapestry International 2: Passages.  The opening was from 5-7 at Weaving Southwest in Taos, New Mexico.

The show looks wonderful.  It runs through May 1st here before it heads to other venues.  Go see it.  It is not only well hung but the work is marvelous.

My piece, center top, Barn Burned Down (now I can see the moon).