Category: Albuquerque arts

April 25, 2024

It’s been a long seven weeks

It’s been a long seven weeks…

Dog looking up, leg in a cast — Bowyn was velcroed to me right from when I got home from having surgery. It’s been a long seven weeks for him too.

If you follow along on Instagram, you know that way back on March 11, I had ankle surgery. They cleaned out the detritus from bone-on-bone arthritis and tightened up my slacker ligaments. Sure, I’ve never broken or even sprained the ankle; I spent a lifetime walking all those turns off. I just didn’t realize how my ankle was being destroyed from inside.

Hence, there was a forced convalescence of sorts during those weeks. Initially, I had a big honker of a plaster cast on the left leg. A few days after feeling like I was going to bust that sucker open – swelling – they took it off and replaced it with a slightly smaller fiberglass cast. A week after that, the doc checked the wound and okayed another slightly smaller and bright purple cast. Crutches quickly gave way to Blue, my sweet, little knee scooter, and I became a bit more mobile.

Knees scooter — Blue, my faithful steed through the seven week ordeal. Yes, I had to boost her pad with duct tape; it was deteriorating finally.

But while I wasn’t so mobile and had to keep the leg up pretty much all the time, I needed something to do. My ass was glued to the couch. Sadly, I’d finished a hooked piece right before I went under the knife, so I didn’t have that. But that hooking was an experiment. I was looking to create a kind of “vessel” with it. Before I had a chance to really think it all through, I picked up

Stitched vessel — Second of the stitches vessel. Wool and cotton fabrics, DMC flosses, baubles and buttons.

some tiny bits of “waste” wool and cotton, watched a little YouTube, then looked to make a kind of vessel out of them. It worked! So well, I went right on to stitch another one. Eventually, yadda yadda yadda, I got around to the hooked vessel and finished it. Now I’ve started stitching a new cotton one.

Sadly, during this time, we lost the original High on Hooking dog Tynan. He’d been slowly losing ground the past year and a half but was still very much a presence and always on the lookout for something to eat. We haven’t moved his bed out of the living room yet, and Bowyn studiously avoids it. But a bright spot arrived in the mail a week or two later. If you haven’t seen Kay LeFevre’s work, head over to her Facebook page. Within days of Tynan’s passing, Kay had created this incredible pillow in his likeness. Tom and I are incredibly touched by her kindness. You can read more about it in my Instagram post.

Pillow with dog on it — Such a wonderful tribute to Tynan, pillow by Kay LeFevre. It looks just like him! We miss you so much! (Hooking, embroidery, sequins, and so much more!)

Last year, long before I discovered I’d need surgery, I’d contracted with Interweave to teach a couple of classes up at YarnFest in Loveland, Colorado, in April. Fortunately, I was able to schedule the ankle work between that and other classes here in New Mexico. So, Tom and I traveled up to Colorado a couple of weeks ago. Having a CRV-full of

Casted leg on dashboard — On the road again. We were so lucky driving up to Loveland. Gorgeous weather. Snow on the mountains of New Mexico and Colorado. Great drive. Except for the fact that I have a cast on my leg.

frames and fibers and all the crap necessary to teaching both hooking and punch needle workshops, I definitely needed a sherpa. Sure, I could drive, but getting the STUFF from the house to the car to the hotel room to the classroom was more than I could handle with only one good leg. THANKS TO TOM, both classes were successes, and there are now fourteen more people in the world who can hook and/or punch. It’s all about spreading the fiber arts gospel!

Hooked rug project — New hooking student’s chicken project.

Hooked rug projects — Working, working, working…

Meanwhile, I learned during the winter that I’d been accepted into an arts fellowship here in Albuquerque. Surprise and…YAY! ABQ peeps, this is what the Arts Hub is all about:

Arts Hub’s purpose is to unleash the power of the arts as a tool to engage the community, create solutions to urgent issues, and drive the creative economy.

The arts are a thriving part of Albuquerque’s culture and community, but artists continue to face barriers to work in this city. Besides a thriving arts community, sustainable artistic creation has an added benefit: it also sustains a class of creative problem solvers. Art is a powerful tool to engage community members and catalyze positive social change.

Consider applying for a fellowship next time around. It’s been truly edifying and a great way to make new connections, particularly outside of the fiber arts world. We’ve got two more meetings. Business plans are up next week!

Hooked vessel — First of the hooked vessels. All kinds of fibers on monk’s cloth.

So, while I’ve been mostly lying low, there have been bursts of activity the last seven weeks. But the best is tomorrow! Tomorrow morning at 10:40, the cast comes off! Yes, I’ve definitely been counting down. Seven weeks of dragging a cast around when you’re almost 60 is definitely a different animal than when you do it in your 20s. (Then it was a broken wrist.) My whole body is out of alignment despite doing yoga since after the first week (okay, with a butt-load of modifications).

After tomorrow comes the rebuilding. There will be physical therapy, for sure. Bowyn and I are both bursting to get back to our regular miles-long walks in the Bosque. But I know I can’t push it for a while. If the surgery didn’t work or I mess it up in the coming months due to unnecessary roughness (sorry, Tom’s watching the NFL draft behind me, and I do have my Patriots cap on), I’m looking at an ankle replacement. Collective shudder!

But enough about that, tomorrow is all about the giddiness of losing a couple of pounds of fiberglass and walking on two legs, albeit in a boot. And getting a pedicure! I’m planning on the giddiness freedom can bring me. Oh, and Tom taking me out to celebrate after I make my toes ~~human~~ pretty again.

Stitching project — Current stitched vessel project. This one is cottons rather than wools.

Yes, it’s been a long seven weeks, but now I can start looking to the future. The Patriots will draft an excellent quarterback, and, along with a new coach, we have a new lease on life… I digress. Nah, really, I’m looking forward to getting back to my walking and hiking with Bowyn, especially now that he’s an only dog… I’m having fun with this vessel phase I find myself in… I’m loving where teaching has been taking me. Colorado this month, Convergence in Wichita in July. (FYI – class is almost full!) And more to come! Keep an eye on our calendar and social media.

Going along, collaborations are on my mind. I love the hooking community, but there’s an even bigger fiber arts and mixed media arts community(s) out there. Given all the issues challenging our shared world these days, I think it’ll take everyone jumping in together to get messages out and find solutions. It’s time to mix it up and work out of the box.

Also taking up my time – planning for In the Studio Online’s Workshop Week 2025. You’re hearing it here first; we’ve decided on the dates: February 6-16. So, mark it in your calendars and keep an eye out here and on our shared social media for details. For info about WW2024, see HERE.

Rug hooking project — Finally, got a piece drawn and started to hook, so we do have a WHAT’S ON THE FRAME. Wool fabrics and yarns, repurposed textiles on monk’s cloth.

I give my sincere and profound THANKS to all of you who have kept my spirits up these seven weeks. To those who expressed their dismay and sympathy when we lost Tynan, especially Kay. To my students who had to deal with my wheeling about the classroom rather than easily moving back and forth to help. THANK YOU! And I’ll toast everyone of you tomorrow while I’m out celebrating. You all have a great weekend too!

April 5, 2023

Yearlong Environmental Stitching Project

Celebrating Earth Month with the Yearlong Environmental Stitching Project!

As many know, a main focus in my artwork, particularly hooking, is to bring attention to the state of our shared environment. Globally, locally too, it’s not in great shape. Between crazy-ass storms, drought, rising temperatures, air and water pollution, too much trash and waste, etc., etc., we’re suffocating ourselves and other forms of life here on earth. (Though I understand that cockroaches and kudzu are still doing quite well.)

If you’re reading this, I won’t bother preaching to the choir. You’re already aware of the problems. And you’ve probably heard me pontificate or at least share various posts on my social media. A note, my initial career was in environmental regulatory management for industry. I’ve had plenty of time to think about what we put in and on this planet of ours.

Honey bee - Yearlong Environmental Stitching Project — On January 14 I stitched about how the US Department of Agriculture approved the first ever vaccine to prevent the bacterial disease that destroys honey bee colonies. This is GOOD NEWS!

More than wool, I create hooked art using different types of old textiles that I find in Savers (my local thrift store) and am gifted. They can include old t-shirts and other clothing, curtains and bedsheets, and so on. It makes me feel good to tell people what the art they’re fondling is made of. Kids especially love to see and touch recycled t-shirt rugs.

In 2020, I spent the WHOLE YEAR hooking and stitching the Ribbon Rug Journal (RRJ). Not familiar with it? You can read about it HERE. Given the nature of 2020, I had plenty of time to sit down every single night to log in that day’s entry. Still I was psyched that I made it to December 31. And really ready to move on from the project given the time and energy it took. It’s since been the subject of an article I wrote for Rug Hooking Magazine and hung in two exhibits.

Fast forward to late 2022. Surprisingly, I was itching for another yearlong endeavor, preferably something with meaning from the get-go. (When I started the RRJ, I had no idea that 2020 would be the “special” year that it became.) I wasn’t looking to hook something every day; that’s what my regular projects are for. Besides, Tom begged me not to have to work on something every night. So, I pondered…

Brown widow spider - Yearlong Environmental Stitching Project — On March 13, I started the Brown Widow Spider after reading about how the aggressive Browns are “slaughtering” the more docile Blacks (spiders!) in the US Southwest and South. Then they eat them! Meanwhile the Black Widows are expanding their range northward, even into Ontario and Quebec.

Meanwhile, like most everyone else, during 2020 and 2021, I took online classes and became more interested specifically in hand-stitching. In fact, I incorporated stitching into the RRJ because some things, like letters, were easier to do on the burlap ribbon than hooking. I made a Kawandi quilt and was pretty proud of myself. I also did more sketching with the likes of Sketchbook Revival.

I’m not interested in fine drawing or fussy embroidery, but something more basic. To share a thought, make a memory, the stuff of journaling.

Last year too, while on a hunting trip to Savers, I came across a large, linen curtain panel from Ikea. It’s a beautiful, pale green. Come the end of the year, it was just sitting there, waiting for me to formulate an idea. Which I finally did. The color is a great earth color. And I kept seeing and reading more and more environmental stories. Ah ha! I decided on the Yearlong Environmental Stitching Project (YESP): I’d stitch using an environmental theme throughout 2023.

Safety was derailed along with the train in Palestine, Ohio, in February. — After the Norfolk Southern train derailed in Ohio in February, we learned more about how the last administration dismantled railroad safety rules. as the railroads requested. This accident and subsequent environmental and health disaster didn’t have to happen.

I’m still not enthused by the title so that might change. And to avoid burnout – my own and the husband’s – I don’t work on it every day. In fact, throughout Sketchbook Revival 2023, the whole thing has sat on the dining room table. Really, it could also be a tablecloth; it’s big enough! As I scan the newspaper and news online each day, I collect stories. Some are pretty horrific, I’m not going to lie. Like the recent report from the UN about humanity’s closing window of opportunity to affect climate change, that our current investment and funding for adaptation to that change are completely insufficient, especially in and for developing countries. Never mind that the US electrical grid is heading for a total meltdown. But there’s good news too. Biden created two new national monuments here in the Southwest. Then there’s the woman in Britain who got so fed up with her town’s lack of recycling that she decoded to take care of it herself. And all kinds of folks joined her. I need those kinds of stories; otherwise the whole project would depress the crap out of me.

I keep all the stories in a file folder and pull one out when I’m ready for a new entry. Having learned from the RRJ, once I finish a stitching, I record it and pertinent info in a written journal. I photograph it too. That way, in January, I won’t wonder what the hell I stitched. Also, the only thing I can purchase for this project is embroidery floss. Everything else has to come from what I already have or am given.

While this won’t be quite as entertaining as the nightly RRJ postings were, I hope that you join me on this yearlong journey. Hey, it’s less than nine months now. Somehow busy-ness and my own winter inertia kept me from getting this all written up, though I have been posting on my Instagram and Facebook accounts all along. Sadly, it’s a constant fight against the cult of busy-ness in this culture. Even when your kids have left home and you don’t have a regular paying job. Also my ability to multitask isn’t as honed as it used to be. (Thank goodness!)

Toadzilla - Yearlong Environmental Stitching Project — Toadzilla, the fierce, burly Cane toad from Australia. He was 6 pounds, the biggest Cane toad ever found! I’ll let you Google him to see why he was in the news in mid-February. This is his outline. I still haven’t finished filling him in. It’s a good lesson to me to sketch more, color and detail less.

How do you cope with climate change and all that the environment’s throwing at us these days? Any good plans for Earth Day?

December 30, 2022

Here’s to a maker’s 2023!

2023 is right around the corner!

Hooked art: FIRE WORKS — Happy 2023! FIREWORKS (repurposed t-shirts and sparkly ribbon on monk’s cloth)

My plan for this week between Christmas and the New Year has been to do the things I WANT to do rather than HAVE to do. (The last couple of months planning Workshop Week 6 and handling some other things – like LIFE – were exhausting.) Things I wanted to do include the usual end of the year review and, more importantly, making plans for the coming 2023.

Gotta say I’ve been a little lazy on all accounts. Also, the final holiday rush took its toll physically. I’ve been mostly lying low the past few days: started a novel, doing Sudokus, and working on a new hooking project. Going through my piles and drawers and closets to organize and dispossess hasn’t happened. Yet. I still have a couple of days, especially given that it’s a long weekend. Watch for that ANGEL OF 2023! She’s a little late this year, but she’ll make an appearance by January 1.

I didn’t feel up to a detailed post mortem on 2022. Sadly, the end of the year brought with it a flurry of deaths in my little part of the universe. Nonetheless, like everyone, my 2022 brought some downers and some nice pluses. Teaching in Tennessee at the Shakerag Workshops was right up there. If you have a chance to participate – as a teacher or a student – I highly recommend the experience. A couple of articles I wrote were published in Rug Hooking Magazine. There were art shows and festivals here in Albuquerque and in Other Places, New Mexico. In the fall I made it out to Seattle to visit the kid. With a little luck, Tom and Bowyn, and I will make a road trip there in 2023.

What about the coming year? In 2023, I’d really like more time to myself, time to explore my making. Certainly, I look forward to teaching and sharing how others can get in on this calling of rug hooking and other fiber arts, but I need to carve out time for myself to sit in one place and ponder and experiment without distraction. I find it really easy to administer, to volunteer, to vacuum (ew!), to do anything but make the things I’ve seen in my imagination. Busy-ness, a need to feel needed, and the concomitant exhaustion – they can kill an art practice. I see it in others, and all it leads to is regret.

Hooked art/rug — What I’m losing myself in tonight. NO NAME as of yet (repurposed t-shirts on monk’s cloth)

So, my big goal in 2023 is: SOLITUDE. Not that I plan on blowing anyone off. I’m a très social being who has a hard time saying NO. But it’s time for a little me-time. (Being Catholic and Irish, I know I’ll apologize for that all year.)

My New Year’s wish is that you too carve out some solitude for yourself and your art, your gaming, your reading, whatever it is that you can lose yourself in. Happy 2023!

November 3, 2022

Annual High Desert Studio Tour

Poster for High Desert Studio Tour

…and just in case you can’t make the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival on November 19, High on Hooking will also be participating in the 12th Annual High Desert Studio Tour. Of course, you can come to both. In fact, you should.

For the past several years, New Mexican hand-dyer and knitter extraordinaire, Dagmar Beinenz-Byrd of ZiaWoolz has generously invited me to join her at her home and studio for the High Desert Studio Tour (click to download the brochure). We won’t talk about the past couple of years that Covid screwed us out of such things. It’s an intimate venue rather than one filled with all kinds of vendors and activities, allowing one the chance to get in some good conversations with makers, letting you learn more about my work as well as Dagmar’s. In addition, Sarah Lovell of Southwest Sunflower Pottery will have all kinds of things that you didn’t even realize you need. (I know. I have some, LOL.)

To be sure, there are other arts and artists on the tour. They include painters, sculptors, jewelers and more spread out over seven different studios. More info is available in the brochure. And, certainly, if you have any questions, please email me at Laura@highonhooking.com.

Mugs by Sarah Lovell — Her Rio Grande mugs provide just a taste of Sarah’s pottery.

If you’re looking to find holiday gifts for family and friends (and yourself!), please come see us at the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival in November AND at the High Desert Studio Tour in December.

November 2, 2022

New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival – Nov. 19

The New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival:

It’s a brand new holiday market, and High on Hooking is participating. The festival is local – here in Albuquerque, and it’s free! The parking too!

The Art of Gifting: New MExico Arts & Crafts Festival

WHAT’S INCLUDED:

More than 80 unique artists and vendors from the area – perfect for buying holiday gifts for friends and family (and yourself, of course).
Live entertainment.
Food trucks!
Workshops and demos like knitting and crocheting, belly dancing, and free-motion quilting. Kids can make their own crafty gifts too.

WHAT YOU’LL FIND IN HIGH ON HOOKING’S BOOTH:

Fabulous hand-hooked art in the form of rugs, bench covers, table runners, wall hangings, and so on.
Tynan bids you all a WONDERFUL FALL and we hope to see you at the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival November 19. This hooked art would look marvelous in your house on Thanksgiving!

Hand-dyed yarn.
Oxford punch needles.
info regarding hooking/pinching classes and the Adobe Wool Arts Guild, NM’s only hooking guild.

More information HERE.

So get thee to the UNM Continuing Education Conference Center at 1634 University Blvd. NE, on Saturday, November 19. Mention High on Hooking’s blog or other social media and get 10% off anything we’re offering.

PS – See our CALENDAR page to keep up to date on where you’ll find High on Hooking.

Hope to see you in a couple of weeks at the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival!