Happy Fourth of July!
Category: Albuquerque
Cool da Vinci stuff on a HOT day
The last two weeks of June tend to be the hottest of the summer here in Albuquerque, so Tom and I headed off to the very much air conditioned Museum of Natural History here in town. It was more of a targeted visit; a Leonardo DaVinci show has been ensconced there since February. It’ll be gone by next month, so we saddled up the Accord and headed into Old Town. Thought I’d share a few pics with you, then you won’t have to go yourselves. While it was a nice exhibit and contained a fair bit of info on Leonardo, it wasn’t worth the $22 per person ($20 for seniors!). Maybe if there had been his actual paintings and such rather than digital copies, etc. Still, inspiration and stories were everywhere!
Because our tickets included it, after perusing the da Vinci exhibit, we thought we’d hang in the planetarium for awhile. One piece of advice in case you happen to catch a show: Bring a parka! Don’t care that it was 98 degrees outside. In the planetarium it was January in Minnesota!
The reality is that this week’s going to be even warmer than last week. Hooh, boy. Guess that means I’ll stay in and hook. What a hardship. Oh, well, there are shows to apply to. And I’ll be loading up the Etsy shop with more goodies too, especially as…I finally sold my first rug there! Woohoo!
Start your engines: It’s the New Mexico Fiber Crawl!
Just stopping in for a brief update as I’m not feeling so well today. If you’re a local or coming to visit New Mexico (as you should, it’s a kick-ass place!) soon – as in this weekend – you simply must travel at least a bit on the 2nd annual New Mexico Fiber Crawl. It runs Friday through Sunday. Download your passport (and maps) and head for your vehicle. As I mentioned last week, Kathy Kelly and I will be vending and demonstrating at Casa San Ysidro in Coralles. We hope to see at least one or eight of you. Maybe margaritas afterwards???
So, say your big New Mexican adventure has you here the week AFTER the New Mexico Fiber Crawl. No worries! Come visit High on Hooking during our first Sunday at Albuquerque’s 2018 Rail Yard Market. There you’ll find…us!, yummy food, music, farm-fresh produce, and other artists selling their wares. What? Your dog is with you? No problem! Dogs are always welcome. Come get a doggie biscuit at the High on Hooking booth. Remember: Dogs love rugs!!!
Fiber arts eye-candy from the “Water” show
Admit it – you’ve been waiting to see some eye-candy ever since I mentioned the various shows I’ve had work in.
April and May are busy, busy months for Albuquerque’s fiber arts scene this year. We started with the “Earth, Wind, and Fiber” show put on by the Fiber Arts Council. Then a few of us participated in the “Recycled Arts Festival” and “Cinco de Mayo Folk Arts Fest.” If that’s not enough, the fiber arts show “Water” is running at the Open Space Visitors’ Center lobby on Coors Boulevard. It started April 28 and continues through June 3. Concurrently, “Remembering Water” is being shown in the main gallery. Works by two artists, Linda Rael and K.M. White, populate that show. Meanwhile, preparations are being made throughout the central and northern parts of the state for the second annual New Mexico Fiber Arts Crawl. Cathy Kelly and I will take part in that as demonstrators/vendors that weekend – May 18-20 – at Casa San Ysidro in nearby Corrales. Maybe you can stop by???
For now, though, enjoy the aforementioned eye-candy from the Water shows.
When you finally meet a rug-hooking Facebook friend
So, Saturday dawned bright and COLD – about 35 degrees. At least the windstorm had passed.(If you’re from New Mexico, you know that spring goes by another name here: wind.) Tom and I toodled down the road a couple of miles to Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitors’ Center to participate in the Recycled Art Fair.
Got the tent up and all the rugs and such in place by 10:00’s opening. People were already showing up looking to score good stuff made from other folks’ waste. Music was playing. It was gonna be a great weekend. Certainly better than last year when it snowed and rained and winded the first day. All I had to do was wait for the customers to come to me.
And they did. To see what I was working on. I like to hook when I do shows. For one thing, it draws people in either to 1) figure out what the hell I’m doing or 2) tell me a story how they (or their mother/father/grandparent) used to hook. And, of course, there are the latch hook tales, but we’ll skip over that today. Fortunately, I love to chat up folks and to spread the hooking gospel, so no problem there.
The problem was that no one was buying.
And then, suddenly, none of that mattered. A woman approached my tent; I was in my camp chair working away muttering trash talk about people who weren’t buying my trash-to-treasures. She says, “Laura?” I respond affirmatively, pleasantly even, because I have to I’m that kind of person. And then she tells me who she is: Amy Buesing of Las Cruces!
If you don’t know Amy, and I know many of you do, she’s a member of my guild but can’t make the monthly meetings given the five-hour drive between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. I’m pretty sure that she and I became Facebook friends before I left Massachusetts and even knew there was such a thing as the Adobe Wool Arts Guild. We bonded over family matters and such. Last October she and Mary Ramsey, our guild president, roomed together at the ATHA Biennial. Neither had met the other, but hookers are game for that kind of thing. Mary told me that Amy and I would hit it off when we finally met.
Here’s the thing, I thought that would be in September when Sharon Smith of Off the Wool Rugs comes to give a workshop. But Amy surprised me. She was in town and, knowing that I had a show, she made time before driving home to come meet me. I was touched. So touched
and discombobulated that, when she bought one of my rugs, I 1) almost didn’t give her her $10 of change and 2) sent her home with a mug that didn’t match the double mug rug that she bought. Duh! I’ll get the right one out to you later this week, Amy!
Not only did I get to chat with Amy and her friend/travel buddy Michele, but she must’ve brought some good luck for me too. I managed to sell a few rugs the next day, including the sunflower table runner/wall-hanging I just finished. And then I was invited by the fair’s organizers to participate in their Cinco de Mayo Folk Art Fest on May 5 here in town. Woohoo! And all because of Amy. Cathy Kelly, also of AWAG and general hooking fame, will be doing that one with me. Come visit us!
Have you met any Facebook folks years after friending them? Heaven or a horror story?
