Category: alternative fibers

January 25, 2025

Portraits in 2025

While 2024 was a year for making fiber vessels, 2025 is quickly turning into the Year of Fiber Art Portraits!

By the way, if you’re new here, welcome. This isn’t just the first post of 2025, it’s the first post I’ve made in six months! I’ll try to be better, but to see what I’m up to on a daily basis, see my Instagram page. (For now; that could change, but I’ll let you know.)

Stitched portrait — Mid-project: Stitching up my mom.

Back to the portraits at hand. Last year, the Adobe Wool Arts Guild here in Albuquerque, began planning to host a 3-day workshop with Tammy Pavich for 2025. If you’re a hooker, you probably know of her. My favorite book of hers is HERE. We’re in the midst of full-out planning for the class right now, in fact, as it’ll happen in March. The topic? Impressionistic portraits. I’m still debating what to do: Bowyn? Tom? A selfie? Gotta get my sh*t together and let her know ASAP!

Meanwhile, In the Studio Online’s Workshop Week 2025 looms in less than two weeks from today. Yay! While I’m not teaching a class this year, I am the administrator of the school. Yes, there’s still plenty of work ahead of me making sure it all goes well. And, yes, there’s still time for you to register. Find the info HERE. As administrator, I can attend the classes and talks. Guess what Wendie Scott-Davis, instructor extraordinaire, is teaching? How about Creating a Value-Based Portrait from a Photograph. Yep, another hooked portrait! Again, to feature Tom or the dog???

BTW, Wendie’s opened a second session of that initially sold-out class for Saturday, March 8. Again, see the link above.

A couple of weeks ago, TextileArtist ran a free online workshop. I try to avail myself to all of their free classes when they happen. They’re that good. In fact, if I had more time and wasn’t soooo into rug hooking, I’d join their Stitch Club in a heartbeat. But I digress. The free workshop: Get Started with Stitched Portraits with Susie Vickery. Yep, more portraits, albeit stitched, not hooked. While I haven’t finished that project yet, I decided to do my mother. Sadly, she’s falling further into aphasia and frontotemporal dementia. I’m trying to grab what I can of her now. But it’s hard with her living back east in Connecticut and me here in the desert.

Lest you think I couldn’t find any more portraiture opportunities, you would be wrong. Most mornings I do yoga and various forms of PT (that ankle reconstruction last year really did a number on my whole lower body) to YouTube before I ever leave my bedroom. Want to know what showed up in my feed four days ago? The ladies of the Expressive Stitch Collective: Liz Bessel and Hayley Perry. If you haven’t tuned into them, you really should.

Hooked art, "Bowyn's Mule" — “Bowyn’s Mule” was hooked and sold last year. (21.5″x12″; hooked with repurposed textiles and wools on Scottish burlap)

While both are accomplished artists and teachers, they like to try new things and invite us to go along with them. Find their YouTube channel HERE. BTW, Hayley’s taught for In the Studio Online before and Liz will be participating in WW2025!

Anywho, the Expressive Stitch Collective is just beginning their first challenge of the year. Wild guess on what it is? Selfies! In your fiber art medium of choice. So, there’s that now too.

I’ve done animal portraits before but haven’t had the opportunity of a human face thrust upon me. Or even come up. Looks like the art gods are making up for that. It’s gonna be a longggg 2025 (for so many reasons, really). Portraits demand more of your time and attention. There’s choosing a medium, a style, drawing the face, colors, textures, backgrounds… The list goes on and on. At least I’ll be distracted this year. You can’t watch the news while you’re concentrating on getting someone’s face just right. Especially if it’s someone you know and love.

Hooked or stitched a portrait yet? Maybe we can show it off in the next post.

July 5, 2024

Convergence, here we come!

Convergence poster

Are you going to be at Convergence* next week? I hope so, and I also hope that you drop by my classroom to say hi. No, at this moment, I have no idea where my classroom might be. As a Convergence newbie, I’m taking it one day at a time.

While I’m clueless about my class location on Saturday (July 13), I do know that Friday I’ll be at the Marketplace entrance volunteering from 1:30-3:30. (After that, I’ll most likely be IN the Marketplace. Don’t tell Tom. Hopefully, he’ll be napping in our room then.)

At some point we’ll both head to the exhibits (and probably the Marketplace again). I’ve got a piece in the Leaders Exhibit. Very exciting!

Hand-hooked purse — “Seasons Change” can be found in the Leaders Exhibit at Convergence. (Instructors are referred to as “leaders.”) She’s hooked with wools and repurposed textiles.

Beyond that, there are no plans. Of course, I’ll be taking notes and lots of photos. Keep an eye on my Instagram; I’ll post if I get the chance. A full report will follow here. 🙂

If you’re into fiber arts at all, I hope to see you in Wichita next week!

*More on Convergence. HERE and HERE.

March 4, 2024

Stories Are Made Loop By Loop

HOLES to be part of STORIES ARE MADE LOOP BY LOOP, curated by Susan Feller

Stories Are Made Loop By Loop is all about contemporary rug hooking being done with fabric, yarn, and plastic and how an “old” technique is still being used to tell stories and for self expression. Susan premiered the exhibit last year in Virginia. A few months ago, I shipped Holes (hooked in 2020) to Susan in West Virginia, so it could join in at this traveling show’s second stop.

Hooked art — “Holes,” 68″ x 33″, monk’s cloth hooked with recycled textiles and silk sari ribbon. See her in Stories Are Made Loop By Loop in WV.

This Friday, March 8, the exhibit opens at the Juliet Art Museum, part of the Clay Center in Charleston, West Virginia. Participating artists include: Cheryl Bollenbach, Meryl Cook, Susan Feller, Elizabeth Miller, Karen D Miller, Domenica Zara Queen, Terri Todd, By Jane’s Daughter, UnitingUs, Grue Shackleford, and Laura Salamy. See the artists’ social media accounts to see their stories and ongoing creative journeys. More information about the artists can also be found HERE.

If you’re like me and can’t get to Charleston, Susan has generously made the catalog available HERE. Topics taken up in the various pieces of art include: healing; cancer and mental health issues; motherhood and how it changes a woman; homelessness and addiction; environmental destruction and loss of natural resources; one’s sense of identity and finding a voice; and veterans’ advocacy.

Like many fiber arts, rug hooking is enjoying a bit of a renaissance, with artists applying more modern sensibilities and trying to bring attention to today’s social causes and passions. See the show, peruse the catalog, and observe how we’re all taking an old art form and using new/old techniques and materials to tell our stories. But like the artists who came before us, we’re still appreciating the colors and textures of this slow, meditative form of loop-making.

April 30, 2023

In-Person Class May 20!

In-Person Workshop May 20, at EVFAC/NMFAC!

If you live in central or northern New Mexico or will be visiting later in May, and you’ve wanted to learn to rug hooking, now is your chance! I’ll be running a class up in Española at the Fiber Arts Center on May 20, 1:00-5:00 PM. Registration info can be found HERE. Any questions, please give me a yell at Laura@highonhooking.com.

Hope to see you there. I promise that we’ll have a truly excellent time hooking rugs and saving the environment!

November 23, 2022

The Art of Motherhood

We’re all affected in some way by motherhood…

Book cover: The Art of Motherhood: Our Lives in Colour and Shadow

I know I’m late to the party congratulating Karen Miller of Ontario on the release of her new book The Art of Mothering: Our Lives in Colour and Shadow, but I will NOT be the last, I guarantee you.

Karen’s book, published by Rug Hooking Magazine, came out in October. I think I received my copy in early November. Unfortunately, I’ve been très busy the past month, so I’ve only been able to scan through it thus far, but with the holidays almost here, I’m hoping to sit down soon and pore over it – no interruptions!

It’s a beautiful book, certainly, filled with all kinds of art. It’s vivid and colorful as it shines a light on how female artists have dealt with not just the topic of motherhood, but its actuality.

From the back cover:

Motherhood has been the richest experience of Karen Miller’s life. It has also inescapably changed her life trajectory: her career path, her energy levels, her commitments, her time, her marriage. It has affected everything. Join Karen as she and 21 contributing artists lift the lid on motherhood and peer inside to examine the reality of their lives through textile arts.

The Art of Motherhood: Our Lives in Colour and Shadow illuminates the feelings that so few of us talk about – but so many of us feel – as we navigate the journey that is motherhood.

Karen’s known for a long time that being a mother hasn’t always been the best of experiences for me, so when she asked me to contribute to the book, I jumped at the chance. It’s always stuck up my craw sideways that women rarely feel comfortable being honest about motherhood and what it does to us. Even in a group of just women! How dare we speak up about not feeling quite like the Madonna and her perfect Child. News flash: I’m no Madonna and it took a lot of alcohol to get through my only kid’s high school years. (Those years made the previous 14 look like an f-ing picnic.) But after fertility problems and two miscarriages over two years, no one wanted a kid as much as I did. And I have no regrets. (Most of the time.)

That’s the kind of candid crap you’ll find in this book though in a much more eloquent form, LOL. And LOTS OF FIBER ART, hooked and otherwise. If you’re a mom or know a mom or ever had a mom, get thee online to order this book. It’d make a kick-ass and thoughtful Christmas or other type of gift. I promise. You can order from RHM HERE. If you’re in Canada, contact Karen through her website.

PS- Not all moms are biologic. And mother figures count as moms.

FYI-
Below is a list of the Instagram handles of all the artists who, in some way affected by motherhood, contributed work to Karen’s truly excellent book. Check out their work.

Karen Miller: @karendmillerstudio
Nadine Flagel: @pretextstudio
Meryl Cook: @merylcook
Laura Salamy: @highonhooking
Emily van Lidth de Jeude: @emilyvanartist
Jane Smith: @blogginthebay
April Deconick: @aprildeconickart
Linda Friedman Schmidt: @lindafriedmanschmidt
Rachelle Leblanc: @rachelle_leblanc_art
Trish Johnson: @trshjhnsn
Patti Colen: @woollycronedesigns
Alexandrya Eaton: @alexandryaeaton
Michelle Kingdom: @michelle.kingdom
Carmen Bohn: @carmenbohn_art
Elizabeth Miller: @northatlanticfiberarts
Ellen Skea Marshall: @twocatsanddoghooking
Amy Meissner: @amymeissnerartist
Michele Micarelli: @michelepmicarelli
Linda Rae Coughlin: @lindarae_coughlin
Sayward Johnson: @saywardjohnson
Lori Laberge: @lorilabergeart
Karen Larsen: I don’t believe Karen is on Ig but she is on fb

And to everyone in the US, mother or not,

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!