Want to learn a new skill and recycle some old stuff at the same time? We’ll be doing just that in my workshop “Hook a Rug, Save the Planet.”
November 2, 2019 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Learn the basics of traditional rug hooking but with a twist – using old t-shirts, recycled wool strips, yarn, ribbon, and anything else you have in the house that you can pull a loop with. We’ll talk about “virgin” fibers, certainly, but we’ll do our part for the environment and save some money while we make something beautiful. During the class, you’ll learn how to:
• transfer a pattern onto a monk’s cloth backing;
• prepare your materials;
• begin hooking a mug rug and table “mat” or wall-hanging.
Laura Salamy will present “Hook a Rug, Save the Planet” workshop November 2.
We’ll discuss various ways you might want to finish your rug after all the hooking is done. *No experience is necessary; just come prepared to play with color and textures!
Rug hooked using recycled t-shirts.
Material students should provide: good scissors and quilting hoop if you have one. If not EVFAC will provide a 12” hoop for use in this class (available for purchase)
Material instructor will provide: Monk’s cloth backing; hooks; rug binding; extra frames to try; thread/needles; hooking materials
Laura is an experienced, albeit “less-than-traditional” rug hooker who owns a business, High on Hooking (www.highonhooking.com), selling hooked items primarily in local shows and on Etsy. She’s lived in Albuquerque for over four years, leaving gray New England for the Southwest’s sunny, open skies. In 2018, she was elected President of the Adobe Wool Arts Guild (AWAG), New Mexico’s only rug hooking guild.
This class requires a minimum of three students.
Non-Member: $80 (Member $65)
Materials Fee: $15 Materials fee is paid at first class meeting.
Who would’ve thunk that a t-shirt artist would be featured in a nearby gallery? Thanks to friend and guild-mate Nancy, I thunk thought it and was able to see the exhibit before it closes come March 23. Thanks so much, Nancy!
If you’re interested in fiber art at all and are near Santa Fe before March 23, I urge you to take an hour or so and head to form & concept, a gallery you can easily find on South Guadalupe Street in the Railyard District. Warning: You’re gonna love the gallery and will need more time.
The t-shirt artist in question is Nika Feldman. BTW, she not only considers herself to be a fiber artist, but a rag picker as well. Bless her heart; I know where she’s coming from. (Have you seen my rugs hooked out of recycled t-shirts? Bed sheets?) I had a great time looking at the various pieces, which are made of recycled t-shirts, pop tabs, and embroidery (which she’s very good at).
Here is an example of one of Feldman’s t-shirt pieces: “Hooded Cape.” (Photo courtesy of form & concept Gallery.) Yes, it’s comprised of nothing but old t-shirts, pull tabs, and stitchery!
While Feldman calls t-shirts the most ubiquitous – and cheapest – universal clothing made by Western culture, and that’s true, I’m not sure that I agree with her that the shirts are always recognizable even when cut up and taken apart. I know that I regularly have to tell folks that many of my rugs are hooked from old t-shirts. And the disbelief that they mouth. Granted, my strips are looped; some of hers hang free. Still, given what Feldman does with hers… The embellishments, especially when one sees her prowess with a needle and thread, are fantastic.
I fully concur with her message and only wish that I could state what I’m trying to do with my own art so succinctly:
The message…she said, has to do with modern North America’s mass production systems.
“It’s disposability, it’s like how we can make life more convenient, and more convenient, and more convenient?” she said of the narratives that this continent’s clothing conveys. “It comes at an unsustainable cost to the Earth.”
Fast fashion that often falls apart – have you ever wondered why that trendy tank top developed a hole after only one wash? – is a big part of the fashion industry’s unsustainability. That and our culture’s fickle fashion sense are why Feldman and I can both find so many t-shirts to use in our artwork. Savers, Goodwill, friends and relatives can supply us with all we need.
The pieces in the exhibit are “garment-like” rather than actual garments. This, according to Feldman, allows us to look deeper at them and to see them as art rather than just wearable fashion to be purchased and then put on. (For how long?) Indeed, she spent time in the fashion industry earlier in her career(s). I find that an interesting idea especially since my own goal when hooking a rug with t-shirts and other recycled materials is that it also be usable – as a rug, a table runner, or what-have-you. Regardless, I very much enjoyed looking at Feldman’s art, and I encourage you to make a run to Santa Fe before it disappears.
The exhibit by Nike Feldman is called Spirits in the Material World. It’s at form & concept on South Guadalupe in Santa Fe till March 23.
“I was so into fiber, because of its comforting and protective qualities, but at the same time it is a medium associated with struggle and women’s work,” she says. “Then I got into the whole concept of felt, because it’s incredibly strong but it presents in this soft, vulnerable way.” The artist’s mastery of the medium and her emotional language-building express the deeply personal in a way that holds broader relevance to humanity, voicing ideas about growth, human connection and personhood.
Española Valley Fiber Arts Center in…Española, New Mexico. A place filled with fiber. Visit and you’re sure to have a fiberific time. My rugs will spend February in the window on the left.
Good news! How often do we get to yell that? Actually, it’s news I wasn’t ready to share last week, but after hanging out at the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC) for awhile today (and shopping, of course), I can reveal: I’m the center’s “Artist of the Month” in February. Yes, really!
The “Artist” will have their fiber creations filling up one of the big windows at the front of the building. And available for sale. EVFAC’s just starting the new program this year. They announced it in the January newsletter and asked members to apply. On a lark, I did just that. I mentioned though, because I vend during much of the year, a winter month would be good. They got back to me right quick and offered February. Woohoo!
Yes, I accepted.
Need colorful wool yarns? EVFAC’s your place.
Today the High on Hooking helpers – Tom and Tynan – and I took the hour-and-a-half drive up to Española (a half-hour north of Santa Fe) so that I could talk logistics. Then…they asked me to teach an introductory class during the month. And give a little talk. Alrighty! It actually won’t be the first class I’ve taught there. A talk though…
So, that’s my good news. If you’re local and have thought that maybe you’d like to give rug hooking a whirl, this is a great opportunity. The class will be Saturday, February 16, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. We’ll lunch at the table while we hook. After that, we’ll talk more hooking. We’ll have plenty to chat about as it’s still not that well known in these parts – the Southwest – where weaving traditionally dominates. But we’re making great strides, people!
Do you have any good news? 2019 is starting strong here at High on Hooking, and I already have a l-o-n-g queue of rugs just waiting to be hooked. (Truthfully, this is somewhat daunting…) It will be the year of many rugs. And many rug events. Share yours here!
Tynan’s providing your last look at the ENTIRE “Big Boucherouite” until it’s done. No worries, I’ll still share bits and pieces each week and on Instagram/Facebook. Let me tell you how heavy it’s getting! BTW, isn’t Tynan looking handsome with his new haircut?
Back to Bordeaux for another week and talking cool statues and sculpture.
Whether you hook rugs or draw or paint or in any way create “stuff,” you’re always on the lookout for other art that just might provide you with some inspiration. At least you should be. In theory. And given that we’re all carrying automatic copying machines around with us (in the form of our phones), there’s really no excuse for not making “graven images” of the things that call to us.
Okay, I admit that I often forget to jot down the artist info or even the name of some of the artworks I see when I’m out and about, but not in a museum or gallery with an identification sign conveniently placed near the object. I had to Google “large head sculpture in Bordeaux” to find out the info above. Enjoy!
That first night walking about the city, we came across the “Monument aux Girondins,” a monument/fountain created to memorialize the local heroes of the French Revolution. The various scenes portrayed seemed almost real in the dark and jet lag after traveling so many hours to get there.
Look at me pondering on how we shall take down that aristocracy and eat their cake.Why, yes, I do see you pondering what this will mean for our future. Do you think that their wardrobes will contain something we can wear? I mean, better than these bedsheets.
I am a mighty steed and have no need for stupid clothing. I am afraid, however, that I have caught a serious head cold.
Forget the Revolution! I fear that we’ve stumbled onto the set of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Save us, Johnny Depp!
Sorry, sorry! It was the jet lag like I said.
Meanwhile back to real life. These guys were in l’Eglise Collegiale de Saint-Emilion. It’s still a working church though not a monastery any more. Interesting fact we learned: Sincethe Revolution, the Catholic Church no longer owns any of the churches and other buildings in France. It only uses and administers them. Because of such dwindling attendance at Masses in the last decades, the churches do not receive much in the way of collections and support for these marvelous buildings. It’s up to the cities and government to take care of them. It also explains why you can roam at will through them; they are truly tourist sites.
These guys were in the Eglise Collegiale de Saint-Emilion. Never saw anything like them in any of the Catholic churches that I’ve belonged to.
And then there were the carvings in the wall of a wine cellar beneath the medieval village of Saint-Emilion. Who knows when they happened or who made them?
Mon faux-pas! My bad! I neglected to write down the name of the winery who owns this most excellent cellar.
Oops! Sorry about that, Tom. You’re definitely NOT one of the statues, especially carrying those two bottles of wine we purchased.
Okay, this is my most favorite image of the whole trip. I’m assuming it’s Dionysus. I will hook this rug! And I promise that purple will fit in with him somehow.It is all about the grapes in Bordeaux. This is a BIG flower pot.I shall peel these grapes for you, mon cher. Mais bien sûr, we must have another glass of wine.
Okay, okay, I’ll stop now. Instead we’ll leave the statues and the trip behind for this week and head back into reality…
Tynan brings you this week’s “what’s on the frame.” Hm, looks very primitive doesn’t it? Not like what I usually hook. And yet, and yet… More next week!
This scary individual is actually a copy of just one of da Vinci’s scuba suits. In 2003, some chick named Jacquie Cozens actually attempted a dive in a similar suit. Apparently, she had “limited success,” whatever that means.
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!
“La Bella Principessa” was a nice, little portrait. It appears that this baby was holed up in someone’s cellar or collection for centuries before anyone thought that it might’ve been painted by da Vinci. They thought it was by some German dude.Okay, this is cool. They had copies of some of da Vinci’s notebooks. This recorded his ideas on a GIANT horse statue that he spent years planning for some patron. In the end, he never built it. But the drawing is wild.
Who knew the dude was so into theater? Not only did create sets and such, but he created costumes too. Yes, he took up thread and needle and sewed! Not an interactive exhibit, so I was not able to entice Tom to try on the scarlet cape and tights.
I just liked this one. It’s “Cartone di sant’Anna” OR “[Cartoon] of The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist.” Sure it’s unfinished (never made into a painting), but I’d still recommend going to the National Gallery in London to really see it, the real painting, I mean. Not that I have…Have issues with your neighbors whether they be next door, in the next town, Mexico or Canada??? This giant crossbow wasn’t available for purchase, but I bet it could do the job for you. Da Vinci was BIG into weaponry.
Perhaps you prefer a tankfor your military needs? Those tubes sticking out of the bottom, which round the whole machine, are the guns.
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!
How are you keeping cool this summer? Movies like the new Jurassic Park? Museum visits? Lucky enough to live near a beach (like I used to)? Or just holing up in the AC with friends? Share your plans here!
EVFAC’s just starting the new program this year. They announced it in the 
