On our way up the trail near Taos Ski Area. It was another beautiful day in New Mexico. Can you make out Tynan searching for yet another gecko…
I’m back! It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I feel kind of better even if I didn’t make it back to friends and family in New England. (For that story, see this post.) Anyway, Tom and I and the dog did manage to take a couple of day trips. The first was up to north of Taos near the ski area. We hiked for a couple of hours then picked up lunch in the very cool, little village of Arroyo Seco. Tom counted every one of the 19 stream crossings that we did in that two hours. But both of us had dry feet – quite the balancing act! – at the end. Tynan, he just forded through them all. Why should he care if he gets wet? Or muddy? Or what happens to the car when he gets back in?
Last week the three of us headed to Los Alamos via the Jemez Mountains. We’d never taken that drive in the fall. Gorgeous! Thus far one of my favorite parts of New Mexico. We didn’t hike this time; we wanted to get home before Albuquerque’s rush hour traffic. But we managed lunch in Los Alamos. It was a good day.
On Route 4 in New Mexico’s Jemez Pueblo. How often do you see something like that?This is Battleship Rock. You can see why.This and the rock pic are for Canadian rug hooker Karen Miller who always has the best close-ups of nature..Even boulders are wicked cool in New Mexico!
This is Valle Caldera, a super volcano that erupted over a million years ago. It’s 12-13 miles in diameter! We looked for elk, but didn’t see any critters at all. Bummer.
On the road out of Los Alamos to take us to Route 84 to take us to Santa Fe to take us to Route 25 to take us back south to Albuquerque. Look at that BIG SKY, people!
Meanwhile I’m busily trying to finish up small and mug-type rugs to sell at the High Desert Studio Tour (scroll down through the page to the part about the tour) this coming Saturday. If you recall, my friend Dagmar of ZiaWoolz invited me again this year to sell at her house/studio. She’s #3 on the map. If you’re in the area, come hang out with us for a bit. I’ll have chocolate!
Check out the Zia rug in the far left center. Guess who made that?
What I don’t sell at Dag’s I hope to unload sell at Santa Fe’s Fall Fiber Fiesta at the Scottish Rite Temple come November 17-19. The 17th is an artists’ reception in the evening, 5:00-8:00, costs $10. Saturday and Sunday hours are 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM, no charge. Unless you buy something, of course. 🙂 Hope you stop by there too to pick up some gifts for the quickly approaching holidays. Can you believe that Thanksgiving is just over two weeks away!
Lastly, Tynan did not forget to bring you this week’s “What’s on the frame” feature. Of course, he received his commission. God forbid I forget that. Talk to you next week!
“What’s on the frame” this week and Tynan. These mug rugs will be done by Saturday. Come visit Dagmar and me and see them at the High Desert Studio Tour in Albuquerque!
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country
The murders in Las Vegas last week…
The lives, homes, and livelihoods lost to the fires in California… A guild-mate’s son and his wife evacuated from their home…
Puerto Rico and Mexico City and other areas that are still drowning without the basic necessities of life today…
Friends living day-to-day with health issues… And threatening insurance issues…
The anxieties of what seems to be a whole generation of children… Including mine..
Last week we were trying to wrap our minds around what would make one man angry enough to kill as many people as he possibly could. This week: still no answer. Meanwhile the political climate in the country drops farther into the toilet, and a President smugly tells reporters that he has a North Korean secret, Na-a-na-na-na! Americans are a nervous bunch these days.
Image from http://www.punediary.com/quotes/2016/10/art-life-heartbreak-vicent-van-gogh-quotes/.
Everyone’s worn out from disasters, the natural ones and the man-made. Weekends, I’ve taken to not bothering with the news other than what I read in the paper and see on my home page. I’ve got to take a breather from the barrage of awfulness coming in. I’d much prefer to head off to the mountains – and we’ve got plenty of those to choose from here in New Mexico – to hike and hide in a cabin for a few months days. Not happening. For one thing, my rheumatoid arthritis has been acting up, screwing with my lower back. Time to try a new medication. I’m lucky; I have a good health plan we can afford and a good rheumatologist. But she can’t help with the other problem. Tom and I lost our empty-nester status last week. The kid’s back…
Maybe you read the post on August 16, “Studio under construction.” Then again, maybe you didn’t. Long story short. Kid stormed/moved out in March. Tom and I left the room for months, assuming she’d be back before long. Finally, in August, we (meaning Tom; I told you my RA was getting uppity) patched the holes in the walls and painted. Because I’ve outgrown my kick-ass walk-in closet and laundry room as far as hooking materials storage goes, I ordered the big IKEA shelves with cubbies. I was getting me a studio!
There’s certainly nothing better than God’s art, nature. Is this not a most beautiful rose? It was the only one in the garden at Casa Rodeña in Albuquerque last Friday evening. A little miracle of color and design.
You know, somewhere just after that the hurricanes started. Why, why did I think that it would all go down the way we planned? Even before the shelves were delivered (a few days late, I might add), the stories of roommate and other issues started in earnest. Texts appeared on my phone after 10 p.m. Like a phone call in the early morning, those are never good. And…suddenly she and her minivan were back.
I’ll give her, she’s neater this time. So far. And there’s less yelling. So far. It appears that she learned that Mom and Dad don’t necessarily make the worst roommates. The devil you don’t know can be…the devil! So, no studio. Tom and I are off to Lowe’s tonight to check out shelving for the laundry room. That’ll help with my explosion of t-shirts, wool, ribbon, frames, and other hooking paraphernalia.
In the meantime, I hook. And not just because I have three more selling dates before the end of the year and an inventory is soon due into the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center. Nope. I hook because I can control whether or not I hook and what I hook. Color, design, materials: those are all up to me. I hook to distract myself from the things I cannot control: natural disasters; US politics and all they affect; gun violence; illness – my own or others’; my child’s anxieties and her struggle to become an adult. I hook to create something NOT BAD. More than that, I hook to ensure that there’s just a little more beauty in my world today than there was yesterday.
Art becomes diary-like, following and documenting the shifts in popular and not so popular culture, art encourages us to not just look at the past but to look forward to the future and to exist in a moment.
To me, lantana is a fine example of summer colors’ last gasp in Albuquerque’s high desert gardens. (Taken at the Biopark.)
INSPIRATION
Being the fourth Tuesday of the month, yesterday was one of the Adobe Wool Arts Guild’s demo days (we’re there the 1st and 4th Tuesdays) at Albuquerque’s Biopark, specifically the Botanic Garden. And although it clouded up and eventually rained, the morning was gorgeous: blue sky, cool, crisp. The colors in the gardens sparkled. I felt a need to pull out my phone and grab a few shots before the flowers all disappear into the chill of fall and winter.
I can’t grow cosmos in my yard here like I did back in Massachusetts. But I miss them. These, in the Biopark, turned their faces away from me and the wind that was blowing the storm in from the south.
When I got home, I headed into my own yard to record the colors of late September. Like the hummingbirds, most will be gone within a few weeks.
This is one of the bougainvillia. It lost its leaves last week, but not its vivid coral flowers.
Cherry tomatoes ripen in the garden after pretty much going dormant through the heat of July and August.
Despite the rosy-colored crepe myrtle, the turned leaves and the chiminea and even the shadows in the backyard remind me that autumn’s already arrived.The vivid color of this bougainvillia suggests that there’s still time for Tom to mix me another margarita. If you’d like one, you better hurry!
It may be the last gasp for summers’ colors, but it’s just beginning for pumpkins’ oranges, greens, and even blues!
Regardless of color, life goes on. Here at High on Hooking, we’re readying for a third show in less than two weeks. Sunday is the OffCenter Folk Art Festivalat Robinson Park in downtown Albuquerque. Lots to do before that! I’ve sold out of all double mug rug sets and most of the singles. I’ll finish up another three singles in the next couple of days. Meanwhile I’m starting a double. Or maybe it’ll be a quadruple…
Anyone showing up to the OffCenter Folk Art Festival to buy a rug will get 10% off if they mention this blog post! Hope to see you.
Tynan took a couple of weeks off, but he’s back with “What’s on the Frame?” That would be the double (or perhaps quadruple) mug rug that won’t be ready for sale this weekend. But there’s always November’s events (more on them later!) or even the Internet. Careful of those pins, dude!
The hot, hot, hot of summer’s giving way to the heat of roasted chiles and sunflowers. Fall’s coming. Are you ready?
It’s September, the time that many of us consider the real New Year. You know, when you get back on a more regular schedule, stop drinking (as many) margaritas, and think more serious thoughts, like am I freaking crazy trying to sell hooked rugs in this day and age? I mean, most people that show up at my booth don’t even know what the hell they’re looking at. Is that weaving? (We are in New Mexico.) Hey, I did that in the 70s… And rugs aren’t usually the cheapest item up for sale at the fair or market or wherever they’re being sold.
My summer sale season started out very well. Sold a big rug right out of the gate. First weekend at the Rail Yards was good too. Then there were a few weeks of…nothing. Didn’t happen that way last year. Fortunately, it’s picked up lately, and finally going the Instagram way has helped too. One of my rugs will soon be winging its way north to Washington all because someone saw a pic and looked up my website. Woohoo! Actually, I like Instagram. Lots of pretty pictures and little typing.
“New Mexican Sun” (8″x8″; wool, alpaca, recycled clothing, ribbon, sari) will soon be on its way to Washington state.
So, why do we do it? Why do some of us try to sell our hooked rugs? In my case, the rugs were building up. They cost money to make, so I thought why not try to recoup some costs. To actually make money would be gravy. Of course, if one takes into account the TIME it takes to make a rug, I’m actually paying to make the damn things. But that’s okay. That’s the point, in fact. Whether I sell them or not, I’ll make them because hooking is a passion. And I really like making all kinds of rugs – even mug rugs – especially when I can switch it up all the time. One week it’ll be mug rugs, the next some larger, arsty-fartsy thing. It’s about the creativity.
Okay, and rug hooking lets me watch my television shows without falling asleep in my chair.
The reality is that I like hanging at art shows and markets. If I wasn’t a vendor, I’d be there buying things. At least manning the booth keeps my Visa bill down. Even better, I get to chat up all kinds of folks and spread the gospel of fiber arts. Sure, if I’m having a tough day and folks just aren’t stopping by, there’s a snarky inner monologue that starts going through my brain, but at least I have a purpose. And, hey, I feel just like all the other artists there.
And to that effect, for anyone who’s going to be in the Albuquerque general area (you know, within a couple hundred miles), besides my final two Sundays at the Rail Yards (September 24 and October 15), I’ve been accepted into three other fall shows.
Sunday, October 1 – OffCenter Folk Art Festival
Have shopped this one and really enjoyed it. Especially the giant puppet parade! (You’ll have to come see it yourself.) Robinson Park in Albuquerque.
Friday, November 16 – Sunday, November 18 – Fall Fiber Fiesta, 2017
This is the one that I’m really quite proud to have been juried into. Sure, I’ve taught a class at EVFAC, which organizes the show, but you never know what with all the fab fiber artists who live in the area. It’s a big show, and it takes place in Santa Fe at the Scottish Rite Temple. Friday evening is a meet and greet with the artists; the show-proper runs Saturday and Sunday. Not sure how I’ll handle the commute yet, but that’s a question for another day.
Tynan presents “What’s on the frame” today. I can’t help but feel the season – even when it’s 90+ degrees in the desert. The leaves are already turning in the Bosque! Anyway, this is a double mug rug. The mugs have tree forms on them. That’s all. Why not a landscape rug hooked with all kinds of fibers? The trees are Ultrasuede!
Tell us, if you’re a hooked rug vendor (the rugs, not the raw materials), why do you pop a tent and try to sell your wares?
“The First Boucherouite” hooked from old bed sheets and a smidgen of t-shirt.
This past weekend was a busy one for me, particularly in the hooking department. It started early too. Thursday found me hooking with friends. That was good; it let me finish hemming up the Boucherouite. Yes, I finally finished it. It took longer than anticipated thanks to plenty of one-directional hooking – the orange and yellowish areas. That was to imitate the weaving of the real Moroccan rugs. But I have to admit that I love how this one came out. Your thoughts? Me, I’m thinking that I have to make a much bigger floor rug. Time to collect the bed sheets…
Wool yarns that I microwave-dyed in Cathy Kelly’s class. Very pretty aren’t they?
On to Friday:Cathy Kelly gave a class on microwave dyeing to four of us in the guild. Thanks to Darlene for providing the space in her own “dye garage”! (She won’t hear that as she’s about to jaunt off to London and Paris. Why, yes, I am envious. How could you tell?)
The class was great fun. Come on, who doesn’t enjoy playing with color? Rather than wool fabric, we dyed yarn. Except for Nan, who’s high on felting, not just hooking. Here you can see the three skeins I dyed. Guess I was in a pink-purple-yellow mood. Note to self: next time work in the blue-green zone. But aren’t they wonderful and color-full? Thanks so much to Cathy for the class!
Friday evening – Saturday: Time to update the inventory and pack the car for the Sunflower Festival in Mountainair. Then bed. We had to be up early given the hour-and-a-half drive. But, damn, it was worth it. We’d never been to Mountainair before. The ride was visually stunning: bright blue skies; wide, open spaces; long freight trains; mountain passes. The best part was the cooler weather. Mountainair’s up about 6500 feet. For the first time in a long while, I didn’t sweat setting up the booth. Always a plus when you’re hanging with the public. And the tent gave nice shade. Again: perfect, end-of-summer weekend.
Tom rests under the High on Hooking tent. Unfortunately, he did NOT make employee of the month this time. No sales for him!Tynan enjoyed the Sunflower Festival. Of course, people made all over him. However, no sales for Tynan. Like Tom, he did not make employee of the month. Not a completely perfect, end-of-summer weekend for him and Tom. 🙂
I can’t say enough about the festival. I managed to sell a few things, certainly enough to get me back next year. There were plenty of art and food vendors. The bathrooms were near nearby and clean. You had your choice of the indoor type or the fancy porta potty type that I’ve seen out here. AC and everything! Plus there was full-on cell phone coverage when I’d been told not to expect it at all! The festival is obviously one of the big events in this tiny community, and it showed. Kudos to the Monzano Mountain Art Council!
Sunday dawns: We’re tired what with being outside all day Saturday not to mention the three hours of driving. Took the dog for a 45-minute walk then headed off on the weekly grocery shopping trip. I don’t know what I did between then and 5:00 when we left for Santa Fe’s Opera House. (That’s about an hour’s ride.) You see, I’ve always wanted to see an opera there, but Tom, not being into opera AT ALL, demurred at sharing such an experience with me. It’s wicked expensive, so I couldn’t fully blame him. He did, however, agree to see Garrison Keillor with me. Woohoo!
A perfect view for a perfect weekend. See the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from the Santa Fe Opera House. To the right in the foreground is a bathroom and bar. I like how they conveniently go together. Excellent planning, SF Opera!
The experience met ALL expectations. Again, perfect weather. Then there’s the view. The Opera House has a fabulous vantage point and, therefore, a gorgeous view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east and the Jemezto the west. It’s an open-air theater (a word that doesn’t do it justice at all) so you can literally see for miles. We bought a ridiculously overpriced glass of wine to share and took it all in.
The interior of the Santa Fe Opera House. This is up near the top row, “oxygen seats.” I joke. While we sat below, there really aren’t bad seats in the place.
The show started about 15 minutes late. No matter. Folks drifted in toward their seats. If they hadn’t finished their cocktails, standing just outside the theater proper to watch was perfectly acceptable. (Only bottled water is permitted inside.) Keillor moved through the audience singing extemporaneously, shaking hands, and questioning our cell phone usage.
Garrison Keillor himself.
Making it to the stage eventually, he laughed at those of us who were “saluting.” I learned a valuable lesson: Next time I attend a show at the Opera House, I’ll bring sunglasses. The seats all face directly west, right into the glaring, setting sun behind the stage. Next time I won’t be such a newbie.
The show went on a full three hours. “Intermission” was a sing-along. While Keillor clearly didn’t have to pee, Tom and I certainly did. We didn’t head home till well after 10:00, arriving about 11:20. Bed called, and the perfect, end-of-summer weekend came to a close.
Now there’s just one big question: Whatever will we do for Labor Day?
Can’t there be another perfect, end-of-summer weekend? What do you have planned end the summer?
Whatever you do this weekend, make sure you take time to say a prayer for the folks of Houston who have been affected by Hurricane Harvey this past week. Their next days, weeks, and even years will be difficult.
