Tag: Albuquerque Open Space Visitor Center

April 17, 2018

When you finally meet a rug-hooking Facebook friend

Facebook friends — Me with Amy Buesing, former Facebook friend and now just…friend at the Albuquerque Recycled Art Fair last weekend.

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.

Hooked rug for Facebook friend — The mug rug Amy purchased. In reality, being a double mug rug, it comes with two of those mugs.

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

mug rug — Duh! One of the two mugs that actually got wrapped up and went home with Amy. Fortunately, it’s easy to find a mug to go with this rug. Undoubtedly, I already have one on the shelf.

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?

Dog on hooked rug. — Tynan’s back with “What’s on the frame today.” It’s being hooked out of mostly bed sheets. Not that he cares. He just wanted the treat I was holding. Have to get this one done so that I can remake the **sunflower rug**.

March 20, 2018

Have we got news at High on Hooking!

The news from High on Hooking

I try not to do NEWS-based posts too often, you know, catching up with what’s been happening here at High on Hooking, but sometimes you just have to. Not only is the selling season coming on quickly, but there are a couple of shows right around the corner.

First up is the Spring Show put on every other year (even) by Albuquerque’s Fiber Arts Council. Many of you watched as I hooked and hooked my little fingers to the bone to have “Memory of Water” ready for the April 7 and 8 (Saturday and Sunday) exhibition. As I’m on one of the committees, I’ll be busy from Friday through the weekend. If you’re a local, please try to make it down and support the fiber artists of the greater Albuquerque area. It’s free; hours are 9-5 both days with an artists’ reception Saturday evening, 5-7.
And let the selling begin! A couple of weeks ago I received official word that I’d again been juried into Albuquerque’s Recycled Art Fair. This year it’s a little earlier: the weekend of April 14 and 15, 10-4, and it’s at the Open Space Visitors’ Center on Coors. If you remember my experience last year at the end of April, you might also recall the snow, rain, wind, and all-round cold temperatures we had. Not the usual weather here in Albuquerque at that time of year (except for the wind, of course), but not completely out of the ballpark. So, PLEASE PRAY that this year we get the nice weather I moved out here for, that we’ve enjoyed all winter! This is a fun festival: food, music, family activities, and good art – treasures that came from other folks’ trash. Hope we see you there too.
Just this weekend I received notice that “Memory of Water” had been accepted into
“Memory of Water.” Framed, she’s about 22.5″x18.5″ and plastic bag on monks’ cloth.

another show. Woohoo! This one’s also being held at the Open Space Visitors’ Center on Coors here in town, and it’s a fiber arts exhibit with the theme of WATER. It opens April 28 and runs through May 27. For New Mexican fiber buffs, it’s being put on in conjunction with the New Mexico Fiber Crawl happening May 18-20. Call me if you’re interested in this one. By chance it’s right down the street from my house; we can go together.
As many of you know, for the past two years, I’ve vended at the Albuquerque Rail Yards Market that takes place May – October, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. I love it there; it’s a people-watchers delight plus you can pick up good food, produce, and well-priced art and listen to different music each weekend. It’s just an all-round fun place to spend a few hours, and booths are more than reasonable at $20/any given Sunday. Unfortunately, last year I didn’t do as well as I had the previous year. Other artists said the same thing. So, this year, I’ve decided to cut my days at the market to once per month. I’ll still get the exposure and have a chance to sell, but I won’t worry that I could’ve been somewhere else.Or force Tom to help me set up and break down for nothing. Dates I’ll be at the Rail Yards are: May 27; June 10; July 8; August 12; September 9; and October 14. Maybe we’ll see you there…

I think that’s it for all the big, official news. Keep checking back to our home page; we add events as they come up. Now for the weekly “What’s on the frame” segment. Actually, this week we’ve got two frames and two rugs! Check out the pics for the scoop.

Hooked rug. — The **“BIG Boucherouite”** begins! It’ll be slow progress, something I can work on between projects and to breakup any hooking monotony. I’ve been cutting strips like crazy and still have more to go. A lot of the color-planning will be made up as I go. (Upcycled bedsheet strips on monks’ cloth, **Anderson frame**.)

Tynan the dog and hooked rug. — As usual Tynan brings you “What’s on the **Puritan frame**” news. The sunflower table runner (or wall-hanging) continues. Should be done this week sometime. (Up-cycled t-shirt strips on monks’ cloth.)

For your sake, I hope that’s spring’s either arrived in your neck of the woods or is right around the corner. My sympathies yet again for New England and the fourth nor’easter in as many weeks or less. But spring will come; it always does.

What’s the news where you hail from? Plans for when it finally warms up?

November 17, 2015

What the… It’s snowing here in Albuquerque! (Don’t tell the sandhill cranes.)

Snow on Albuquerque's Sandia Mountains! Our tiny bit over here on the west side of town melted early this morning. — Snow on Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains! Our tiny bit over here on the west side of town melted early this morning.

So, we move from Massachusetts to New Mexico for the weather. At least that was one reason. Today (tomorrow by the time I post this) it was 60 degrees back home in Franklin. And the sun was shining. In Albuquerque it started out at about 46 and went downhill from there. It’s 33 now. Rain and then, yes, then snow. Sure, it was only showers and it melted off the fake grass pretty quickly, but still. Damn El Niño.

Meet Leah the Red Tailed Hawk. She was absolutely magnificent. — Meet Leah the Red Tailed Hawk. We did. She’s not a sandhill crane, but she was absolutely magnificent. After a rescue, she couldn’t be released back into the wild because she’d lost an eye.

Saturday, though, like most here, was a beautiful fall day. The trees have been changing, the sky’s a deep blue, and the sandhill cranes have returned to their winter playground. Tom and I headed off to Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitor Center – just down the road from our new house! – to attend the Return of the Sandhill Crane Celebration. There were presentations, talks, viewings and…art!

I knew they had gallery space at the visitor center, but I hadn’t realized that there were fiber artists represented in the current exhibit. It’s called “PARCH” and promo materials described the show as:

…through fiber, ceramic, and paint, six local artists masterfully express their unique relationship with water in the desert.

“Fracture,” a quilt by Betty Busby was on display at the PARCH art exhibit in Albuquerque. One word: intricacy. Okay, and fabulous too.

Betty Busby is a quilt artist who had two pieces in the exhibit. Even Tom was moved by the detail and the work involved not to mention the representations themselves.

Joshua Willis’s “Blue Circle” also appeared in the PARCH show.

Joshua Willis was another artist with work in the gallery.

Unfortunately, the sandhill cranes were no-shows while Tom and I were visiting the center. We did manage to visit with experts on the birds which was good as I learned that the bird the dog and I had been hearing on our morning walks in the Bosque (forest along the Rio Grande) was none other than a…sandhill crane!

(YouTube video by Jazzrobn in Florida. Her dog Dallas makes an appearance at the end. Refer to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbn8yIq7_LM.)

Clearly, it’s got a distinctive call. In fact, the guy told me – and I’m dating myself and him here – that they used the crane’s call on the old 1960’s Johnny Quest cartoon to stand in for a pterodactyl’s cry. And believe you me, it sounds like a dinosaur.

Carving at Albuquerque's Open Space Visitor Center. — Carving at Albuquerque’s Open Space Visitor Center.

But we saw other things. Check out the carving in one of the outdoor spaces. Unfortunately, I couldn’t determine the artist.

It was another great day in our newly adopted city where there are plenty of art and critters to be seen most every day. There’s certainly no lack of inspiration for hooking, painting, writing, or whatever art anyone might be practicing.One of my goals in moving here is to get my ass out the door to explore everything the area has to offer especially now that I have some time.

Raising a family, working full-time always makes it hard to visit and easy to overlook the special attractions and places in one’s community. Do you go out of your way to see these things? Where do you find your inspirations? What’s your “sandhill crane,” as it were?