Tag: Happy New Year

December 30, 2022

Here’s to a maker’s 2023!

2023 is right around the corner!

Hooked art: FIRE WORKS — Happy 2023! FIREWORKS (repurposed t-shirts and sparkly ribbon on monk’s cloth)

My plan for this week between Christmas and the New Year has been to do the things I WANT to do rather than HAVE to do. (The last couple of months planning Workshop Week 6 and handling some other things – like LIFE – were exhausting.) Things I wanted to do include the usual end of the year review and, more importantly, making plans for the coming 2023.

Gotta say I’ve been a little lazy on all accounts. Also, the final holiday rush took its toll physically. I’ve been mostly lying low the past few days: started a novel, doing Sudokus, and working on a new hooking project. Going through my piles and drawers and closets to organize and dispossess hasn’t happened. Yet. I still have a couple of days, especially given that it’s a long weekend. Watch for that ANGEL OF 2023! She’s a little late this year, but she’ll make an appearance by January 1.

I didn’t feel up to a detailed post mortem on 2022. Sadly, the end of the year brought with it a flurry of deaths in my little part of the universe. Nonetheless, like everyone, my 2022 brought some downers and some nice pluses. Teaching in Tennessee at the Shakerag Workshops was right up there. If you have a chance to participate – as a teacher or a student – I highly recommend the experience. A couple of articles I wrote were published in Rug Hooking Magazine. There were art shows and festivals here in Albuquerque and in Other Places, New Mexico. In the fall I made it out to Seattle to visit the kid. With a little luck, Tom and Bowyn, and I will make a road trip there in 2023.

What about the coming year? In 2023, I’d really like more time to myself, time to explore my making. Certainly, I look forward to teaching and sharing how others can get in on this calling of rug hooking and other fiber arts, but I need to carve out time for myself to sit in one place and ponder and experiment without distraction. I find it really easy to administer, to volunteer, to vacuum (ew!), to do anything but make the things I’ve seen in my imagination. Busy-ness, a need to feel needed, and the concomitant exhaustion – they can kill an art practice. I see it in others, and all it leads to is regret.

Hooked art/rug — What I’m losing myself in tonight. NO NAME as of yet (repurposed t-shirts on monk’s cloth)

So, my big goal in 2023 is: SOLITUDE. Not that I plan on blowing anyone off. I’m a très social being who has a hard time saying NO. But it’s time for a little me-time. (Being Catholic and Irish, I know I’ll apologize for that all year.)

My New Year’s wish is that you too carve out some solitude for yourself and your art, your gaming, your reading, whatever it is that you can lose yourself in. Happy 2023!

September 2, 2022

Happy New Year!

I’ve always maintained that September 1 is just as much a new year as January 1. You have a holiday and then you give yourself permission to start over. Maybe it’s a school year, your health, a job, or just a way of looking at life. In my case this September of 2022, it’s health and working on a new perspective. (And don’t get me wrong, I think renewal goes on all through the year, it’s just more celebrated in January and September.)

It’s no secret that I have autoimmune issues. Fibromyalgia was just added to the mix. I shouldn’t have been surprised; it explains so much. But so often when you’re busy, you work with the data that you have. When you’re in your late 50s, you don’t go looking for more things to go wrong with the chasse. Actually, I’m in pretty good shape, I think. Nonetheless, I could be doing better, especially regarding stress and sleep. I need more of one and less of the other. Bet you can guess which is which. LOL

I decided, therefore, that I’m taking a bit of a sabbatical from many of my local responsibilities for two whole months! I’d like to say that I’m making the months all about Laura all the time, but that’s not the case. It would also be très boring. Even to me! No, in less than a week my parents are making their second trip in six years to New Mexico from Connecticut. They’ll be here for 16 days. We’ll be doing some touristy things and even heading up to Colorado for a few days. They’ve never been there. After they leave, I’ll be teaching hooking and punching at the Mountain and Valley Wool Festival in Santa Fe. That takes us into October when Tom and I and a dog or two will take to the open road for Seattle. The kid’s now been there for three months; it’s time for a visit. And while I once spent a weekend in that area years and years ago, I never got a chance to really see it. This is an opportunity, too, to add a few missing states to my repertoire. I’ve never been to Utah (other than Four Corners), Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon.

By the time we get back, it’ll be Workshop Week 5 and even Halloween. Then the holidays and… You see why I need a break?

But I’ll be around online, certainly, and in touch with folks. Being away always lets me refresh, see things in a new way, and be inspired. All of which usually allows for some new and exciting artwork. At least to and for me. Perhaps for others as well.

PLACES WHERE YOU DEFINITELY CAN FIND ME THIS FALL INTO WINTER

Mountain and Valley Wool Festival (MAVWA): September 29 – October 2
The festival is Saturday and Sunday, October 1 and 2, but the workshops happen the Thursday and Friday before. I’m teaching Thursday. Find info HERE. BTW, if you’re thinking of coming for MAVWA, know that it’s the start of Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque. Think 500 hot air balloons in the air at one time. Pictures and words can’t do it justice.

In the Studio Online Workshop Week 5: October 23 – 30
While I’m not teaching this time around, I am the general administrator, so if you need a catalog or have questions, please give a yell. We have eight great teachers and workshops scheduled. If you’re just realizing you forgot to register, now’s the time. Some classes have filled, but teachers have waiting lists, and some have already scheduled second sessions. More info HERE.

High Desert Studio Tour – December 3
After missing two or three years, the High Desert Studio Tour is back! As in the past, I’ll be camped out at the home of ZiaWoolz. Dagmar generously invites myself and a few other artists to hang our shingles out with hers for the day. If you’re looking for some gorgeous, hand-dyed yarn, check out her Etsy shop, or better yet, visit us in December.

Dogs sit with hooked art — The boys bring you a HAPPY NEW YEAR WHAT’S ON THE FRAME this week. THE REZ is hooked on monk’s cloth with old t-shirts, wool strips, and wool yarn. So far…

View our CALENDAR page to see more dates to be added as we go further into the fall.

The boys and I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR, a cooler fall, and success with all your efforts at renewal!

September 15, 2021

Happy New Year – celebrate at the Harvest Festival!

Happy New Year! Shanah Tovah!

New Year's lithograph — You know that’s how we feel about 2020 and now 2021. Trade cards from the “New Years 1890 Cards” series (N227), a set of 50 cards issued in 1889-90 to promote Kinney Tobacco Company. (Metropolitan Museum of Art; in the public domain)

Happy New Year to all of our Jewish friends! And to everyone else as well – more about that below.

High on Hooking is headed up to Santa Fe again the first weekend of October. Because it’s more fun to play with others, Cathy and I will again share a booth up at the Harvest Festival at Las Golondrinas. Amazingly, I’ve never been there, but everyone says it’s a wonderful place the visit. Being from New England, I figure it’s kind of like Sturbridge Village or Plimouth. (Never ever fall for that Plymouth Rock thing!) Perhaps you’d like to check the Harvest Festival and the hooked art out too…on October 2 and 3, of course.

El Rancho de las Golondrinas is a living history museum located on 200 acres in a rural farming valley just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Museum, dedicated to the history, heritage and culture of 18th and 19th century New Mexico, opened in 1972. Original colonial buildings on the site date from the early 1700s. In addition, historic buildings from other parts of northern New Mexico have been reconstructed at Las Golondrinas. Villagers clothed in the styles of the times show how life was lived on the frontier in early New Mexico. Special festivals and weekend events offer visitors an in-depth look into the celebrations, music, dance and many other aspects of life in the Spanish, Mexican and Territorial periods of the Southwest.

I’m not gonna lie, the last two vendings weren’t particularly lucrative. Between Covid and logistics and Covid… Someday maybe we’ll get back to some kind of normal. Someday…

In the meantime, there’s plenty to keep us busy. For instance, there are always a rug or three to hook and projects to crochet. There are classes to prep. (Remember that I’ve added a session to WW3 on October 23!) And I need to get ready for an improv hand-quilting workshop with Heidi Parkes. Unfortunately, I’m in another class the exact same time Heidi’s runs, but she’s taping it, so I’ll use the video. Not quite the same, but for 50 bucks, I’m not complaining, especially for one of her classes. More on that later.

In other news, next week we’ll be looking at four new walls. Keep your eyes on the Instagram and Facebook feeds for that. Hoping it’s good for my journaling/sketching practice which need a jump start. And hiking and just getting away from…people.

There’s a LOT going on these days. So much so that I’ve really got to post more. And I will when I get the chance. A hint: Next June, look for HoH in Tennessee! (More on that later too.)

Lastly – besides the pic of the boys and WHAT’S ON THE FRAME – for me, while I’m not Jewish, September’s always been about the NEW YEAR as much as January 1. If you have kids or you were a kid, you understand. But now that Tom and I are on our own and summer in the desert isn’t even close to ending come August 31, the school year isn’t really a thing for us. And yet, September, maybe because it’s such a time of change (or at least potential change), marks a passage for me much as New Year’s does. It’s time to think about winter and being indoors more and how we’ll pass that time. It’s about taking stock and considering how we’ll face the future. But it’s definitely forward-thinking, not sad. It’s about potential.

Bowyn and Tynan bid you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Make the best of it. We intend to. This rug is hooked with all reclaimed t-shirts on monk’s cloth. If you want to try hooking with old t-shirts, check out my WW3 class.)

How about you? Do you see September as a “new year” or is it just bittersweet as we say goodbye to sun and warm weather? (Which one starts to really look at differently living in the desert, let me tell you!)