Tag: High on Hooking

January 4, 2023

The Angel of 2023

The ANGEL OF 2023: SHE PRAYS FOR RAIN

Every year – usually in the late fall – I create an angel for the coming year. See 2022, 2021, but not 2020; not sure where she went.) This year I was a little tardy and finished her up on January 1. Given everything HOLIDAY going on and the passing of another year, I’m thinking that I’ll keep this schedule from now on. It gives me a break after festivals, sales, and late fall teaching.

Fiber art, ANGEL OF 2023, SHE PRAYS FOR RAIN — THE ANGEL OF 2023, SHE PRAYS FOR RAIN
Hooked (various fibers) and embroidered (bamboo yarn and cotton embroidery floss) on 4×4 monk’s cloth; mounted on a black canvas.

In my fiber art practice, I focus on reuse and repurposing, especially of textiles of all kinds. Better to use something than let it fall into landfills. Sadly, this is particularly the case in this time of fast fashion and its concomitant waste. I will never run out of raw materials for my work.

At the same time, I live in the American Southwest, a land still wildly beautiful but suffering from a megadrought. You’ve all seen the pics of Lakes Mead and Powell. No need to repeat it here. Our uncompromising thirst for water and other resources has brought us here. Truthfully, I don’t think that much will change, but if it’s going to, WE better get to it right quickly to help with water and all of our other environmental crises.

In the meantime…SHE PRAYS FOR RAIN.

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!

November 3, 2022

Annual High Desert Studio Tour

Poster for High Desert Studio Tour

…and just in case you can’t make the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival on November 19, High on Hooking will also be participating in the 12th Annual High Desert Studio Tour. Of course, you can come to both. In fact, you should.

For the past several years, New Mexican hand-dyer and knitter extraordinaire, Dagmar Beinenz-Byrd of ZiaWoolz has generously invited me to join her at her home and studio for the High Desert Studio Tour (click to download the brochure). We won’t talk about the past couple of years that Covid screwed us out of such things. It’s an intimate venue rather than one filled with all kinds of vendors and activities, allowing one the chance to get in some good conversations with makers, letting you learn more about my work as well as Dagmar’s. In addition, Sarah Lovell of Southwest Sunflower Pottery will have all kinds of things that you didn’t even realize you need. (I know. I have some, LOL.)

To be sure, there are other arts and artists on the tour. They include painters, sculptors, jewelers and more spread out over seven different studios. More info is available in the brochure. And, certainly, if you have any questions, please email me at Laura@highonhooking.com.

Mugs by Sarah Lovell — Her Rio Grande mugs provide just a taste of Sarah’s pottery.

If you’re looking to find holiday gifts for family and friends (and yourself!), please come see us at the New Mexico Arts & Crafts Festival in November AND at the High Desert Studio Tour in December.

October 13, 2022

The artists are angry; they’re PROTESTING!

Of course, they’re angry; they’re protesting!

That’s what I told a friend last Friday night at the opening reception for PROTEST: SEE Something, Say Something at Fusion in downtown Albuquerque. (More info HER E.) It’s a good, meaningful show, filled with all kinds of media and messages. Rightly so, with protesting as a theme, they aren’t always pretty.

Sheela Na Gig, hooked art piece — Sheela Na Gig is a Celtic symbol. I’ll let you read about her and how she was and now is used for protests **HERE**. (Hooked on cotton monk’s cloth with mostly old t-shirts and a bit of silk sari ribbon; embellished with glass beads.)

As I mentioned on social media after posting pics of my two pieces, I was sorry not to get more and better photographs, but I had to leave early. All Friday I’d battled a migraine; finally, the nausea and fatigue got the best of me. I didn’t feel better till Monday/Tuesday. Nonetheless, I encourage all the local readers to make their way to Fusion one afternoon or evening to see what the (protesting) artwork really looks like and to see it all.

Hooked art, THE MIGHTY ONE, THE ANGEL OF @)@@ — Later every year, I create an angel for the following year. This was THE MIGHTY ONE, THE ANGEL OF 2022. (Hooked with old t-shirts, repurposed gold lamé, and plastic bags.)

Felted artwork for PROTEST show — TURTLE ISLAND SIEGE by Patricia Halloran (Patricia had some cool things in the **FABRIC OF NEW MEXICO SHOW**.)

TORN BUT STILL WAVING by **Elizabeth Potter** (paper art)

WHOSE BODY IS THIS? artwork for Protest show — WHOSE BODY IS THIS? by **Maria Jonsson** (vintage dress form and acrylic paint)

BIG PHARMA SERIES #4, 5, 6 — BIG PHARMA SERIES #4,5,6 by **Martin Terry**. Martin is also the curator of this show.

From BIG PHARM SERIES #1, 2, 3 # — Close-up of part of BIG PHARMA SERIES #1, 2, 3 by Martin Terry

GET WOKE artwork in PROTEST show — GET WOKE by Paula Steinberg (upcycled chair, acrylic/oil on wood and vinyl)

SHE PERSISTED by **Betty Busby** (Dunicel, felt)

THE HISTORY OF BEARING CHILDREN, text by **Jacqueline Murray Long**, visual art by Martin Terry

Poem in PROTEST show — This is a more easily read photo of the text by Jacqueline Murray Loring. Another piece by a different artist accompanied this artwork. Visit the show to see it. (My photo didn’t come out.)

If you’re looking for a thought-provoking show, one that will let you see the outrage, the anger about so many things going on in our world today, come see the work by artists who are protesting at Fusion in Albuquerque. Maybe we all need to start protesting.

Protest Art show poster

September 30, 2022

Why aren’t we all wearing an orange shirt today?

Logo for Orange Shirt Day I’m wearing an orange shirt today, but only because I have so many Canadian friends on social media. If I didn’t, I’d be clueless to the fact that September 30 is Orange Shirt Day up north. Its other name is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, but again, it’s only “celebrated” in Canada. My question is why don’t we have that or something similar here in the US?

For those of you who don’t have a plethora of Canadian fiber arts friends, you can read about the day and its origins HERE.

Each year, September 30 marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The day honours the children who never returned home and Survivors of residential schools, as well as their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.
-From the website canada.ca

I get that I live somewhere – New Mexico – that allows me the chance to be aware of our indigenous populations pretty much every day. That “s” making “populations” plural is not an error. Not much more than a mile from my house in Albuquerque, across the Rio Grande, is the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center (IPCC). There visitors can take in the museum, buy jewelry and pottery, watch Native dances, eat really kick-ass food, and do a host of other things that help to educate those of us who grew up without learning much of America’s early history. You know, before the British, French, Spanish, and other European nations came on the scene and decided the land was ripe for the taking and “clearly” not owned by anyone. At least anyone “civilized.”

The IPCC is run and owned by nineteen New Mexico Pueblo communities. Nineteen. And they’re all sovereign nations. And they don’t include the likes of the Apache and Navajo and others who also abide, at least in part, in New Mexico. My point today is that all nineteen came together to create the IPCC on this particular piece of land:

It is located at the heart of nearly 80 acres of land owned by the 19 Pueblos and governed by the 19 Pueblos District (a sovereign government formed by the Tribal Councils of the 19 New Mexico Pueblo Communities) at the former location of the Albuquerque Indian School (1881-1982).
-From the IPPC website

Again, I ask, why aren’t we here in the US wearing orange today in a spirit of solidarity and reconciliation? The same atrocities that happened up in Canda’s schools happened here. And we had more schools!

Last year I wrote about a rug hooking project that was a collaboration between myself, friend and guildmate Ruth Simpson, and Acoma Pueblo artist Patricia Lowden. You can read about it HERE. You can also read about the cushion and our collaboration with Patricia in the current issue of Rug Hooking Magazine (RHM). Unfortunately, I was prompted to write the article after I read another RHM article in which an artist/author indicated that indigenous art is ripe (word used on purpose) for using in rug hooking patterns because: The images of art from indigenous peoples are always ancient, copyright free, and so beautiful. Yes, that is a direct quote, and it went right up my ass sideways. (Pardon my French.)

And people think cultural appropriation isn’t a real thing. How can you if you think all the Natives are dead?

Again, I ask, why aren’t we here in the US wearing orange today along with the Canadians?