Bowyn and Tynan, the High on Hooking dogs, wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year. They’re also hiding the ANGEL OF 2022. But you can see her below.
We here at High on Hooking wish you a wonderful and safe Christmas!
Hopefully, you and your families will be able to gather and celebrate despite the presence of the Grinch known as Omicron. Here in Albuquerque, unlike other years, it looks like the kid will make it here for the actual holiday and even stay a few days.
If you’re still in the hunt for presents – particularly the kind that don’t require shipping – consider the gift of creativity with In the Studio’s Workshop Week 4, January 30-February 6. There are nine scintillating classes, but they’re filling, so don’t wait too long. Especially if you’re gifting yourself! More info HERE. Follow our In the Studio (Online) Instagram to keep up with what we’re up to.
This post will take us into 2022. I’d like to say something about the new year being a much better 365 days than 2021 was, but clearly that wish didn’t come true after I made it a year back. Nonetheless, I’m willing to try again. Especially since champagne will be involved. Nothing’s bad when there’s bubbly to be had.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! BRING IT ON, 2022!
THE ANGEL OF 2022 is unlike her predecessors, but just as mighty. She’ll help you keep that Grinchy Omicron from stealing your Christmas and New Year. Once I hem her, that is. (Hooked with old t-shirts and plastic bags plus a smidge of wool.)
In-person events. Can you imagine it after over a year of hiding out from each other? But it’s starting to happen!
High on Hooking and friend Catherine Kelly will be vending our first in-person show since November of 2019! We’ll be at the SPRING & FIBER FESTIVAL at EL RANCHO DE LAS GOLONDRINAS June 5/6. It’s an outdoor venue, so if you’re vaccinated, you probably won’t even need a mask! If you’re in the area then, please stop by to chat and fondle the rugs. Mention this blog post and get a 5% discount on anything you purchase from High on Hooking. (See our other events in the Calendar.)
Spring’s just busting out all over! It’s been a big week here in the HoH house. We entered the modern age when we traded our 2003 Honda Accord in for a much newer “old” car, a 2019 CR-V. All those freaking electronics! Fortunately, I still have my little Fit to tool about town in and keep my gas usage and emissions to a minimum.
Wednesday, Cathy (above) and I took the new vehicle for a spin up to Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art. Other than the need for a mask, it was like pre-Covid times! An in-person museum visit! I was so excited early last year when the museum announced that they’d be having an exhibit of the Afghan War Rugs from summer through the fall. And then the Coronacootie struck! No fears – they were able to extend the exhibit through September of this year. Since I had my second Moderna vaccine last week, it was finally time. And the carpets did not disappoint. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any pics, so I stole the one below from the museum’s website.
Photograph from Museum of International Folk Art
For those who aren’t familiar with the Afghan War Rugs, at first glance some of them look like typical, traditional rugs woven in Afghan and other areas of the Middle East, but when you take a second look, you realize that the Cypress tree motif is a…missile. A “boteh” (paisley) is really a helicopter. Look a little harder and you’ll find pistols, machine guns and grenades. In some of the rugs, though, the artisans went full on war-rug. You can’t miss the tanks.
Afghanistan is known for its rugs, though many of these rugs were created by Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran after Russia and then the US waged war in the country. They offer, certainly, an artistic commentary on what’s happened in (primarily) the last 40 or so years. (Russia invaded in 1979.) But they also demonstrate a commercial response to war in Afghanistan and the effect on its people. The carpets have proven popular with journalists, military personnel, foreign aid workers, and such.
The emergence of war-related imagery in Afghan rug design has clearly aided the economic survival of area weavers and displaced craftspeople through years of armed conflict and cultural disruption. What war rugs mean to individual weavers is less understood. Are war rugs a celebration of modernity or a rejection of war? Are they a witness to shared trauma or a commercialization of violence? Are they testaments to ingenuity and a spirit of survival? Perhaps they are all of these things at once.
(Museum of International Folk Art)
Over 40 rugs hang in the exhibit. Some look brand new; others have clearly been used as…rugs. All are fascinating to view. And, of course, being textiles, we desperately wanted to touch them. To turn them over and examine them. Yeah, that would’ve gotten us booted out. Unfortunately, too, there’s no real info about individual rugs or artists. Though this isn’t surprising.
If you ever get a chance to see this exhibit, make sure that you do. If you’d like to read more about the War Rugs, there’s a great article here. The Museum of International Folk Art has a virtual exhibit available here.
This is what happens when you try to take the WHAT’S ON THE FRAME pic too close to the boys’ dinner hour. Just getting them both in the frame was tough enough, then they kept looking over their shoulders as if Daddy was about to make and eat their meals. Still working on the newest in the happy rug series. Her name will be “Abundance.”
What events are you excited to get back to in-person this year?
