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IN THE STUDIO – Sarah Leighton on January 19

Join textile artist Sarah Leighton as she discusses putting more texture into our rug hooking.

 

Poster for Sarah Leighton talk on In the Studio

 

Sarah Leighton is a Maine fiber artist and rug hooker. She took her first rug hooking class in 2014, shortly after her grandmother, an incredible rug hooker, passed away. Sarah was – pun intended – hooked! Her style and technique have changed as she’s grown more comfortable with the craft. While she cherishes her grandmother’s traditional rugs, she’s made rug hooking her own. As she’s developed her own personal style, she’s come to realize how important texture is in her pieces. Join Sarah for her In the Studio Artist Talk as she shares more about how to incorporate texture into your work. You can purchase tickets for this talk HERE.

About Sarah Leighton:

In 2021, Sarah was awarded the Springboard Artist Grant from the Maine Arts Commission and was profiled in Rug Hooking Magazine in their Nov/Dec issue. You can learn more about Sarah and see her work at www.leightonfiberart.com or on Instagram @Leighton_Fiber_Art.

IMPORTANT PLEASE READ:

The Zoom link for this presentation will be emailed to you the day before the talk (or after you purchase your ticket, if you purchase on the day of the event).  If you don’t receive it, you can contact the organizer at info@karendmillerstudio.com.  

Tickets will be on sale until 10 am the day of the event.  After that time you will no longer be able to purchase tickets.

Please note that the time of the talk is 1:00 pm EASTERN.

FAQ’s

* Will this talk be recorded for viewing later?

Unfortunately, no. Due to the logistics involved, we decided some time ago to keep these events live. Hopefully if you can’t make it to this talk, you’ll be able to make it to a future talk.

* It’s the day of the talk and I’m having trouble finding or using the link for the talk. How can I find help?

It is very advisable to LOG INTO THE EVENT A FEW MINUTES EARLY to be sure that you have no trouble with the link, and if you are having trouble the organizer can help you out. You can email or message the event organizer up until one hour before the talk on the day of the talk for help. ONCE THE EVENT STARTS, however, messages and emails are not able to be monitored.

* I’m finding it distracting during the talk seeing all of the other participants on my screen. What can I do?

During the event the organizer will put the screen setting on “spotlight view” so that the presenter is the focus on your screen. Depending on your device, you may still see audience members on your screen and changing your setting from “gallery view” to “speaker view” should help with that.

* What Time Zone is the time of the talk in?

The time indicated on all ‘In the Studio’ talks is the EASTERN (EST) time zone.  If you live in a different time zone, be sure to check what time you should tune in to ensure you don’t miss the talk.

*I can no longer make it to the talk.  Or, I missed the talk.  Can I get a refund?

Unfortunately no- the price of the ticket is so low that it is not cost-effective to refund those amounts.  If you are unable to make it to the talk and you already have a ticket, or you forget to attend, please do contact me at info@karendmillerstudio.com.  I always offer a ticket to the next talk to make up for it.  All of the artist speakers receive a portion of the ticket proceeds so we very much appreciate your contribution to supporting artists!

 

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Finding textures in all kinds of new places!

Texture of an old rooftop in Germany
Texture of a tile roof top in Breisach, Germany. Breisach is a fairy-talish town sitting in the middle Rhine River Valley just west of the Black Forest and east of France’s Vosges Mountains. It’s so beautiful and “old” looking that one can scarcely believe 85% of the town was destroyed in WWII.

 

TEXTURE: the visual or tactile surface characteristics and appearance of something. (Merriam-Webster)

Fiesta has come and gone and so has my vacation. Sigh… Both were enjoyable – though, to be honest, Fiesta was a boatload of work. Vacation was just…a boatload. Tom and I enjoyed last years river cruise so much, that we decided to do another one. This time we headed off to the Rhine River, starting in Basel, Switzerland.

 

Interesting fact: The Basel Airport is almost all in France. It has an exits/entrances in both France and Switzerland. It pays to know which country you’re headed to.

 

 

Tom in Breisach on the cobble stone streets
Tom standing on Breisach’s cobblestones. Note the pretty rebuilt homes. Beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metal cast of the city of Strasbourg, France.
A metal cast of the city of Strasbourg, France. (Sort of Germany; read about the sometimes German/sometimes French history of the Alsace region of France.) Notre Dame Cathedral is the centerpiece of the city.

 

Texture of statuary on Strasbourg Cathedral
Such delicate stonework is all over Strasbourg’s Gothic cathedral which also had to be majorly restored after WWII. In fact, the stained glass windows disappeared; Americans found them in 1945 in a German salt mine.

 

Texture of decorative stonework
Texture of decorative stonework found in the partly ruined fairy-tale Heidelberg Castle in Heidelberg, Germany.

The tenor of this trip was much different than last year’s wine cruise in Bordeaux. That one was a very local vacation covering a lot less distance. It was more laid back and concentrated on the really, really excellent wines that come out of that region of France. It also gave us more time for leisure, leisure which I define at least partly as sketching and journaling. Not so much this trip. Although I managed to finish a crocheted shawl and get some reading done, we were moving too much this year. Some days there were two excursions on shore! They were interesting, but I think Tom and I are into a little more free time on vacation. Not to mention good wine.

 

Castle stonework and plant texture
This one’s a two-fer. Note the stonework of the castle’s facade as well as the pompom texture of the tree below. Does anyone know what kind of tree that is? It was spectacular. BTW, note that you see through those upper story windows to the sky. Yes, Heidelberg Castle has a lot of ruins about it.
Pompom texture of tree
Couldn’t help it. Isn’t is wicked cool???

 

 

The Rhine River cruise – also by Viking – as I said, started in Basel and quickly moved into Germany. Actually, the Rhine runs right between Germany and France’s Alsace region (which is sort of German; read the history as mentioned above) for awhile, and we explored both sides. As the week progressed, we moved fully into Germany and finally into the Netherlands. We docked in Amsterdam where Tom and I spent a couple of extra nights. (After flying back to the U.S., we spent a couple of unplanned nights in San Francisco, but that’s a story for another post. As are my luggage woes.)

Rows and rows of wine vineyards hang on the hills
Okay, this is detail from afar. Look at the rows and rows of vines hanging on the hills along the Rhine. They can be so steep that vineyard workers have to tie up and kind of rappel down to work on the vines.

 

 

Succulents at Marksburg Castle
Marksburg Castle was a treasure trove of textures, especially as we were seeing it close-up. These succulents are part of the castle’s gardens.

 

Of course, I have pics to share. You’re seeing them now. Unfortunately, the camera on my phone started to crap out on this trip. I might add that this is the same phone that had over-heating issues last vacation. The difference here is that I didn’t realize how fatal the problem was till the last day – in San Francisco – when the thing shit the bed entirely. I lost some photos. 🙁  Now, I have to purchase a new phone. Did I mention that on top of a European vacation, we just paid for the hardwood floors we’re putting in? Yeah, bad timing. A phone isn’t in the budget for a bit. Luckily, Tom’s old one – the one with a malfunctioning keyboard – was still up for the photography challenge, so I’m carrying it around as an ancillary to my now unloved phone.

 

Stone texture at Marksburg Castle
Even the walls were texturized!
Texture of wall woodwork
Nice woodwork in the castle’s main bedroom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cologne Cathedral seen through a rainy window
Cologne’s cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site, seen through the rained-on window of our ship. Notice how the clouds parted over the church. The heavens opened up when Tom and I were walking around Cologne earlier. Late in the afternoon, the sky cleared producing a beautiful evening.

 

Mosaic floor in Cologne Cathedral
I actually walked on this floor in the Cathedral in Cologne. Incredible mosaic.
Brick texture of windmill
This is the exterior wall of a windmill in Kinderdijk, the Netherlands. Bricks were, maybe 4 inches long at most, the better to be able to make the rounded base of the building.
Bullet strike - wall of Cologne Cathedral.
Although the sandstone exterior walls of the Cologne Cathedral are black and pitted – acid rain requires that there’s constant maintenance and replacement of stone – this “texture” is actually the result of a WWII bullet.

 

 

Grasses in the Netherlands at Kinderdijk.
Rain, like wind, is plentiful in the Netherlands. These are grasses that grow in the wetlands surrounding the windmills. Nineteen working windmills are in Kinderdijk, also a UNESCO World Heritage site. We were lucky enough to be able to go into one.
Colorful textures of tulips in Amsterdam
In Amsterdam’s Flower Market there were, of course, bundles and bundles of tulips. Note the cool black ones in the back
Piles of sea lions on rafts in San Francisco.
My last photo – before the camera really, truly died – is, incongruously, of sea lions dotting rafts while they snooze. I needed to do the same after an 11-hour flight and then two extra nights in California!

 

 

So, we’ve muddled through my pics regardless. This first bunch had to do with the different textures I observed on our travels. I hope you enjoy. Give a yell if you have any questions or insights to the photos. And please share your vacations stories here too!

Laura

 

 

 

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