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Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year art
Courtesy of clipart-library.com.

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!

 

 

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Lying to myself

I really have been lying to myself. More than I’d like to. But I bet you do it too. Take that last blog post of mine from a couple of weeks ago. It really must’ve been the chardonnay whispering because that little slow down before breaking down that I went on and on about… Yeah, it didn’t last very long. Oh, the gratitude crap did for a bit, but the oxygen mask? I took that off right quick.

textile art from Stitch Camp
My Stitch Camp piece piece watching me, always watching me. And waiting.

But I tried. I really tried. Last week I was smart enough to sign myself up for Stitch Camp which consisted of five days of self-paced and very short videos by Gwen Hedley. I have to say – and I am not lying to myself here – I  started out well. Sunday I pulled out the paints, the fabrics, the various threads/yarns, the needles, all kinds of implements and textile substrates. On Monday I made my marks. Not sure how much I liked them, but then how often do we question our own artwork in the throes of creation? Onward ho! Tuesday, I cut the painted fabric into pieces. Come Wednesday – despite four online events, meetings, appointments – I sewed some of them together. I had momentum, a big stone rolling down a hill. I was making time for myself.

And then Thursday happened. I remember that I went out for a haircut. Where the rest of that day went, I have no idea. No worries, I told myself. There’s Friday and a weekend. Friday I watched the videos for Thursday and Friday. And then…nothing. The piece that I began last week sits draped over a dining room chair eying me with reproach. I tell it we’ll be together in a week or so. I hope that I’m not lying to it. And to myself.

Why am I lying to myself?

Like many of us, it’s because we just get too busy with all the things and people that make up our lives and relationships. I suppose that I’m grateful for that busy life; it’s certainly better than being bored and not having enough to keep me engaged. And I have great friends and family and projects.

Unfortunately, the Stitch Camp piece is destined to wait for another week or two because:

  • Tomorrow I have an online class about how to better serve on a nonprofit board. That’s two hours I’m happy to give to Susan’s Legacy where I’ve been a board member for three or four years. Women’s mental health will always be important to me, and we all know someone who could’ve used what SL provides.
  • Saturday I’ll attend an online Guild Development Retreat put on my the Handweavers Guild of America. No, I don’t weave, but it’s all about the betterment of all kinds of textile guilds. “Through panels and discussions, we hope to strengthen guild leadership, unite organizations, and provide a platform for the sharing of ideas. We want participants to end the day feeling motivated in their effort to build and grow their guilds so that all guilds can thrive.” The Adobe Wool Arts Guild (AWAG) here in Albuquerque is a fine guild, but we have our issues too. As president of AWAG, I feel this is an imperative. Two other members think the same and will “go” with me.

    Boucherouite-inspired hooked art
    This is the newest Boucherouite-inspired hooked piece that I’m using to get ready for Sunday’s class. (Hooked with old bed sheets and a little t-shirt.)
  • Sunday we kick off In the Studio’s Workshop Week 4! My Build a Baby Boucherouite class is the first to roll followed by our panel discussion led by Susan Feller and three of the teachers: “What inspires you to be creative when in the doldrums?” Lord knows we’ve all been in the doldrums! There are a few workshop openings if you’re interested. Me, I’m adding to my workload creativity toolbox and taking Jane’s watercolor class. Because I don’t have enough to do. (As I type I’m also making a chicken soup.)
  • And because we never have enough to do, I’m trying to finalize AWAG’s plans to have Donna Hrkman here for a second visit in late February. We’re praying that Covid doesn’t waylay those plans a second time. Damn, I need to come up with a project for that too!

So all those nice sentiments I expressed last post? I guess that I prefer to think that I was hopeful rather than lying to myself. There are always going to be crazy days and weeks in our lives. It seems that this January is one of mine.

High on Hooking Dogs show off newest Boucherouite-inspired hooked rug.
Tynan and Bowyn, the High on Hooking Dogs, bring you this week’s WHAT’S ON THE FRAME. Sadly, they’re frustrated with how little walking has been done in this new year, but they too look forward to better days.

And I remember now! Thursday went to buying a new mattress to deal with my lower back problem. That took a few hours. To all those who have kindly expressed concern, I’m on the mend…slowly. With steps forward and then again backward but then again forward. The new mattress is a help. We even got one of those frames that lets you raise your head and feet. Very cool. I will never live without that again, I promise you (no lying!).

Life really is good. Tom and I celebrated 29 years married Sunday. Of course, there is always Tynan and Bowyn. And they have made all the difference.

 

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So, we have a little time on our hands…

 

Old Japanese drawing of Amabie
The Japanese Amabie is a mythical creature with a message to defeat the coronavirus: “Good harvest will continue for six years from the current year; if disease spreads, show a picture of me to those who fall ill and they will be cured.” Coronavirus, take that! Read more about the Amabie here.

Like you, it appears that I have a little time on my hands. So much has changed EVERYWHERE ALL OVER THE WORLD since my last post. It boggles the mind. Or, like my daughter put it, “I really can’t process this.”

Luckily, the governor here in New Mexico was on the stick and started closing things down pretty early, before we had but a few cases of COVID-19. And we have a less dense population than larger metropolitan areas in the country, especially on the coasts. Even more fortuitously, Tom and I saw the writing on the wall and started hoarding toilet paper laying in supplies before the stores were mobbed. Best of all, I managed to get my hair cut the day before we pretty much closed down town. Score! (If you saw how I mangled my toenails a couple of days earlier, you’d appreciate this better.)

The reality is that our home is a pretty comfy place to be confined to. Not that we’re truly confined. We regularly walk in the bosque, the woods running along the Rio Grande near here. Trips to Walmart and Sprouts and even Costco aren’t forbidden, though I fear they’ll become more and more dicey as Albuquerque creeps closer to our peak viral load come the end of April. We have a freezer full of meat and frozen veggies, plenty of wine and olive oil (the latter being the original reason for our Costco membership; the former being an awesome benefit), a treadmill and bike, LOTS of dog food, books galore, and subscriptions to both Prime and Netflix. Best of all, both Tom and I are starting out healthy. That can’t be understated. Oh, and we even still like each other more than two weeks into social distancing from all other people.

 

Hooked version of the Amabie
Since the Amabie wants all artists to draw a picture of it, I provided a hooked version. It’s the March 19 entry to my Ribbon Rug Journal.

But I do miss my friends and the activities that keep me running around like rug hooking demos in the BioPark, guild meetings, time working with Susan’s Legacy, teaching, visiting and lunches out… This week’s excursions out of the house: 1) Walmart for longer term provisions and 2) the blood bank. If you can donate, call your local blood center or hospital; donations are desperately needed everywhere!

Truthfully, I’m glad to have this gift of time. Even though I don’t work-work any more, I have responsibilities that keep me engaged in the community at large. Frankly sometimes they feel overwhelming. Probably because I don’t work-work, parent full time, and do all that other stuff at the same time. My efficiency and tolerance are out of practice. A couple of weeks ago, when this all started, I thought, yes!, I can do all the things I’ve been putting off. I can spring clean and re-organize the cupboards and pantry. I can clear out the piles. Have I? Not at all. Although, in an initial burst of energy and enthusiasm, I did clean the master closet (containing clothes and

Hooked rug wall hanging
I did manage to finish punching “Desert Sun.” The frame is a recycled basket plate holder. Find it on our Etsy shop.

hooking supplies) and adjoining laundry room. That’s it. Turns out I haven’t even hooked as much as I normally would. Though most of my hooking gets done in the evening, I typically day-hook a couple of times a week with guild-mates and friends. Yeah, one afternoon of day-hooking all lock-down. I didn’t think my efficiency could be any lower, but without due dates and such…free fall.

Vending and teaching events are all cancelled. Who knows when we’ll be able to reschedule? Venues like the New Mexico Fiber Arts Center, already in a precarious financial situation, may even fail. If you love NMFAC, old EVFAC, like me, donate to it. You probably have your own favorite organizations; support them before you lose them.

Things look kind of bleak, but they have in the past too. Live in the moment and do the things you’ve been putting off. Call a relative stuck at home alone. Talk to an old friend. I did that yesterday for over an hour. Where else did I have to be? It felt great catching up. Make things, anything: a rug, a shawl, a short story, a cake, a garden. We all know that when we’re creative, our mental health improves.

 

Dog on hooked rug
Tynan gives you this weeks “Whats on the frame.” We’re hooking with old bed sheets again. Show us what’s on your frame. Or your easel or your hoop or your page. (Meanwhile he’s trying to impress on little brother Bowyn that it’s a major sin to even look at a toilet paper roll with lust in his heart.)

To conclude, your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to show us what you are making these days. Maybe you’ll provide a little inspiration to someone who needs it. I want to see a bunch of photos on the High on Hooking Facebook page. Or email them to Laura@highonhooking.com; I’ll share them. And let us know how you and yours are doing. Spouses, partners, kids, grand-kids, and pets. Love the pets! Use the gift of time to stay home, stay busy, and stay healthy!

 

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Art as Solace

 

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country

The murders in Las Vegas last week…

The lives, homes, and livelihoods lost to the fires in California… A guild-mate’s son and his wife evacuated from their home…

Puerto Rico and Mexico City and other areas that are still drowning without the basic necessities of life today…

Friends living day-to-day with health issues… And threatening insurance issues…

The anxieties of what seems to be a whole generation of children… Including mine..

Last week we were trying to wrap our minds around what would make one man angry enough to kill as many people as he possibly could. This week: still no answer. Meanwhile the political climate in the country drops farther into the toilet, and a President smugly tells reporters that he has a North Korean secret, Na-a-na-na-na! Americans are a nervous bunch these days.

Art as consolation
Image from http://www.punediary.com/quotes/2016/10/art-life-heartbreak-vicent-van-gogh-quotes/.

Everyone’s worn out from disasters, the natural ones and the man-made. Weekends, I’ve taken to not bothering with the news other than what I read in the paper and see on my home page. I’ve got to take a breather from the barrage of awfulness coming in. I’d much prefer to head off to the mountains – and we’ve got plenty of those to choose from here in New Mexico – to hike and hide in a cabin for a few months days. Not happening. For one thing, my rheumatoid arthritis has been acting up, screwing with my lower back. Time to try a new medication. I’m lucky; I have a good health plan we can afford and a good rheumatologist. But she can’t help with the other problem. Tom and I lost our empty-nester status last week. The kid’s back…

Maybe you read the post on August 16, “Studio under construction.”  Then again, maybe you didn’t. Long story short. Kid stormed/moved out in March. Tom and I left the room for months, assuming she’d be back before long. Finally, in August, we (meaning Tom; I told you my RA was getting uppity) patched the holes in the walls and painted. Because I’ve outgrown my kick-ass walk-in closet and laundry room as far as hooking materials storage goes, I ordered the big IKEA shelves with cubbies. I was getting me a studio!

Art as consolation.
There’s certainly nothing better than God’s art, nature. Is this not a most beautiful rose? It was the only one in the garden at Casa Rodeña in Albuquerque last Friday evening. A little miracle of color and design.

 

You know, somewhere just after that the hurricanes started. Why, why did I think that it would all go down the way we planned? Even before the shelves were delivered (a few days late, I might add), the stories of roommate and other issues started in earnest. Texts appeared on my phone after 10 p.m. Like a phone call in the early morning, those are never good. And…suddenly she and her minivan were back.

I’ll give her, she’s neater this time. So far. And there’s less yelling. So far. It appears that she learned that Mom and Dad don’t necessarily make the worst roommates. The devil you don’t know can be…the devil! So, no studio. Tom and I are off to Lowe’s tonight to check out shelving for the laundry room. That’ll help with my explosion of t-shirts, wool, ribbon, frames, and other hooking paraphernalia.

In the meantime, I hook. And not just because I have three more selling dates before the end of the year and an inventory is soon due into the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center. Nope. I hook because I can control whether or not I hook and what I hook. Color, design, materials:  those are all up to me. I hook to distract myself from the things I cannot control:  natural disasters; US politics and all they affect; gun violence; illness – my own or others’; my child’s anxieties and her struggle to become an adult. I hook to create something NOT BAD. More than that, I hook to ensure that there’s just a little more beauty in my world today than there was yesterday.

Art becomes diary-like, following and documenting the shifts in popular and not so popular culture, art encourages us to not just look at the past but to look forward to the future and to exist in a moment.

Erin Veness

Art as solace.
Tynan doesn’t make art. He presents it for me. But that’s okay; he and all dogs are their own special form of consolation for human beings.

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Catching the creativity fever…again

Many of us attending Artful Threads powerfully desired this hand-painted silk scarf.
Many of us attending Artful Threads powerfully desired this silk scarf hand painted by Cheri Reckers.

 

Speaking about creativity – we were, yes? – lately I’ve been noticing a LOT of synchronicity going on. Two weeks ago, three AWAG (guild) members and I headed off to Tucson for the hook-in down that way. Last weekend, I participated in a hooking demo at Artful Threads with creative women in Belen, New Mexico. Various fiber arts were demonstrated in one of the cooler sites I’ve visited since moving here.

A Grenfell-style mat by ____ offered at Artful Threads as a raffle gift.
A Grenfell-style mat by Vi Darcy offered at Artful Threads as a raffle gift.

 

 

There was a ginormous rail yard next to the Harvey House Museum where we were. This week there’s a fiber sale happening as part of Artful Threads; I’m taking Tom with me if only so that he can see more of the state we now call home . He’ll love all the trains coming and going.

Meanwhile, I’m seeing all kinds of creativity memes and such on Facebook. Just today I saw this from writer Julia Cameron:

As artists, the creative dream we move toward is often visible to us– but invisible to those around us.

Go on, create, bring forth what’s in you no matter what the naysayers or your spouse or parents say. They’re too myopic or maybe just too busy doing their own thing to see the highway you’re traveling on.

And don’t be afraid you won’t be good at your art, whatever it might be. Jon Marro‘s I’MPERFECT reminds us not to get caught up in a quest for perfection. Salvador Dali does likewise.

Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it.

So keep working, reaching for your own particular star in your own particular medium be it hooking or painting or writing or dancing or bowling or… Forget the fear of not being as good as someone else, even if that person appears perfect. I mean, should we all stop hooking just because our mats and rugs don’t look like Deanne Fitzpatrick‘s or Susan Feller‘s or Lynn Stein‘s or any other artist’s work we see in Rug Hooking Magazine? Of course not! Use them as inspiration for your own pieces.

The New York Times even has a terrific article about raising creative children. Read it here.

But what’s really brought all this creativity talk home to me is Elizabeth Gilbert‘s book,

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. In late December or early January Beth Miller of Parris House Wool Works in Maine created a Hooks and Books live action and online book club. The first book she proposed was Gilbert’s. What the hell, I thought. I don’t have a book club here. So, I read it.

Much of what Gilbert says in the book is the butt-in-the-chair, labor of love shit that I would call preaching to the choir of creative folks who would typically buy this book. BUT, I’m in a place in my life where I’m actually able to appreciate what she has to say. The bit about combinatory play especially resounded. Combinatory play, Gilbert writes, is “the act of opening up one mental channel by dabbling in another.”

I used to write fiction a lot more than I hooked. Then life became vastly more complicated, particularly with a child having anxiety, emotional, behavioral, and academic issues. Preparing for a move across country didn’t make it any less so. Our emotions in the house were up and down, fighting and flighting. During those years, I moved more into hooking. Even though I design my own rugs, it was a hell of a lot easier in the evening (because that is when I would have time for such personal endeavors) to hook than to contemplate plots and character to write an actual story. I have continued as an assistant editor at Fifth Wednesday, a kick-ass lit journal out of Chicago – I read the slush pile – but it’s always more stress-free to read someone else’s work than to write my own stuff. Plus, I consider it my way of giving back to literature, another labor of love.

Since we’ve moved, though, I’ve been feeling the tug of writing again. I’ve even had some fits of starting and stopping. But I hear the call, and it’s only getting stronger. Maybe it’s because the kid’s graduated from high school (thank you, God!) and has started working (bless you, Target!), and we’ve mostly settled into the new house. Meanwhile, there’s a small but active hooking community out here in in Albuquerque that’s been incredibly welcoming. They’re very open to my less-than-traditional way of hooking. Between them, the scenery, and all the art out here, my own creativity idea well is starting to really fill up again. Or maybe that well is just more accessible now. I’m 51 and I get to re-invent myself to some degree, dump some of my own insecurities, and just explore what I am at this moment: a writer and a hooker.

A friend recently looked at some of my hooking on Facebook and asked a question that gave the writer in me goose bumps.

“Do you hide secrets in your hooking?”

How would you respond?

The rug currently on my frame. What exactly am I hiding in it? Or will I hide in it?
The rug currently on my frame. What’s hiding in it?

 

 

 

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