Birdbrain

african wax cloth

March 3, 2014 by Birdbrain 2 Comments

One of my great joys when I am in Kenya is checking out the wonderful cotton fabrics available. This year I bought most pieces from two market stalls in Bondo, and a few additional pieces from streets stalls in Kisumu. Above is a selection of what the women call Kitenge. These pieces are polished cotton and come in 3 metre lengths. Below is another version of waxed cotton and about twice the price per metre of the material above. The designs are layered and complex; this fabric comes in 6 metre pieces and comes from Nigeria and Tanzania. Both of these styles of cotton print make marvellous strong linings for my leather bags.

Another cotton print which is available is called a Kanga, or in Matangwe, a Lesso. This is a rectangular piece of cotton which has a border and a kiswahili message on it. The women wear these as overskirts, head scarves, shawls and baby carriers.

But what I value most is seeing how the Kenyan women wear these fabulous patterns. They combine two or three patterns at one time–and in spite of their difficult lives, have a look of elegance and dignity.

Kenya report 2014 #4: the sale and after

March 1, 2014 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

Our first community rug hooking sale was a success. The picture above was taken on the day of the sale. Visitors came from the community, the school and the local clinic. Everyone was impressed with the work and twelve pieces sold. I think the work is remarkable considering that these rug hookers were new to the craft and produced this quality of work after just three weeks. What I think is most notable about their hooking is the background of the rugs–the design and the use of colour and value. It is what makes these pieces stand out. And as we neared the end of our time, the supplies became leaner and some of the later pieces combined t-shirt and nylon strips to good effect.

We hooked every afternoon for three hours but some of the women were truly bitten by the rug hooking bug and continued to hook at home–by kerosene lamp! The following two pieces were produced that way. I love how Francesca created a frame of branches in the piece below and how Catherine, in the final piece, used a variety of texture and colour to create a vibrant background.

And here we are at our celebration party.

Kenya report 2014 #3: rug hooking update

February 16, 2014 by Birdbrain 5 Comments

Twelve women have been coming to the Community Centre to hook mats. All but three of these women are new to the craft, but in three short weeks they have moved to drawing their own designs. We are having an open house on Tuesday to show the community what we have accomplished. Here are some photos of the women hard at work and also a preview of the hooking. Five of the pieces are already sold!

Kenya Report 2014 #2: Matangwe Primary Says Thanks

February 12, 2014 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

This time a message from the school, Metangwe Primary. The grade 6 class at Park Dale School in Belleville Ontario sent letters to the grade 6 class in Matangwe. Below you will see the students opening the letters. Inside they not only found a note from Canada, but also drawings and a hand-made colourful bracelet. You will also see teacher Jackie giving them some help. Matangwe students say THANK YOU PARK DALE!

Kenya 2014 #1

February 11, 2014 by Birdbrain Leave a Comment

Hello from Matangwe Kenya. I am well into my third week here and finally getting to do a blog post. Things are going very well both at the school where I teach in the morning, grade 8 of 57 students and grade 7 of 54 and in the afternoon at the Community Centre where I am working with 15 women on rug hooking.

I hope to do several more detailed posts with pictures, but for now will just show you a couple of pieces of the hooking. There are four women who have returned from last year, but the others are new. I am thrilled with the progress they are making. Here are a few of the first pieces they did using t-shirts. We have established a solid set of criteria and each woman must complete a good piece using tshirts before she moves on to the dyed nylons and hooking one of the local birds. These pieces are all their own designs and colour choices. If you donated tshirts you may very well recognize them!

packing for Matangwe and saying thank you

January 23, 2014 by Birdbrain 2 Comments

I have over 100 hooks packed and ready for Matangwe. Many thanks to the Ontario Rug Hookers who passed on their hooks for the cause. Donations came from Toronto, Campbellford, Cobourg, Bloomfield, Kingston, Lansdowne and spots in between. And I’d like to say particular thanks to Karen Kaiser who donated several yards of good quality burlap from her shop and to Mary Anne Keast who donated her supply of nylons for me to dye and to the countless others who dragged burlap and t-shirts to meetings so that I would be well supplied. I hope we are going to hook some brilliant plants and birds.

I’ve also been lucky to work with Mrs. Melanie Lee and her grade 6 class at Park Dale School in Belleville. These wonderful students have made a video about their school as well as written personal letters and woven bracelets for each of the students in the grade 8 class at Matangwe. Park Dale has donated pencils, erasers and sharpeners so that each of the 500 students in Matangwe Primary School will get new supplies. And if all goes well, the students will meet in person because we will be Face-timing from Belleville to Matangwe next week! That will be amazing. Park Dale has been partnered with Matangwe for the past two years, but this is the first time we will get to talk to each other.

And finally I would like to say a big thank you to my family and friends who together are supporting four students in the Matangwe area through high school and one lovely young woman through university. You are making more of a difference than you know.

inspiration

January 21, 2014 by Birdbrain 2 Comments

A few years ago I took my first ‘group’ painting trip–to the south of France. While I really enjoyed the countryside and the people I was with (particularly my great roommate with whom I still correspond and who by the way is a great painter), I was clear from the beginning that I wanted to sketch in a sketch book and not work on big sheets of watercolour paper in the hopes of creating a work of art. I am a sketcher, not a painter. For me sketching is about capturing the moment, a way of recording where you were and how you were feeling about it, how it struck you. Inspired by some of the sketchers I love, I sketched my cappuccinos and my meals. This was a source of amazement and even annoyance for the teacher. But I persevered–and I am still at it. I love to sit in a café and paint the table and the surroundings and the people. I am working on producing sketches that are looser and bolder and more fun. That capture the essence even with a line or two.

Imagine my delight when I found a new sketcher today who does all these things in a post with Liz Steele, one of my favourites. I don’t think anyone has sketched more cups and cafés than Liz. And for inspiration, before a sketching trip, I always watch this delightful video. He makes it look so easy.

preparations

January 20, 2014 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

The duffle bags are out of the closet and the piles of clothes, supplies and equipment are on the bed. That’s as far as I am right now. Hoping all I have to take will fit in. I have splurged this year and bought a duffle on wheels from MEC so that it will be easier to move all this stuff around. The wheeled version will have my personal travel stuff, my clothes for Kenya (most of which I plan to leave there), my clothes for Amsterdam (warm stuff, especially for outdoor sketching), my food (power bars mostly and granola) and my art supplies. The second duffle will have the hooking and school supplies. I can take two 50 pound bags to Nairobi, but there I have to shed one and send it by bus. This is always a moment of panic for me as I see all the donated hooking and school supplies being hurtled away, but each year the bag miraculously appears the next day in Matangwe on the bus. So fingers crossed for this year again.

I have been making decisions about my sketching kit. For the first time, I’ve decided to use a large sketchbook which will encourage me to take a looser approach and fill a page with related sketches, making a kind of narrative. Above is the opening page. Following the example of some urban sketchers I admire (here and here), I’ve sketched much of what will be in my kit. This small palette forces me to limit the paints I take. These are my favourites, especially terre vert, payne’s gray and sepia from Sennelier. I think it is as much the memory of the snooty place on the Seine as it is the depth and richness of these colours.

I have made myself a leather case to hold my brushes. I’m pretty happy with it because it protects the brushes and fits neatly in with my gear. In addition I’ll have a small pencil case, the palette box and a water bottle. I’m trying to keep it simple, so that I’ll have the kit with me all the time. Of course I’d love to have my stool and back board–but not this trip. Anyway, a good excuse for shaky lopsided sketches!

another sunbird update

January 16, 2014 by Birdbrain 6 Comments

It is just a week until I leave for Kenya and the sunbird trivet is close to done. This will be an example of the kind of hooking we can achieve. I wanted to know how many pairs of nylons were needed for the background because I hope to make up kits for starting out. We can feature some of the amazing birds and plants of the area. This is just a small trivet, 10″ x 8.5″, and I have used two pairs of hose for the background, every part, top, waistband and legs. There are several advantages of hooking with nylons: the vibrant colours, the light weight for packing and travel and the washability of the final product.

birdbrain sale

January 13, 2014 by Birdbrain Leave a Comment

The on-line shop will be closing on January 20th until the end of February. As most of you know, on January 23rd I am returning to teach school and rug hooking in Kenya for a month, followed by a few days of sketching in Amsterdam. I plan to continue blogging and I hope you will follow my travels. In the meantime, there is a sale in the shop beginning at noon today, EST. Just click here or on the on-line store button on the right, under Navigation, to see what is available.