I was delighted to receive a photo of Deb’s completed project from the rug hooking class in the fall. I love the pop of the colours as well as the inventive choice for the ground. And I must say the loops look very regular and even for a first hooking. I think we have a committed rug hooker here! Thank you, Deb! On to the next project.
And I must say, if you have your version of this little mat complete, please send it along. I love to see the variety and each individual ‘signature’.
I have loved David Hockney’s work since I saw an exhibition of his huge canvases in Boston in 1998. This is a painting from that exhibition–I have the poster on my wall. His use of colour and line influences my hooking. Lately, I have been fascinated by his work using the ipad. He has had several of these on the cover of the New Yorker, but this is my favourite (indulging my passion for shoes).
Talk about embracing the new. He is an inpiration!
I have a new SLR camera–and I am learning slowly how to use it–and this photo demonstrates just how much I have to learn–first lesson this Thursday. I still couldn’t resist sharing this amazing downy just outside my window.
Below is a pillow I hooked a few years ago. It is called Mindshot and reflects the colour and shape of the things that were on my mind as I hooked it. As I am nearing the end of two years at Fireworks, I am beginning to think about a new project, probably a new rug. I begin with a rudimentary drawing usually, but the piece takes over once I begin to hook and I just follow along. It’s always a interesting journey.
I have been hooking on Fireworks this week and I am almost finished the second long side. I am enjoying this hooking because I am striving for only the most general continuity in the borders. I have the overall colour palette but each paddle is unique, reflecting the day it was hooked and the internal and external weather.
Today’s, as I look at it now, seems to have more colour. Must be the sunshine and the warm weather we are having here in Ontario. I went for a long bike ride yesterday, most unusual for January, and am about to go again. Glorious.
This time of year is always a time of reflection for me. The company has gone home, the leftovers still comprise a meal and the hours are open for quiet time. I am back at hooking my big rug, realizing just how long each of those paddles of coloured circles takes and how much time I still have to devote. There is little actually creative now, apart from combining the colours, but it is still a pleasure. And while hooking I am thinking about the past year. These photos and notes are the record of my perfectly imperfect life, the days and the creations. It was a big step for me, this public record, but overall, I think a good one. I would never have documented each product, each event, without it. And I would not have encountered so many lovely people through comments and notes. Thank you all so much for your support and interest.
Below is a poem about the beauty and necessity of imperfection by Molly Peacock and then a quotation from a recent blog entry by Danny Gregory, one of my favourite creators, reflecting on his son’s application to RISD. I hope you enjoy them and are encouraged to let your own red bird fly.
The Flaw
The best thing about a hand-made pattern
is the flaw.
Sooner or later in a hand-loomed rug,
among the squares and flattened triangles,
a little red nub might soar above a blue field,
or a purple cross might sneak in between
the neat ochre teeth of the border.
The flaw we live by, the wrong color floss,
now wreathes among the uniform strands
and, because it does not match,
makes a red bird fly,
turning blue field into sky.
It is almost, after long silence, a word
spoken aloud, a hand saying through the flaw,
I’m alive, discovered by your eye.
Molly Peacock © 2008
Used with permission of W.W. Norton and Company
“If a half-century of living on this sphere has taught me anything, it’s that regret is a waste of time, that one should seize every opportunity that comes one’s way, and that the fear of the unknown is just a one-way ticket into darkness. Fortunately, my son is braver than I am, less damaged, brighter, more confident in his abilities to change the world. He is my greatest work of art, of course I can’t claim all the credit.”
I want to wish everyone the very best of the holiday season. Thank you so much for visiting throughout the year and for leaving your lovely comments.
Christine
This amazing map is hooked! It hangs in the Visitors’ Centre in Gros Morne Park, Nfld. We visited this magical place a couple of years ago. Every vista was a potential hooked rug. Makes me want to get back to my hooking frame.
Now that our shows are over–thank you so much to everyone who came both in Kingston and Belleville! They were a great success. But now that they are over, I want to get back to hooking. Fireworks awaits. I have three border sides left and promise myself it will be done by spring.
I was in Toronto yesterday for supplies. As I walked along King Street, I was taken with Bruce Mau’s sign–the juxtaposition of the classical window frame with its ordered proportions (what a great rug border!) and the wild rainbow of curving colour. Mau’s 1998 Incomplete Manifesto for Growth is provocative reading–and something I return to over and over again.
The graffiti art off Queen Street is amazing–and I half expected Rick Mercer to appear mid-rant. Lots of design inspiration for hooking on these streets. And speaking of design, a wonderful new book arrived in the post today. Wendie had alerted me in a comment she made yesterday, but this was my first peek at Susan Feller’s new book.
And I was pleased to see three of my own rugs! Here is mine along with a stunning piece by Ingrid Hieronimus,
and two more. Susan’s book is full of wonderful design lessons–it is a ‘must-have’ for all rug hookers. It is available from Stackpole Books and soon on Amazon.
Years ago I read The Mountain and The Valley by Ernest Buckler. One of the images that has stayed with me is the one of the grandmother making rugs from carefully saved family clothing. As she hooks each piece into the rug, her mind is inundated by the image of the child or adult wearing it and the emotions connected to the scene.
I’ve been making scarves lately from the bag of cashmere sweaters I have been saving. In my experience, cashmere is not often found in thrift shops–wearers find other uses for this beautiful, warm fibre when it is no longer presentable, either lining the cat’s bed with it or wearing it to bed themselves. So my cashmere fragments are from my own cast-offs and those of generous friends. As I pieced the scarf together this morning, the visceral images brought back by this bag of coloured wool were breathtaking. There was Anne in her beautiful striped pullover and Janet in her orange cardigan. J.A. Wainright, in an essay on Buckler’s Nova Scotia novel, summed up the grandmother’s activity:
When she is alone in this room and “without speech,” Martha is happy because “her tasks are like a kind of conversation” (p. 24); she does not need to talk to others in order to “come alive,” and her mind obviously has its own “shining population”.
So here is to all rug hookers and ‘repurposers’ of woollen garments. Enjoy your conversation with that shining population.
I love this photo . It captures the creative intensity of the day–the piles of colour on the table, the lovely work being created. Also the hooking on the wall behind and reflected in the mirror on the right.
9 students spent the day at Bookhou creating amazing work.
Here is the demo from a fresh angle:
and here they are hard at work:
and here are the pieces near the end of the workshop. These folks were almost all first-time rug hookers. I was so impressed by their achievements!
