inspiration

going around in circles

August 21, 2014 by Birdbrain 1 Comment

I have recovered my interest in my big rug with the Annie Dillard quotation at each end and have been hooking away on it. Of course we had a very rainy, cold weekend at the cottage and sitting by the fire, listening to music and working on a rug is a great way to spend a wet day. I’m working through the design block I’ve had about this rug and soon I’ll show you what I am up to–but let me just say that my fellow rug hooker, Liz, made a casual comment about my hooking in circles–or did she say going around in circles??–and that was the germ of the rest of the design. Interesting how it goes.

And here are a couple of sketches I managed to do when the rain held off and I could actually get out on the water. I’ve been using a Fabriano Venezia watercolour sketchbook (this book is happily available in my local art store). This is the second of these books I have tried and I really like the paper and size and weight of the book. I wish it opened up better–but now that I’ve read that review, I’m working on giving the book more ‘encouragement to lie flat’.

I am also back in the studio after several months away and have a new bag design almost ready to show you. I should have two new bags on the blog next week.

rug hooking annual, why I love CBC and more

May 23, 2014 by Birdbrain Leave a Comment

I am leaving this afternoon for our annual Ontario rug hooking conference in Oshawa. I have not been hooking very much this year, so I have only two small submissions, each self-portraits of a kind, and you can see them below. But first I want to share a link from the CBC. I was driving yesterday and I heard this on Michael Enright’s Rewind. The program focuses on a wonderful interview Peter Gzowski did with Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. But what stopped me in my tracks and what I want to share with you is the very beginning of the program where Justine, a 26 year old medical student, writes a letter to CBC. This small segment captures the magic of the CBC and its importance to all of us. I encourage you to listen.

A second link is to an interview with Kaffe Fasset. He takes us through his sketchbooks and his wonderful fabrics. It’s under four minutes–give it a go!

And speaking of a life with colour, here’s what I found yesterday at my favourite second hand shop: a wonderful cotton scarf and a polka-dot cotton top. Perfect.

return

March 7, 2014 by Birdbrain 1 Comment

It seems to be taking me a long time to return after my stay in Kenya. My friend and fellow traveller, Ruth, tells me that it takes one day for every hour you lose on the flights. Even counting the 8 hours from Kenya, and I did have a four day stay in Amsterdam where I should have made up two of those hours, I should be back in good order. But this time it is a slow return as I process all I saw and learned.

I haven’t been anywhere near the studio, so the shop is not open yet. I feel far away from making things. Instead, I’ve been doing things like cleaning cupboards (!), sending bags of extraneous things to the Salvation Army and sketching. Sketching every day, everywhere. I got a new small metal palette in Amsterdam at Van Beek’s (more on that in another post) and I tote it everywhere. And…I have been sketching these tulips every day. And drawing my way out of the molasses.

And yes, I am taking off again next week for a four day rug hooking course in Puget Sound with Donna Hrkman and a couple of extra days in Seattle. I have been wondering what to hook in the class because I can’t take my normal equipment or supplies on the plane. And then this week I discovered Sandra Brownlee who has just been awarded a Governor General’s award in visual arts. She is a weaver, but uses stitching in much the same way as I use sketching–to work towards understanding what it is she is thinking. Her tactile notebooks are an inspiration.

So for next week’s class, I’ve decided to pack a big bag of woollen strips, all colours and widths and textures, and a piece of linen and to hook whatever words come to me. I’ve always found hooking to be meditative, that wonderful repeated action of pulling the wool and making the loops, and I’m hoping for four days of slow time to reconnect with the narrative.

Below is a link to a wonderful video where Sandra talks about her process.

So Donna Hrkman, Sandra Brownlee–I am in good company for a return. Stay tuned.

for the love of textiles

November 8, 2013 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

I’ve been in a marathon of slicing, piecing and sewing strips of recycled sweaters. I have bins and bins of my favourite bits which I have saved over the years. I’ve always made mittens from the larger pieces, but decided this year that I would use combinations of my favourites in some finger-free gloves. Such a pleasure, both remembering the piece and combining it with others to make a funky fashion statement.

And all the while I have been thinking of my father. He made me my first loom when I was eight years old, and I chose turquoise and magenta wool from my mother’s knitting basket to weave a hot mat. And ever since, I have been in a deep romance with woollens. But I think my father did more than make the first loom. I think he passed on his own love of fibre. His paternal grandparents owned a woollen textile mill in Glasgow, (before, so I understand, some family member drank the profits). In my teenage years he loved to accompany us to the mills in Hespeler or the much closer fabric stores on Ottawa Street in Hamilton. I remember him in his red plaid woollen pants, his harris tweed jackets and his jaunty wool hat with the feather. He was always finding a bolt hidden under some others that he thought was the best quality and pulling it out for our perusal. And he was a great critic as the creations were coming to life, even known to help pin a hem.

I think of him these days as I am alone with the sewing machines. My trusty industrial is named after him. It’s always a good thing to let your memory wander to visit those you have loved and to say a quiet thank you.

Alice Munro and Eastern Ontario

October 19, 2013 by Birdbrain 2 Comments

Like many other people this week, in the wake of the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature, I have been reading Alice Munro stories. First I revisited some of the stories I had in the house and found them even better than I remembered. And then I purchased her new collection, Dear Life. I am midway through this volume and find these new stories as heart-stopping as ever.

Yesterday I was driving home from Kingston when the CBC replayed a 1996 conversation between Peter Gzowski, legendary CBC host, and Alice Munro. I highly recommend you listen to it. I was riveted–so when I came to Napanee where I had an errand to run, I stayed in the car, pulled out my sketchbook and paints and began sketching this building on the main street while I listened. I cannot think of a better way to spend 40 minutes–listening to two Canadian icons clearly enjoying each other’s conversation and sketching a lovely old piece of Eastern Ontario architecture.

The New Yorker came today and I see that they too have a reprise of an earlier Munro piece–her story published there first in 1999, The Bear Came Over the Mountain, the story that was the basis for Sarah Polley’s film Away From Her. That will be tonight’s reading. In typical New Yorker fashion, there was no fanfare, no mention of the Nobel, but the photo by Bryan Adams which accompanies the story is of Munro herself. And after all, the New Yorker has been championing Munro for a long long time.

thanksgiving

October 13, 2013 by Birdbrain 1 Comment

pies

This is my favourite time of year and in Canada we have the long Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy it even more. The weather in Southern Ontario has been perfect and we have been taking advantage of it, spending time in places we love and doing the things that make the weekend memorable.

a day in the city…

September 8, 2013 by Birdbrain 2 Comments

I love this view of the backside of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

rug 2 I went to the city on Saturday for two main reasons. First I wanted to to see Ancestry and Aristry, the display of Mayan textiles from Guatemala and secondly I knew of a good quality leather remnant sale.

Toronto was in the midst of a deluge, and of course crowded to the hilt with Film Festival goers–Brad Pitt arrived just after I walked along King St–(no I didn’t see him!) But my umbrella and I were able to get to both of my venues with ease. The display at the Textile Museum was wonderful. I especially was interested in the three hooked rugs from the Thirteen Threads Cooperative where Mary Anne Wise has been teaching rug hooking. Jenn Manuell was there this year and posted great photos on her blog. The colours and vitality of all the work, mostly embroidery and weaving, were outstanding–and the women have carried these qualities into their rug hooking. Of course I am interested in how their techniques of using traditional motifs and patterns can apply to hooking in Kenya. And interested too in the fabrics they used which seemed to be pretty much what they could lay their hands on.

I was thrilled to get this 4 kg pile of good quality leather remnants. I find that a small piece spurs my imagination and I come up with new designs which would not occur to me if I had lots of leather. The red piece in particular beckons.

I also got a new punch for hammering out circles, so am thinking about a series of polka dot pouches. Stay tuned…

more on hooking text…and the passing of an icon

July 19, 2013 by Birdbrain Leave a Comment

I mentioned yesterday that ideas and images seem to come into my world exactly when I need them. It’s like when you are thinking of buying a yellow car and all of a sudden all you can see are yellow cars. I am working on a new rug and thinking about the role of text in it–its placement, its relationship with colour and the other images on the rug. This week I discovered Ed Ruscha and quoted his musings on using words in art. Then as I was actually hooking the letters on the rug, I encountered Taryn Simon on Wachtel on the Arts. There is very little in the way of contact with the outside world at our cottage, no internet or cell and the Globe and Mail is one and a half hours away. However, I do have the CBC when the radio is behaving, and it makes ALL the difference. I think Eleanor Wachtel is a national treasure and I save all her interviews with authors as podcasts so I can listen as I hook. My reading list is generated by listening to Eleanor. I have discovered Maggie O’Farrell, Rose Tremain and countless others through Eleanor’s gently probing questions. And every once in a while she will have the most poignant interview with an old favourite like her recent surprising talk with John Le Carré. I don’t always catch her program on the arts–but this in-depth interview with a most interesting conceptual artist is definitely worth a second listen. Simon, as it says in her bio, investigates the impossibility of absolute understanding and opens up the space between text and image, where disorientation occurs and ambiguity reigns.

Alex Colville died this week. A large print of his painting To Prince Edward Island hangs where I see it first thing every morning. When we saw the real thing in the National Gallery we were surprised both by its relatively small dimensions and the overwhelming power of the image. I have had versions of his work with me since I can remember. Here are the two I love most; it is a visceral attachment.

distance and difference

May 6, 2013 by Birdbrain 1 Comment

I am back. The last two days were spent driving north from the Carolinas, through the stunning multiplicity of spring’s early greens punctuated by numbing blocks of urban sameness. Twenty hours of sitting provides a lot of time for reflection.

Last night as I was trying to remember just where I store the tea (and we were only gone 10 days!) I was rereading Jonah Lehrer’s essay on why we travel. He cites various experiments which show that travel has a lasting impact, making us more creative because we’re less insular. We’re reminded of all that we don’t know, which is nearly everything; we’re surprised by the constant stream of surprises. Even in this globalised age, slouching toward similarity, we can still marvel at all the earthly things that weren’t included in the Lonely Planet guidebook and that certainly don’t exist back home.

We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.

I walked along the expanse of beach early each morning and than again at night. This was my favourite part of the time away. I’ll share a few of the photos I took and then I am off to take advantage of the secret tonic of creativity. Maybe these glimpses of this wild beauty will inspire you too. I hope so.

Christine

sunday night

April 21, 2013 by Birdbrain 3 Comments

It is sunny today and I got outside to do some work in the yard–the sun and the rake making a good combination for afternoon exercise. Yesterday was a different story–we went to the lake, with the thoughts of sketching. The temperatures were around freezing with blowing snow and punishing winds. I took this photo with my phone of the menacing but spectacular view from the shore. So one phone photo, no sketches. We shivered in the car and watched five guys try, without much luck, to surf the waves.

But back to the shoes…my left shoe is pretty much done, except for some tweaking in the heel area. Those rubber pieces are hard to make look right. I think I am happy with the colour of the mat they are sitting on — and have some ideas for the background. I am soon going away for a week where there should be lots of time for hooking so I want all the decisions made before I leave. I will be packing up the wool and my cutter and, if I am lucky, will come home with it much of it done.