Category: Basketry

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Pulping the Day Away…

Sitting here, hands damp with bits of cotton stuck to the backs, on the final batch of recycled paper going through my Hollander beater today. I’ll have the last session with the 7th graders at Batesville Middle School this week.  I’ll be doing papermaking and twined basketry again with this new batch of students (they rotate classes every 12 weeks).

The kids tore up bunches of recycled art papers which made life much easier for me – I just had to run them through the beater.  We’ll work with the three primary colors plus two secondaries and white. They will have one day to pull sheets and one day to pulp paint or form sheets over molds. It is always so much fun to watch them get excited about papermaking.  I had one young man during the last session actually go into detail as to how he would set up production to sell his papers!  I’ll have to find out how far he got with the project…

AND, my love cut a hole in the top of the beater table and installed a drain in the tub. Boy, does that cut down on all the lifting and bailing I was doing before!  Emptying the tub got a whole lot easier!

Time to stir it up again. Should be finished in another 30 minutes.

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Willow Installation at Purdue

This past weekend I was in Lafayette, Indiana working with the Landscape Architecture prof and some of her students at Purdue University. They had gathered bunches of willows with the intent of creating some sort of structure/s in the area of the annual beds outside the Horticultural greenhouses.  This was in conjunction with Spring Event on campus.

The willow had done some drying out so we couldn’t count on it to do any major bending. And some really thick and tall rods had been gathered so we could go big.

Each person came with their own ideas of what should be created. It was really fun to see how the ideas flowed, changed, evolved throughout the day on Saturday. We ended up with three fairly big structures that were open to people of all sizes to enter.

None of the structures were solidly filled in – there just wasn’t the time nor the materials to do that – but each one had some weaving on it to visually suggest walls.

The best part was watching the visitors enjoy it all!  At one point there was a family of four sitting in the rounded hut, looking for all the world like they were having a meeting. One young miss was in the open top structure making design decisions about where to put the shelves and the couch.

One lad, Connor, just attached himself to us and became part of the team, planting willow rods and weaving as he deemed necessary. At one point he looked over to the prof, watched her lattice weaving and announced that she was doing pretty good with it!

Another energetic boy, Eli, looked around and then gathered some small stems and bits and pieces of the willow rods that had been used. He commenced building an “ant tipi” in the middle of the area, complete with a springboard trap to stop any intruder from getting into the ant’s home. It was quite a structure!

It was so totally awesome to have the involvement of the public – to use the work, to inspect the work, to dream in and with the work. In that regard, I think we were quite successful in our project!

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Twining

I’m on a twining roll. Started with paper twist and baling twine on Thursday and ended with the newspaper plastic bags today. Two separate pieces, one technique.

The baling twine and paper twist has some character to it – undulations, an opening on the side, a really nice found stick running through three sides of the piece.

The plastic bags piece has color – from the bags (blue and orange and dark green during winter so you could see it in the snow plus some lovely pale greens, oranges and tans). It’s shape is pretty staid – basically didn’t try anything different do to the very limp nature of the material. Halfway through the piece my love asked if I was making a bag to hold the bags?  Well…. That must be what it is!  Added a twisted handle at the end and hung it in the garage.  More bags to come!

Will get some pics up later this week.  ITMT, pics of the Oxford exhibit, Rock Paper Scissors are up on my Flickr site.

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Rock Paper Scissors

That’s the title of the exhibit that opens on Friday, March 12 at the Oxford Community Art Center in Oxford, OH. Moya Jones and I are exhibiting our fiber art there through April 3. Opening reception is Friday, March 12, 6-8pm.

We hung the show on Monday without too much difficulty. Some of the work just begged to be shown next to each other!  Here’s how the first wall looked as we worked: "Rock Paper Scissors" at Oxford Community Art Center

It was funny how we thought of each other’s work: I figured Moya would have lots of color in her quilts (which she does!) and she figured I would be fairly neutral in color (which is true for the most part). What we both didn’t realize is that we each are starting to move in the opposite color direction!

Moya has some lovely rust dyeing work that is full of rich browns and greys/blacks. And I have some recycled paper/book work that is fairly bursting with all sorts of color. So our work really melds together well.

I hope you have the opportunity to enjoy the show – look forward to seeing you on Friday!

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Catch-up from November and on through December

Boy, time has flown by! Since mid-November it seems like I’ve been deep into one thing and then the next with nary a breath in-between.

The Branson Banana Bash was a rousing success, if measured in trunks bashed, fiber cooked and new friends well met.  No pics up yet on my Flckr site – hopefully over the holidays…. I did get a chance to pull some sheets fromn what was done in Branson and they are nice! A bunch of trunk pieces are currently soaking (actually, they are frozen solid!) in a wading pool and cement mixing tub on the deck. I didn’t think rain would hurt them but I totally didn’t factor in freezing temps. Oh, well, it will just take a bit longer to ret.

A lovely Thanksgiving Day (thank you Karen and Nick!) was followed by a group art exhibit at the Pendleton Art Center in downtown Cinti taking advantage of their Final Friday and Second Look Saturday events. It was a nice showing of nine different arts, a not so bad crowd and lousy sales. Even lousier attendance and sales the following day. We did the December Final Friday, too (which really is the third Friday this month because how Christmas happens this year), and skipped out on the Second Look Saturday due to the overwhelming (NOT!) crowd and sales on Friday.

ITMT, I made a quick project for our Weavers Guild exhibit at XU coming up – a smallish quilted hanging using color catchers. AND I started the large installation piece I proposed for the exhibit. If it all goes well, I will use 200 china silk scarves to hang on the third floor of the Student Center in the atrium area. Two panels that should each be about 20′ x 17′. Keeping each scarf in correct order so as not to mess up the design has been the challenge so far! (The side-by-side order isn’t as hard as the top/bottom order – and then the panel-to-panel order where they meet in the middle – that’ll be the killer!) I’ve got one panel’s worth mudded so far – need to rinse them out and then to start on the second panel. Already checked out hanging supplies at Home Depot.

I’ve had the bass out lately  getting ready for Christmas mass music. Tuning up the voice, too.

Throw in some oddball activities (like putting a new back onto a loved blanket for T&L), some smallish scrumble projects that absolutely required cool buttons from St. Theresa Textile Trove, meeting up with some friends of various stripes, guild seasonal parties, business and friend seasonal gatherings, an exhibit proposal, a workshop proposal,  the obligatory gingerbread cooking baking sessions – and I know I’m forgetting a few things….) and I’ve not had time to get into too much trouble.

The days immediately ahead look like they will be a continuation of same.

Many wishes for a most blessed and joyous season and new year!