Convergence - Part Two (Classes)

Good grief, so sorry about the delay to those who were looking for more posts about Convergence. I managed to get a lovely kidney infection and landed in the hospital last Wednesday with a 104.9 degree temperature after running low-grade fevers since last Saturday evening. (I kept thinking I was going to recover and it kept coming back!)

At any rate, I'm up to my eyeballs in lovely antibiotics and am feeling mostly human again, so I thought I'd post about the first couple classes I took at Convergence.

To keep this post from getting hugely long, I thought I would break up my classes into two groups of two. As you'll be able to tell, I lean towards more theory based seminars, rather than classes that teach a particular technique (I learn very well from books and actually really enjoy doing the research and learning and experimenting with various structures, techniques, etc.)

First up, The Art of Business - How to Approach Galleries, taught by Kate Anderson who used to be the director of the Duane Reede Gallery. She gave lots of good advice about what galleries look for in artists (for example - maturity of vision, consistent style, originality, whether the work is sellable, and whether it is comparable in vision/pricepoint with other work in the gallery), and how to put together a professional marketing package to send to galleries you are interested in. Kate did a wonderful job in letting us - the students - direct the discussion, and was very encouraging of questions/concerns, etc. The discussion covered a wide range of marketing-oriented topics from taking decent photographs of your work to how to put together a good C.V. I'm nowhere near the point of being ready to approach galleries yet, but I'm hoping I will be in a couple of years, so this was all very useful information.

Interestingly enough, she did make a comment in passing about Etsy when one of the other folks mentioned it - as I've been hearing quite a bit lately, it seems one needs to be cautious about mentioning Etsy in a fine art or fine craft context. On the one hand, a gallery obviously wouldn't appreciate the competition. On the other, I got the distinct impression that - how to put this delicately? That Etsy can be viewed as unprofessional/low-end, which is such a huge shame. I mean, I know there's a lot of not-too-wonderful stuff on Etsy, but there are some artists there that just blow my socks off as well - the trouble being finding the latter... But, that's a whole other - huge - topic.

The second class I took was called "Complex Pleating" and was taught by Joan Michaels Paque. Do yourself a favor and trot right over to her Flickr account and check out her fiber, paper and mixed media art, she's really very amazing. Seriously, go now!

(See what I mean?? This is from Joan's Flickr account - wowzers!)

When I first walked in, I almost walked back out, it wasn't what I was expecting from the looks of the samples on the tables at the front of the room. But boy am I ever glad I stayed! Joan was a bit disorganized, but charmingly so, and the whole topic is just fascinating - I think that she just has so much knowledge to try to instill that it's overwhelming to try to squish it into a little seminar.

I also have the feeling that if I had been able to attend her three day workshop "Experience and Explore Kinetic Dimensional Weaving, Pleat Folds and Tessellations" I would have absolutely loved it as well. I'm jealous of the people that did attend it. I'll just have to hope that I have another chance in the future (three more days away from home at this point would have been cruel and unusual punishment for poor Mr. SkiingWeaver).

Mostly what she showed us was her work with folding paper, but the mind boggles with possibilities in applying this to textiles, in my opinion...


The top piece, in orange, is actually made from fabric - the pleats and creases are ironed right in so that the fabric retains the shape. The bottom, white piece, is paper. Isn't it a great shape??

Paper again.



I absolutely fell in love with this little piece. Figured out how to make it and everything - if anybody noticed a dark-haired woman sitting at various tables in the Convention Center between classes obsessively folding graph paper (took a while to work out the angles to that it would curve enough when I did it myself) - that was me! And then I was coloring on graph paper and folding it to work out design possibilities...

Now that I've done the Convergence thing, I really, really wish I had signed up for more classes! I followed various peoples' advice (probably for the first time ever, lol) and only signed up for four classes, thinking I'd be overwhelmed with the exhibits, vendor hall, etc. I should have known myself well enough to know that four wasn't nearly enough. (I hate to say it but I'm really not much of a shopper, so I didn't spend a lot of time in the vendor hall...) When I think of those two empty afternoon slots that could have been filled with more learning, well, phooey.

But that's also a comment on the quality of the classes I took - I thought each of them was fantastic! Wonderfully friendly teachers, interesting classmates, very well done.

So, for my next post, I'll talk about my final two classes, which were on Color Theory - both very different, but both excellent as well.

Convergence - Part One (Tampa)

I think I've been avoiding posting about Convergence. Probably because there is *so* much to talk about that I don't even really know where to begin...

So, I'll just begin with talking a little bit about Tampa. And then the classes I took. And, finally, some of the absolutely fantastic work (and some less than fantastic work - eeks) that I saw there. So, the easiest first - a bit about the little corner of Tampa that I was in for the Conference.

The Tampa Convention Center, where Convergence was held:


Palm tress are interesting beasties, aren't they?

Here's the view from my hotel room (I stayed at the Westin Harbor Island):

And, to get to the Conference Center, I took a short walk over the bridge...

One of the days, during lunch time, I poked around a bit in the business district of Tampa. It was sooooo HOT. Unbelievable, actually - mid-90s and crazy humid. I could never, ever live in a climate like that, I'd melt. (Made me remember one of the reasons why I was so gung-ho to move away from Texas all those years ago, Irish girls from New England literally cannot take the heat!)

Carlos (Mr. SkiingWeaver) says it sounds a lot like Puerto Rico in the summer, which makes sense.

Very neat fountain, reflected in a building. What completely cracked me up were these guys:

Check him out! Isn't he neat?? I kept seeing them meandering around downtown. I'm sure to Tampa/Florida people he's just like a pigeon, but I still thought he was pretty cool. Crazy tourist lady taking pictures of the pigeons. LOL (Is it an ibis? I'm not sure!) Hey, warm climate people take pictures of snow after all...

I took the trolley out to Ybor City (an older neighborhood, it used to be full of Cuban cigar factories), but didn't take any pictures - it's mostly restaurants and college bars now with just a few interesting shops thrown in, so it was a little disappointing. I was hoping for a little bit more of an ethnic vibe, but, no dice, rats. (To be fair, I am a tough customer - I lived in Mexico City for six weeks one summer, and we've spent a lot of time in Spain, too...)

OK, now that I've gotten started, I'll keep going. Stay tuned, I'll post about the classes that I took next (they were quite good - and now I wish I had signed up for more of them!).

Super-Mom?

I often get the question - "How do you do it all?? How do you take care of the kids, the house, weave, run your Etsy shop, blog, etc.?"

Honestly - I don't. No Super-Moms around here. Though there is a Super-Bella and Super-Conall-Baby:

(They've got capes on - Bella will stand in superhero pose, fists on her hips, cape flung over her shoulders and say "Fly my cape for me, Mum!")

I neglect the housework pretty shamefully (really really need to get back on the Fly Lady schedule - I don't follow it to the letter by any means, but her idea of spending 15 minutes a day decluttering is brilliant, I think...).

And when we're getting out and about and doing summer stuff, everything slips... We've had a fun couple of weeks though.

A birthday party:

Trips to the playground with friends:

Just playing out back:

I have actually managed to post some things in my Etsy store last week and this week, too, after most of them sitting around, finished, waiting for me to get around to taking pictures of them for quite a while. That actually has gotten easier - the only tough part now is catching the good morning light in my studio.


I'm still weaving the second scarf using my second batch of hand-dyed tencel, so no updates there. (Ridiculous, those scarves are very quick to weave and I just haven't gotten around to it, argh - I did weave off the warp on my big loom in my studio on Wednesday evening, though!)

So, I neglect the housework, I neglect my blog (oops), I'm haphazard about updating my Etsy store, and I even wimped out of the June Open Studios at WAS!

And I have a super-secret weapon. Carlos (Mr. SkiingWeaver). He's fantastic. He gets up with Conall at 5:30/6am most morning and lets me sleep until 7am. (That alone is cause for sainthood.) He does dishes, handles bedtime when I go to the studio in the evening, mows the lawn (usually with only minimal prodding, lol), scoops the cat litter *and* is the V.P. at his company. Goodness.

So, obviously, I don't do it all. :) And I think anybody with kids under five years old who says they do is either compulsively organized or has a cleaning lady (wouldn't that be nice??). LOL. I just muddle through and thankfully my family doesn't freak out when I get behind on vacuuming or laundry...

Well, rats...

So, a little while ago, I dyed some tencel using a new (to me) two color gradation dying technique described on the Prochemical webpage. I even posted this picture:



Well, I wove what was intended to be another ruffly/differential shrinkage scarf with the warm toned tencel, washed it, and look what happened...


Gah! Yuck! Blech! What happened to all that gorgeous color?? LOL. (Good thing I have a sense of humor about these things...)

I've dyed tencel before and had the colors stay just gorgeously, not all come out in the wash. I think it was probably the process outlined by ProChem... Normally I use urea water instead of tap water with salt in it to form the basis of the dye bath (as they describe in their Low Water Immersion dying process), so perhaps that was the problem. So, I've dyed another batch in the same colorway, using a hybrid technique to do the gradated dying, but with the urea water. Hope that does the trick! I'll keep you posted.

On other fronts, I actually managed to get a wrap listed in my Etsy shop today - my first new listing, apart from commissions, in forever. Truly lame. And this poor wrap has been waiting to be listed for weeks...




I'll be listing more this week, so stay tuned!

Artist Profile (Really Late!) - Sunrise Lodge Fiber Studio

I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't even have the word "Wednesday" in my artist profiles, and instead just aim for once a week. Since I seem to be hopeless at actually getting them done on Wednesday...

At any rate, this week, I've chosen a small group of fiber artists - Shannon, Ursula and Christina of Sunrise Lodge Fiber Studio. All three women are spinners and dyers, and Shannon is a handweaver as well (and is teaching Christina how to weave, how fun!).
Oh my god. Isn't that *gorgeous*?? I so want this yarn... At Night in Gethsemane handspun yarn. The colors are just fantastic - it's a 2-ply, 11 wpi (wrap per inch) yarn with 556 yards in the skein. They're not kidding when they say you can make a whole project with one of their skeins of yarn, I love the generous size! (Oh, and if you're like me, you might want to read about the Gardens of Gethsemane, here.)



More yumminess. Sea Foam Worsted Weight handspun, 192 yards of 2ply, 10 wpi yarn.

How about some self-striping sock yarn?
If Only I Were Argyle sock yarn - I love that name! This skein has 420 yards of super wash merino/bamboo/nylon (love that bamboo!) sport weight sock yarn, plenty for a pair of socks.

How about something for the spinners out there?

Misty Morning Hand-carded Batt. This batt is 4 oz. of hand-dyed and hand-carded merino wool with a little bit of nylon and natural-colored grey alpaca. Makes me want to get out my drop spindle (though I'd never do it justice...).

Shannon of Sunrise Lodge Fiber Studio has also set up a sister Etsy store for her handwovens, Sunrise Handwovens. Check out her handwoven shibori scarf:


Yaknow, once again, somebody is proving me wrong - I've mentioned before that I'm not always wild about woven shibori, because it can come out looking really muddy, in my opinion (which I'm sure lots of people disagree with, lol). But this piece is gorgeous. Clean and beautiful, and you can actually see the results of the shibori dye technique. Bravo, Shannon!

Late Night

I was up far too late last night, playing with chemicals...

So now I'm imbibing too many chemicals of a different kind (caffeine, baby, and the possibility of some extreme sugary yumminess from Fat Daddy/Bangerang Bake Shop) to stay awake...

The oranges/peaches/yellows on the left is sure to appeal to my Mum. :)

Isn't dying fun, though? These are just some sample skeins of tencel and bamboo yarn, using MX Dyes from Procion. Easy to use, it's all done a room temperature, and tencel and bamboo both take dye really nicely. The bamboo yarns are a bit lighter, it's interesting, the tencel sucks up the color a bit more intensely. So much fun to get back into this! It's been a while (since before I got pregnant with the Little Man), I had to relearn it a bit, but it's easy and fun, appeals to my nerdly sciencey side to be measuring and mixing in buckets...

Can't wait for it to dry enough to get it on my looms!

The Grace Kelley Story

My big brother Owen is the family storyteller... And he sent along this wonderful story a little while ago - and I just had to share it.

So, without further ado, here is The Grace Kelley Story as told by my brother Owen (isn't Owen a great Irish name? I was dying to use it, but, yaknow, already taken and stuff, so the little man got a different Irish name instead, to go with my hubby's Puerto Rican last name.)

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On March 30 I met my friend Kevin Rich for a day of ice fishing at Tully Dam in Athol. ( Well; the dead end road where we park to get onto the reservoir is in Athol.) Kevin had some errands to run before meeting me so I had some time to wait for him. After waiting only a couple of minutes I heard a truck approach.

I thought it was too soon to be Kevin, I was correct. A young man pulled up in his truck. He got out of his truck with "Grace" in his hands. He informed me that he was abandoning her. I asked him why he wasn't bringing the kitten to a shelter. He didn't answer.. He jumped into his truck and sped away. ( I should have noted his plate number but did not.) I was sitting on the tailgate of my truck and "Grace" ran right over to me and jumped onto my lap.

A few minutes passed and Kevin showed up. He got out of his truck and asked what my new friends name was. ( Grace is completely gray.) I said she must be named "Smokey" and told him the story of how I had just met her. As we were offloading gear and firewood from my truck I dropped a piece of firewood onto "Smokey's" tail. She let out a screech and ran up a nearby pine tree.

We went fishing for the day. When we came up the hill at the end of the day Kevin must have seen me looking for the kitten. He called out "Here kitty, kitty" a number of times. I said Kev, I already have a cat at home, I don't need another one. We packed up the trucks and headed home. I was looking for "Smokey" as I drove up the dirt road. There are houses just a short way up from the dead end. I thought hopefully that she would find a home at one of the houses on the road.

Norma [Norma is Owen's wife] puts our cat Smokey out each morning on his rope in the front yard. The next morning was a rainy Monday. Norma called to me that Smokey was hissing at a small gray kitten in the front yard. I immediately thought "it can't be"; it was.

"Smokey" from the reservoir had crawled into the underside of my truck and stowed away. This kitten rode for approximately 40 miles under my truck as I drove down route 2. Needless to say; "Smokey" was brought into the house and placed in a cat carrier cage.

I thought about bringing her to the Sterling animal shelter. I slept on it for the night. When I woke the next morning I informed the family that we had a new member of the family. Her name is Grace; for only by the grace of God is she in our lives. I have never thought of myself as a cat person. I do now. When I go to bed at night Grace comes along and sleeps by my feet.

It is a remarkable story; one that I share with all who meet Grace.

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Isn't that great? Route 2 is a pretty major road that runs across Massachusetts - not a ton of traffic out in this area, but everybody moves right along at 65+ m.p.h. That cat really was meant to belong to Owen, I think!

Wow, I'm pretty lame, this is the only picture I found that included a shot of Owen (apart from our wedding photos, but those aren't in electronic form...) That's him, in the grey sweater in the middle of the doorway, facing away from the camera, talking to two of his children. Norma is the lovely lady in the purple shirt sitting in front of him. That's my oldest brother, Mark, in the plaid shirt on the left.

This is from Christmas at my Mum's (she's in the front of the picture, sitting, in the red sweater, in profile) house several years ago - it's always a complete madhouse, with over 20 people packed into not a lot of space (I have four older brothers, 6 nieces, three nephews, a great-niece and two great-nephews [with more in the works, lol, my oldest nieces are closer in age to me than most of my brothers, I was a real tail-ender], it's a big family when we all get together and spouses/significant others all come along...).

I'm going to have to do a better job of taking pictures of everybody next time we're all together!