Inspiring experience....

I haven't been weaving at all lately because I've been involved in an amazing project with Savannah College of Art and Design's (SCAD's) visiting artist, Ju Yeon Kim. My boss in the Exhibitions Dept. asked if anyone was interested in helping her and I said... I'd love to! Well, it has been an incredible experience! Getting to know Ju Yeon and have the honor of tracing about 150 of her drawings using PhotoShop has been a privilege.

Let me back up a bit... Ju Yeon had been involved with SCAD at the Savannah campus teaching here a couple years ago and again last year at the Lacoste, France campus. She was chosen to do a collaborative installation with the SCAD Fibers and Sculpture students. The finished installation will be exhibited at the Museum of Women in the Arts Museum in Washington, DC opening June 25th. (The museum will have a Closing Reception September 13.) So... the problem was a deadline rapidly approaching and students in Spring Fever mode (in love, stressed with work they had put off for other classes, and I hate to say it... for some, lack of motivation... having their work in a major museum just wasn't cutting it...) So... I offered to help and also recruited some of my Fiber Guild of the Savannahs friends to help too. Those of us who have participated look forward to doing a program for the rest of the guild when the installation returns to SCAD Savannah in the Fall. It then moves on to SCAD Atlanta and SCAD Hong Kong. Read more about the installation on SCAD's website: http://www.scad.edu/news/2010/jukeon-kim-in-between.cfm

The installation will include 2 major pieces that represent human figures that represent different phases of the human condition among them... depression, to happiness, to natural resources and pollution and ways to die. A masculine sculptural piece and a more feminine embroidered fabric piece. Visitors will be able to part the hanging panels to reach a calm meditation space at the center.

The one that I am working on is the Fiber piece... 108 strips of fabric that are each 9 foot long by about 9 inches wide. They will hang from 3 concentric circles... the outer white layer is the Future -- heavy free machine embroidery in white, beige and golden threads done by the Fiber students... the middle layer is the Present and JuYeon has drawn the figures on the white strips and colored them with paint for the students to add embellishments. I am working on the inner layer... the Past which will be on gray fabric panels stitched in white primarily with a fancy computerized embroidery machine (which JuYeon taught herself to use!) Some of the guild member are doing some embroidery on this layer using a free arm sewing machine technique and others have helped by cutting and taping the fabric panels and ironing the finished panels. My job as I mentioned was to trace Ju Yeon's drawings so that a computerized embroidery machine could read her images and embroider them on gray fabric strips.

Then there's the sculptural piece... JuYeon and the students have created 3 dimensional relief sculptures of the human images reminiscent of Rodin's Gate of Hell but the forms are much larger. They are sculpted in modeling clay that is reused after the finished form is molded and then a casting is made in an acrylic resin. This casting is then affixed to wooden panels... 6 of them that make a hexagon. The images will be painted a medium weathered gray and will be in the inside of the meditation space. Viewer will enter through an archway and be met by these forms of people and animals and plants and trees... At the top panels are attached sloping in to make a circular opening at the top. The outside of the piece is furniture grade wood.

Yesterday SCAD held a preview reception of the work to date. As today is graduation many students are going home for the summer and won't be here in Savannah the next few weeks when the finishing touches are made. I too will be leaving in a week... so my involvement is coming to an end. The illustration above is of one of the Future embroideries by the students. I also traced this image for the Past panel. I'm attaching that tracing and the drawing done by JuYeon, as well as the embroidery done in white thread on the gray panel... it is from the Historic Leaders panel which also included people such as Ghandi, Buddha, the Dalai Lama...

the original drawing...

my tracing done with PhotoShop

the embroidery of my tracing done with the computerized embroidery machine

Legacy

WInona, my dear friend Susan's mother passed away on April 25th in Charleston. Susan was one of the main reason's we decided to move to Savannah. Our children grew up together in rural central New York where Susan and some other dear friends and I met for lunch every month. We still try to have a multi-generational reunion each summer. It was at these wonderful gatherings that I would see Winona as she stayed with Susan each summer. It was Susan's stories of growing up in Savannah that gave it a sense of romance and adventure. So... it was fitting that Winona came back to Savannah be buried.

What struck me about WInona's passing was a huge sense of the legacy she left behind. Two of Susan's daughters - Pamela and Jennifer traveled together from California to be there for Gummy (their grandmother.) At the calling hours I was struck by how much they are like their mother. Jennifer talked of her excitement discovering the flowers and trees in her new backyard and Pamela talked of her children and their love of nature.

The next morning friends and family gathered at Wesley Gardens an Methodist island retreat south of downtown Savannah where Winona and her husband were caretakers for many years. I learned from the minister during the service how they cleared the brush and reclaimed the beauty of the retreat which had its history as a barrier island plantation. He talked about how you can find Winona... and God... in the wind. The whole experience epitomized wabi sabi - rustic, melancholy, slightly imperfect beauty...

After the peaceful service in the little chapel we went to the burial site at Forest Lawn near the famous Bonaventure Cemetery. I realized that one of the reasons I was here in Savannah, was to be there at that moment... representing "home" to my dear friend, Susan and her beautiful daughters. I was there to be a part of Winona's beautiful legacy. She lives on... through her daughters (Susan and her sister, Linda)... through her grandchildren and through her great-grandchildren. LEGACY!

Go to this link to see a SmileBox tribute to Winona...

http://smilebox.com/playEmail/4d5459344d5455794d5468384d7a55324e4451314f446b3d0d0a&sb=1

Ready to sail...

In about six weeks we'll be back on the boat on Lake Champlain enjoying the wind and the water and the mountains... and our wonderful friends at Treadwell Bay Marina. For those cool evenings I wanted a nautical striped sweater. My daughter Kristin surprised my with a gift certificate to my favorite LYS, WIld Fibers so I had a great start. I found some Rowan Denim cotton yarn that would be perfect. I chose the medium denim colored because I was afraid the darker navy would bleed into the natural cream colored stripes. I found the natural cotton yarn online at WEBS called Araucania Ulmo. Beautiful yarn with a crazy name!

Louisa Harding's book Modern Classics had a great pattern for my boating sweater. Wanting to put my mark on it... I decided to change the stripe pattern and the neckline and add several stitches to the width and rows to the length. The challenge was making the sleeve stripes match. Love it and I'm sure I'll be wearing it alot on those cool upstate New York nights.

This weekend we enjoyed Blessing of the Fleet in Darien, GA. Each year in April at the start of the shrimping season, Darien holds this festival. We've decided to make it a yearly trek and consider our sailboat in NY blessed, too.

a magical journey...



Free digital slideshow generated with Smilebox

Lookin good

The Fiber Guild of the Savannahs annual Show and Sale is now open during the month of April at gallery S.P.A.C.E. - Savannah's Place for Arts, Culture, and Education at 9 E. Henry Street. I must say - "It looks fantastic!" Debra Zumstein, SPACE's director, did a beautiful job organizing the movable walls to enhance the collection of fiber pieces our guild members created.

Here is an article about our show in the online Savannah newspaper...

http://savannahnow.com/do/2010-04-07/fiber-guild-savannahs-keeps-traditional-art-alive

ps. the slippers are my handspun, felted slippers with my mother's earrings as buttons

Here are some photos of the show and some of my pieces...

some of my handwoven clothing

2010 Vancouver Olympic woolen Haori

handwoven cotton/linen skirt & top

Ode to Obansan Vest of kimono fabric pieces

four handwoven scarves and a mobus

cardboard woven bags

Jacquard woven pieces from Montreal workshop

PHEW!

PHEW! I completed this haori just in time for our FIber Guild

of the Savannahs annual show and sale at the gallery S.P.A.C.E.

took it over there yesterday with my other items for the hanging,

but I needed to take it home to do some finishing touches -- like

sew the front binding on! I delivered it this morning 3/31 and the

show is up and looking wonderful! The opening reception is

April 9^th–4-7pm and the show will be open the entire month of

April.

The colors of this haori were inspired by the 2010 Vancouver

Winter Olympics. I watched as much of the events as I could and

at each venue banners of blues & greens flew in the background.

My favorite LYS, Wild Fibres was having a moving-down-the-road

sale. I picked up wonderful wool blends in a variety of blues

& greens and I was all set. I used the same threading as Peter’s

haori & tied on a navy worsted wool warp (instead of Peter’s

more earthy brown) to the original warp. I added a couple inches

on e.ach side to accommodate my more ample girth and I was good to go

I worried that I would not be able to finish my haori in time for the show, as took it off the loom and washed it last Saturday. I was able to start sewing it Sunday and with work, volunteer events, dinner out with friends and a great Tour of Savannah Homes… I finally finished sewing it together Tuesday morning. Enough was completed to reserve some wall space in the show and today (Wednesday) it’s happily hanging in the show. PHEW!

my inspiration

Seeing Old Friends & Meeting New Ones...

My wonderful friend Peter, now has his haori (kimono jacket) and it looks like something he has been wearing forever! What a treat it was to see him slip into it and beam! He wore it the entire day that I visited my old middle school where I taught with Peter for many years. I finished the haori just in time to take with me on my trip to Albany, NY to meet and escort my Japanese friend Kenji, fellow art teacher from Tokyo and his two co-workers Keiko, a high school English teacher who I met in 2005 and Rieko, Kenji's young replacement at Gakugei International School. Kenji now teaches art education at the college level to future teachers at Yokahama National University.

Who knew 4 years ago, that the art exchange between our students would be so successful and that it would continue to a new generation of students and teachers?

I met Keiko in 2005 and spoke with her for about 5 minutes before boarding a bus about to leave the high school where she taught English in a suburb of Tokyo. I had traveled to Japan with a group of 20 American teachers as guest of the Japanese government for the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund scholarship program. I told Keiko how disappointed I was that I would not have time to meet a middle school art teacher with whom I could develop an art exchange. She gave me her business card and said, "If you have any trouble, please let me know and I will help." This was in November and over February break,when I had time to sort through the memorabilia from my journey I found her card and wondered if it could actually work. I wrote her a note and within a week she had emailed me back with the wonderful news that she had found a teacher in her school who would enjoy creating an art exchange between our students. A few days later Kenji and I were communicating by email discussing our first exchange.

The rest is history -- over the next three years (before I retired in Jan. 2009 and Kenji went on to teach future teachers) we created experiences for our students, their families and our communities. This trip of theirs to Albany was in hopes of continuing the exchange even though both Kenji and I had moved on. Peter and Rieko are now working together and Keiko still is extremely helpful as translator to make the communication work well. An article was written for the Bethlehem Central website.

Rieko, Keiko and Peter discussing pop-up books created by Rieko's students illustrating Japanese myths and fables written in English.

Kenji, Keiko, and Rieko outside of Bethlehem Central Middle School with their huge suitcase full of Rieko's students' pop-up books and art teaching materials they brought to share with the teachers.

Video of an interview of Peter and art supervisor Melanie about the value of the art exchange with Gakugui International School.

Peter and Rieko with the projects their exchanging... prints from Peter's 6th grade students and pop-up books from Rieko's 8th grade students. The prints will be on display in Tokyo during their Annual Art Show at the school.

Peter and Rieko present a DVD of her students reading their pop-up books during a BCMS faculty meeting.

Rieko and Keiko visiting Traci's 8th grade art class.

Our Japanese visitors getting a special tour of the New York State

art collection of NY artists in the Empire State Plaza including

Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline.

Kenji and Keiko enjoying a special tour of the New York State Senate Chambers in Albany's Capital Building.

What a wonderful time we all had and what a special treat it was to see old friends and meet new ones. It was a melancholy time when I had to leave my three special friends at the bus station so they could continue their journey to Boston and then on to New York City, each for a few days visiting with museum personnel about museum education, before flying back to Tokyo after a very busy week!

A wonderful bonus to flying up to Albany from Savannah was having the chance to stay with my daughter Kristin and her husband, Bobby and my two adorable grand-daughters Abby (just 5) and Chelsea (3 1/2). I even got to have them all to myself for a night to make cookies, read stories and play with Groovie Girls and My Little Ponies!! HEAVEN!