Delayed Inspiration

What does this scarf have to do with my baskets? It's an example of how everything I look at feeds into the collected information I use for inspiration. I'll begin with saying that I'm drawn to stripes, from wallpaper to textiles. As I was working on my new striped basket I realized that it reminded me of something. I went upstairs and found this scarf. I'd bought it in Norway two summers ago.

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For this basket, I wanted to weave bold stripes in a just-dyed, dark grey reed. I needed an accent color and remembered one I had dyed after studying the colors in a photo of peeling birch bark. Unfortunately woven together, the series of natural colors I created looked like mud. Not all ideas pan out.

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I put that basket idea aside, but found that my favorite color, a warm neutral was what I needed to play off the cool grey. (The basket is 20" x 15".)

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One thing I enjoy about using rattan reed is how I can alternate between weaving flat and "hairy" textured baskets. I wanted to work on a flat surface and make a larger basket after having finished a small, very bright "hairy" basket. All this is in preparation for an upcoming craft show in Boston from March 25th to March 27th. For more information and directions you can click here.

Why I blog

This winter has felt very long. For weeks, a part of every day was spent shoveling snow or chipping ice. February came and went but the doldrums and cabin fever set in. Even Emma and Kitt seemed stressed. March is showing improvement. The need for burdensome layers of clothing is lessening as the amount of daily mud appears to increase, on the kitchen/studio floor.

Seemingly out of nowhere, ideas for new work have been flooding me. It's almost as if spring has loosened creative seeds and I can't work fast enough. It's a good thing too, since I have a fair in Boston at the end of the month. I've been posting process photos of a new basket to my Facebook fan page. The photo above is how it started. I'll be back shortly to write about the process. (The idea I wrote about earlier - inspired by birch bark, didn't work out the way I had envisioned it, but now I have lots of dyed reed and a vague idea for another basket.)

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So ... why this blog? Although I don't post often, I'm constantly trying to find words so I can share what goes into how and why I weave. I often tell people that words aren't my "media," so this is a place where I practice getting my thoughts out of my head into words. This is also a collection point for my other blogs. There's a new one where I've been collecting design sources called Pinterest, and a photo blog where I've been adding photos of Emma and Kitt, taken with my iPod. If you've read this far, I hope that you'll come back. I'll do my best to post more often.

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A New Year's Resolution and Shades of Winter

January 1st has come and gone, 2011 has begun. I don't like to make New Year's resolutions because they can be so disappointing if not kept. And, what if something more interesting presented itself? I approach starting a new basket the same way. Usually I have an idea before I start weaving, but I often modify it as I work. The shape may suggest a different pattern, or an unexpected color combination could set me off in a new direction, so I give myself permission to see where it will lead me. (My training was in ceramics, but I prefer the flexibility in weaving baskets.)

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After a busy fall and all the comings and goings of the holidays, I'm looking forward to a quiet January. The soft shades in this Bridgewater, CT lake and the clear colors in Sarah's photo from Chicago make me want to weave. I want to design something so that I can play with these color combinations.

A few days ago I came across this birch tree. The bark's natural beauty and complexity exceeds human design. It made me think about working in textured papers and fabric, but it also made me feel humble about calling myself an artist. I want to go back and study it in different light and marvel at it's beauty. It's hard to explain, but framing these photos and then being able to appreciate all the layers and patterns in a two dimensional format is more exciting to me than going to most of the museums I've ever been to.

Contemplating the colors in the above seascapes touches me emotionally, and being able to appreciate the textures in this bark reminds me I am but a small part of something greater. As an artist and naturalist, I will try to share and preserve the beauty of what I see around me. This will be my New Year's resolution.

Fall Colors and Collecting Acorn Caps

The fall colors weren't as showy as in some years, but what they lacked in brilliance they made up for in subtlety. The sun on this chartreuse spirea surprised me one day on the way to the greenhouse. By the time I came back with the camera, the sun had gone away. The light had softened, but the leaves glowed. The bush is one of the first to bloom in the spring with tiny, white, fragrant flowers, and this year it was the last to show color.

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All fall, I collected acorn caps. I felt like I did when I was a kid looking for sea shells on the beach in Florida. A few caps were nearly flat, others were deep and vessel shaped. Each one was slightly different. As I gathered them in my hands, I noticed how the smaller ones nested inside the bigger ones. This gave me an idea ...

and, added tiny red beads that look like wild, barberry berries.

Kitt helped by showing how they moved when they were hung up.

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There were a few exceptions to the limited fall palette. Japanese maples peak after the rest of our New England foliage has fallen. My friend Dawn grows a few exceptional ones. Walking around this speciman was quite a heady experience. (To see a few more fall photos click here.)

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Inspired by a Montana Landscape

The idea for this basket started with looking at the colors in a friend's photo and a postcard of a dried, grass meadow in Yosemite. I was intrigued by the transitions from peach to indigo, and immersed myself in the colors and clouds. I played with the dyed reed as a painter would play with paint, and used more than 15 dye lots, a few of which were decades old.

As I wove, I started thinking about about the darkening sky, and stars. The stars would be woven into a dark, inner basket. Weaving a double-walled construction seemed to be the solution. People ask if I design each basket before I begin, here was a case where the whole concept changed mid basket. (A photo of the "stars" is on my website.)

As I wove a not-quite-big-dipper constellation into the inner basket, I remembered a sci-fi movie I saw where a woman woke up one morning and saw two suns in the sky and realized that she wasn't home anymore. While my hands are busy weaving, my head is free to indulge in making up stories. All I need is an idea to start with, then the curiosity, patience and perseverance to make it happen.

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The title for this basket is "An Alternate Starry Night." For more information and a photo looking into the basket, click here. The basket measures 10.5" x 10.5"

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Last year I wove a basket inspired by a painting by Leslie Baker.

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Here is the other basket inspired by the same landscape in different weather. The soft colors were the inspiration. (Having Kitt show up and be a part of the photo, was a bonus.)

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Flowers, colors, pattern and architecture

I don't weave as much in the summer as I do in the colder months (or update this blog). I get distracted by being outside; exploring the wild areas, watching plants mature and become gardens, and photography. Things change on a daily basis: color combinations, textures and how they all work together. If I don't go out and look everyday I might miss something. The camera helps me remember the vignettes that take my breath away. The photos give me a way to share these glimpses with people who are busy doing other things.

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I've been thinking about how my life and art intersect, specifically how my love of animals, architecture and basketry overlap ... Because I have to find the words in order to tell you about this, it may take a while. I started this blog so I could share a few of the thoughts I have, but I am really far more comfortable weaving than writing. I will be back to continue this.

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This is what my front "yard" looked like in July.

Bittersweet and Remarkable

It's been a time of loss, new beginnings and change. In the last few weeks I learned that 3 of my friends will be moving away by the end of the summer. (This also means that Emma will loose her 2 best dog friends.) But, we've been adopted by a less-than-a-year-old cat, "Kitt." He walked into the yard and decided to stay. Emma was nearly instantly charmed by the wee beast, who was never overly concerned by Emma's 94 pounds. He purrs when I talk to him and likes to hang out in the garden while I prune and weed. I've had cats before but never one who likes people and trusts dogs. I think he may just be a gift.

I also had to face that oldest tree in my garden was dying and had to be cut down. I had to dig up a densely planted part of the yard so that the bucket truck could reach the giant maple. The tree's leaves covered the whole of the back yard and created a protected, shady environment. (The photo above is what it looked like last year.) Now the challenge will be to redesign the exposed space and work with the sun.

I've been pruning what's left to rebalance the strange new openness. Working with the paths and larger bushes, has been a challenge. Thirty years ago the garden started as a collection of plants I couldn't resist. Then I moved to bushes. I've been editing and moving things around, but it had gotten pretty wild. People politely called it a "cottage-garden." I've been simplifying, adding structure and creating vistas. Change is hard for me, but the back garden is going to look better than it did before!

Then, a week ago I went to a remarkable Garden Tweet-Up at the home of Margaret Roach. Gardeners and friends of gardeners came from CT, NY, NJ, NY, NH, MA, PA, TX to meet and talk together. I'd been tweeting and reading blogs by half of the 20 people I met there. Although I'm not a garden designer, or garden writer (most of the people were) I am a serious gardener. We all shared an interest in plants, color combinations and in creating spaces using them. Most of the group also shared an interest in photography and social media. It was fun for all to spend time, and get to visit with real people.

*The photo of me looking more relaxed than I've felt in weeks was shot by Lynn Felici-Gallant.

The theme is "green."

In my last blog post, I talked about being able to work with color. I love it. Color excites and motivates me. It inspires new work when I reach a stumbling spot. Add to this, the joy of watching colors emerge and grow in a garden and you can see why I weave color into my work and live in a temperate jungle (a polite way to refer to my cottage-gardening-style). Tomorrow I want submit one of these photographs to a garden blog competition where the theme is the color green. All shades are included, from chartreuse (a favorite) to the blues greens in my hostas. I'd love to hear which of these you'd pick, because I can't decide.

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I decided to enter #2 the chartreuse and blue-green hosta leaves, to Gardening Gone Wild's April contest. The link is here. There are over 60 other "green" entries, go take a look. (The results are in. My work wasn't chosen, but you can see how green was interpreted by the winners here.)

My display at Craft Boston and a peach flower ...

Craft Boston is finished. Between having a wonderful place to stay (with a friend and her 2 dogs), lovely, upbeat neighbors to pass the days with, a group of baskets I was proud of (including the one I made for the Fuller Craft Museum which they had on display) and my sister's help at the end of the show, I sold a few baskets and made a couple of good contacts for the future. It was a good show.

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On the way to the show one morning, I saw a flowering quince and next to it, an almost painfully-beautiful, peach-colored flower growing between a driveway and the brick wall of a rough building. The delicate strength in the flower and its color, haunted me for the rest of the day. The unexpected, vulnerable color reminded me of why I work with color. I love it, and I can immerse myself in this passion when I weave baskets. By surrounding myself with gardens, I get to celebrate all the color and textures when they appear in nature. I was asked if I'd gotten a photo of the flower, but I hadn't. I don't think a photo could live up to the impact that color had on me. I feel very fortunate to live the life I do. (And then there's the new cat who has adopted Emma and me, but that's another story.)

I'm off to Craft Boston later this week

After spending the last two months working on the double-wall for the Fuller Craft Museum, I wanted to weave smaller pieces where I could play with color. Here are three little "hairy pots" I've woven for Craft Boston, April 9-11 at the World Trade Center.