Wednesday, August 5, 2015

summer things












Amish built oat ricks on Salem Ridge this week look like shaggy beasts that might roam around
when the moon is bright!  I wish we would hear whippoorwill calls again in late summer evenings, especially since I'm not trying to get a small child to sleep.  I hope they are only temporarily away.
Some people who live in Crawford County, to the south, have told me they often hear them, and that they are incessant and obnoxious. 

 I ride past this abandoned farm house and the old shed on my bike some days.  At noon on a bright day, it's so dark inside the shed.  Just this summer, the roof  has caved in. The work in here stopped a long time ago. In the dim light, I see old tractor tires, winches, chains and dusty calendars pinned to the wall, coffee tins of tractor parts, and old cans rusting on plank shelves and window sills.  It feels like a sunken boat.

 The curtain in the farmhouse window moved ever so slightly to the left as I was taking the picture, as if an unseen hand were moving it slightly to see who was outside looking in.  I felt a cold shiver down my neck!  I went around to the back side of the building then,  and found a broken window letting a breeze into the old room,  stirring the curtains!

New weaving in my workshop, which is filled with a whole lot of  summer light in the mornings.  Also, there is my small savu-sauna wash cloth, included in the Deep Roots Exhibit, at the Craft Museum of Finland, until August 23, 2015.  I am so pleased to show these weaves in Finland as part of this Scandinavian-American artists exhibit. My cloths are my tribute to my Finnish grandmother, Impi's life, in Finland, where she lived as a girl and young woman,  before coming to Minnesota in 1917.  I never knew her, because sadly,  she died young, leaving her 4 children, and her husband.

7 comments:

Charlotte Engstad said...

Congratulations on participating in an exhibition in Finland!I love your photos of the straw and the spooky old house, it seems you live in a very rural place. Best wishes, Charlotte

Dawn of LaTouchables said...

Those haystacks have an almost primitive voodoo character, which adds to the delicious spine-tingling creepiness of the curtains on your bikeride.

I envy the light in your studio...and I can imagine your beautiful weaving in that show in Finland.

Susan said...

Charlotte & Dawn, I wouldn't want to investigate that place on a dark and foggy day. Weirdly, the bright sun, and wind made it seem more strange. And the same with the oat ricks. A little sinister...Sorry, summer really is sweet, and there are berries, butterflies and daisies too.

Velma Bolyard said...

the oat ricks may be cousins to my corn ladies...beautiful post, and beautiful cloth.

riverweave said...

Just looked at the last three posts, I want to go into your pictures. Sometime in the coming fall I want to come and take a bike ride with you! Your weaving is always inspirational.

Susan said...

Velma, later there will be corn shocks across the Amish fields. I think they look best at night, by moonlight, but I don't know how to take that picture.

Kathy, I'd love your company biking to Bloomingdale

Unknown said...

Susan your photos of those windows made me catch my breath. They will be in my minds eye for quite awhile.