Trouble and Dirt

It's that unpredictable, irregular, disconcerting season again. Where the ground should be solid,  it's spongey. The breeze is soft, the night warm, and then the sleet storm comes.  Vees of geese fly east, then west, a dissonant, squawking recorder concert flying over in apparent confusion.  Fresh, raw,  energy comes in the gusting wind, but dissipates in every direction.

I'm suddenly filled with enthusiasm, but just as suddenly deflate, forgetting what had me so excited. I hear myself humming the old housewife's lament:

There's nothing that pays for
The time you waste on it,
There's nothing that lasts us
But trouble and dirt.

Pictures:
1.  Building a hellokitty rag doll, draped and pinned, around an inflated playground ball
2.  Postcard picture of erin m riley's beautiful tapestry "Three Strikes"-- erin m riley is a new kind of artist/weaver breaking through.
3.  Corn stubble in a contour field with melting snow
4.  March scarf, in linen and cotton, rosepath and plainweave

SNO-CRUSH: Kathleen Aaker

 

Kathleen Aaker wove her gauzy, linen shirts in a simple design.  She's been wanting to weave something to wear for a long time, and she's found it.   The stripes are the weft, and the warp/selvedge edge is the hem. The design is ingenious, and they look great on real people!

Since she lives on a boisterous creek (the South Fork of the Bad Axe)  the sound of rushing water surrounds her.  She calls her studio, Riverweave, and the mostly silk scarves she weaves, with deliberately slipped wefts are meant to look  rivery.  I think she loves and hates that river.   She has said that the river is too noisy, keeping her awake sometimes.  The river is also wild at flood times,  sometimes leaving her stranded, so it's not hard to imagine it influences her weaving.

She and her husband planted a native grass prairie on their farm, and she weaves that grass, harvested at the end of summer, into long repp weave table runners and wall hangings. The repp weave is perle cotton, the grass, Native Big Bluestem.  They are a beautiful setting for a harvest table.  She wove one in white wool and prairie grass for her daughter's wedding table.

Finally, are her little Kats, pieced out of wool scrap.  Meant as toy dolls, they have very long arms, the better to drag them by.

SNO-CRUSH: Peter Doval, Jean Beck

Jean Beck
This remarkable woman, maker, and baker, is also my neighbor, an Avalancher.  What a poor place it would have seemed to me here,  if she hadn't been living just up the hill.

She's a farmer, who loves to keep some chickens, and here-a-cow, there-a-goat.  She grows wonderful apples on her Bonnie Best trees.  She's known for her generosity, helping anyone who she sees needs some special attention.  She has a gift for knowing who and when.

She can make anything, beautifully.  She knits like a dream, made dolls, puppets and brooms.  She strings fences, lays stone, makes firewood,  candy clear toys, and remarkable molded cookies.  She reads a
lot, and has strong, well-informed opinions.  She's a conversationalist, and seasons it well with her wry humor.

  She keeps house with her husband; their three children are grown up now.

I asked her to make something for this show, and she designed and sewed these lovely, well-made and serviceable aprons, in 3 sizes.

Peter Doval
Peter is well known here for his turned wood bowls.  With a brief hiatus working on stone, he has returned to wood turning.

He works with local trees, maple, birch, box elder, cherry.  He is meticulous in every aspect of producing his work.  He searches out good wood to turn, and patiently brings his bowls into form, turning, drying, and finishing.  Over the years he has worked to develop a wonderful, durable finish. His bowls are light, smooth, and beautifully shaped. They are always desired.

Held up in the light, they often glow.  I am so happy to show his beautiful work here, and wood after all, is a fiber.

Peter lives and works in a small cabin on the hill, somewhere nearby.