Wool Market Fun

The South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market was, once again, well attended and so much fun. Even if no one came, I think we would enjoy ourselves! What's not to enjoy about people engaged with fiber?
This darling little one finished her fiber day with Grandma at our place. She had started the day by making fairies at the Fiber Studio and ended by making a Wild Batt with me.


Jenn Cuff spent the day spinning (So did I;-)) Although I have no photos to prove it, my friend Carla brought in her Navajo spindle and taught us how to use it. Several of us took turns on it while she tried out my new Majacraft Wheel. Her hand can be seen somewhere in this fluffy, curly single made from loose locks. I spun 3 skeins during the day, totaling nearly 300 yards.

You never know what will happen at a wool market. If you stay long enough, you are bound to learn something new or make a new friend.

Next market? July 24.

The wool market will probably resume in September. Stay tuned.

more installation shots

study with Adrienne Sloane

(Leslie D., Martha B.,Deb G.,Fran N., me, Adrienne Sloane)

The class, Knitting and the Political Landscape, by Adrienne Sloane, finally taught this longtime knitter (like 40 years on and off) HOW to knit. The goal was to accumulate enough skills to be able to knit in a sculptural manner. It was so HARD ON MY HANDS! (The nearly 50 years of art working have taken a toll!) BUT, stay tuned. Things may happen! I organized and added a few needles to the stash and do have plans involving shifu, audio tape and wool.It was a power-packed class. The lists and the bulletin boards barely cover the intensity. We sampled, sampled and sampled, technique after technique, stretching our knitting concepts and forms into three dimensional space.

In the end, yarn bombing happened. Leslie, with the help of Martha, knit a garter for a baluster outside of Yudof Hall. Other bombs were sprinkled through McNeil Hall.

installation

The gallery is a quiet studio, talk radio in the background. This Saturday, it will light up with the second South Minneapolis Wild Wool Market. Ideas have been knocking around in my head that involves the little dresses again, but in 3-d with fiber. SO, I today I began.

I like the relationships that are developing among the parts, although it is still too linear, simply curated objects rather than a full 3-d experience. I think the placenta dress needs to hang in space rather like the stuffed dress at the left.But with the wool market arriving in a couple of days, I will leave it as is for now.

Flowers in celebration

Do you remember Kari Gunther-Seymour? I do! She sent this bouquet celebrating 7 years of the gallery and the beginning of my sabbatical!

What a wonderful artist and what a wonderful human being. Kari was one of the first artists I worked with here at the gallery. She shipped in WAR GAMES, an amazing installation of interactive art games that pertained to our never ending war in Iraq, in the first year of the gallery. Kari is a life long peace activist whose son went to war. She has produced powerful bodies of work that deal with the tension between supported her son, and the troops, while abhorring the war.(go to the gallery website and check out the archives: Show #3 and show #15.)

It's Monday and I'm still working

It's Monday. It's 8 pm and I am still working. What else is new?

Well, it is the last day of the regular gallery schedule for the next 6 months!

Leslie Sobel on the Stonearch Bridge overlooking the great Mississippi River.

Zach and I packed Leslie Sobel's show today...if you missed it you can see it in the gallery archives...show #40!!!! Times sure does fly when you are having fun. Leslie showed at the beginning of the second season and at the end of the 7th season. Rather nice, if uneven, brackets.

"SO", you ask, "Now what?"

Well...I sat in the yard for a bit today and mused with Zach about the difficulty we both have at not working (Hence, it is now 8:15 pm and I have been at it since before 10 am.) I am already thinking of ways to use the gallery, before we re-commence in January.

I am considering doing an artyarn show in the fall...I am considering truncating the yearly schedule to September through May or June...I am considering having a fiber oriented set of summer shows each year...I am considering....

Art yarn by Susan Hensel

I am considering sitting quietly by big water and letting my busy brain empty out and quiet down. But until that happens, I will putter away in here, playing with fiber, reading, writing and dreaming. Zach and I will maintain Monday hours through July, when he leaves for grad school! I will be studying in various places at various times throughout the 6 months...starting with the Artwear Symposium at the Textile Center in Minneapolis.

Gallery Musings

Today was spent on promo for the Wool Market, yawning from lack of sleep, evaluating the results of the current show in the gallery, updating the website, interviewing several people for the potential new position of gallery associate in January, photographing fiber and recording dye results.

The work day flew by, with both Zach and I smiling as we we realized our work responsibilities were waning. He has finished 2 of his three jobs before grad school and I am almost to the sabbatical date! We are both waxing philosophical/nostalgic even though we will be working together another 2 months!

Leslie Sobels' show comes down after Memorial Day, but we will maintain our Monday hours, getting caught up on gallery admin and planning, web restructure and repair, generalized computer stuff! Our Fridays, which may occasionally become Thursdays or Wednesdays (call before you come), will be spent dying and cleaning out the basement cracks, crannies and crevices to make a fuller functioning lower studio.