Alphabet false starts
I wanted to bead some letters for a possible project, and here are my first attempts. Here’s my false starts, from left to right: Because I like to make things difficult, I started with trying to make a curve for a cursive “A” using brick stitch. I’m sure it’s possible, but it’s certainly not easy!…
Two new glass exhibits at the McClung Museum in Tennessee
The McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture, on campus at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee, recently opened TWO new glass exhibits. Glass of the Ancient Mediterranean explores ancient glass with thirty pieces from the Yale University Art Gallery. It features objects from ancient Egypt and the Roman and Byzantine Empires, where glassmaking underwent…
North House Folk School and other schools
North House Folk School was a wonderful experience for me, as I wrote about when I described my recent sweetgrass basketry class. The school started with Mark Hansen teaching interested area residents a skin-on frame Inuit kayak, and with the enthusiasm of the community, progressed to the founding of the North House in 1997 to…
Sweet grass basketry at North House Folk School
The first weekend in February, I took a class at North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Textile arts in general are a draw for me, and I always appreciate a good basket – so I thought I’d take a class and make at least a mediocre basket. Sweet grass, a plant which grows…
Art Shanty Project 2014
The Art Shanty Project is “an artist driven temporary community exploring the ways in which relatively unregulated public spaces can be used as new and challenging artistic environments to expand notions of what art can be.” What are art shanties? On their surface, they are ice houses – something dedicated Northerners do to be able…