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…
Ubuhle Women: Beadwork and the Art of Independence
“Ubule Women” (“beautiful” women in Xhosa) is an exhibition currently on display at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum in Washington, D.C. The Ubuhle artists’ community was established in 1999 by local resident Bev Gibson and beader Ntombephi Ntombela to provide Xhosa and Zulu women with the means to provide for their families through their art.…
New snowflake for the Christmas tree
Every year, I add a snowflake to the Christmas tree. Since I started beading, most of these have been beaded snowflakes. Here’s this year’s addition! Twisted bugles, a few Swarovski, and a few size 11 beads. It needed more thread passes, but I was running out of time (11:45 p.m. Christmas Eve). It’s a little…