Mary Hark is one of my papermaking heroes.
she prepared the paper studio for us by hanging beautiful Ghanaian indigo textiles
and her sample table was festooned with gorgeous papers and other treasures.
i didn't take a before photo,
but below is how it looked after three days,
when much paper had gone home with other people.
love this turtle motif
and after we had paper air drying on screens
you can see these wise cloths presiding.
we made dimensional and thick flax paper in Mary's class
Mary read from this book, which i found online and is a treasure for sure
the screen mends around Ox Bow made me happy
so did the closest lavatory to the paper studio
located in the glass studio
Mary presenting the flowering indigo vat to us.
the right hand indigo dyeing is my shifu.
it got three indigo and one black walnut immersions,
shown here oxidizing after the first indigo
there is an OxBow bathroom fairy who left us flowers
Untying shibori
Giselle's dots/holes
Mary continued spinning kami-ito after taking my class
our two classes did seem to complement each other
Mary was generous with ideas about color and texture in and on our
paper.
and we responded with enthusiasm,
despite continual rain and cool weather,
so that drying was a true challenge.
Andrea of course was helping orchestrate the paper magic.
Many of us in Mary's class made a little edition of "quilt squares"
which were dyed in the indigo vat
and tied corner to corner
to make our class auction piece
(PBI auctions support scholarship students,
of which I was once one before blogging and this inter world)
it's a long piece
and John DeMerritt's class built a home for it
a lovely presentation box.
I heard it raised more than $1000 in the auction!
GO US!!!
this!
Erin Fletcher embroidered the title on the box
Did I mention they made this box in ONE day?
a piece Mary wrote for an edition for Minnesota Center for Book Arts
that I loved.
the second class presentation show and tell night
Beatrice Cordon's class cut up a lot of stuff and made stories
they had a fantastic time, much laughter was heard from their classroom.
our table
Chela Metzger's class
of course there was printed work, which i seem to have not photographed.
from my class, and completed in John's, a shifu portfolio!
and later that night we visited the studios of OxBow staff,
all of whom appear to be crazy artists, too.
and back home I found I had energy again.
i've spent lots of time in the yard and garden tidying and hauling and making beautiful
and at Home we had a tiny adventure.
we came upon a child of god he was...
he was...
a garter snake eating a leopard frog.
i was so excited I barely got a photo.
snake was only about 24 inches long, and this frog was going to fill up an empty gut for sure.
Wow!
ReplyDeletemo, it was pretty wow. now, back to "real life"!
ReplyDeleteAn echo or Mo: WOW! There's nothing like a group working to quadruple energy for everyone including the reader. I saw the snake at it's meal on FB and what great shots.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Michelle Slater | chenrezigs@gmail.com
michelle, i so wish i'd gotten more precise photographs, but it was so startling to see a snake and then to see what snake was carrying...
ReplyDeleteYour photos are always perfect, Velma, and I love Mary’s words!
ReplyDeleteI threw in the towel after my arthritic hands’ failed attempt at rolling cut and prepared paper on concrete blocks. But I can weave, and am now renewed with desire to create shifu.
Where can I find already spun authentic Kami-ito for purchase?
The tied piece and housing are unique, even more so from numerous artists.
I really enjoyed this post-everything just wonderful-I am off to look at all the photos again Kathy
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Kathy Inozarks | packerfan1@hughes.net
Thanks, Kathy!
Barbara--you can't buy it. you can buy some paper threads fron Habu and Dairing, but NOT kami-ito.
ReplyDeleteThank you for these photos. Magic time with making folk. Beauty
ReplyDeletebeing born.
omg there's so much in this post it's overwhelming. I'm going to have a lie down and come back again later!!
ReplyDeleteyou must have had great fun!!! such lovely work, I have been trying to find that book without paying over 60.00! OxBow is one place I have wanted to go, thanks for all the pictures, love the screen- birds have been shredding one of my screens for their nests
ReplyDeleteIntensive!
ReplyDeletepatty, m agic and hard work and hard play
ReplyDeletefelicity, you would love it.
susan, i find it incredible that birds are shredding your screens!
fiona, yes. you should do this sometime!