I’ve been working this past week on adding my small tapestries to my online shop. I’m not there yet and I’ll tell you why. “Soumak Soumacs” To sell work online, there are a lot of things to consider and to prepare. It’s not just taking a photograph of the finished piece and adding a price to it. Nope. First of all, more than one photograph is required. First, an image that focuses on the tapestry itself. Then definitely one that shows the piece in its entirety with the presentation included. And, of course, a detail would be optimal. But that’s not the start. I like to keep a record of all ..read more

I do this every year. I keep a sort of “log” of the highlights throughout the year, focusing on tapestry. Following in that tradition are my reflections of the (mostly) tapestry highlights of 2024. January began with a Finish! … Rising. You can read more about it by clicking on the image or links. Rising 33.5” wide by 20” high. From early on, this weaving was destined to go to my daughter, so I spent February getting it ready to mail, hoping it would arrive just before my visit in March. I had finished off the piece to hang horizontally as in the photo above. But I had sent her a second image ..read more

In August of this year, I had the rare opportunity to co-teach a workshop with my close friend (and college room mate) Carol Ward. We taught a 2-day: “Inspired by Nature…Weaving Organically”. Then in October, I traveled to Van Nuys, California to teach for the Southern California Handweavers Guild. “Line in Tapestry” with the focus on Soumak techniques. First, “Weaving Organically” I continue to be amazed at the size and depth of the guilds I visit and the Mountain Spinners and Weavers Guild is no exception. We met in a meeting room of a church which allowed for lots of space to spread out, wi ..read more

Last week I wrote about Prepping for the Holiday Art Market, a fundraising exhibition I’ve been participating in the past few years at the Manhattan Arts Center in Manhattan, KS. As a result, a number of comments and questions have been flowing through my inbox, social media, and the comments section. These queries have prompted this post. Many questions were centered around the presentation of the small tapestries I wrote about. I mentioned attaching the smallest weavings to mat board which I then inserted into simple wooden frames. I personally prefer frames around my smaller weavings. I fe ..read more

Here we go! Up close and personal! I’ve been preparing for the Holiday Art Market this past week (month) at our community arts center, in Manhattan, KS. The locals will know this show as “Wrap it Up” which began 26 years ago as an annual fundraiser for the Manhattan Arts Center. At that time, I used to participate as a knitwear designer showing my one-of-a-kind art-to-wear pieces. Those days are long gone and I applied to exhibit a few years ago with tapestry as my medium. I was surprised to see how much the exhibit had grown over the years I had stepped away! So many more (regional) artists ..read more

The last post of my Convergence 2024 experiences is centered around the American Tapestry Alliance Speaker’s Session and 4-day workshop which followed with Sue Lawty. Barbara Heller introducing Sue Lawty First, the Speakers Session. This is the event that kicks off the workshop (usually) with the ATA President speaking, volunteer recognition, announcements, and a slide show of member’s work- followed by presentations from workshop leaders. This year, Barbara Heller, Education Director for ATA, stood in for the President, Shelley Socolofsky. I don’t need to report on the actual meeting, but I ..read more

Tiny But Mighty, ATA’s unjuried member’s show at the Envisions Gallery, Wichita, KS, July 2024 Tiny But Mighty is the American Tapestry Alliance’s (ATA) un-juried members only exhibit. It occurs in even numbered years and historically has been in conjunction with Convergence, HGA’s biennial conference. I’ve written about the show a couple of times before, both in 2022 and 2020. This year, my week at the conference was so busy that I only made it to the show during the opening, just after ATA’s Speaker’s Session with Sue Lawty’s presentation. It was jam-packed most of the time and my images he ..read more

Bea Bonanno, detail of "Photic" The last post I wrote was on notes from Convergence and my first workshop on weaving with beads and wire. The next class I participated in was a one-day class taught by Bea Bonanno. I met Bea about 5 years ago when our Kansas Tapestry Group had our first meeting at the Yarn Barn, where Bea was working at the time. I don’t remember if it was then- or later - that she shared her work with us and my curiosity was instantly piqued. When I saw her class listed for Convergence, I jumped at the chance to take it. And discovered first-hand that Bea is another great tea ..read more

HGA’s Convergence 2024 was in July of this year and I was there for a week-long retreat: volunteering where I could and taking some pretty fun workshops, too! Because the conference this year was only a two and a half hour drive from my home, I decided to head down a couple of days before to help stuff goodie bags, work the registration desk, and get settled in before the classes started. I need a lot of down time- and I still had to warp the looms I had for each session. One of the tapestries using bead and wire shared with us by Rebecca Smith (and one of my favorites), in the Tapestry Weavi ..read more

I’ve recently begun a new journal and something about it feels like a new era, too. In fact, a lot of what’s going on in my life currently feels like a new beginning. Only time will tell. It feels like a new era because when I got to the end of my last journal, I knew I had a lot of unwoven tapestries in me that I didn’t want to lose sight of. So I went through the pages one by one and photographed, then clipped out individual sketches, potential design ideas and saved them to this new journal. It’s energizing, seeing all these clips and potential.  But… I know the only way to make them ..read more