February Tree Matryoshka Stone

It's the time of winter when I need a little lift, a gentle reminder to look around me and see the beauty under gray skies and in the face of knife-edged winds. I put all of the hopeful thoughts I could into the stitching for this February Tree Matryoshka Stone.

I finished her up on Sunday, a low day for me. I felt emotionally depleted, and my default mode of communication with my family seemed to be shouting. So I added a little scene on the back of the covered stone, a reminder to keep myself firmly supported while reaching skyward.

The February Tree Matryoshka Stone will be listed for sale at the Haiti By Hand Etsy shop to support the relief and rebuilding efforts in Haiti. Rebecca continues to share her plans for how the seed money raised by Haiti by Hand will directly empower the women artisans of Despinos, Haiti--women like Jeannine, whose childhood love for embroidery resurfaced when given the proper supplies. Let's put even more materials into her hands, and those of the other women, so that they can create more works of art like this.

Matryoshka Stone WIP

The Sacred Spring Stone is off to Seattle, where I know it will feel right at home. Thank you, Cindy, for supporting the work of Haiti by Hand, whose mission is to directly aid women artisans in Despinos, Haiti. The Haiti by Hand Etsy shop is filled with handcrafted and heartfelt expressions of hope for this community, including the stirring Lespwa (Hope) Milagro made by Pilar Isabel Pollock.

Hope (Lespwa) Milagro by Pilar Isabel Pollock

I am finishing up a matryoshka covered stone like the ones that kicked off my latest obsession with covered stone embroidery. Stitching on felt is an act of meditation for me, calming this restless brain of mine that flutters from thought to thought like an agitated bird. But working on this series of stones for Haiti by Hand is so much more than that. Each stitch feels like a prayer I am sending to the women of Haiti. And though this little contribution of mine is not much, it feels as if together we are building this great big strong wall of support for them.

I wanted to cover this matryoshka stone with a Tree of Life, a folk image that is used in Haitian art. As I stitched the design I had sketched, the curving lines of the branches naturally formed the contours of the matryoshka's hooded cloak. Don't you love happy accidents?

Sacred Spring Stone

On our next-to-last day in England in early January, my husband and I took the train from London to the town of Bath. We sought out the thermal springs of the Roman Baths, a warming of the spirit on a day of record cold temperatures and gray skies. At the Roman Baths' Sacred Spring, the Celts had worshiped the goddess Sulis and then the Romans their own goddess Minerva. Combining veneration of the two goddesses, the temple of Sulis Minerva offered its hot, healing waters to the sick and in turn received their offerings--coins, jewelry, scribbled notes, tokens of their professions, and representations of their bodily ills.

As we toured the baths from the Roman aqueducts below ground level to the street-level Victorian Pump Room, history revealed itself layer by layer. The rising and falling levels of the water had left rust-hued rims on the stones lining the baths.

As we traversed the temporal journey from Celt to Roman to today, we also experienced a lesson in geology. The hot waters in the spring had fallen thousands of years ago in the form of rain on the nearby Mendip Hills. The rain had trickled down through fissures in the limestone until intense heat and pressure had forced it back up. On its reverse, meandering journey, the rain absorbed minerals from earth and stone, giving the waters their reputed healing powers.

Bath Abbey was built right next to the Roman Baths, attesting to the rich spiritual significance of the site. The Celtic, Roman, and then later Christian religious practices have mingled and merged at the Sacred Spring, just as the ancient rain has dissolved stone and combined its constituent minerals into a healing bath.

Healing of body and spirit has been much on my mind in recent weeks since the earthquake in Haiti. I crafted the Sacred Spring Stone shown above as part of my own healing and as an offering to the relief efforts in Haiti. It can be purchased at Haiti by Hand; all proceeds directly benefit women in an artisan community in Despinos, Haiti.

A New Home for Snowglobe Stone

The Snowglobe Stone has found a new home in South Dakota. Thank you, Peggy, for supporting Haiti by Hand.

If you haven't done so already, please read Rebecca Sower's profiles of the Haitian women who are part of the artisan group that will be helped by this project. Women like Elcy and Berta. Their creativity and courage are amazing, and they fill me with hope that given support in (re)building Haiti's infrastructure and connecting these talented makers to global markets for their products, Haiti will not only survive this recent tragedy, but thrive.

Please consider helping these women as they build the scaffolding for self-sufficiency. It doesn't take much.

A Providential Journey

**All of the crocheted covered stones shown in this post are by Margaret Oomen/Resurrection Fern

This is a story about a walk at the beach, how I got lost along the way and then found exactly what I was looking for. It’s about a friendship and inspiration. About walking in someone else’s shoes and seeing through someone else’s eyes. Of realizing who I am and learning to feel brave about sharing myself with others, no matter how different I am from them. It’s about the art of juxtaposition.

Last week I drove to Providence, Rhode Island, to see Margaret Oomen’s joint exhibition with Merrilee Challis at Craftland Gallery. I went by myself, no husband, no kids. Solo adventures are rare for me, and I was a little nervous about being on my own and getting lost, but I wasn’t filled with the overwhelming anxiety that a solo winter drive would have meant for me a few years ago. My recent trip to London had reignited my long-dormant sense of adventure. I had successfully found my way from Heathrow Airport to a rented apartment after a red-eye flight and navigated the London Underground to find the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Liberty of London store all on my own, reminding me that in fact I’m a fairly competent traveler.

I count Margie as a friend, though we’ve only ever met once in person over a very special weekend. We took an amazing walk together, which I shared here. I had hoped to meet up with Margie in Providence to enjoy the exhibition’s opening, but sadly Margie’s mother’s passed away a few days before the show’s opening. So it was bittersweet for me to see Margie’s show at such a difficult time for her personally. My thoughts were with her, and waves of sadness overcame me at odd times. Her loss brought up my old feelings of grief at losing my grandmother three years ago.

Right after I checked into my hotel in Providence, I headed downtown to Craftland. An open, airy space on a street with other galleries and design-oriented stores, the gallery was filled with a nicely curated selection of crafts, set off beautifully by stark white display cases and gray concrete floors. A collection of silk-screened and digital prints lined the long wall that led to the exhibition of Margie’s crochet-covered stones and saucers, grouped with Merrilee Challis’ dreamy paintings. I photographed the pieces for Margie and spent time examining each detailed creation.

Later, during the official opening, I spoke with Faythe Levine and Merrilee Challis. I felt star-struck and tongue-tied talking to these two stars of the indie art/craft scene, but I learned so much from talking to both women. I came away with an awareness of the many parallels between the work of Margie and Merrilee: how similar their inspirations are and what a central role whimsy, fable, and the natural world play in the creation of their art.

The next morning I woke up early and had breakfast at the B&B where I was staying. I asked the innkeeper for directions to the nearest beach so that I could collect sea stones, sea glass, or driftwood for myself and to send to Margie. A beach visit hadn’t been part of my original plan, but I figured that I was too close to the ocean not to visit. I didn’t have a map of the area or GPS, just the vague directions from the innkeeper to guide me. I felt adventurous, and frankly it didn’t even occur to me to be worried about getting lost. Well, I did. Instead of going south on the highway, I mistakenly headed north out of Providence. After 45 minutes of driving, when I should have seen signs for Jamestown, I began to realize that something might be wrong. I got a little anxious and annoyed with myself for messing up. I thought of turning around and just heading back to Providence and the museum I had planned to visit. But instead I stopped at a rest area and luckily found a map that showed me an alternate route to the coast. I took the next exit for Cape Cod and crossed the bridge to the cape. At the first sign I saw for a beach, I turned off the highway and headed down a small road through a neighborhood of shingled beach houses.

I parked my car beside a narrow old train station, which had been converted to offices and sat in front of a row of homes and a playground leading to a short stretch of beach. I walked down the deserted street, and most of the homes seemed vacant for the season. It was a gorgeous sunny day, in the 40s, and I had the beach all to myself. Waves splashed against a rim of ice right at the shoreline, and pebbled snow piles covered parts of the sand. A cutting wind blew in off the sea, making my eyes water. My earlier irritation melted away as I started scouting for sea stones. The variety of sizes, shapes, and colors of the stones was amazing: sunny quartzite, speckled granite, red bricks smoothed to spheres by the waves’ caress. Quarter-inch-thick chunks of ice filigreed with holes covered one pink speckled rock, reminding me of Margie’s crocheted stones. In fact, as I looked around, I realized that I felt Margie’s presence all around me as I made connections between the patterns she had crocheted around her stones and china plates and the shapes and colors of the rocks and dormant plants around me. The grays of the shingled homes and faded stalks, the dun-colored sand, the bright white of the snow--all these echoed Margie’s palette of crochet cotton and stone bases.

When I stooped to pick up one perfectly rounded stone, I thought how fortunate I was to have found this one particular stone out of all the possible stones on all the possible beaches I could have been on. I toyed with the idea that some providential hand had led me north instead of south and guided me to this perfect place. While I do believe in kismet, what struck me in that moment was this: that in fact there is infinite beauty around me, and all it takes is openness to receiving it. I could have found such joy and peace anywhere, with anyone around me, because I was using my twin capacities of imagination and connection. They were there in me all along, and it’s taken me many decades to have confidence in them.

The trip to Providence, and the epiphany at the beach, feel like sea changes in my approach to my life, a shift in perspective that I’m still processing. It’s helped me break through some barriers that I’ve had, chiefly helping to dispel some of the feelings of inadequacy I constantly feel about my creative abilities. Some of my rigidity and fear seems to have fallen away, and I’m beginning to give free rein to my imagination.

I don’t know where I’m heading, but I’m really enjoying the ride.

Plush Rocks: A Tutorial

Several people have asked me how I felted and embroidered the Crewel Stones shown above, so I thought I'd show my process. There are several helpful tutorials out there already, including Margie's/Resurrection Fern's The Lazy Girl's Guide to Felting Rocks, Martha Stewart's Felted Stone Paperweight, and Mill Girl's Felting Stones Tutorial. It seems that everyone has a slightly different method, and I advise you just to play around with what works best for you.

I love the feel of immersing my hands in the hot, soapy water (especially in the winter!) and feeling the wool fibers bind together. It's so magical and meditative, and I recommend you try the hand method at least once.

Supplies you will need:

A few ounces of wool roving
A stone
Soap (I use dishwashing liquid, though I've read it's a no-no. (Shrug!) It works for me.)
Hot water (I use hot tap water rather than boiling water since I immerse my hands in it)

Step 1: Gently tear off two to six strips of wool roving. These should be long enough to wrap around the rock once.

Step 2: Gently separate each piece of roving until it is thin and airy.

Step 3: Wrap the wispy roving once around the rock.

Step 4: Wrap another layer of roving around the stone in the direction perpendicular to the first layer.

Step 5: Repeat Step 4 until you are satisfied with the thickness.

Four layers is usually sufficient, though my youngest seems to only have patience for two quick layers, and his felted rocks always turn out fine.

I usually give the wrapped layers a gentle squeeze at this point. If you can feel a thick enough layer of compressed wool between your fingers and the rock, then you have enough layers. If you feel too much rock, add another two layers. At a recent wet-felting class I attended the teacher suggested adding an even number of layers to make the wool shrink more evenly.

Step 6: Fill up a large bowl in the sink with hot, soapy water. I use dishwashing liquid, and that seems to work just fine. I have also used a handmade felting soap, and that works as well.

Step 7: Immerse the wool-wrapped stone in the hot, soapy water.

Step 8: This step is my favorite part. You will be melding wool to stone, and it involves some delicacy and maybe even a little finesse. Cup the stone in your palms and gently pat the wet roving until the wet mass of roving starts to solidify. Do this for several minutes until the roving shrinks to fit the stone. Once the roving stops slipping around on the stone, then you can start felting the roving more vigorously.

Step 9: At this point I usually add a big squirt of dishwashing liquid directly to the roving.

Step 10: Then I rub the roving in a circular motion with both hands, dipping the stone into the hot, soapy water until the roving is tight on the stone and has reached the desired texture. If you're really patient and work the wool, it should attain a fairly smooth texture.

Step 11: Rinse the felted stone in hot water alternating with cold water until all of the suds are gone.

Step 12: In the winter, dry the felted stone overnight on a heater. If it's summer time, set the stone outside in a sunny spot until it dries. This step usually takes a few hours, depending on how thick of a layer you have made.

Step 13: Using embroidery floss or crewel wool, embellish!

My newest felted Crewel Stone, Snowglobe Stone, is listed for sale at Haiti by Hand to help support a fledgling women's artisan community on the island. I hope you stop in to the Etsy shop to check out the donated items.

Spirit in Metal

Sculpture by Jose Delpe

( *All images are from http://www.croixdesbouquets.net/)

The city of Croix-des-Bouquets lies just eight miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital that was virtually leveled in last week's earthquake. Just four miles from the earthquake's epicenter, Croix-des-Bouquets seems to have been spared the level of devastation suffered in the capital. Normally ringing with the sounds of hammer and chisel on metal, this center of Haitian handicrafts is known for its many metalworking studios. Metalworkers take discarded oil drums and sculpt them into vibrant expressions of Haitian life, richly inspired by its vodou culture. The artisans carve trees of life, mermaids, vodou gods, fantastical sea creatures, and symbols from the natural world from the flattened drums.

Pelican

Metalworkers at the Studio of Serge Jolimeau

The metalworking community has a rich but recent history. The metal graveyard crosses of Croix-des-Bouquets blacksmith Georges Liautaud (1899-1992) came to the attention of international collectors in the 1950s. Demand for Liautaud's work grew quickly, and he trained other metalworkers to continue the tradition. Today there are some 50 flourishing metalworking ateliers and related shops in the city, which employ about 300 people.

Georges Liautaud

There are many artisanal centers like Croix-des-Bouquets in Haiti that help preserve the Caribbean nation's rich culture, itself a magical blend of West African and French influences. They thrive despite the nation's complex challenges: political (widespread political corruption and a legacy of American-supported dictatorship), economic (lack of infrastructure, scarce clean drinking water, and devastating poverty), and natural (deforestation, the 2009 hurricanes, and this 2010 earthquake among them). They offer hope that the people of Haiti, drawing on their own ingenuity and a strong cultural foundation, have the resources to turn disaster into opportunity.

Several organizations are working to aid these efforts. The Brandaid Project has been helping artisanal communities in Haiti create a brand for their products and introduce them to global markets. The organization buys products from artisans and markets them on their web site. Proceeds from Brandaid's sales of Haitian handicrafts are now being directed toward disaster relief. The Artisan Grants Initiative (AGI), which is funded through Vital Edge Aid, offers direct microgrants to artisan communities in Haiti and other countries. In the short term, aid organizations are helping survivors in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Find a list of these groups here. Etsy crafters have also rushed to aid victims of the earthquake, donating their wares to Craft Hope's Etsy shop. All proceeds from the shop support Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.

To learn more about the Croix-des-Bouquets metalworkers, check out the article by Keith Recker in Hand/Eye Magazine, an impressive new source for the latest developments in international crafts. To learn more about and support the handicraft work of Haitian women, please visit Rebecca Sower's new Haiti by Hand blog. She offers a heartfelt, very personal connection to Haitian craftspeople, and she just returned from a visit to Haiti the week before the earthquake.

Stitches in Paint and Thread

There are so many behind-the-scenes jobs that we take for granted. Essential people like the chef beyond the restaurant's swinging doors. The projectionist behind the flickering lights at the cineplex. The technician who stocks the supply cabinets at a hospital. You know these people; they do their jobs quietly, without much fanfare, and make the world a better place. (You might even be one of them; if you are, thank you.)

Well, here's another unsung but essential job: that of the curator. Faythe Levine, artist and producer of the indie craft documentary Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design (available now on DVD), guest-curated the current Craftland Gallery exhibition, Work by Margaret Oomen and Merrilee Challis.

Levine met Merrilee Challis at a craft show in Brooklyn several years ago. When Levine saw Margaret Oomen's work last year, she knew that putting together the work of these two artists would be a revelation. And it is.

When you view the two collections together, the painted patterns on Challis' gouache panels read like tiny stitches, and Oomen's weblike crochet patterns are rendered like paintings over stone. The crocheted patterns curve over the smooth surfaces of rocks rounded by time and the elements. Intricate crocheted webs cover vintage china saucers like films of time. Challis' timeless images, a melding of nature and mythology, glow like illuminated manuscripts or Russian icons with their thread-like repeating dots, curves, and dashes. Challis' mythic animals are the central figures in her pieces; Oomen's animals are implicit or implied: the spiders that have spun the ornate webs, the sea urchins that emerge from the repeating crocheted patterns.

I had to overcome my shyness, but I worked up the courage to talk to Levine and Challis at the exhibition's opening reception. Levine is a real gem and the epicenter for the exploding indie craft/DIY movement. Challis sparkles; I loved hearing about her intuitive, sometimes obsessive process. Her imagery emerges from a deep well of mythology, travel, nature, and culture.

So sing a little ditty for Faythe Levine, for her work as craft priestess in creating this alchemical melding of the works of these two artists, a happy meeting of paint and thread. You still have time to visit the exhibition, which runs until February 6 in Providence, Rhode Island. If you can't make it to Rhode Island in the depths of winter (it's not that bad, really), make your own connections between the work of these extraordinary makers with just a few clicks of your mouse.