Knitting a Scarf for a Snake: Work in Progress on a Snow Day

This is a view of my back yard this morning.

As snow falls  fast and fine  (and don't we New Englanders know how to gauge the severity of a snowstorm by the speed and quality of the snow as it falls?), the day presents an opportunity to charge ahead on a bunch of artistic projects.  I don't usually work on two or three art projects at a time, but conventional wisdom says that when you do that, each piece cross-fertilizes and cross-inspires the others.

One of my projects today is to knit a scarf for a snake.

This is the fantasy creature I'm calling a snake for purposes of the image I'm creating.  It dwells in the base of a tree growing on the banks of Trout Brook.

Check out that face.  Look at that bunched-up enigmaticTolkienian visage.

 Aggressive nose, pugnacious chin, legs knarled and knobby as it crouches in its hole...what is it?

And check out the backdrop!  A tree with a hole in the bottom, yes.  But do not the round swellings on either side of the hole suggest thighs?  Does not the dark cavity in the center suggest that most feminine of orifices?  I think so.  Take another look.

I named it this creature The Serpent Within and decided to reproduce it using the materials with which I'm most comfortable:  yarn and fabric.  Today I'm knitting a scarf for it.

I created the two-legged, knobby kneed figure by knitting.  I left a wide, funnel-like opening at the top which I intended to transform into this mysterious figure.  I stuffed the legs and the body with cording of various sizes and left a wide, funnel-shaped opening at the top, which I intended to stuff with fiberfill, and a bead for the knobby nose.

It didn't work.  I couldn't get the materials to mimic the face in the photo.  So I went to Plan B:  I knew I'd seen a pattern for a snake head in Nicki Epstein's Knitted Embellishments.  http://www.amazon.com/Nicky-Epsteins-Knitted-Embellishments-Epstein/dp/188301039X

So I made a snake head instead.  But when I inserted the snake head into the funnel-like opening of the neck, I could still see the stuffing (cording) down in the funnel.  It didn't look good.

I'm not the world's best photographer, and I took this photo with one hand.  Trust me, this is a photo of a wide, funnel-shaped knitted neck of a creature, with its snake-shaped head protruding from its body in such a way that its fibrous insides are showing along the top of its...well, back.

Thus the need for something to stick in that space and cover up the cording in there.  A scarf for a snake. What else?

But when I inserted it inside the opening and spread it down along the snake's...uh, dorsal side, it looked like a sort of dweeby thing for a snake.

So I'm gonna try again, make something in stockinette that's maybe the same width but three times the diameter of the neck, then gather it?  Or maybe make a ruffle the way those ruffly scarves are constructed--by continuing to add increases until you get a ruffle?  That's how I made the lettuce in Lunch Among the Cabbages:

But should a snake wear a ruffle?  Would a ruffle sap away some of its venom?  Or would a ruffle, on the other hand, give it some of the arrogant majesty of, say, the ice queen in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?

Should the ruffle be an earth tone like the rest of the snake?  Or something with a little sparkle or glitz?

Here I digress to talk about the yarn I'm using for the snake's body, head, and neck.  I bought it from a vendor of vintage fabrics at the Brimfield Antique Show, which takes place three times a year in the otherwise quiet hamlet of Brimfield, Massachusetts.  http://www.brimfieldshow.com/

Its oatmeal color and knobby texture put me in mind of whole-wheat bread, so I bought it for making knitted sandwiches.

The label on the one on the left says,

The great name from the Scottish Highlands

PRINGLE

100% REAL SHETLAND WOOL

Spun and dyed by the 

Highland craftsmen of 

the Pringle mills for

BERNAT

The one on the right lacks a label.

Here's an example of one use for that vintage yarn:  Glad Sandwiches, currently hanging in my solo show at Hartford's Town and County Club. 

While I'm mulling over the neck treatment for the snake, meanwhile I'm preparing a piece of fabric to eventually become the torso and thighs of the tree trunk.  I started with a piece of Pimatex cotton from Dharma Trading
https://www.dharmatrading.com/

Then I sponged it with a combination of hand-mixed colors:  first, shimmer pearl blended with dark spruce green, then emerald blended with black, and finally black and shimmer jet black mixed with water.  Then I sprinkled it with salt and set it out to dry.  Now it looks like this:

...and here it is with the serpent posed on it:

In the final version, the serpent will be held upright, as it is in the original image, because I'm going to sew it right into that capacious crotch.  There, I said it.

Once this piece is perfectly dry, I plan to place a piece of tree bark underneath it and use the tree bark as a rubbing plate for/with Shiva paintsticks.

The leaves at the base of the tree torso will be leaf-colored fabric confetti entrapped with tulle.  Heck, I'm even making knitted leaves to crunch and toss at its base.  I have four made so far.

Meanwhile, as I wait for that piece to be dry enough to undergo the paintstick/rubbing plate treatment, I'm also working on an optical illusion quilt.  This one is for a jazz-themed quilt show, Jazz Tones, which will hang at Hartford's 100 Pearl Street Gallery from June to August.  Check it out:
https://letsgoarts.org/gallery

What's the jazz equivalent of an optical illusion?  An unresolved chord:

a piece of music that gives the impression that it hasn’t ended properly...leaves a conflict unresolved...lacks a sense of closure.

Here's my unresolved chord, constructed with silks that shimmer with different colors as they are viewed from different directions.  Today, I hope to layer it with batting and begin quilting it:

Another piece in the works is A Love Supreme II, but that one's not ready to show you yet.

Warmest thanks

Warmest thanks to everyone who came to the opening reception for my show, Natural Inspirations, at Hartford's Town and County Club!  So many people from so many parts of my life:  a high school flame, a law school classmate, former co-workers, people from the Unitarian Society of Hartford, book group friends, old friends, new friends, and each of you such a gift!

My daughter Leah took this video.  For those of you who were unable to come, it gives a little of the prevailing ambience. 

Thanks to all of you, the reception was not only a smashing good time, but also a stunning success: not only in turnout, but in the numbers of folks who liked my work enough to acquire some for themselves.

What a surprise to see law school classmate Mary Anne Hoopes, whom I last saw in the early 80's, just after daughter Julia's birth.  She's here from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Here's Michael Scanlon and his wife Eha.  Michael and I were one another's prom dates, back in the day.  Now Michael has gone on to a career in the Peace Corps, followed by one with the foreign service, and a marriage to Eha.  He's going back to  Adana, Turkey in a couple of weeks.

My sister Jerol, on the left, traveled here to Hartford from New York State last weekend to help hang the show last Monday, then stayed the week, during which she and I constructed the jacket she's wearing.  That's Jerol's husband Larry in the middle and our neighbor Margie on the right.

I'm guessing that somewhere between 60 and 100 people were in the room at any one time.  A lovely evening.

Hitting the Wall

Today was the day my fiber art show, Natural Inspirations, hit the wall at the Town and County Club, 22 Woodland St., Hartford.  We--a team of club art committee volunteers, my sister Jerol, and I--started at 9:30 and finished up at noon. 

Here I am helping Vickie, a member of the club's Art Committee, get the names of my pieces coordinated with the numbers they're assigned in the show.  I'm grateful and gratified that my sister Jerol was willing to travel to Hartford from her home in New York State, about two and a half hours away, to help. I trust her eye and her  judgment, and I was glad to have her input.  She's not in these shots because she took them.  

After two and a half hours, our art team had hung all but 3 of the 42 pieces I brought to the club this morning.  That means there are 39 in the show.

The Club is a pretty elegant place, I have to say.

How about this grand staircase, for example?  And that massive grandfather clock on the right?  It strikes a deep, authoritative chime, I can tell you that.  I can also tell you that I was originally going to say that it struck an authoritative bong, but that would be inappropriate.

The club occupies the 1895 Theodore Lyman house, designed by the architectural firm of Hapgood & Hapgood and fitted out with no fewer than 17 fireplaces. 

If you want to see this gracious old building, or the 39 pieces in my show, come to a reception, Friday February 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Town and County Club, 22 Woodland St., Hartford.

Trout Brook: Flood Plain, Riparian Habitat, Heaven

Trout Brook.  This watercourse near my house is home to hooded mergansers, great blue herons, killdeers, and yes, white-tailed deer.  Its banks abound with wildflowers:  corydalis in the spring, wild vetch in the summer, and milkweed in the fall.  Invasive species grow there too, including ubiquitous garlic mustard, the yellow lesser celandine, and the silvery Russian olive.

I care about Trout Brook because it's one place I can reach on foot that offers me the respite of nature, of things that grow and live wild.  Trout Brook's course has long since been re-engineered by the Army Corps of Engineers because the houses within its flood plain regularly got water in their basements after big storms.  As a result, the stream now runs through cement-lined banks for much of its course, to the detriment of its appearance but no doubt the enhancement of neighboring property values.

Still, its course cuts a green swath through my neighborhood, and I go there to see the flowers and take my dogs off leash.

In addition to being home to lovely wildflowers like corydalis, 

Trout Brook is also a home to species which are considered invasive, such as the lesser celandine, the yellow flowers here nestling so charmingly with violets (top) and corydalis (bottom) in May.

Wikipedia says that the lesser celandine is often considered invasive here in the US and is a persistent garden weed in the USA.   If Wikipedia says so, it must be true, right?  Also, writing for the New York Times on March 29, 2012, urban ecologist Marielle Anzelone wrote that the lesser celandine "emerges earlier than our native flora, choking it out. While it does reproduce sexually via seed, its invasive success is due to vegetative offsets called bulbils. In the coming weeks we will watch it overwhelm other wildflowers."

Another invasive species growing along Trout Brook is garlic mustard, alliaria petiolata.

The identity of this plant eluded me, as I searched all my plant-identification manuals for something looking like this.  Finally I remembered where I had seen it:  in one of my daughter's Flower Fairies books, where it was described as Jack by the Hedge:
http://www.gardenfairy.com/fairy/jackhedge.htm

I guess I have a long memory for children's books, for my daughter Julia, who with her friend Annya doted on the Flower Fairies, is now 31 yeas old.  By recalling the image of this flower back to the Flower Fairy books, I was able to put a name to them and find them on the Web.

According to Wikipedia, garlic mustard, a member of the mustard family, was "introduced in North America as a culinary herb in the 1860s and is considered an invasive species in much of North America.  As of 2006, it is listed as a noxious or restricted plant in the Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon,Vermont, West Virginia, and Washington."  In flood plain environments, it thrives by releasing a chemical into the soil that suppresses certain fungi that the other plants need for optimal growth.

Nevertheless, its chopped leaves impart mild flavorings of garlic and mustard  to salads and in sauces such as pesto.  That probably accounts for its nicknames Sauce Alone and Poor Man's Mustard. 

In addition to the lesser celandine, corydalis, and garlic mustard, Trout Brook also grows violets

and trout lilies..

.

and milkweed, the preferred and only food of monarch butterflies...

 

...and the silvery shrub known as Russian olive.  This shrub intrigued me with the silvery cast of its leaves (silver-leaved plants appeal to me so much that I actually have a silver garden in my back yard) but eluded identification.

I took photos and looked up similar-looking shrubs but was unable to identify this silvery creature until I contacted my friend Jane, a certified arborist who is also the official urban forester for the city of Middletown, Connecticut.

Jane identified this silvery creature as Russian olive, elaeagnus angustifolia, an invasive species that thrives in poor soil, outcompeting native vegetation.  In riparian habitats, perhaps like Trout Brook, it's known for colonizing places where overstory cottonwoods have disappeared.  I wasn't around when Trout Brook was made to flow through concrete, but it wouldn't surprise me if cottonwoods were sacrificed in the process.

I'm sorry that Russian olive is considered undesirable, because I do find it lovely:

In fact, this view of Trout Brook, framed by Russian olive branches, became the inspiration for my newest art quilt, Trout Brook II, recently completed and awaiting participation in my solo show at Hartford's Town and County Club, taking place over the month of February, 2014.

I tried to get that silvery look in the Russian olive leaves, which are felted, by placing a whispy layer of white roving on a base of darker green prefelt.  I made these leaves with my Baby Lock Embellisher.

The  backdrop is pimatex cotton, which was first painted with Pebeo Setacolor paints and then deeply embroidered with silk ribbon, pearl cotton, and embroidery floss.  The sky was created with Shiva paintstick in iridescent white. The sky and the banks were quilted and the result was layered under double arched frames and finally embellished with felted Russian olive leaves and branches.

Trout Brook has also inspired other fiber art creations, like these images of milkweed pods, now in a private collection:

and this view of the brook itself, created in 2009:

I'm excited about showing my 2013 creation, Trout Brook II, and sharing a look at the...riparian habitat that inspired it.  Despite the presence of invasive flora, Trout Brook is a little piece of heaven, within walking distance of home.

Humble pie? Cut me a big piece

And I had been so flattered.

After all, if a piece of artwork was stolen, that must mean that somebody valued it, right?  Flattery would naturally ensue.

But what if a piece of artwork was not stolen, but instead, taken off the wall and rolled up inside a larger piece of artwork, where it was invisible?

Uhh....

So, last spring,  I thought that my art quilt, Salute to Grandpa Ott, which had been hanging as part of my solo show in Bloomfield, CT, had disappeared.  After I took down that show, I could not find Grandpa Ott anywhere.

The reason: someone, probably Diane Cadrain, took down Salute to Grandpa Ott and rolled it inside a larger quilt, Atlantic Solitude.  There, Grandpa was invisible at the time of the subsequent home inventory. 

So I assumed that the piece had been stolen right off the wall, and furthermore that the person who had taken it had re-positioned the pieces around it so that the vacancy would not be noted.

Cut me a big fat piece of humble pie.

Let it be known that the Bloomfield venue where that solo show hung, which shall remain nameless because it is blameless, reimbursed me for the price of the piece.  So all was well.

A few days ago, when inventorying my quilts for an upcoming solo show, I discovered the error.

Ooops.

I immediately contacted the folks in Bloomfield and sent them a check, reimbursing them for their reimbursement of me.

And all continues to be well, especially since, before I discovered that Grandpa Ott had not been stolen, I constructed a Salute to Grandpa Ott II.  The first one was a beauty, but I think the new one is even better.  What do you think?

Here's the first Salute to Grandpa Ott, constructed in 2012

...and a detail of that 2012 version.

Here's Salute to Grandpa Ott II, constructed in 2013

...and a detail of Salute II.

Now for a postscript:  Please come to a reception for my upcoming solo show, Natural Inspirations, at the Town and County Club, 22 Woodland Street, Hartford, on Friday, February 7, 2014, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The Town and County Club, 22 Woodland St., Hartford