Fall Catch Up

Fall in Vermont

This fall is going so quickly that I am just going to play catch up and post briefly about several events. It has really been a beautiful fall, following a magical summer, so I have some hope for winter.

Four "Master Weavers" standing in front of Cyndy Barbone's work at top left with Cyndy second from left; standing in front of Deborah Carlson's work with Deborah at right; standing in front of Fuyuko Matsubara's work with Fuyuko second from right; and standing in front of Bhakti Ziek's work with Bhakti at left (photos by Cyndy Barbone).

The Fuller Craft Museum exhibition opened with a reception for the four "master weavers" (I love writing master weaver and really, we all have earned that title and deserve to be honored this way) on September 30th. It was a lively, well-attended event and the work of each of us shone on its own and worked in harmony with the other weavings. This exhibition will be on view through January 20th. On November 18th we will return and give artists' talks at 1 p.m. Here is a walk-through of the exhibition:

Top left is view from the entrance and top right is looking back to the entrance showing the title wall with work by Deborah Carlson and the side wall with work by Deborah Carlson; the middle left image shows the right wall with work by Bhakti Ziek; and the middle right image is the back wall with work by Fuyuko Matsubara; the bottom left image shows Cyndy Barbone's work which hangs on the left wall; and the bottom right image shows work by Deborah Carlson which is on the front wall.

Top left: Marianne McCann in front of her gypsy wagon and studio building; Top right: Holly Jennings at left, Marianne, Barbara Moon Boertzel and Harry Boertzel; Middle Left: Marianne in front of one of her paintings which she made for her mother but I always think she is talking to me; Center Top Right: lunch on Andy Wasserman's porch--Andy is on the right at the back, I am across from her; Center Bottom Right: Vermont view; Bottom Left: spur of the moment salad--yum; Bottom Right: Andy's chickens. 

A visit by Barbara Moon Boertzel and Harry Boertzel brought together a group of us who all know them from different times related to Cranbrook. We had a delicious Portuguese dinner their first night here made by Holly, Marianne and myself because we are all focusing on David Leite's The New Portuguese Table for this round of the Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club. No pictures but good memories. Next day we visited Marianne and Andy. We had plans to go to Montpelier for lunch and drink Vermont beer but never got there. Instead we had a marvelous spontaneous lunch that was truly a feast at Andy's house. The stop at Marianne's reminded me that despite her M.F.A. (all the women at the lunch table have their M.F.A.s from Cranbrook) she is truly an original folk artist. If the right person from the outsider art world fan group discovered her, she would have a long list of people wanting her work.

Jennifer Moore from Santa Fe, NM standing in front of a table of her samples that she brought to the Vermont Weavers Guild workshop at the White River Craft Center.

Just this morning we took Jennifer Moore to the airport. She came to Randolph to teach a workshop on doubleweave for the Vermont Weavers Guild. I know Jennifer from Santa Fe, so was happy to spend evenings together catching up. You can see from the photo above that Jennifer loves color and knows how to use doubleweave in so many ways to bring color and structure together. If you want to know more about her work check out her excellent book, Doubleweave. And if you are a member of a guild or group that brings in people to teach workshops, you should definitely put her high on your list. I walked through her class yesterday morning and was so impressed by the energy coming from each loom.

In just a few weeks, the trees went from green to a myriad of color. To my eyes, the sumac is an especially vibrant red this year. I googled garlic and read that when the hills were a field of color, that was the time to plant the bulbs. So I did. Then heaped on leaves, which are falling fast. The color never lasts long enough, just like summer never stays quite as long as I want. But the beauty of each season seems particularly beautiful to me this year, and I am curious to see what Winter will bring. Meanwhile the fires in the wood stove, which have begun, seem more like a luxury than a necessity.

One of the last walks before all the leaves are gone.