The Afterglow of Edmonton

Back home in my studio, surrounded by piles of things that still need to be dealt with, I am chomping at the bit to share the amazing time I had. It will take a few posts to do it all.

Everything about the experience surpassed my expectations! It was a little scary going into a strange place to do two workshops back to back, and I must say I was a bit apprehensive. But once that snowball started rolling down the hill, it gathered speed and the two weeks passed much too quickly.

The people were so friendly - kind of like Western Maritimers lol. They entertained me on my break days and many came to support me at my Lecture at The Royal Albert Museum - another adventure to be sure.

The first workshop - Photo to Mat - was held in an unusual venue to say the least. We were in the Igloo Room at Commonwealth stadium. This is the club house of the Edmonton Eskimos. Big, bright with a window onto the field. After a few of the team helped carry our stuff down some stairs on day one, we got to watch them practice. Here are a few shots of the view:

Ahead of the class, all the students had sent me their photos that they wanted to work with. I used two of the programs that I would share in class to do two things. First I used befunky (my personal favourite photo editor) to create a painterly sketch of their image. Then I used Paintbrush to do a colour plan for each image.

Since both workshops were sponsored by Focus on Fibre Arts Alberta (FFAA), there were a number of fibre artists in the room for whom rug hooking was not their first discipline. There were others who are masterful hookers, certified teachers, and basically speed demons. Some finished more than two projects while in class - they were smoking!!

One student introduced me to Tambour stitchery, which I hadn't seen before. Here is the picture that she chose for the class.

And here is what her mat looked like by the time I left.  I am hoping to get a picture of the finally embellished piece. And I hope to try this technique in the near future.

Jean, the creator of this piece, is a major force behind the FFAA and the workshops. She is a wonderful, warm person who ferried me to class every day, made sure that my every need and want was looked after and someone who is talented in so many ways, it would be impossible to name them all. She does every fibre art, it seems, and incredibly well. Both her talent and her heart are HUGE.

Here are some other photos with the finished mats from class. Everyone has promised to share their finished pieces, so I will wait for the others before sharing.

Here is Fritz, Laurie's wonderful equine friend. I am showing the original photo and the finished piece (not yet blocked and whipped).

After she finished this piece, she did a picture of someone's cat (I think her niece).

Her sister Laurie who is an artist and an equally prolific rug hooker, chose this picture of her cat "Picatso" for her first piece.

And when he was done, she whipped up this crow/raven in a colourful palette.

This interesting image of icebergs was completed in three days by Janet, another speed demon.

Sheila, a rookie hooker, chose this flower picture to adapt. And she finished all the hooking in class.

this is the befunky image.

Cec adapatd a picture of her fun folk art deck (created by her husband), Jerry. Her palette, I quickly discovered, is bright and cheery - just like she is. We spent a fun day at West Edmonton Mall and she treated Jean and myself to a wonderful dinner.

Faye chose to do a painting instead of a photo for this first class. A very accurate adaptation of a card she received from a friend.

I will show the rest of the work when the students get finished, but they were all off to a great start and all promised to share photos when they are done.

I apologize for not being more vigilant in the picture taking because after taking initial ones to check values on the computer, I neglected to take pictures of the ones that weren't yet finished.

Posts to follow about non-hooking work that was shared plus the amazing Fibre Arts show I got to see. And the Impressionism class photos.