POP UP ! wood print sale

I'm trying something new! A POP-UP sale of some of my photographs on wood.

I've been selling these as limited edition prints on wood by special order for a couple of years but I thought it'd be fun to share them online for one day for a few days.  Why not?

All the INFO and DETAILS are on the order page here. Except it is unlikely that you will receive them before Dec 24th.

At first I worried that printing photographs on maple would be gimmicky or look tacky--but with some careful choice of which images I use, I love them.  The wood is lovely and heavy, and there's a keyhole so they are ready for hanging. The grain shows through the lighter parts of the imagery--which is why the choice of photo is so important. The finish is a matte laminate so it goes with the modern natural vibe.
These are 6x6" square, and are 1/2" deep.  

And I'm going to make all this disappear soon! Kind of fun. Let me know what you think!
Order from link here, or you can email me with questions gale@gzucker.com .

Back tomorrow with the usual content :-)

an art piece for the Leonardo Challange

"Looking Up from the Bottom of the World" 8x8" mixed media

My piece for this year's Leonardo Challenge at the Eli Whitney Museum in New Haven. It's an annual fundraiser for the scholarship fund for this quirky, smart , innovative institution that celebrates creativity, design  and science.

Each year there's a tool or pricnciple selected, that Leonado Davinci used, and artists are asked to create and donate piece that speaks to it, uses it, or interprets it. This year, the item is a lens. Here's what the call for art said:
The Lens
The arc of a raindrop on a leaf magnifies its veins and our understanding of seeing.
Egyptian artisans mimicked the curve of eyes in glass to give their statues uncanny spirit. Assyrians in Nimrud may have used a rock crystal to concentrate the sun’s rays into a spot of fire. In the Middle Ages, the polymath Abas ibn Firnas crafted reading stones of glass. Refined lenses awakened the sciences, explorations and arts of the Renaissance.
You may have explored the ancient wonders of lenses amongst your grandmother’s treasures: a magic lantern, a stereoscope, opera glasses or a slide projector. Now there are Apps for those. We take and manipulate more pictures each day through the tiny lenses of phones than the entire pre-digital century captured. We alter the focus of eyes with surgery and their hues with contacts in designer colors. We may not now see the lenses through which we see everything.

Then there's a fabulous and delicious party and silent auction while all the work is hung on the museum walls, and you wander around amazed at how other peoples' minds work and make bids. (It's tonight April 28th  if you are local, hurry).

Obviously a photographer can donate a straight-up photo but I like to stretch myself a little and make sure it's a challenge. 
If I'd had another free afternoon, I was going to paint the outer sides of the box frame a deeper blue also, to mimic some of the blue windows I was taken with in Israel. Windows are the home's eye to outside...I had to use one of the glass evil eye beads I'd haggled over in a market there and I like to incorporate something with yarn or fiber every year...so I made the little amulet with yarn, teeny pompoms and a tassel.  I am particularly pleased with the tassel, I do hope someone compliments it.

In knitting news- my car ride to Maryland and back last weekend mostly as a passenger, along with a long day as a ballot tender at my local primary polling place allowed me to crank out more than 2/3 of my Noncho. I was hoping the yarns would look less color-blocky and more ombre-ish by having the second yarn the same through all three...but I think you don't get ombre without doing the real ombre work blending of adjacent colors. These are more like tidy neighbors. Should be a FO soon. It's all flying by the seat of my pants but to be honest, I'm loving just cranking the stockinette with a teeny edging  this week. Hope your knitting is also bringing you joy!

my vintage valentine

Look! I came across this old photo of us while searching for something else entirely.

 We were moving into our first apartment together, Valentines week, in college. "Coupla hippies", groused a son when I showed it to him. (That's his main complaint about us now, too). I guess we haven't changed that much?  Suddenly I want to own a flannel shirt again. Dave still does...

For Valentines 2013, we played hooky part of the day, which somehow feels more special than rushing out to dinner. We swung by the newly renovated Yale University Art Gallery.  It's one of the real perqs of living around here. It's  free,  with  a fabulous collection--and wow, the reno is spectacular. After viewing a few favorites in the collection (some Albers, f'rinstance) we went to the Indo Pacific Art gallery.

It's amazingly fiber-rriifc. (yeah I do think that is an art term). Like this? it is an ancient  Indonesian high priest's staff.  Love that ball of yarn topping it. There was a lot about spinning, spindles , cotton yarn , looms , tools and a swift too, in display cases.

 I don't know much about weaving but it doesn't take a scholar to be awed by this.

Chickens, also valued by the high priests.


The Valentine activity I didn't quite pull off: I was going to knit bulky reverse stockinette hats for everyone with a big heart on each, in dusky colors so it wouldn't be too cutesy-poo. Maybe with a large pompom and even edge crochet for the girls. 

I'd figured out the pattern: knit flat and seamed, intarsia heart.  And the  yarn: Berroco Peruvia Quick .  Time wasn't on my side, but I did make up this nice chart. I'll share it with you.

I love this knitting graph paper, how it shows the stitches instead of misleading squares.  It's from Laylock.org   If you don't follow her site,  go check her out. Great stuff!

do not miss: fiber college

Don't you hate misuse of the word unique? It means one-of-a-kind, nothing else just like it on the planet. Snowflakes? Unique! Beautiful handcrafted quilts like this one? Unique!  A shirt at a chain store? nu-UH! I rarely use the word. When I say it, I mean it.  Fiber College in Maine, next week: wonderfully unique.

 Sept 6-9th. Searsport, Maine. Here's why you should join us:

One of the teaching spaces, an art studio. I'm teaching 3 classes.

Put aside the amazing teachers, consider the setting. On the ocean. In Maine. In September, at a campground resort with a beach and acres of award winning gardens with fiber art installed amongst nature. You can't beat the warm, friendly & artful vibe, starting with Astrig Tanguay, her husband Steve and the staff who run the whole shebang.

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Students in one of my classes last year. That's fellow teacher Ellen Mason modeling one of her sweaters. Look what she is doing this year, drop-in dyeing. My dream activity!

Now, consider  the options.( full list here.) You can stay at the grounds, or at reasonably priced housing nearby, and take amazing workshops.  Everything from indigo vat dyeing, latvian mittens, broom making, spinning, knitting techniques, stitching, quilting, wood carving, paper marbling, making a shawl pin. This year instructors include Katharine Cobey , Kirsten Kapur/Through the Loops, and Mary Lou Egan, of the WearWithAll designers .That's just a teeny snippet of knit possibilities. Crazy!

  

If your time or budget isn't free, you don't need to take classes at all.. There are daypasses for $8. to  hang out with your tribe, visit the vendors, and  the open demonstrations, and art. Or just sit and knit in beauty. Potluck dinners, a fashion show, a yarnswap...options, baby, options. Saturday night takes place in the center of Searsport, with an outdoor cocktail party and impromptu show & tell, followed by a sitdown delish dinner and a slidetalk presentation. This year the presenter is ME. I'm doing a fun 1 hour slide talk about photographing knitwear, 99% jargon free. It's the talk I last did in LA for the Slipt Stitchers Guild.I guess it's a bi-coastal presentation! .

Another from last year's class, we were playing with backgrounds.

A czech glass button demonstration talk I wandered into last year. So cool!  

Eating local: lobster stew, fresh corn, brew  and blueberry pie to follow. 

Penobscot Bay: view from my tent. I camped last year. It was lovely but I am afraid of pushing my luck with the weather, in my ancient tent. This year I'm sharing cottages with friends. 

Will I see you there?

ps if you live nearby or are attendng but not in a class on Friday afternoon or Sunday morning: I need a couple of models to pose in knitwear for a photo class. It'd be best if you are OK in front of a camera, and if you fit within the S-M-L spectrum of sweater comfortably. You'll probably learn a photo trick or two, get some photos to keep , not to mention have my gratitude forever. (and I'll pay for your day pass).  Shoot me an email if you can help ezisusATsnetDOTnet .

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Here're other places I am teaching in coming months, I just updated my info.

three cheers for the red, white and blue (large)

Browsing around on the internets, as one does when one is sitting in one's office avoiding large deadlined projects, I ran into the huge knit US flag art piece by Dave Cole,  quite a few times. Then, I read Lori's post on it, on her VersaciKnits blog.  She mentioned that her dad, an art collector, has the artist's model of the piece. 

Which prompted my memory of photographing Dave Cole while the piece was installed, up at MassMOCA in 2005.  Back when my blog had 15 readers, on a good day. These are a couple of the images.  If you want to see more of the piece itself and about Dave's work (at least 7 years ago) , take a look at my July 9, 2005 post. Including the model, that's now at Lori's dad's house. (I just love knowing where things end up, don't you?) 

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The funniest thing is, I can't recall what magazine I shot him for.  He continues to incorporate knitting and handsewing and materials that are waaaay outside the box to make his art. Take a look.

yarnbombing with all the ingredients

Dateline New Haven, June 9th 2012:  International Yarnbombing Day recognized in the only way possible.  We had everything necessary for success.

Even a few raindops, so we could feel valiant as we carried on. 

 Julia-of Julia, June & Linda, our Knit New Haven hosts.

Stacey Fresh Stitches, flower provocateur. 

tools & fuel

Note the refreshed door handle.
500" src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7221/7177099305_2141ca7e3c.jpg" width="355" />

That's Ruth Anne at work.
My main contribution? This recycled mitten fella. I like its provenance: the yarn was in this batch, the mitten, a reject from this project.  Turning it into a wooly face , instigated by the sidewalk chorus on Saturday after I pointed out the way I was hanging it, unadorned,  looked a little....suggestive. (see? I told you I'd have some of my knitting on this post).
Cathy's working on the little heart, knit in the round. Metaphor alert!

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 If this piques your interest, check out the yarnbombing in Craft Activism. And get going. There're plenty of surfaces left to cover.

driving miss brenda

If you're reading this then you probably don't think it's entirely wacky to fetch a woman I’ve never met, visiting from Wales, and drive her 2 hours north to a farm in the rural Berkshires of Massachusetts. Just so I could, you know, hang out with the sheep peeps for tea.

But if I told you the sheep farm is Kristin Nicholas' home and studio, and the passenger was Brenda Dayne of the podcast Cast On , it’d seal the deal, right?

I've become friends with Kristin, loved her work forever, but  this was my first visit to their farm. We'd joked about people wanting to live her life and thinking her house was just perfect and the sheep were all fluffy and cute, and she plays with yarn all day but in reality.....

well....OMG... it is true.  No! just kidding! She and her husband The Farmer work hard, and farm life (as well as working for yourself) is at times difficult, gritty, messy and frustrating.  But, on a spectacular spring day, it looks idyllic. You should sign up for Kristin's  classes at the farm and see what I mean.

 Anyway back to Brenda. Our original plan: I was going to coach her on photography and she was going to interview me about shooting knitting and handcraft books.

 

 But we had way too much fun blabbing, just blabbing, on the way up. And then relaxing with a pot of proper UK tea and then walking the fields with the sheep while she recorded ambient sounds and interviewed The Farmer. We decided we just have to hang out again sometime.  (fyi, she sounds just the same, in person, as on her podcast. Mind blowing, it is).

It was a wonderful day. You really really need to try to see Brenda when she passes through your area on her US tour this month. Her classes are sure to be wonderful,  but definitely attend her performance piece,  A Memorable Yarn. (read about it on Kristin's blog, here ).

 

True confession: I got that line from Sweet Baby James*  , " the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on accounta' that frosting...."  as an earworm on the way home. And then  discovered,  I can remember all the words. No wonder there's no room for important facts in my brain.

 I

Had to end with the kitten. 

* go listen & look at that video from 1970 . So long ago!

mama don't take....

This sheep shot originally created on Kodachrome film, a cranky but gorgeous slide film.

This week, Kodak retired Kodachrome. There's not a good yarn analogy to Kodachrome, I guess knitting with Kidsilk Haze sorta, kinda, comes close. You just don't want to make mistakes because everyone will see 'em, and you really can't undo them once the strand is knit. But knitting is a different art form, I'm going straight to the photo jargon. Consider yourselves warned: skip down to the contest if you don't want to get all photo-geeky with me.

Kodachrome had to be sent to a Kodak lab for processing . At best, it was 3 days before you saw how, or if at all, your photo shoot turned out. There was no tolerance for exposure being even a partial F-stop over or under. No adjustments available to push or pull and save your frames as there were for other slide films. You either did it right or you didn't. AS if that weren't enough , it only came in very low ISO's, meaning, you needed a lot of light available or you needed to know how to create your own.

But the colors? Beautiful. And no grain, or noise, at all.
You know the song, right?

It was the standard for magazine & commercial photography when I started working, I had very good, picky clients so I wanted to do it right. Not that I miss shooting film, nuh-uh. The instant gratification of digital, the chimping at the back of my camera, the amazing amount of control I have to change the image, the speed. But still, sad to see the end of an era.

So what else is a knitblogger to do but have a contest ?

the prize: a set of press printed fine art photo note cards including the sheep in coats image, above

how: go over to my etsy shop, take a peek at the four images. Leave a comment on this post saying which one you like best..or suggest the kind of image you'd like to see as a note card. More animals? yarn still lifes? fiber? more knit objects? something else?

when: leave a comment on this post by midnight June 30th eastern time US, I'll announce the randomly selected winner on July 1

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Poetic justice, I'll end with an iPhone image, local color on Friday evening.
(I guess it also makes you think all the world's a sunny day.)

off on tangents

Still knitting the grey mohair Airy Cardigan, it won't appear significantly different to you even though the body is done, so I'll skip a photo, and decorate this post with images from the high school I was shooting in Miami last week as part of a US Dept of Ed gig.

It's an arts & design urban public magnet school , the students are uber talented. It was inspiring, at times awe inspiring.

I love when the system works, don't you?

The Airy Cardigan is a pleasure to work on, a quick knit . Or would be if I put in more knitting time. I have some concerns about how it'll all go together. Now that I've got sleeve edges going, it won't be much longer till I find out.

Maybe the slowness is OK, I'm dithering over sweater # 6. Considering the Sage Remedy top, (Rav link there). It reminds me of an old favorite go-to, the Mexican blouse. In any photo from 1972-1980-ish you might find me wearing one. I used to save up babysitting money to buy them at a pharmacy that oddly had an aisle of hippie clothes. Hey, look they are still in business as a gift store, no more prescription counter & Vap-O-Rub near the patchouli incense and dashikis, I guess. (also, probably no more patchouli incense and dashikis. really, enough).

Ok going way off on a tangent but gotta love the web, clicking on that Parkleigh link , I learned my old playmate and neighbor is a star in the glass art world, and they sell her work. Now I want to get one of these small pieces from Gong Glass Works.

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But back to the Sage Remedy top, I'm thinking it'd be a fun knit, no sleeves and feather and fan- really who doesn't love a little f & f? Maybe in a cotton,one that isn't too dry on the hands. Or cotton/wool or cotton/bamboo? Suggestions? Definitely without the band along the hips , so not into creating a pouf in a naturally poofed body part, if you know what I mean. All this indecision! I need to get moving it I want to stay on my sweater-a-month schedule. Not that I'm committed to it or anything.

thinking outside...of everything

Sometimes life intersects art in the most perfect way. Take a look at who I was working with this week, at Mass MoCA

This guy really knits. I know you want to see close ups:

Do you love the attention to detail? Do you hate when your needles bend from the weight of a heavy knit, too? It took 3 months to plan and two days to knit the flag, over July 4th weekend. It'll be in the courtyard till July 11th so you better hurry, or if you visit this summer, you can see a video of the action. He said it was actually reverse stockinette, with two excavators moving the 25 foot needles and the artist on a cherry picker platform, helping the loops over the needle points.

There's also a display of his piece The Evolution of Knitting in Wartime. He created the needles and coordinated cases that'd be issued to soldiers in all past US Wars, as if knitting was the weaponry they took to battle. Complete with ageing and descriptions of materials. Its too cool. I had a little moment where I thought it was real. I think my mouth gaped. I hated to leave. But go see for yourself, its worth the drive. A place that celebrates those of us who use more than a teaspoon of brain, and ask "what if.....?". And then do it.

Faithfully submitted by one who uses just barely a teaspoon herself ,and thats only on good days.