Louisville, Lord of the Rings, and Buttons

 

The buttons are a result of using the entire tree. I have gotten to the point where if I am, or someone else is, pruning a tree, I will look at the end of the branch. If it looks interesting, I take it home. And again, with the faces. When the tree spirits are happy, the Dryads smile.

Your sewing thread becomes the pupil of the eye. -Lindsay E. Frost

While I was at a show this past weekend, wondering around before the crowd, I was drawn to some beautifully hand crafted buttons. The Artist was not at her booth, she must have been wondering around too. I grabbed a card and began daydreaming about her buttons.

I believe we understand each other in a visual language often times better and deeper than other forms of communication, and finding this Artist's buttons is an example of that, and my other belief Louisville is a city that acts as a small town. I had the opportunity to talk to the artist after the show and purchase buttons for my work.

hand woven hemp with acorn/lichen button from Lindsay Frost

I told her upfront what I wanted to do, and showed her one of my hemp bracelets. I also told her I wanted to email her later and get a statement from her for my blog. Deciding I better find out more about this artist before I email her, I visited her website http://www.uniqueandunusualwoodcarvings.com

In her "about" section she says she returned to Louisville to appease her parents, (I returned to appease my ex-husband). She then goes on to talk about her logo and how it relates to using the whole tree. This is my philosophy on many things, for example, when cooking a squash for dinner, I will also save and roast the seeds to go on salads later. In fact I save the seeds from my garden for replanting, and use the dead plants for compost.  Even when weaving I save the scraps of my raffia to weave even smaller pieces, or how I use the card board boxes our food comes in to card my work.

Frost then goes on to pose the question, "Am I a ‘tree hugger’? Most definitely. I love the Ents in the Lord of the Rings. Especially when they picked up their roots and started walking. Just think what trees have been witness to.....so much history and the tales they could tell. They most likely know the real story." I had to share this part of artist's website with my husband because he often makes fun of either my tree hugging or Lord of the Rings trivia knowledge (read the trilogy twice, saw the movies over 20 times each). And yes I'm an Ent lover too.

hand spun wool from the Smoky Mountain Spinnery with hand crafted button from Lindsay Frost.

After reading over Lindsay Frost's website and taking a few pictures of how I had combined her buttons with my weaving, I sent her an email asking to give me a specific statement about her buttons. I told her the images I sent were all pieces going to Crafts Gallery that day. She responded by telling me her work was already there, and she, like me, loves the owners David McGuire and Karen Welch.

Blue cotton coiled with hand crafted wood button from Lindsay Frost.

You can find Lindsay E. Frost's work, my work, and the pieces I created with both our effort at Crafts Gallery: a contemporary and traditional art gallery created by Karen Welch and David McGuire in the summer of 2013. Craft(s) features fine artisan craft by local and national artists. Craft(s) Gallery is housed in the historic Guthrie Coke building at 572 South Fourth Street at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. In the emerging neighborhood of SOFO, South Fourth Street, Craft(s) is positioned between the renowned Brown Hotel and the iconic Seelbach Hilton Hotel. Another historic neighbor of note is The Palace Theater.

Hours
Monday–Saturday: 10am–6pm
Closed Sunday
502.584.7636 (SOFO)

Why I love Hand Spun Wool!

I Love Hand Spun Wool! I love hand spun wool for its imperfections, for it's texture, because it comes from nature and a natural process; and most of all I love hand spun wool for it's stories. For example, The wool pictured below came from a young guy I met last weekend at a show in New Albany, IN.

 

He was 21-years-old, attending a local college, getting ready to transfer to an art school, to study fiber art. He had found an old spinning wheel at a yard sale, in desperate need of repair. He decided he could buy it, fix it, and learn to spin; which he did all based on YouTube videos. (This seems to be the way the next generation is learning, according to several young adults I've met lately.) He had several different types of hand spun wool, including those he had practiced using natural dyes. I ultimately chose this chocolate brown.

 

This ball of hand spun wool has a different story.

 



I had never been to Gatlinburg, but wanted to go because I had heard so much about it. After hanging around Pigeon Forge, hiking Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains, we made a day trip to Gatlinburg. Fortunately we started on a side street in town, not realizing there was a whole commercial strip of shops. We first encountered The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum. If you haven't been, it is definitely worth the trip and $2 admission. It was leaving the Museum that I spotted the Smoky Mountain Spinnery.  After wondering around the shop gazing at their beautiful selection, I asked the woman running the shop to show me specifically the locally spun wool. So that is where this ball of wool came from, which half of has already been turned into "sweater weather" accessories.

I love working with these kinds of materials, because I'm reminded as I work of the fun vacation we had with our five children, the joy of finding the Smoky Mountain Spinnery, and wondering around the shop talking fiber.

And on that note, my favorite place to talk fiber is The Clay Pearl in Nashville, IN. -Not that they spin their own wool, though they have plenty of hand crafted yarns, they love to talk fiber all day, are super helpful, and have many great stories to share of the yarn they carry. Just had to give them a plug here.