The Eye and the Needle

"To see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."    William Blake

It's been a few weeks since I last posted. That's because I was fortunate enough to spend a week at Shakerag Workshops in Tennessee, surrounded by exquisite natural beauty and the company of approximately 90 other artists and outstanding locally grown food. I could go on and on about it, and the wonderful people I met there...but this space is for the art part. I spent 5 days in an embroidery class taught by Tom Lundberg, a beautiful man who teaches at Colorado State University. You can (and should) see his work at tomlundberg.com, but here are two examples... you can see why I was dying to take a class with him:

While next door, students were chopping and tying willow branches together into gorgeous sculptures with John McQueen, and down the hall ceramics were being created, and gorgeous natural plant dying/printing was happening with India FIint, in our room we sat with heads bent over, focused on a 1.5 inch area of cotton for 5 days straight.  We laughingly and lovingly called our classroom "the quiet room" and "the slow room." It was very relaxing and I learned so much.

There is a beautiful reservoir on campus where this all took place. I loved the reflection of the sun on the water, and used a small detail from a photo I took to inspire my embroidered remembrance of my time there. As a childhood art teacher once taught me, "Look to see to remember."