IN THE STUDIO AND ELSEWHERE
COPYRIGHT
© 2011 Lori Ann LaBerge. All rights reserved. Unless noted, all artwork, photos and text are copyrighted by the artist. Images may not be reproduced, manipulated or used in any way without the written permission of the artist.
CONTACT
If you would like to send me a comment or have any questions, please e-mail me at lorilaberge@gmail.com. Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
CURRENT PROJECTS
I will be starting a new mixed media series based on the nomadic experience with a focus on rug motifs and migration. Sketches are in progress.
LINKS
Carolina Designer Craftsmen Guild
Studio Items I Love
Work and Play–Christmas Party
Nomadic Series Begins
“Southern Flight” and Mixed Media
Carolina Designer Craftsmen 2011
Show Packing and “Woodland Tango”
Architectural Salvage
Carolina Designer Craftsmen Show
Landscapes with Barns
Back to Small Landscapes
Exhibit Set-Up in Gallery
Show Preparation Part III - Packing
Audience Participation
Exhibition Booklet, Platform Building
N.C. Arts Incubator in Siler City
Show Preparation Part II
Show Preparation Part I
“Stacked” Completed, “Lakehouse” Juried In
“Stacked” Continued
Floor Runner “Stacked” in Progress
View Inspires “Sunset in Rose”
Exhibit Postcard and Tiffany
Mixed Media Rug Hooking
“Birches II” and Robert Frost
“Lakeside Completed, Weekend Off!
Road Trip Photo Inspiration
“Walking the Tracks” Completed
Inspiration on Cades Cove Trip
Walkthrough of Studio Tour
Studio Tour Exhibit at TRAC
More Finishing Work
Studio Tour Preparation Started
Hooking Done, A Week of Finishing
Mother’s Day–Off the Beaten Path
Decorating with Hooked Art
A Week of Hooking and Painting
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Birches and My Stripe Obsession
Architectural Pieces Delivered
“Walking the Tracks” in progress
Blue Mountains in Spring
Georgia O’Keeffe on the Nightstand
A Scale Model of Future Exhibit
Texture: Combining Yarn and Wool
Using Photographs as Inspiration
Modern Rugs, Traditional Techniques
Fiber in the Family
Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot Magazine
USING PHOTOS FOR INSPIRATION
I am currently working on a project involving the use of photos I have taken as inspiration for my work. The fun in this is breaking down the photos to bare elements. Some work ends up differing from the photos in color only, while other work barely resembles the photos at all. Below are photos of an old barn with great horizontals in the clapboard and the wonderful colors of fall trees.
Insert photos of barn and trees
What happened when I put these photos together as inspiration? They were abstracted into the geometric "Fall's Glimpse into Winter".
Insert photo of piece
The barn inspired the dark horizontals with the thinner blue horizontals representing the sky. The circles are the trees in various fall colors with the white circle being fall's glimpse into winter. The brown horizontals borders the abstract sky and trees as the barn in the photo borders the trees behind it.
Another example of this came about when my husband and I took an adventurous ride up to a tower on a mountaintop near our home. I had the chance to get some great photos. I'm not a photographer, so lets just say these were great inspirational photos for art rather than great photos. The first photo below was taken from underneath the tower looking up at the crossing of all those wonderful bars and stairs in front of the sky. I love the abstract look of this. The second photo focuses in on the one area of the first photo I chose to work with.
Insert photos
Below is the piece so far. The colors are changing from the photo as work progresses. Notice how this piece, even though abstracted, will look more like the photo which inspired it than "Fall's Glimpse into Winter".
Insert uncompleted tower piece photo
Sometimes you never know how a piece will look until you are finished, as things change along the way. Enjoying the changes is half the fun. I will post another photo when the piece is completed. Have a great day!
What happened when I put these photos together as inspiration? They were abstracted into the geometric "Fall's Glimpse into Winter".
“Fall’s Glimpse into Winter” Lori LaBerge 2011
The barn inspired the dark horizontals with the thinner blue horizontals representing the sky. The circles are the trees in various fall colors with the white circle being fall's glimpse into winter. The brown horizontals border the abstract sky and trees as the barn in the photo borders the trees behind it.
Another example of this came about when my husband and I took an adventurous ride up to a tower on a mountaintop near our home. I had the chance to get some great photos. I'm not a photographer, so lets just say these were great inspirational photos for art rather than great photos. The first photo below was taken from underneath the tower looking up at the crossing of all those wonderful bars and stairs in front of the sky. I love the abstract look of this. The second photo focuses in on the one area of the first photo I chose to work with.
Below is the piece so far. The colors are changing from the photo as work progresses. Notice how this piece, even though abstracted, will look more like the photo which inspired it than "Fall's Glimpse into Winter".
Sometimes you never know how a piece will look until you are finished, as things change along the way. Enjoying the changes is half the fun. I will post another photo when the piece is completed. Have a great day!
TEXTURE: COMBINING YARN AND WOOL
I love texture! All the photos included today are close-ups and focus on the effect texture has on a piece. Annie Albers, one of the most influential textile designers of her time, wrote of our need to exercise our sense of touch as we sometimes become insensitive to it. There is something wonderful about working with fiber.
Close -up of “Autumn Fields” Lori LaBerge
Above are yarns mixed with wool fabric. The yarns bring out another dimension and I notice people looking a little closer at pieces which include them. They are wonderful for trees, bushes and grassy areas in landscape pieces.
There is a wonderful depth formed by alternating areas of wool strips and yarn in the first photo above while the second shows yarn in the mountain and shrubbery. Yarns vary widely in their ease of hooking and more variety is allowed in a wall piece than in a floor piece which requires wear considerations.
Enjoy the texture in your life. Go throw on those old jeans you can't part with, that soft cozy sweater, or just wrap that comfy blanket around yourself and have a great day.
Close-up of “Blue Ridge Tower” Lori LaBerge
Close-up of “Mountain Tower I” Lori LaBerge
“Ascent” Lori LaBerge 2008
The piece above was done a while back and is still one of my favorites. Derived from two photos, one of a waterfall and the other of a stairway, the subject is simplified to create a geometric work of art. The staggering placement of the wool creates the effect of the movement of a waterfall while the bold color of the stairway differs drastically from the reality of gray stone.
I recently received a question as to whether rug hookers in the past created rugs we would consider to be modern. First, what is a modern or contemporary rug? It may deviate from what is traditionally expected. It may possess bright bold colors or show experimentation in the use of line or perspective. The rug may portray the familiar in a different way, as in the work below derived from viewing railway cars on tracks across from a shopping area. Technically, modern and contemporary differ in the art world which is another discussion.
“Spruce Pine Rails 1” Lori LaBerge 2010
Throughout the history of rug hooking some have deviated from the traditional subjects of florals, folkart and animals or updated these subjects in some form. There are a few beautiful hooked rugs from the 1930's Art Deco period. It is rare, however, to find a rug that was handmade by a fiber artist in that style. These rugs can command high prices. A great example of one of these can be seen at Ryder Antiques. The companion piece to this is a rare triangular shape. The rug hooker who created these pieces was ahead of her time, even painting her furniture in Art Deco style.
There are rug hookers today who are pushing the craft of rug hooking. Artists such such as Liz Alpert Fay and Rae Harrell create beautiful, contemporary works of art by seeing things in a different way and rug hookers of today applaud their journey of creativity in a traditional craft. Find your creativity and have a great day!
A photo of "Tears of the Crow" is in the Fall 2010 edition of Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot magazine. This piece was juried into HGA's Small Expressions exhibition. Requirements included a piece not larger than 15 inches in any directions completed in the last 2 years and of exhibition quality. The work, based on my crow series, was designed to meet the theme of "New Visions: Ancient Paths".
The idea for the piece evolved from a Native American fable about a crow and a hawk. A crow abandons her babies and a hawk takes them in and cares for them. The crow later returns and wants her babies back, but the hawk refuses. They turn to the great eagle for a decision and the eagle determines that since the hawk has cared for the babies all this time they belong to her, but the crow wishes the babies to choose. They choose the hawk as their true mother since she is the only mother they have ever known and the crow cries at her loss.
We have a field full of crows every morning and I can't wait to watch them tomorrow, though currently they're eating quite a bit of the corn we put out for the deer. Have a great day!
FIBER IN THE FAMILY
I'm fairly sure interests cannot be inherited, yet I have always wondered where my fascination for fiber and texture came from. As a child, I was forever carrying around my cozy comforter. Later I loved textured fabrics for clothing and when I learned to hook rugs there was no turning back. A reading of family history revealed a number of ancestors who worked at a textile mill in New York.
Photo credit: Keene Public Library and the Historical Society of Cheshire County.
The Troy Blanket Mill employed many Finnish immigrants and by the year 1914 one quarter of their workers were Finnish. At least seven of my Finnish relatives worked there. Johan Tuurinmaa was employed there as well as being a stone cutter. Oscar Joeof worked as a Boss Carder. Carding is a process where the fibers of wool are separated and prepared for spinning. August Maki, Emile Matthew and his wife, Lempi, were all weavers at the mill with Emile being a Boss Weaver. Joseph Paul Kimball was a textile overseer, and Sadie Susanna Parker was a textile worker.
The mill was originally known for horse blankets and as times changed began creating linings for denim work jackets and coats. They became well known for the Troy Blanket and were involved in automotive fabrics, before closing in July of 2001.
The book pictured above, The Fabric of Troy, A History of Troy Mill by F. Fuller Ripley is filled with information about the mill. By 1935 the company had 80 looms working and in 1927 $28 a week was considered an excellent salary for a weaver.
We can only imagine, respect and admire the lives our ancestors lived. Check out your family history and see if your ancestors had interests similar to your own. Have a great day!