homely comforts

This weekend finds me feeling a bit under the weather, undoubtedly the stresses of the past month catching up. Fresh line-dried linens on the bed, a couple of warm & furry cats, a soundtrack by my fabulous d.j. husband, gallons of herbal tea & a knitting project are the best prescriptions I can think of.

Here's to quieter & gentler days...

reading between the dots & lines

Ever walk into a place & are stunned to find that what you see is exactly what you needed to see right at that moment? Kristin Zottoli & Barbara Minot's show at Through the Music Gallery was just what the doctor ordered, as far as I was concerned. 

Kristin Zottoli's gorgeous small scale textured drawings & constructions invite you to get up close & peer into them, & beg to be touched. Zottoli uses materials she finds around her in her daily life, such as tiny mosaics made with diced paint chip samples that create small, studded drawings within delicate & detailed assemblages. Inspired by her work with the blind, her pieces often include braille paper & raised surfaces. She records landscapes while driving, drawing without looking down at the paper & blindly recording her navigations, the resulting sinuous lines a beautiful tracing of her path. What better metaphor for life?

Beautifully complimenting each others' work, Kristin shared the gallery with fellow artist & map maker Barbara Milot, whose wonderful, contemplative works incorporate ink, watercolor, wire, thread, metal & drawings juxtaposed on empyrean photographs of water & air.

Barbara's interest lies in the contrast of the natural & manmade; uncontrollable forces paired with systems created to contain & structure, & immense spaces depicted in an exaggeratedly small scale. As she explains in her artist's statement:

As maps impose an interpretation and organization on the environment, my linear wire configurations impose an unrelated diagram on the spaces depicted in the photographs. I want the original images to be disturbed, and the meanings altered, by the superimposed structures.

Through the Music Gallery always has something inspiring & worth seeing; I feel very fortunate that we have them in our community.

wave of hope

Our town has seen some hard times as of late. Recently, downtown & neighboring areas were hit hard by Irene, which followed a path up the Connecticut River valley when it hit New England. Most of the effects were delayed, as the winds that we expected never materialized when the hurricane was (thankfully) downgraded to a tropical storm before it arrived at our doorsteps. The results of the storm crept up later, & many had breathed a sigh of relief once the storm had passed as the effects didn't seem as brutal as predicted. However, unbeknownst to many, the smaller tributaries that collected the heavy rains & ran downstream amassed to create the record-breaking flood levels & destruction we soon saw. Many of us have spent the past week trying to get a hold of friends & family in outlying towns who are cut off by damaged roads, no cell phone or internet reception & downed phone lines, as well as beginning to clean up the damage that was done to homes & businesses.

We were very lucky & were spared any damage to our home, however, the vintage shop that has employed me for the past few months took a heavy hit, as well as many friends' businesses & neighborhoods. Our Farmer's Market was hit especially hard, but the incredible sense of community in our little hamlet brought people out in droves to patch the torn up pieces of land together & get the market up & running again this past weekend. It was a truly remarkable & inspirational feat, & just one of many such stories we've seen & experienced & have had the honor to participate in ourselves this past week.

The work continues, so I imagine my posts will be patchy over the next few weeks. Be safe, & take care of each other!

happy, windy, wet weekend

The hurricane tropical storm approaches... happy & safe weekend to all!

oh the dreadful wind & rain

The Only Tune:Two Sisters by Nico Muhly & Vermont's own Sam Amidon


from here via here

soft structure

Brooklyn-based Erin Considine's stunning work with metal & hand-dyed fiber combines such gorgeous textures & colors. Drawing inspiration from nature, her woven, plaited, knotted & twisted architectural designs are wearable pieces of art. Made with ethically sourced metal, cotton & silk, & dyed with natural materials like madder root, turmeric, logwood & onion skin, her pieces are as thoughtfully sourced as they are constructed.

from here via here, & available for purchase here

recollected

I recently started assembling some collected bits & baubles in an old shadowbox my father made for me when I was but a wee lass. A tiny revolving personal museum of sorts.

What do you do with the many small objects that you amass throughout your life?