Going to a craft show

Saturday night my husband and I did something we haven't done in a long, long time. We went to a juried craft show. A juried craft show will often show work that sits on that fence between art and craft. A good show is filled with work that just gives you joy because it is beautiful, often a rethinking of everything that comes before it and gives you a bit of the shock of the new.

The show we went to was called Crafts at the Cathedral and is organized by the shop An American Craftsman. In this post I am going to focus on fiber artists, Actually, I am going to narrow that a bit more. There was a fair amount of work that you would have seen if you have attended any good craft shows since the 1990s. I'm limiting my discussion to work that felt new.

The scarves by Catherine Joseph are part of her larger menswear collection. They are the sort of classic but interesting garments that an architect in a movie might wear. The fabrics are all a delight to the hand, soft and luxurious. The shirts and jackets look ordinary until you look close and notice the special fabrics and the beautiful details.

The scarves are artfully pieced from tie fabrics and are backed with delicious cashmere. The photos are about half as good as the scarves were in real life. If there were even half a chance that my husband would wear such a scarf I would have splurged on one for him. My husband is a man of very quiet taste in his clothes.

We have been married long enough that I know that a gift of such a scarf would bring him no joy but only extreme anxiety. I went back to the booth three times to soak in the colors and fabrics.

Unfortunately, I can't post the images from http://www.robinoriginals.com/ , but you can click on the link and visit her website. She makes hand loomed machine knit garments in wonderful colors and complex patterns. That is the garments are made on a knitting machine but the machine requires tremendous amount of tending by hand. It is made on the knitting equivalent of a hand loom.

Vilma Mare makes beautiful clothing out of boiled wool. Lots of artisans who show work at craft shows make work that calls attention to itself, bright colors, odd shapes and the like. This clothing is relatively simple and is in quiet colors. I love how she shapes her garments with visible tucking. You can see more of her work ( and purchase it) here Vilma Mare. I was tempted to purchase one of her beautiful jackets but I just saved it to my list of things I would buy if both money and closet space were unlimited. Maybe in my next life if I have a career as the director of an arts foundation.

There are times when a picture is worth a thousand words.

The work of this artist just blew me away. She uses an incredibly labor intensive method to create pattern on the scarves that she weaves.

You can read about her techniques here and use that link to wander around on her site. These photos are beautiful. Her work is more beautiful in person.

I'm glad that I got to see such excellent work

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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