Tracy McCabe Stewart - Contemporary Fiber

 

I am currently in beautiful western North Carolina, but was in Door County for a few days last week.  Door County is small, but they have a really high caliber of artwork in the galleries there.  There are enough tourists with an eye to buy to support the area’s galleries.  I visited some of my favorite galleries while I was up there.  Unlike my previous visit, this time, I had my camera! 

My favorite galleries not only have stellar artwork, but the owners have created these beautiful spaces to showcase art; often utilizing old barns or outbuildings and creating beautiful gardens to surround or display the artwork.  The use of space is as impressive as the roster of artists.  For me, they are a haven; a place of peace.  I step out of the car and I feel myself immediately quiet and pay attention.

I hope to create an artist space of my own as imaginative as these galleries in the future.

My gal pal Nina’s husband, Richard Edelman had a beautiful sculpture exhibit going at the Woodwalk Gallery.  It’s a great space and they had a gorgeous setting for his work:

Richard Edelman

 Here are some shots of the gallery space.  Here’s a converted corn crib:

Converted Corn Crib (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Here is a shot of the ceiling:

Corn Crib Ceiling (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

 My favorite gallery of all is the Edgewood Orchard Gallery.  First of all, they are the sweetest people on the planet.  All of them.  The owner, Nell, is an absolute peach.  They have a beautiful space with a series of gallery bulidings connected with patios and a beautiful sculpture garden:

Edgewood Orchard Gallery"s Sculpture Garden

The converted barn serves as the main gallery:

Edgewood Orchard Galleries

here’s another shot:

Patio leading to additional gallery space

and here is some of the incredible artwork:

Sculpture by David Valentine

and a beautiful piece by William Jauquet:

William Jauquet Sculpture

and a lovely piece by James G. Moore:

James G. Moore

Here are some other great galleries I would recommend:

The Blue Dolphin House for great garden art,  K Allen Gallery for glass, and the Fine Line Designs Gallery for both sculpture and indoor art.

I will post NC pictures when I return to Chicago.  I can’t seem to get them off my camera!

I know I haven’t posted in ages.  I’ve been absorbed in revamping my garden.  I downsized my big pond to a smaller one that requires less upkeep.  It involved moving tons of flagstone in the summer heat.  I wasn’t really feeling too creative afterwards. 

I fished this dragonfly out of the pond and he seemed quite content to dry off on my fingertip:

My Pet Dragonfly

Here’s a shot of the new pond.  I dismantled the waterfall, but have water bubbling through this millstone:

New Pond (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Three of these cute green frogs moved in the new pond.  So far, my big frogs haven’t returned.  This guy likes to hide in my lotus plant:

Green Frog with a Personal Umbrella

Here’s a couple of shots of parts of my garden.  I have gone heavy on the grasses and shrubs because my Great Dane and other big mutt mow down anything much daintier:

Tiger Eye Sumac, Hibiscus and Grasses (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and here’s more grasses in front of my garden shed:

Garden Shed (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and a shot of my old pond:

Fish! (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and I did manage to put multiple layers of screening on my latest piece.  It combines both regular and metallic paints:

Screened Layers (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Here it is with hand dyed silk organza over it.  I like the look; a bit more subtle:

We have had a Great Blue Heron either living, or at least perching frequently, in a tree behind our house.  We are about 2 blocks from a pretty big lake; I’m sure it’s good feeding.  We have a pond with goldfish in our back yard, but with large dogs running in and out all the time, I don’t think the heron ever felt safe to fish our pond. 

I had the dogs with me in my work room this morning and looked out my window to see a really large swoop of wings headed for the pond.  The blue heron decided to risk the dogs.  He flew off before actually fishing, but I’m betting he’ll be back.  The goldfish have to look like a mighty easy lunch.  I had to take these pictures through the screen, so forgive the quality.

Heron invasion!

In my current urge to travel, I have been visiting some interesting sites.  There’s a great site called Daily Bute featuring a daily picture of the Isle of Bute, Scotland as well as pictures from some other locations in Scotland.  I’ve posted about the Isle of Bute before (look at my Scotland posts);  it’s where I got married and one of my favorite places to visit.

Click on the link above to see some lovely shots.

Here’s one of mine:

Rothesay Castle (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Linville Falls (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

I am usually someone who goes on a trip and doesn’t want to travel again for months.  This time, I found myself starting to have an itch to travel again about 10 days after leaving Japan.  I am unusually restless.  The good news is that I have some travel coming up in the near future.  In the next month or so, I will be traveling to one of my favorite places on earth:  Asheville, North Carolina.  It’s been a while since I’ve made it down that way.  I couldn’t be more excited.  Here’s some pictures from previous visits:

Blue Ridge Mountains (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

 

Rhododendron Tunnel in Craggy Gardens (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

More rhododendron formations (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Spring fern (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Mt Fuji (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

I am back from my fabulous trip to Japan.  I had a lovely day getting myself mentally and physically back on this continent:  loads of laundry, grocery shopping, walking my dogs, seeing what’s coming up in my garden and spending some time reconnecting with my husband. 

I checked the blogs I read tonight and came across two really lovely posts from Leslie Avon Miller’s  blog  “Create Your Best Life Coaching”  Her post is about getting back in touch with our power and our dreams.  after just having spent the last ten days taking some risks and fulfilling some dreams of my own, I especially appreciated this.  Check it out here and a really good short video here

The weather was absolutely dreadful today.  It rained buckets all day.  I decided to postpone my excursion to Nara until tomorrow and go to Nijo Castle today.  Building on this castle was started in 1601 and completed in 1626.  Various parts were destroyed over the years, but it’s been restored. 

The fortress is much more functional than most:  low ceilings to inhibit swordplay, squeaky or “nightingale” floors to warn of intruders, moats and high, high walls around the fortress.  There were screens that the body guards would hide behind as well; all very ninja.  On top of all the security, the place was set up to reinforce social hierarchy.  Certain ranks of people were received in certain rooms, etc.  and the paintings in the room had a clear message to the visitors who might find themselves there.  It all makes me want to watch that horrible TV series, “Shogun” again and read all those great books by James Clavell that it was based on.

As I travel through this country, I am astounded at the detail work that went into these historical structures.  The whole of it is always beautiful, but I’ll catch a lovely detail:  the rivet work on a door or the tile work on a roof that make me slow down and pay more attention.  

The gardens have absolutely blown me away as well.  They are so extensively planned and maintained.  The view from every angle is planned out meticulously.  I saw so many plants that were supported with bamboo.  The gardener had a vision of how s/he wanted this plant to look in 50 years. 

The goals in my garden are to have my plants live through my Great Dane running through them for another year. 

As an aside, I have been trying to take a good picture of koi ever since I’ve gotten here.  They have them in EVERY garden I’ve visited and they are as bis as Golden Retreivers.  They are almost scary.  Every picture I have taken of them stinks,but I have posted the best one.  You cannot really tell the ginormousness of these creatures from it.

As usual, no pictures inside-too bad because there were some really lovely painted screens and painted ceilings.  I took pictures of the outsides of the buildings and grounds.  Yes, that is rain that you see and occaisonally, the tip of my umbrella.  There were endless school kids around.  They are in most of the pictures.

Blingy Front Entrance (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Outer Gates (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

The Main Residence (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Big Shogun Bell (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Main Hall (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Shogun Garden (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Island Garden (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

More Beautiful Gardenness (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Roof Detail (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and here are a few shots fromt the Botanic Gardens I went to my first day in Kyoto.  They  were truly lovely, but not too much in bloom yet:

Another Gorgeous Japanese Garden (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Fabu Garden Shot (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and, finally the Giant koi:

Giant Koi! (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Weather permitting I will spend my last day here touring Nara.  I get to feed miniature deer!

I ventured out to the monthly flea market held at Toji temple.  I didn’t really take pictures of the flea market; too weird in that close quarters with people.  It was pretty darn big, though.  Rows and rows of people selling everything from used kimono and pottery to plants, to food.  I had a blast and bought two plainer kimono for $12.  Flea markets are one of the only places in Japan where haggling is acceptable.

I did go visit the temple and garden, which was really gorgeous.  I even managed to see the monks at prayer, which was pretty special, too.  The temple consists of numerous buildings and they go pray at each of them.  I couldn’t take pictures of the temple interiors; these are active places of worship.  They had some really spectacular Buddhas in them.  Here are pictures of the exteriors.  I ADORE the Japanese architecture:

Five Tiered Pagoda (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Garden Lantern (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Garden Pond (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Turtle Mania! (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Another of the Shrine Buildings (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Architecture close up (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Another Architecture Close up (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Monks going to Prayer (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

That’s the flea market behind the monks.

Boy, did I ever get my exercise today.  I spent the morning at a flea market at the Toji shrine  (pictures later) and then hopped a train to the fushimi-inari shrine.  The shrine is dedicated to the gods of rice and sake (gotta love that).  It consists of endless paths lined with torii gates and endless individual shrines with foxes (inari). 

The path goes up forever.  I mean seriously, it’s all the way up the mountain.  After an hour of walking up, I was pretty much over being spiritually enlightened  and was working on crabby and sweaty.  This was furthered by little Japanese men leaving me in their dust. 

I tried to find a way back down but managed to go off road and end up in a subdivision.  So much for finding a shortcut back; I had to backtrack the whole route.  Anyway, the shrines and the gates are absolutely marvelous.  They are absolutely endless.  Hundreds of gates and shrines, literally.  I took a zillion pictures of everything.  Here’s a few I liked  most:

Torii Gates Galore! (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Inari or Foxes with Grain in their Mouths

A Lane of Lanterns Leading up to the Torii Gates (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Torii Gates on the Way Up (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Shrine of some sort (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Another Shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Gates on the Way Down (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Elaborate shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Inari (fox) Shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

A Really Elaborate Inari Shrine (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

 I am going to Nara tomorrow to see shrines (what else) and pet little deer.

More Falls (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Hi all,

While Ashley and I were up around Mt. Fuji, we went to see Itchiku Kubota’s astounding kimono.  Fueled by Japanese fast food these things I call rice balls:

Behold, the Japanese Rice Ball Thingie. Yum!

I sure wish I could post pictures of the actual work, but no photos were allowed in the exhibit.  I did take lots of pictures of his lovely gardens and have posted them below.  There are more lovely photos of his gardens here.

Itchiku was inspired by a piece of 17th century textiles (tsujikahana)  and vowed he would figure out how it was created and reproduce the technique.  He did that and then some; creating an amazing body of work called the “Symphony of Light”.  Read more about it here.  Much of the series was inspired by the incredible sunsets he saw while he was a prisoner of war held in Siberia.  He talks about how the sunsets gave him something to live for.   He died before the series’ completion, but his apprentices still carry out his work today.  Here’s a link to a 3 minute video of his work.  It has lovely footage of the kimono and a few scenes of his museum, which is a work of art in itself. 

Each kimono represents a year’s work by numerous people.  I have many books of his work, including Kimono as Art which has exquisite photos of his work.  even with all these books, I was surprised at how textural his kimono are.  There is actually very little stitching on them.  All of the work is painstakingly created through the dye process.  when the kimono fabris is untied after many, many dyeings, many of the folds are left in place as texture on the piece.  All of the kimono stand alone as works of art, as well as being part of a larger landscape.

I know many artists who have a “big picture” feel to their work and many who excel at detail.  I have seen very few who have had to be so good at both.  He is the only living artist to ever be shown at the Smithsonian.  I had more than a few tears in my eye looking at this work and hearing about his life.   What an amazing artist.

Anyway, here are some shots of his lovely gardens:

Entry Gates to the Garden (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Detail of Entry Gate (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Garden Path (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Falls (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Garden Pond (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Funky Garden Seating (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Garden Falls in front of the museum (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Monkeys were on the loose! We only saw a tail.

Another Beautiful Gate (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

on another note, the train station had these creepy fairies guarding it.  No explanation anywhere:

Creepy train station fairies (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and a close up:

Creepy Fairy Close Up (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

Off to Kyoto tomorrow!