Tracy McCabe Stewart - Contemporary Fiber

preliminary sketch whooping crane

Hi all,

I am beginning a new wading bird piece in the series I am working on- this time based on a whooping crane.  Whooping cranes are one of those saved from the brink of extinction stories.  They were on the verge of extinction, but are now only endangered due to some incredible efforts to save them.  It’s an inspiring story you can read about here.

I began this series largely because I love the look of wading birds.  Most of them are incredibly graceful, gorgeous creatures. 

In addition to their good looks, I connect with my best self when I am outdoors and they are a reminders of those wonderful times that I manage to get myself into that quiet, connected space.  They are also symbols for me of a more meditative, mindful state.  Wading birds stand or move slowly, watch and wait.  They patiently wade through the unseen waiting for that which they desire to reveal itself.   There is a calm quiet energy about them that is a great teacher for me.

In addition to all of this, wading birds are an early warning system for ecological concerns.  They are losing habitat daily and many species, including the whooping crane, are endangered.    For me, they are a reminder of my commitment to land preservation.

As I have posted previously, I start with a photograph of a bird that has a body position that I like and do a preliminary sketch on batting from there.   This one again, is of a preening bird and the body position is pretty complicated.  My drawing is REALLY rough, but it’s enough for a starting point.

Here’s the final piece of that reddish egret I’ve been working on:

Reddish Egret (C) 2010 by Tracy McCabe Stewart

“Reddish Egret”

(C)2010 by Tracy McCabe Stewart

Hand dyed silks and cottons, Shiva paintsticks, colored pencil.  Fused, machine quilted.

We are off to Cedarburg, WI for a weekend with our neighbors and to see the fabulous musician, Marcia Ball.  I already have another wading bird piece in the planning stages to begin when I return.

Have a great weekend!

Tracy

Rothesay Castle Moat

We never went into Rothesay Castle this trip (where we were married) but I did take some pictures of the moat:

Here’s the last of my pictures from Scotland.   I passed by this busty lady in town every day and she never failed to amuse me.  I’m not really sure why, but something about her teensy head and generous chest always brought a smile (yes, I am immature)

Busty Gal

We took the bus down to Kilcatten Bay and started walking down to St. Blane’s chapel.   This beautiful rock formation is called Hawk’s Nib.  click on it to enlarge (as with all the pictures)

Hawk's Nib

We also passed this lovely lighthouse:

Lighthouse

I think that’s one of the Cumbrae islands behind.

Beautiful view of Cumbrae

Ken kept running into and scaring wildlife this trip:

Ken, the Cow Whisperer

St. Blane’s is a wonderful ruin of a 12th and 13th century church.  amazingly, quite a bit of it is still standing:

St. Blane's Chapel

There are a surprising number of graves still standing.  The upper churchyard was reserved for clergy burial in Medieval times and men later.  The lower section was reserved for commoners in Medieval times and women later.

Here’s another shot:

More Chapel Pics

Clergy section and wall to the commoners section above

Here’s another:

12th Century Section

This section was reserved for clergy to worship.  The commoners had a separate section that was added later.

Here’s a gravestone from 1767.  It was in the church, so has held up amazingly well:

1767 gravestone

Another day we went up to Mount Stuart.  It’s the ancestral home of the Marquess of Bute.  The Marquess owns most of the island and has a grand home with amazing gardens.  The current Marquess apparently wants to be more accessible and refers to himself as “Johnny Bute”.  Here’s a little picture of his digs.  We didn’t do the house tour-I’d done it before.  Instead we did the gardens.  Here’s a picture of the outside.  The home is HUGE and I could only get a small bit of it without a wide angle lens.

A Teensy bit of Mount Stuart

Here’s a lovely pond just outside of the house:

Mount Stuart Pond

Here are some shots of my favorite UK plant, the Gunnera.  It’s some kind of giant rhubarb.  It is really giant, each leaf can span 6 feet!  I wish I could grow it in Chicago, but, alas, it’ too cold here.

Gunnera

More Gunnera:

Gunnera Seed Pod Thingie

and some great shadows on this one:

Gunnera Shadows

Leave it to me to find animals!  There were a few of these cute burros:

Burros!

and a beautiful Beech tree:

I am going to try to get some actaul art work done today.  I WILL post art pictures again!

As I have posted about before, my husband, Ken does not feel it’s a good holiday until he has physically conquered something.    He goes from a completely sedentary job to biking 50 miles or hiking up 4000 feet while hardly breathing heavily.  I spend most of the day lagging behind and panting and  pretty tired.  If you put him in Scotland, he gets even nuttier about this because his brother is exactly the same way.  They get together and come up with outlandishly tiring plans.  There is usually a pint and a good meal afterwards, which makes up for most of it.  This year was fairly tame; they just decided we should bike around the island.  I did better than usual-25 miles without passing out  and remaining relatively cheery.  Ken and his brother Alan, decided that wasn’t enough and tacked on another 10 miles after that; I’m sure traveling at warp speed.  Here’s the family  at the beginning of the journey at Rothesay Pier.  Notice how all of the crazy Stewart men look happy about this trip and my brother in-law’s wife, Joyce’s look says,”Here we go again.”

Our band of happy travelers at the beginning of the trip

I did stop for these cows because they seemed to be posing for me:

The cows pose for their close-up

There are tons of cows on Bute-and sheep!

Rothesay

This was the view just biking out of Rothesay.  It’s truly beautiful on the whole island.

More gorgeous views

I forget what this is a view of.  The foreground is Bute, but I think the back landmass might be another island like Inchmarnock or Arran.

Calmac Ferry

Here is the ever present ferry.  Mainland Scotland is the landmass behind it.  Bute is a really short crossing; about 30 minutes.  I took a bunch of pictures at Mount Stuart Gardens and St. Blane’s chapel.  I’ll put those up over the next few days.

Here’s some pictures of our fabulous trip to Scotland.  We stayed on the Isle of Bute (in the Inner Hebrides) for the trip, except for a few jaunts to the Glasgow suburbs to see family.   Bute had it’s heyday in Victorian times, were thousands of people would go to escape the grimy industrialism of Glasgow.  Many of the buildings still stand. 

I have always wondered what this pretty little building’s function was.  Apparently, it is too process poop!  Those Victorians sure made pretty municipal buildings:-)

Victorian Poop Hut

Rothesay (the main town on the island) has a promenade walk by the seaside; complete with putting greens and palm trees:

Rothesay Putting Greens

Bute benefits from the Gulf stream which allows it to grow palms, etc.

Here’s Rothesay pier and the Calmac ferry which takes you on and off the island:

Calmac Ferry

Lots of boats, too:

Rothesay Boats

  Ken and I stayed in a fabulous B&B called the Munro House with the loveliest hosts, Joan and Andy Walters.  The B&B was owned by someone else 10 years ago.  We had our wedding reception there and decided to stay there for sentimental reasons.  We couldn’t have picked a nicer spot.  Joan and Andy were delightful.  Here’s the view from the terrace.  I don’t have a wide angle lens, so you can’t really appreciate how vast the view really is.  We spent quite a few evenings drinking wine on the terrace.

Terrace at the Munro House B&B-What a view!

More later!

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous here in Scotland, so I taken full advantage and spent my time hiking and biking aound the Isle of Bute.  We are walking part of the West Island Way tomorrow and going to see  the  ruins of St Blane’s Chapel. I will post pictures when the rain returns!

Man, do I love this woman’s art quilts.    As someone who has made an attempt myself to capture birds in fabric, I am awed by the creativity and skill Karin uses to create her “bird” pieces.   She seems to share my love/obsession with cranes.  Check out her work.  It is amazing!  http://www.karinfranzen.com/wp/ 

I’m off to Scotland today-first to Paisley (a burb of Glasgow) and then off to the Isle of Bute. I hope to post again in a day or two.

Visitor to my garden (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

The weather in Chicago is finally nice-just in time for me to leave for Scotland!  Anyway, my mind has turned to gardening.   The dragonflies are starting to hunt around my pond (one is pictured above) and my iris and azalea are about to bloom.  I am a happy camper.

 I will be working in my own garden tomorrow and will, hopefully have some interesting pictures to post.  In the meantime, here are some gorgeous, award winning gardens posted on the beautiful blog International Design Awards.

The Free Motions had an absolutely crap workday, so there aren’t really any pictures to show you.  Sometimes there is just too much personal stuff going on with all of us to get much work done and this group of friends focuses on personal, rather than artistic support.  This was definitely the case on Tuesday. 

In lieu of art pictures, I thought I’d post about my upcoming trip back to Scotland.  My husband, Ken, and I are going to spend a week on the Isle of Bute to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  

Bute map courtesy of Isle-of-bute.com

Here’s a few highlights from the wedding.    Though he’s from the Glasgow area, my husband’s family has a long history with Bute.  His paternal grandfather was the head gardener at Kames Castle and Ken spent quite a bit of time there as a child roaming around the castle grounds. 

Kames Castle-photo from wikipedia.com

When we decided to get married, my mother-in-law Agnes did the majority of planning for the wedding.  Bute was the perfect place.  We got married  in the ruins of Rothesay Castle.  

Rothesay Castle-photo from bestofbute.co.uk

As an American unfamiliar with Scottish custom, this was an entire day of not knowing what the heck was coming next.  The Scots have many traditions that Americans don’t and the entire day I would here things like, “This is the part where you…….”.   I just rode along and had a marvelous time.  My mother-in-law planned the most beautiful and fun wedding I could have imagined.  

Some highlights of the day included:

Kilts!!!!!!:  God, I love a man in a kilt!  We had about 20 of them, including my handsome husband.

Bagpipes.  Wow.  I happen to really like the pipes, but they are LOUD.  Good thing the piper was outside. 

Lucky Horseshoe: my nephew presented this to me as part of the ceremony.  I did not realize that the tradition of this as much about fertility as luck: 

Lucky Horseshoes –Horseshoes have always been associated with luck. There is a nice myth about the devil asking a blacksmith to shoe a single hoof of his horse. When the blacksmith realised who his consumer was, he carried out the job as painfully as he could until the devil roared for mercy. The Blacksmith released the devil on the conditions that he would never enter a place that had a horseshoe on display. When a bride carries a horseshoe it is considered to be a symbol of fertility.-From Hubpages.com-Traditional Scottish Wedding

Scottish country dancing:  This is the most fun ever.  We had half Americans who didn’t know anything and half Scots trying to teach them the dances+ plenty of drink.  It was wonderful even though we butchered all of the dances.  I am amazed that there weren’t injuries.  Here’s a picture of some Canadians dancing.  They look much more coordinated than we did!

Picture by Jacques Surveyor-www.pixofcanada.com

Wedding Scramble: I couldn’t figure out why there were a bunch of local children waiting outside Rothesay Castle for our ceremony to end.  Why would they care about strangers getting married?  It all came clear when I was told about the Wedding Scramble.  This is the scary tradition of throwing coins into the street for kids to gather as you are  leaving.  I am still amazed we didn’t run over everybody.  The kids were running everywhere to get the loot. 

Ending the evening with Auld Lang Syne:  This was the pinnacle of strangeness for me.  It’s the end of the evening, everyone has been drinking  and dancing for HOURS, and the guests gather in a circle around us and begin to sing Auld Lang Syne while widening and closing the circle.  Motor accuracy was a bit impaired at this point and I thought we would be crushed by those we love.  It was a perfect Scottish ending.

I am too technically challenged to have scanned and posted MY actual wedding pictures :-).  Maybe another time.

We plan to spend the week hiking and biking around; sitting in the pub if it rains.  I will take plenty of pictures!

I know there are a few of you Scots reading this blog.  Am I missing anthing?

“Crane Series II” (C) 2008 by Tracy McCabe Stewart

Digitally created fabric, hand dyed and commercial cottons.  Machine Quilted.

I took a walk with my dogs over the weekend to one of my local nature preserves, Rollins Savannah.  Rollins Savannah was restored to wetlands after years of use for cattle grazing.  Read about it here.   Our forest preserve department did a pretty amazing  job of it.   They have restored enough wetlands and nesting sites that it has a really amazing migratory bird population.   I like to try to identify birds, but I am absolutely the worst bird geek ever.   I have a bunch of bird books, but have not ever been able to identify a SINGLE unknown bird from looking at them.  I love to be outside looking at nature of any kind, so don’t really care.

 I was hoping to see some sandhill cranes; they are known to stop in here since the restoration.  Sadly, Chicago’s spring has been so miserable that all the birds seem to be taking their time getting here. 

I ran into the longest. slowest train in history trying to get to the park.  It did have some nice graffitti:

Train Graffitti 1

and this:

Train Graffitti 2

Rollins didn’t really have all that much to look at.  It’s been too cold for much plant growth.  My experience was much more auditory.  It wasn’t until I moved to a place a bit more rural that I had the joyful spring experience of bazillions of frogs calling for mates in the early spring.  I got an earful of the crooning of the what I think is the Western Chorus frog.  They are a little bitty frog, but when they have their hearts set on spring romance, they make up for their size.  They congregate in wetlands and even big puddles and can be really LOUD.  It brings a big smile to my face every time I hear them.  Here’s a snippet of what they sound like:

Frogs Looking for Love

Mutiply that by hundreds and that’s what it can sound like out here.

 The other really noisy courtship around here in the spring is the redwing blackbird.  They like to hang around wetlands, which we have a fair amout of.  Here’s a snippet of them.

Romancing Redwing Blackbirds

They are WAY louder than this!

My pictures on this walk were pretty underwhelming but I did like this one of last year’s cattails:

Last Year's Cattails

Hopefully, it will warm up really soon.  If not, I will have my head in the oven!