Tracy McCabe Stewart - Contemporary Fiber

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!

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

I know I’ve been quiet about posting lately.  I got back from Japan and almost immediately had surgery (I’m fine).  I have been hunkered down recuperating.  I hope to get back to something creative next week.

Just to remind me of the bird series I’m working on,I have had some sandhill cranes making a stop by my house for the past few nights.  I knew I had heard the call before; they sound like pterodactyls from the movies, but something about hearing it in the dead of night threw me off and I couldn’t identify them right away.   I didn’t know they caused such a ruckus at night, either.  Here’s what they sound like.

Lucy, the Wonder Dog (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

My Great Dane, Lucy saw one on the other side of the fence at about 5 this morning and flipped:  barking and all her hair standing up.  I don’t think she’d ever seen a bird that big-they are about 4 feet tall.  It was all I could do to get her in the house again before she woke the whole neighborhood.

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

My daughter and I were walking around Kobe today and we spotted some wild boar or inoshishi in the riverbed.  Ugly little spuds, aren’t they-despite the cute name. 

Inoshishi!!!

Inoshishi posing

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!

I am spending 2010 working on a series of wading birds.  The latest in the series is based on the Whooping Crane.

I spent today in the studio working on one of the wings and the neck.  Here’s a picture of the latest progress.  Unfortunately, the feathers aren’t showing up all that well because they’re white.  Hopefully, you can see the individual feathers.

Whooping Crane Progress (c)2010 Tracy McCabe Stewart

After ripping apart this head about half a dozen times, I have one I can live with.  It will change considerably when I start shading and stitching, but here’s the rough start of the head for my whooping crane piece.  I don’t know whether you can tell from the picture, but there are individual feathers in white.

Whooping Crane Progress (c) Tracy McCabe Stewart

As the three people that have read my blog from the beginning know, I have a completely irrational fantasy about being a farmer/outdoor/live off the land sort of person.  It involves images from summer camp, British Country Living Magazine, and various other great childhood memories.  I wrote a lot about it here.  

Part of my fantasy involves raising chickens.  I dream of fresh eggs in the morning and a sweet, loving relationship with my hens.    All of them flocking to me when I come out to see them, coming up to me for a scratch, strolling with me through the garden.  Sort of like little Lassies with feathers.

The truth is that I have 2 dogs that would be happy to eat any smaller animal I might  have, I live in a Chicago suburb that has ordinances against chickens and I would never be able to send the chickens to their maker once they quit their laying years.  I would just end up with a huge flock of pet chickens.   Amazingly, my husband Ken is not really sold on this idea. 

Anyway, to keep the country dream alive, I read great blogs like Theresa Loe’s, “Garden Fresh Living” blog.  She lives in California and grows oodles of food and raises chickens.  Gotta love that!  Check out her blog.  The chickens are on today’s post.

She has a video on her blog today with chickens doing agility training. Who knew?  I don’t think I could even get my dogs to do these things.  I, of course had to go to YouTube and see if there were more chicken athletes out there.  Here’s another video of those avian champions.  Do you think Ken will let me have chickens that can do tricks???? 

I know everyone who has a blog can embed videos.  I am rather technically challenged and can not.  Here’s the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nI27Zwi9VU

I was pining for the fjords today ; thinking about Scotland and surfing the internet.  I ran across this wonderful Scottish painter Ken Bushe.  He does lovely, lovely oil paintings of earth, sky and water.  His website  includes information on technique as well-presented with that quirky Scottish humor.  Enjoy!