Cross Country

This will be a quickie, since I'm falling behind with stuff I want to post....
We took a "driving ramble" trip with the Qatar Natural History Group last weekend.  Going directly across the country, from one side of the peninsula to the other, only takes about an hour on the highway.  Then we took off into the desert, in a big caravan - vrooom....

It was fun to get some experience driving on the sand: hard tack, soft sand, troughs and ruts and all. I was a passenger (and photographer) for the first half, then drove the second stretch.

Camels photgraphed while driving - do not try this at home.

They're relatively free-range, with herders gathering them together by night.

One woman spotted a camel skeleton, and we collected the various bleached bones.  That's the fun thing about the QNHG - everyone has their own specialty.  For some it's bones, for others it's fossils, or shells, or birds....

I thought this pelvic bone looked like a Star Wars helmet.  Or maybe the rabbit from Donnie Darko...?

The drive ended with a relaxing lunch at the beach. If you were able to see the land across the way (which we could, just barely,) you'd be looking at Saudi Arabia.

Bye till next time, camels...

Textile Society Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska

(Warning: this post is full of intriguing links - you could get sucked into a textile abyss for hours on end.)

Quilt made by Nika Feldman and women from a beggars' encampment outside Kathmandu, Nepal

Two quilts made by the women in Nepal, and purchased by me - decorating my hotel room in Lincoln.

***

There was entirely too much going on in the space of three short days, 

all of it highly stimulating and full of beauty.  

I'm so glad I was accepted to present at this symposium, and thus stayed in the US to attend.

(My presentation was Spin Artists, and How the Internet Fuels the Art Yarn Movement, and it was very well-received.  So happy to have represented these artists to the greater textile-studying community.)

The image above is a stunning contemporary sari woven in Orissa - a combination of raw silk and blue-gray fine silk, with a metallic gold double-ikat pallav.  This was the best photo I could get in low light.

 The ikat saris and the work below were in various gallery shows pertaining to the textile theme.

 Jacquard-woven shibori by Catherine Ellis.

 Detail from Pauline Verbeek-Cowart's Jacquard-woven Silk Vortex.

Anna Von Mertens - Bachhus, after Caravaggio - hand-dyed, hand-quilted, quilt painting

(I knew Anna back when, before she was famous!  We used to talk about quilting, when she was just getting into it.  It's so great to see her work now, and hear people gushing over it.  

She is brilliant with color.)

***

During the day, we had concurrent sessions, which were very hard to choose from, including presentations by artists such as Kyoung Ae Cho and Rowland Ricketts, in addition to ethnographic studies of aspects of Muslim dress, felt-making in Kyrgyzstan, and Central Asian patchwork (mentioning all the ones I enjoyed the most, plucking them from among dozens.)

*** 

The brain was too full for words after a while, and this was a good time to go watch the Navajo women spin and weave.  This was a great opportunity to observe Navajo spindle technique in action, particularly the double-drafting method I've only seen in videos.

Grandmother spins.

Granddaughter weaves, her own striking design.

Continuing the Native American theme, we were treated to a dance performance by the Many Moccasins dance troupe, which was rich in textiles, impressive and educational. I enjoyed taking blurry photos of the dancers and their regalia in motion.

Finally, I attended a felt-making workshop taught by Janice Arnold, in which we learned basic press-felting, as practiced for ages in Kyrgyzstan, in addition to hybrid felting, which combines wool and a base fabric such as organza.

This was a fun and physically intense way to end the symposium.

 (we were working hard - 4 x 100 rolls, just to start!)

I finished the felting after returning to Doha,
and now it's drying in the hot sun.

Fall thrill

I'm enjoying the beginning of fall more than I can express, having spent the last couple Octobers in Doha, where it's still over 100 degrees (38 C).

Wearing a sweater, breathing cool air and seeing pumpkins

 - all minor thrills.

Fall decorations look particularly charming when they're outside a tidy Mennonite farm along the open Missouri highway.

And I like the light quality for knitting, too.

Down time

Many thanks for all the comments on the Museum post - 

it's gratifying to find that my enthusiasm is contagious.

Yesterday, feeling the need to take it easy, I enjoyed the simplicity of finishing a sock, 

and the way it matched my mug and placemat.

This is Three Fates Knitting yarn, in the lovely Boston Harbor colorway.

While traveling across the Midwest, the colors harmonized with late summer cornfields and cloudy skies.

MIA

Yes, it describes me for the last month or so, but it’s also the acronym for the Museum of Islamic Art, one of the most appealing spots in Doha.

The museum has been completed and opened since we’ve lived in Doha, and so I feel a special affinity for it – and with free admission, there’s even more of a sense of “my” museum.  I’ve gone there many times in the last two years, and had begun to lose the awe of the first encounter, simply through growing familiarity.  However, on a recent visit to buy gifts before our trip home, I sat on a bench I hadn’t used before, looked up and saw this:

and was freshly agog with wonder.  How can anyone even DO that, making all those lines and movements and textures happen in space together??

The outside is all clean, calm geometry and shifting planes of light.  

Even before it opened, I was delighted by the many moods of the museum as it reflected in the water and communed with the Arabian sun.

Entering the main atrium, one walks into a vast sculpture, a three-dimensional poetry rife with the genius of I.M. Pei.  The shapes and surfaces are intricately graceful, poised and stately in spite of the stunning complexity of the whole.  The exquisite tension between detail and structure, straight and curved, activity and stasis creates a permeating mood of stimulated wonder.

I go there to look at art, of course, and there are plenty of wonderful pieces from various moments in Islamic history.  But more often I go there to dwell in art, moving through the space and  watching the light transform patterns around me.

I.M. Pei said this museum is one of the few places he has designed that he likes to see with people as well as empty.  The clean lines and neutral shades are particularly suited to Arab dress, and one feels as if one should wear long robes in black or white to complement the surroundings.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of one of my favorite man-made places in the world.