September days are here

Basketmakers used their five days in the studio to full advantage, creating baskets of all shapes, sizes, colors and patterns. Add to that the new and renewed friendships, the many offers of helping hands with each others’ baskets and simply, but most importantly, spending treasured time together.

Putting most of the week’s worth of baskets in one photo makes for quite an impressive display!

From preparing the Navajo loom for weaving by creating one continuous warp, choosing a pattern or designing a personalized one, to using authentic wool yarns for the row-by-row color placement, the entire Navajo weaving process is contemplative.

Capturing that spirit, instructor Betty Glynn Carlson shared words from the Navajo, “With beauty before me, I weave”.

Working on a piece about 10″ square allowed students to go from start to finish within the class time frame. For those who purchase or have a Navajo loom, larger pieces can be woven on and finished later.

In Kay Rashka’s Metalwork Jewelry Boot Camp class, students used metal fabrication techniques to create textured art jewelry. Drawing freehand or using textured mats, designs are etched on copper and silver, forming the base of the finished pieces.

At most hours of the day and evening, the hammers are hammering, the saws are sawing, the files are filing, the torches are flaming, the shears are cutting and the results are…striking!

Here’s to Washington Island and a little of the best of summer and autumn this early September.

And back to the poem we quoted earlier, “The golden-rod is yellow; The corn is turning brown; The trees in apple orchards, With fruit are bending down.”