learning more and more

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, April De Conick came from Texas to do a rug hooking workshop at my studio. April is a biblical scholar and chair of her department at Rice Universtity in Houston, Texas. I asked her this winter if she might like to come to the studio and teach a class. She is also an outstanding rug hooker, and of course that is what she taught, not biblical studies! For years I have considered having a guest artist at the studio to teach but never got around to having one.  I am so glad I did.

For one thing I believe that in order to be creative you have to be open minded , curious and a learner. These things feed the creative spirit. I actually took April’s workshop and though I was not a perfect student ( you can just imagine) I did get some great ideas and thought of ways I could blend the things she was teaching into my own style.

I really liked the idea of having a new teacher at the studio because for people who have come to many of my workshops it was a chance to offer the people who have taken quite a few of my workshops something unique and different. To develop your own style, it is important to learn lots of ideas from lots of sources  and then integrate that into what you already know.

April was an easy going teacher who was open minded. She also had lots of good concrete information for us and circled the room giving people ideas of what would make their work better. She was confident in her approach and had a great energy that she shared with the group.

We have quite the line up  of guest fibre artists for 2013/14. Our workshop studio will have a lot more life in it this year, I am happy to say. You can register for them on our workshops page.