 About the Artist Caveat |
Codpieces Mats Framed Pieces Chair Mats OtherClick on image to view a larger version |
|
About the Artist Caveat |
Codpieces Mats Framed Pieces Chair Mats OtherClick on image to view a larger version |
In 2024 I was really not motivated to hook anything. I had no image in my head that I wanted to hook. It was kind of like writer's block for hookers. While scrolling through Facebook one night, I found "reels" — the rabbit hole down which a body can fall and never return.
In my case it was cat videos that trapped my attention and I got to wondering about cats in different cultures, specifically Egyptian. I remembered hearing about a goddess of cats, Bastet. It would make a fine subject for a hooking. It took me a while to nail down what kind of image I wanted, and once I did that, I had several technical problems that plagued me. Hooking with yarn still doesn't come naturally to me. I can't seem to keep objects symmetrical when hooking them and that was true in this piece as well. It involved "frogging" several spots multiple times. But in the end, it was worth it.
Artificial intelligence became available to the hoi polloi in early 2023 to answer questions posed by the user, or to create images matching the criteria supplied by the user. While flipping about on the Internet, I saw an image that caught my attention because...cat. I knew I wanted to hook it but first had to find out if copyright was a barrier. After much digging and reverse image searching, I discovered the image was created by AI. Nobody to pay for rights. It turned out so well that I will use Dall-E from now on to create images I want to hook. If nothing else it will sharpen my abilities to specify what I want.
A playing card has two denominations: the value of the card and the suit. On this playing card, the suite is Hearts. The value is King. The image on the card is not the traditional king but a King of Cod. I suppose I should have made the suit Cods, and kept the traditional king image. But it got complicated and I stuck to what I started out to do. Maybe will create a queen for him one of these days.
My son mentioned how much he was dreading his black lab, Zeppelin getting older, and what that would mean finally. I decided I should hook a piece for his wall of his much loved dog. It was far easier in the end than I imagined. At first I fed a photo into Deep Dream Generator and the result was fabulous: a dog image broken into segments of bright colours. My son loved it and said it reflected Zeppelin's personality. Alas, I arrived at the conclusion that not only was I not talented enough to transfer that image to my backing, but I would be hard pressed to do it hooking justice. So instead, I took another image and using online tools, transformed it into a sketch which was much easier to transfer and to hook. I am well pleased with the result. However, I will probably never hook another black dog. The image shown here has some odd shadowing on the face caused by the fact that the picture was taken after the hooking was framed. I was too lazy to take it apart again to photograph it, so instead whatever was behind me reflects in the glass. Sorry.
This piece was based on a painting by the Newfoundland artist Reilly Fitzgerald. The original showed the cod about to take the hook dropped over the bow of the boat on the surface. I removed the line and hook from the image and let the fish live another day. Hooked with permission of the artist. View original painting
My first attempt at hooking an animal. Others have fared well and produced spectacular images of their pets. I was not optimistic that I would be that lucky, so instead I fed an image of Peekaboo into something called Deep Dream Generator, choose a style (I forget which one I opted for) and the output became the pattern I transferred to my backing. I figured, I think, that if the picture was not traditional, it would be hard for people to see mistakes. Only partially right. I see lots of areas that could do with improvement.
Shades of grey: One of the fun parts of this piece was dying yarn in the various shades of grey that I would use. (And I am sure I had more fun than any character in a book of the same name).
A friend asked me if I would hook her a pitcher plant to hang in her B&B. I was eager to get started because I had been pondering hooking that very plant.
“Glory to Cod” is now hanging in the home or office of someone who visits Newfoundland regularly. This person has been an avid fan of my work having purchased a couple of my pieces now.
This is my favourite piece so far. It makes me laugh. But I seem to be the only one. People seem puzzled by it, even though a tag on the piece reminds them that the title can be sung to the tune of “A Partridge in a Pear Tree”. Perhaps only a few special people get the joke.
It’s difficult to know how to orient this image. The person who purchased it said she would hang it horizontally over a door. When I was hooking it, I thought of it vertically. Shrug. Still a codfish no matter how you hang it.
This little fellow happened one day when I first thought a jellyfish might make a good hooking subject. It took me all of 10 minutes from the first loop to the last. I took it along with a few other pieces to the store that sold my work and then forgot about it.
I was surprised a few weeks later by a knock on my door. A woman from New Brunswick held a small shopping bag in her hand containing this little mat. She said she just had to buy it and then absolutely had to meet the person who made it. Flabbergasted I was. There’s someone for everyone, they say. I guess the same is true of odd little hookings.
Such a fun piece. I loved doing this one. I especially liked the multi-coloured border that matched the codfish.
I first saw a rag-a-jack rug at the craft shop on Fogo Island where a beautiful round mat was a sun that looked like a giant 3-D daisy. That winter I gathered whatever polar fleece I could find cheaply and got to work. I used a cutting mat and a cutter to create the individual strips (pointed on both ends) which were pulled through the backing so both ends were on the front. It was fun despite being so heavy to hold while working. However, I went through 3 cutter blades and pretty much ruined my cutting mat when the fleece bits got into the cuts on the mat and would not come out.
This piece reflects much of the Newfoundland experience where the door is always open to anyone. There is always a table and chairs to sit around and maybe a hooked mat at the entry. A boat drawn up at the back garden was not unusual and codfish drying on the clothes line is still done today. The shape of the house is a nod to the many shapes and styles of dwellings and additions to same that are found in the province.
This piece was inspired by a work by Jim Harris, an American artist, whose work is very hookable. When I asked permission to hook this image, he was very gracious and asked that I not sell the piece, a condition I was happy to comply with. I hooked it with the finest cuts I have ever used: #3, #4, #5. See more of Jim Harris’s work here The Indian Corn painting can be seen here.
This was the first attempt to hook on rug warp. Not a great choice given the “circles” that can be problematic even on linen. I think I nearly broke my wrist on this one. But after blocking it, the result was more to my liking.
