Cranberryweavers

Directions to West Bridgewater Library:

From the North:

Take route 24 south to exit 16A.

Follow route 106 east for approximately 1.6 miles.

At blinking yellow light past High School, (middle/senior high school)

turn left onto Howard St. Follow curve to right, pass two houses and WBPL, #80 Howard St.,

is brick building on right.

Park in front lot or left side lot of building.

From the South:

Take route 24 north to exit 16A Follow route 106 east for approximately 1.6 miles.

At blinking yellow light past High School, (middle/senior high school)

Turn left on to Howard Street Follow curve to right, pass two houses

and WBPL, #80 Howard St., is brick building on right.

Park in front lot or left side lot of building.

or...From the South:

Rte. 495 to Exit 7 for Rte. 24 North. Take Exit 16A for Rte. 106 East into West Bridgewater. Pass through 1 set of traffic lights (at Hockomock Ctr.). Pass West Bridgewater High School on left. At blinking yellow light past High School, turn left onto Howard St.

Follow curve to right, pass two houses and WBPL is brick building on right. Park in front lot or side lot of building.

From the West:

Follow route 106 east.

Turn left on to Howard Street (right after the Middle / Senior High).

Follow Howard Street to 80 Howard St. Follow curve to right, pass two houses and WBPL is brick building on right.

Park in front lot or side lot of building.

From the East:

Take route 28 north from Bridgewater to route 106 west.

Follow route 106 west through the center of West Bridgewater.

Turn right on to Howard Street (right after the Police and Fire Station).

Follow Howard Street to 80 Howard St.

From the East Bridgewater/Whitman area:

Take Rte.18 South to Rte. 106 West. Continue past intersection of Rtes. 106 and 28 at lights

and proceed past WB Police station to blinking yellow light on 106 (before WBHS).

Take a right on Howard St. The WBPL is around the curve on the right.

Takako Ueki – Silk Odyssey & Fantastic Fiber Foray - Program and Workshop

Takako Ueki was born in Japan and has thrilled knitters and weavers in this country by importing fine Japanese yarns, mostly silks, through her business Habu Textiles. Cranberry is lucky to have her present a program to the whole membership and a special workshop to those who have signed up for it. Go to her Habu’s website, www.habutextiles.com, to see samples of Takako’s work and the beautiful yarns she will be sharing with us.

Because Takako is traveling to Bridgewater from New York for the day, our schedule for September will be slightly different than normal. Times are just an estimate, but we plan to conduct the business meeting (and brief show and tell )from 10 to 11 AM, the program from 11 AM until 1 PM, and the workshop from 2 PM until 5 PM. Please plan to eat your lunch late or early.

The Program

The talk will focus on presenting unique and difficult to find materials for weavers, knitters, surface artist, etc. These include bamboo, silk or wool stainless steel, ramie, naturally gold, green or brown silks, hand-reeled Akagi silks, etc. The talk will begin with a short introduction by Takako. She will show several slides of her work, then go on to show several more slides on a couple of unusual silks and ramie yarns. After the slides, she will give a show/tell of the actual fibers and the textiles on the table.

The Workshop- you must be prepaid to participate in the afternoon workshop.

Maximum number of students is 15. Intermediate Level

After the program we will go on to experiment with numerous unique fibers to weave with. The looms should be pre-warped with the warp Takako will send out beforehand. There will be a demonstration of warping an extremely fine yarn and weaving with it. Program Fee TBD and Materials Fee of: $25

Bio

Takako Ueki was born in Osaka, Japan and in 1992 received a B.F. A. from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Arts, New York City. She started as a printmaker and worked in various art galleries in New York. But after just one night of a class with Desiree Koslin at the Fashion Institute of Technology, she refocused her life on weaving.

In 1999 she established Habu Textiles as her personal weaving studio, but now accommodates many other weavers’ works from Japan and hundreds of customers, who come seeking for unusual materials.

Takako has shown her work at numerous venues, including the Santa Fe Weaving Gallery, Craft Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, and the Smithsonian Institution Craft Show. She has given workshops all over the country. Her designs and yarns have been featured in many publications, including Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot, Handwoven, The New York Times, Selvedge, Interweave Knits, Vogue Knitting, and various Japanese publications.

October 17, 2007
- Dora Hsiung: Fiber Constructions / Wrapped in Yarn

Dora Hsiung’s art is extraordinarily beautiful and unique. Cranberry is pleased to welcome her to discuss her work, which graces the walls of numerous corporations and has been exhibited at dozens of shows. Dora developed her original off loom technique over thirty years ago, which she refers as “fiber constructions.” In her lecture, she will show the development of her art over her career – from early tapestries woven on her 3 looms, to her recent fiber constructions. She will also show slides of several of her large commissions and discuss how they were designed, executed and installed. To see Dora’s work, go to her website, www.hsiung.net/dora.

Bio

Born in Shanghai, China, Dora immigrated in 1952 to Brazil with her family, where she graduated from high school. She came to U.S. to study graphic design at University of Illinois. She met her husband there. They were married in Boston while both attending graduate schools – Dora at Boston University and her husband at MIT. They lived in Newton and raised 3 children.

When her children were young, Dora was a stay home mom. She picked up weaving for diversion, since yarn was clean and safe. Starting out weaving tapestries with her 3 looms, she later switched to off-loom weaving - because it was portable and she could work while waiting for her children during piano, dancing, skating, swimming lessons.

During the early years, Dora was working and selling her craft at different craft fairs. Later she became more serious and started exhibiting her larger fiber pieces at art shows. Her work became very popular and began to receive many awards. Her first major show was at Boston City Hall for Bicentennial celebration in 1975. Over the years she had her solo shows at Depot Square Gallery, MIT Dean’s Gallery, Endicott College, Lexington Library, Newton Library, L’attitude Gallery and Fox & Fowl Architects in N.Y. She also gave workshops at places such as Weavers’ Guild of Boston, Lexington Arts & Crafts, New Hampshire Weavers’ Guild.

Her art took off when she received her first commission from her husband’s architectural office. It was a huge wall hanging for a 3-story atrium. That success led to more commissions from art agents. This was in the 80’s - good economy spurring new office buildings, keeping Dora and her art agents very busy with commissions. The geometric and mathematical imageries of her fiber work were attractive particularly to high-tech companies. In the 90’s, big commissions vanished. She continued with smaller works and joined Depot Square Gallery, a cooperate gallery in Lexington center.

When Dora is not weaving, she enjoys hiking, tennis, tai-chi, aerobic classes, reading, movies and lunch with her friends. Two years ago her architect husband retired from his office and became a watercolor artist. Now they do their art things together – visiting museums and galleries, traveling and sketching. They have been living in the same big old Victorian house in Newton for 40 years. It used to fill up with all the kids’ stuff, but now it’s filled with all their art works.

November 28, 2007

ATTENTION THIS IS THE 4TH WEDNESDAY- A CHANGE IN MEETING DAY!!!

Felted Beads and Holiday Party

Be sure to come and celebrate the holiday season early with your fellow guild members. This year we will have a short program, led by Judy Jones and Kathy Eklund, to make felted beads. Let your imagination run wild – maybe you can make felted bead gifts for everyone on your shopping list? Necklaces, pin cushions, worry balls, cat toys, practice golf balls???? After the program we will have our usual holiday pot-luck lunch and grab for hand-made gifts. Please bring a hand crafted gift to share and a dish of your choice to feed at least 4 hungry weavers!

January 16, 2008

Lucretia Chase – "The All Around Weaver or You Too Can Travel in Circles!"

Lucretia Chase will give a program of how life circumstances and the art of weaving evolved into a business that supported her family while she was doing the thing she loved. She will show slides of her Art Tapestry installations in Paris, New York and Florida. She will also show examples of her unique Jardin Technique used in her architectural, two and three story high installations.

Along with her tapestry work, she will present a mini fashion show of an artist's view of Couture and fun clothing.

Lucretia Chase is a member of Cranberry Country Weavers and proprietor of Lucretia Chase Studios. She received her bachelor’s in Art Education from Barat College and her master’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She attended the American Craft College at Rochester Institute of Technology and served as a lecturer and artist in residence at the University of Buffalo. The Chase Studio has been commissioned by Xerox, Citicorp, and Mobile Oil, among others, and has installed art tapestries internationally. Lucretia is a member of the Artist Association of Nantucket and Exhibiting Gallery Artist at the South Shore Art Center for 2004-2005. Additionally, she is also a member of the Handweavers Guild of America and the Boston Weavers’ Guild.

February 20, 2008

Diana Frost - M’s and O’s Rediscovered

Diana Frost, a NEWS Weaver of Distinction, is well-known to many of us for both her exquisite linen weaving and because of her active participation in NEWS and guilds in New England. Diana started a study group at Mainely Weavers to discover if there were more possibilities for the old but well-loved weaving structure known as M’s and O’s. The group was enthusiastic and they found many surprises. She gave workshops at New Hampshire Weavers Guild and at Weavers Guild of Boston where her students produced their own variations on 4 or more shafts. She will bring these examples. She will discuss the history of the weave structure and explain how it can be used with her Power Point type presentation.

Bio

Diana is a former Dean of Weavers’ Guild of Boston, former President (twice) of New Hampshire Weavers’ Guild and President of NEWS ’95. She received the Weaver of Distinction Award for the Gallery at NEWS. She is interested in all aspects of weaving and is presently enjoying her AVL 16 shaft Compu-Dobby driven by Fiberworks PCW Silver-plus. She still does a lot of weaving and study on her 4 and 8 shaft smaller looms. She has taught weaving from her home and at several Guilds.

She was introduced to Weaving as a Post-Grad. student at the Boston School of Occupational Therapy back in the 50's but did not get her own loom until 4 children and 15 years later when she was volunteering at a local hospital and expressed interest in owning her own loom whereupon she was presented with a Harrisville loom kit by her family. While her husband was in Peru doing an experiment involving an eclipse of the sun, she put it together and sent him a picture of herself weaving on it - regular mail as this was before e-mail!

March 19, 2008

– Adele Harvey - Shifu and other Spun Paper

Learn how to spin paper with a bobbin winder. Adele Harvey’s presentation will involve a short discussion of spun paper, traditional and not so traditional as well. As time and space allows, the participants can try their hands at spinning paper into useable paper "thread". Examples of woven paper products will be presented. This should be a fun and different program for Cranberry.

Bio

Adele Harvey has been interested in textiles since childhood, and actively involved in weaving since the 1960's. An ex-dean of the Weavers' Guild of Boston and an active participant in the Weavers' Guild of Lexington, Adele lives and weaves in Lincoln, MA.

April 16, 2008

Charlotte Hamlin - Discovering What is "Native" About North American Textiles

Charlotte Hamlin, who teaches textile history at UMass Dartmouth, returns to Cranberry to inform us about North American textiles. Native North American weaving encompasses a wide range of indigenous plant and animal materials and innovative techniques. In addition to the development of the “blankets” of the Southwestern cultures, several non-loom techniques arose across the continent; the influence of European explorers and settlers can be seen in the integration of European materials into the native textiles.

Charlotte Hamlin currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Textile History, surface design and fiber arts in the Textile Design and Fiber Arts Program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; she is also Assistant Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, UMass Dartmouth. She received a BA in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, a BSN in Nursing from Columbia, an MS in Nursing from Boston University and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1998.