Spring 2023

Engaging with 2023 a bit differently post pandemic. In out 67th year, having survived without illness, we find ourselves slowing down in unexpected ways, embracing opportunities to travel and enjoy different aspects of creativity.

The fall harvest (November and December 2022) was managed with new working partners. Our son Henry, now living and farming the property helped bring in the crop with Phoebe and Alex, our able bodied staff, and Eli, the willow wrangler and I helped Howard as well.

The Willow Wrangler

Phoebe and Alex

I did a few regional shows, where I think my festive crowns got more attention than the work I was there to sell, but it was all in good fun and I got to see some of my favorite customers (who are also some of my favorite friends!) Thanks to all of you who visited the farm as well for your holiday purchases, and thanks to those who attended Winterfair in Columbus.

In mid December, Howard and I departed for West Bengal, India, to do some volunteer work with a non profit in the craft sector, Kadam. The organization supports thousands of craftspeople working with natural fibers: Sitilpati, Madhurkathi, Sabai, Shola, and Bamboo. Howard had worked with them during the lockdown virtually, and we were both invited to join the design team to work on new products in Kolkata. It was rewarding to be on the sub-continent again. The warmness of the people we worked with can not be understated. It was a gift to be embraced by them. We hope we gave as good as we got. I did get to work with the young dying master on a color wheel lesson and was able to get in a few licks on the large looms weaving Madhurkathi.

Howard and I both got home at the end of February in time to pack and sort and ship willow. It can be back breaking work, and I am spending the rest of the spring giving mine a rest. Best to do lap work while it mends. I have had fun the last few weeks hand dying cotton loops and working up some 21st century potholders which I look forward to sharing once I get a big enough stash of them but more importantly can bear to part with them!

And today, March 30th, 2023, my hubs, partner in love, life, and bickering has turned 67, so there was the favorite pie to make! Lemons, to pucker up with him and celebrate the sweetness of life.

Time Flies Even When It Is Not So Much Fun, 2020-2022

The two years of the pandemic necessitated staying close to home. We are fortunate; we have space to wander and Howard’s work kept three family members modestly employed. Our new forward will include their partnership on the farm activities in hopes of securing another generation of makers and doers.

Asa and Howard Peller

I got some pandemic money, purchased a loom, and learned how to weave hand towels. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon produced some great content, and I am grateful for being able to escape into both fictional and documentary programming. I am still laughing over the rice pudding episode “After Life”. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 the shuttle moves across with the weft threads. The hand towels match the jiggered mixing bowls which my son Asa helped set up the year before. Outpacing anxiety thru industry, thats the trick!

Jiggered Mixing Bowls and Hand Towels

McGown Teachers Workshop rug hooking camp has been canceled for two years, but I managed to complete several projects from 2019 that were on the periphery of the studio. Our local Buckeye Rug Hooking Guild met for the first time in a year; we had a great Magdalena Briner presentation from Kathy Wright from Sauder Village. My mother and my daughter in law hooked the same pattern so it was fun to compare the rugs which we had been hooking separately from each other.

Magdalena Briner Rugs (T to B)

Maddy, Nat, and Lauren

I turned 65 in July of 2021, my sister and my 95-year-old mum drove out from Vermont and we had our own week of rug camp here at the farm. My two daughter-in-law’s helped celebrate and we all ate cake.

Lauren, Maddy, Gabi

In the fall we inherited a day lily collection from our good friend Patricia Santelli. Henry, Lauren and I planted them in the back yard underneath my studio deck. I am looking forward to the open house in July when they will all be in bloom. Lots of weeding, pinching and tending between now and then, honoring Patricia’s decades long investment in toil and soil.

Below Deck in the Lily Field

We lost two very special and long lived animal friends in 2021. In the fall we rescued Ms. Sally cat and two sisters pups, Faye and Raye. They are almost civilized at the time of this writing! Willow, our older shepherd, has made peace with the three new whipper snappers.

Sister Pups Raye and Faye

Howard built a pole barn for the expanding willow business. We had a topping out ceremony with Howards first baskets and a bundle of willow from the fall harvest.

Topping out the roof with willow!

2022 underway, we are creatively challenging ourselves with wood, clay, willow and fiber. I have plans to print again, but hopefully not in pink. I am saving that color for more cake!

Blueberry icing and lemon curd cake

Years End

I had a good year. I do not always. But 63 has been a good year. My hip is not shot, my knees still bend, and I got to use them in adventurous ways in and out of the country. Climbed a mountain and I turned around.

My knees and hips also served me well on a great road trip with Howard, visiting the national parks in the western states. He let me hook the whole way. “ Repeat Rug Patterns” to be published in Rug Hooking Magazine this summer.

The Buckeye Guild “Knitting Bag Challenge” is off to a great start, four of about 16 bags finished that I know of, and mine is near completion. Thanks to Asa Peller who made us all the handles on the robotic machine at his lab! We will enter these bags into Sauder Village Rug Show this next summer

Had some great teaching opportunities this spring and summer as well. Art Camp with kids for three weeks in June, a class at Northern McGown Teachers Workshop this summer, and a great class in Ashboro North Carolina this fall with the Piedmont Rug Hooking Guild!

Had to get busy as all get out when the dust settled as I had not fired since June! Been hustling ever since. . I nailed the reduction atmosphere finally after two years and 17 firings. Thanks to Gail Russell from Peachblow Pottery and John Britt from North Carolina for their guidance and helpful suggestions.

We had the Open Studio in November. Willow is always mugging to be included in the shot, probably because I was hugging Howard!

But one of the most exciting discoveries of the year came after reading David McCulloughs “The Pioneers. It is about the first settlement in Ohio. Though I knew the history of our farm and its first family, I did not realize the sacrifice that Phoebe Hurlbut and her daughter Abigail made when they lost their husband and father Benoni, in Belpre Ohio in 1791. Less than 10 years later the two women, with David Stokely, Abigails new husband, walked up the Muskingum River to settle on and establish the Stokely Farm. This is where I live, and Phoebe, Abigail, and David, along with a few of their children are buried out by the back pond. You can wander out there next time you come to visit, and pay them your respects. This is the house that their children built.

My Children come back as well. They help plant and harvest. They enjoy the peace of the land, its sense of place, and the grace we all receive by continuing to steward the property. We thank you all this holiday season for contributing to our well being by your purchases of the goods and services that we provide with the strength of our knees, hips, and hands. Happy Holidays and a Good New Year!

Spring 2019 Good Things Sprouting

I will miss many things about my old website! Needed to upgrade to the next rendition. I hope the platform is pleasing to you. Change is hard, especially when the challenges of learning new things are disagreeable. Who wants to spend time in front of a computer screen when the spring, budding, is outside my window?

In the fall of 2017 I built a gas kiln, which I can high fire in a reduction atmosphere. This new template allows me to share this body of work with you. I have posted the best of it on the site, on the “Porcelain” page. Tiles are available on the “Tile” page, and more are forthcoming.

Projects for 2019 include a hooked knitting bag challenge for the Buckeye Rug Hooking Guild, and working with the Basket Farmer. I am completing a “Repeat Patten” project for Rug Hooking Magazine, which will lasso together my fiber arts and ceramic interests.

I would like to thank my students this last year, who continue to inspire and nudge me. Thanks to the students at the Ohio University, the children in my summer art classes, the hooking students at Sauder Village, at the Newark Cultural Center, and the exceptionally talented women from Aquacate, Belize.