Haystack Part Everything Else

This is Pi Benio's work, using the stripped dogbane stalks that we donated to the untraditional basketry class after we removed the bast fiber for papermaking.

She made all the cuts to the stalk pieces and wired them all. She also has a background in papermaking, and teaches at Adrian College in Michigan.

I don't remember which student in that class did this piece, but I included it because you can see we also donated the dogbane seed pods (after emptying them of papermaking fiber)! They're the ones sticking up.

This was coiled by Kindle Loomis, a young work-study student from Maine who has had a wonderful history of being nurtured by Haystack. She was doing studies off of a single form, but I don't have images of that to share.

This one was by Ashley Chen, who was one of only two people I saw one night in the basket class, working. It looks particularly stunning against the light when the sun is coming in full force.

These are also by Ashley, who became obviously a coiling fanatic.

She worked across from Anne-Claude Cotty, who makes absolutely gorgeous work. She was the first ever TA in papermaking at Haystack back in the 80s and told me about how they got by with a blender and single pigment color.

This is the work of Bai Ming, the ceramics studio teacher. He came all the way from Tsinghua University in Beijing with his wife and daughter (the latter translated for him the entire time; what an incredibly poised young woman! She herself is studying lacquer arts).

Again, I'm sad to say that I don't know which student made these but I found the work to be incredible. The traditional work is wholly inspired by Ming, but the figures really captured me.

Becca in the metals studio had a lovely setup about her reasons for coming to Haystack, what she learned, samples of her own work, etc. We had joked at lunch one day about why her studio required closed-toe shoes when it was just as easy to burn your arm or some other body part that was not protected. That very afternoon, she burned her fingers! I was mortified. Thankfully, my TA had some amazing Chinese medicine balm that took care of the healing really quickly.

Here is the TA, Noga Harel, at the tail end of 30 hours of work on a gorgeous piece that she donated to the auction. She didn't sleep. I don't know how people work without sleeping.

These gut pieces were by Wong Yuk Ling, who was so busy at the sewing machine (she does a lot of silk sculpture) and wore wonderful garments and jewelry during the session.

Here is Margarét from the Fab Lab (who came to help us all the way from Iceland!) looking at the work in the fibers studio during the final walk through. The paper studio is just beyond, and I put all of those pictures here.