Cinco de Mayo

I did weave last week, but other things kind of took over this week for the blog.

I was sitting at my loom on Thursday afternoon, being good and weaving. I look out of our french door windows across the driveway to the woods as I weave. Suddenly, there was a flurry of wings as something settled on the edge of the driveway. Took me a second to realize it was a big owl!! At first, it was looking right at me with huge eyes. I was scared to move, afraid it would fly away and my camera was in the other room. I'd have to pass in front of the window to get it!! Gradually his head moved and he looked at the azalea bushes in front of the house so I quickly snuck to the studio to get the camera. Was I in luck!!

 Turns out, it was a bard owl.  I suspect it stretches out its wings like that to camouflage it as it searches for prey. Such a gorgeous bird!! We've been hearing it in the woods but hadn't seen it til now. 
See how its eyes seem to penetrate right through you!! This is how it looked at first and then gradually he turned his head back to me after I got the camera. Most amazing thing in the world, I thought.

 Seemed like he was there a very long time, gradually turning his head again. Eventually, he faced into the woods and then just took off into the valley there. A short time later he flew through the woods toward the left and was gone, and I started weaving again..

 This month I am the featured 3D artist at the Art Market Gallery in Knoxville. I've got a good selection of rugs that I wove in December and January to show. We can sign ourselves up to be featured artist. I try to do so every 3 or so years. Problem is that I have a rule that I need to have completely new work for that. So, that's one of the reasons I did the rugs. I didn't want to do clothing for this show. The work seemed to go over well.  It was good to see some Tuesday weavers at the reception Friday evening...Maggie, LouAnn and Shirley all came by. A friendly face among a sea of strangers warms the heart!

 So, cinco de mayo. We got up at 6am on Saturday and I drove us over to Nashville. DH was on his computer the whole trip over (and back on the trip home yesterday!)
I didn't get pictures of the craft fair at Centennial Park that TACA puts on. I didn't have time. I was given about an hour to walk around the show. It's an outside show, well juried, that I did for about 20 years before I decided I had done enough outside shows. Plus, they don't have a tent of booths anymore. This show always was either hot, cold, rainy, stormy, windy, hot, windy....you get the idea. I barely got around in the hour but did get to say hi to friends I hadn't seen since I'd last done it 4 years ago.
The reason I only had so much time was because DH wanted to go to this shop that sells the things that the American Pickers? get that they show on the history channel. I haven't watched the show but apparently alot of people do because there were alot of people there!!

 You entered the shop above in that picture. The complex was a ton bigger. It's an old building from 1881 but still looks good from the outside anyway.

 This picture shows just 1/3 of the place. Well, the whole thing was so disappointing. The shop itself was just about half of the first picture of the place, the part that says automobiles above it. There were some antiques there but mostly there were tshirts and shot glasses for sale. I won't say it was a rip off but we were out of there in 10 minutes or so. They even had someone there keeping people outside in a line til someone came out....and I could have spent an extra hour at the show, maybe took a picture or two.....sigh! but he was a happy man.  No, we won't go back there. We came, saw and left!

The reason we went to Nashville was to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. There is an exhibit until July 15 featuring Chet Atkins. As part of it, they were having a concert featuring the music of Jerry Reed. Chet and Jerry influenced each other and played together a lot. Did you know that Jerry Reed wrote over 400 pieces? Some of them he'd write, Chet heard and played and by the next week or so Jerry had forgotten he'd written it. Some of those are instrumentals that are played by finger style guitar players the world over now.  He was so much more than the good actor he was. His true legacy is the music.
So they had 7 guitar players each playing a couple of his pieces. All 7 of them are guys we know that play at our CAAS convention. Friends came from all over to attend the concert as well.
The music was great and I didn't have to do any registration for this one!! Just sat back and enjoyed it.
First up was John Knowles who taught at Belmont for years and wrote books on Chet and Jerry's music.

 Sean Weaver played a great rock style song with a back up band. We've watched Sean grow as a person and guitar player for more than the last dozen years. His influences were Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed and Jimi Hendrix. The guy's getting really good!! He lives in Nashville and is making his way playing guitar.
They had a surprise guest. Jerry's daughter Seidina Reed came up to sing with the band. It was a real treat to hear her and later meet her. She's talented as well. I suspect we'll hear more from her in the years to come.

I didn't post pictures of all the guys playing but this picture shows most of the others that did play individually as well.
 Craig Dobbins on the far left, Mark Thornton hiding behind Darrel Toney who was singing a Reed song, Richard Smith in the middle playing his guitar (he learnt to play at 5 and has always been pretty incredible!) and Thom Bresh on the right, Merle Travis's son who's a wild man but a heart of gold.

It's hard to put into words what one feels when you've been to a concert that featured the music of a guy who is no longer with us but whose legacy lives on.  The concert was an hour and a half, just a smidgen of what we have at our festival in July. It's kind of nice to see people we only see once a year inbetween that time....
So, it was cinco de Mayo and we did go with some of these musicians to a mexican restaurant but we went at 5pm before the big rush!! I guess we're all getting older and maybe a bit wiser!!
Downtown Nashville was a zoo and people were still flooding in as we left for our hotel room. It had been a long day and I took a nap before going to bed!!

So it's back to my studio today. I'll be weaving purple and hope to get some other work done this week as well. Weaving is just a part of it. All the sewing and serging adds time to the process. Good thing I like to do all of it!!
Until next week, keep being creative!!
Carol