Balloon Juice | Celebrating Jackals Archives

Celebrating Jackals: “The Fine Art of Rug Hooking” by donnah

by WaterGirl| July 24, 202010:00 am| 88 Comments

On Sunday, donnah mentioned that she was hooking a rug for her youngest son, and the next thing we knew, people were asking about this rug or that rug that she has mentioned before. I asked donnah how she would feel about being featured in Celebrating Jackals, and she graciously agreed to tell us more about rug hooking and share some more of her rugs with us.

I’ll let donnah tell us all about it – how she got started, how she makes her designs, and all sorts of other things – in her own words. But first I’ll share the one that makes me tear up every time I see it. Various rugs hooked by donnah will be sprinkled throughout the post, in no particular order.

Semper Fi, Always Faithful 2019

*****

The Fine Art of Rug Hooking, by donnah

Hello, fellow Jackals!

I’ve been reading Balloon Juice for a lot of years and love the camaraderie and support here. I’ve found that BJ is welcoming and friendly even when the politics get heated. I learn a lot here, and it always feels like home.

Watergirl, a force of Nature, invited me to share some of my artwork and I jumped at the chance. I’m always working to promote the art that I create because so little is known about it and because it’s a really amazing medium.

No Greater Love 2017

show full post on front page

I’ve been an artist all my life. My second grade art teacher told my mother that I had talent, and I have hung onto that as my validation. I’ve done drawing, painting, sculpture, and had a stencil design business. A friend suggested rug hooking, which I dismissed at first, but grew more interested as I saw more examples of what can be done. I’ve been at it for almost twenty years now and it’s my favorite means of artistic expression.

Native American Boy 2010

So, I make traditional hooked wool rugs. Like quilts, they got their start as a simple way to use up old fabric to make something useful. Early hooked rugs were decorative, but they were not considered to be fine art. Now modern hooked rugs are still made with the same basic tools: a hook, a frame, scissors, and wool fabric. But they’ve come a long way.

Steampunk Reverie 2014

I draw all of my own patterns and also draw patterns to sell. I design them on tracing paper and transfer the drawing to a linen backing with a permanent marker. I choose my color palette and go to my wool shelves to get the colors I need. I also dye wool for each project and also sell it to my students.

Christopher Robin and Pooh 2018

Mother Goose 2015

Once those decisions are made, I use a special fabric cutting device that looks like a pasta cutting machine and I cut up narrow strips of wool. Once those are cut and sorted, I stretch the linen pattern over a wood frame with rug gripper strips on four sides. I’m ready to go at that point, and I hold the strip of wool under the linen and use the hook to reach down through the linen to catch the wool and pull up a loop.

The Alzheimer’s Rug 2012

Veterans Day 2010

Then it’s just loop after loop, strip after strip until the surface is filled. When the rug is all hooked, I turn under the edges and whip them with wool yarn to complete it.

Now I travel and teach all over the country, mostly rug hooking guilds and rug schools. I wrote a small guidebook for rug hooking and a larger book about my rug hooking techniques. I’ve been published in Rug Hooking Magazine as well. I’ve met wonderful people and seen amazing hooked pieces. It’s a life I could never have predicted for myself, but I can say it’s been challenging, rewarding, and fun.

*****

Have I mentioned yet that I am blown away by donnah’s talent?

You can find more of donnas’s amazing work on her website:

http://DonnaHrkmanDesigns.com

Donna has done a rug for each of her 3 sons. Except she won’t let them have the rugs! Not yet, anyway. We’ll let her tell us about that in the comments.

[email protected] 2016

Steampunk Michael 2017

The Gamer 2020

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Celebrating Jackals: Gwangung Has A Zoom Reading of His Play Today (Saturday) at 10 pm ET

by WaterGirl| July 18, 202012:00 pm| 46 Comments

This post is in: Celebrating Jackals, Open Threads

We have “known” gwangung here at BJ for a very long time. I think of him as one of our two playwrights here on Balloon Juice, and I know he’s involved in Asian American theatre. But until now, that’s about all I knew.

On Friday afternoon I happened upon a comment of his, where gwangung mentioned that there would be a Zoom reading of his play, She Devil of the China Seas this Saturday at 10 pm ET.

I thought it would be interesting to get to know gwangung a little better and find out more about his play, so I asked if he would be willing to whip up a little something for this post. And he did, even though he had rehearsals on Friday night!

Take it away, gwangung!

Hi, there. This is very much a last minute thing…but, then again, that describes so much of my artistic life. My name is Roger Tang….I’ve been involved in theatre for a long time …but I’ve only considered myself a theatre artist for the past fifteen years. I’ve mostly organized and been a producer and I’ve dabbled in other areas…and I’ve managed to write a full length play, She Devil of the China Seas…but more about that later.

I’ve mentioned my background in bits and pieces over the years around here. I was a dual major in college – Journalism/Geology – and there was a tradition of dorms at my school producing plays in the lounge. Generally, these were Broadway musicals (WITH orchestra, singers AND dancers from the dorm). My final year at school, though, a dorm-mate said he wrote a play, and it struck all of us that it’d be fun to produce that play to make us stand out from the other productions.

That dorm-mate was David Henry Hwang (who won a Tony for M. Butterfly), that play was F.O.B. (which won an Obie for best Off Broadway play later) and that started a four decade career in Asian American theatre that’s covered being on the board of directors for various groups, helming my own group (Pork Filled Productions) and starting a website that’s the foremost authority on Asian American Theatre (the Asian American Theatre Revue), which earned me the nickname of “Godfather of Asian American Theatre.” (oh, and the iconic line from F.O.B. is ” Gwangung, god of warriors, writers and prostitutes!”, hence my nym).

Now I don’t have any hard and fast artistic philosophies, except, maybe, to write what isn’t there. So in the 90s, me and my group wrote sketch comedy. That changed in recent years, so we moved to genre fiction, about larger than life Asian American figures, like James T. Kirk, Peter Parker, Indiana Jones and so forth. That launched a decade of shows about families of Chinese American con artists, Thai American ghosts and, most successfully, a trilogy of steampunk plays.

Enter She-Devil. I’ve written sketches and full plays in the past. I had always been intrigued by the real life story of Ching Shih, a Chinese prostitute in the early 1800s who rose to command the largest pirate fleet in history, defeating both Chinese and European fleets. There were rumors of a Maggie Q-led miniseries a few years back, but nothing ever came of it. I got tired of waiting. And wondered…what if I added a bit of Marvel’s Conan…a bit of Lois McMasters Bujold….and that evolved into She Devil of the China Seas…an origin story of sorts.

It was originally set to be a full and proper production by another company…but the pandemic took care of that. So I took the same gang who would have been the company and had them do the reading, as a taste of what might have been (and might still be when we get past it). We’ll be presenting the play live on the 18^th (tickets on Eventbrite). If we figure out what we’re doing, we’ll get a recording up for folks who can’t make it then…

Thanks for letting me ramble.

*****

Now we get to see one of gwangung’s plays being performed, from the comfort of our own homes! As gwangung put it, folks can rustle up a ticket here. ~WaterGirl

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Celebrating Jackals: Albatrossity Is Featured This Week at the Manhattan Arts Center

by WaterGirl| June 16, 202010:00 am| 72 Comments

This post is in: Balloon Juice, Celebrating Jackals

Albatrossity mentioned in this morning’s On the Road that he is the featured artist this week (June 15-19) at the Manhattan Arts Center – no, not that Manhattan, the other Manhattan, in Kansas. Where he lives.

I asked Albatrossity how he would feel about being featured in in the Celebrating Jackals series, and he graciously agreed to tell us a little bit about the arts center and the opportunity to be their featured artist this week.

But first, a bit of background in case you missed the first Celebrating Jackals a couple weeks ago:

Are things ever going to settle down? With everything that’s going on, that’s probably not in the cards for the near future. Which makes it even more important to celebrate our victories and our accomplishments.

I hope this can be a place where we can all be excited when one of us has something good going on. You don’t need to have published a book, to have received an award, or be featured in a gallery, but those work, too! Maybe you moved into your dream house, or you finished rebuilding your 57 Chevy, or you just got married or you’re retiring, or you had a kid, or you just passed your boards.

When you have something to celebrate, I hope you’ll be willing to write up a little something and share it with us. Send me an email if you’re interested. ~WaterGirl

And now, let’s hear from Albatrossity!

The Manhattan Arts Center (Manhattan KS) has a Facebook group devoted to local artists who are affiliated with the gallery. Each week a local artist is invited to share images of their artwork, discuss their art and their process, and answer questions from interested folks.

The first batch of photos went up today (Birds of Tanzania), and another batch (other topics and venues) will go up daily this week.

If you want to see some of those pics, of another glorious places: (requires facebook login)

link to the discussion on their FaceBook page

link to the images on their FaceBook page

Or you can go to either page and then click DISCUSSION or MEDIA to jump to the other one. From the MEDIA page, you can click on any of the images to make them larger.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

~Dave Rintoul (aka Albatrossity)

*****

The Manhattan Kansas Arts Center is relatively new, so if you go to their site to check out Albatrossity’s work, you will also be supporting the arts by letting them know there is interest in what they are doing.

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – TaMara’s New Book!

by WaterGirl| June 14, 20205:00 pm| 127 Comments

This post is in: Celebrating Jackals, Guest Posts, Medium Cool with BGinCHI, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 17 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: TaMara’s new TJ Wilde Mystery: Underway

Take it away, BG!

TaMara’s piece/writeup below is such a great conversation starter that it seems like any further introduction from me would just get in the way. ~BGinCHI

So take it away, TaMara!

First of all, wow, thanks for this BG and Watergirl! How much fun.

Watergirl asked me to write something up. I wasn’t sure what, then I figured I’d just tell you how the TJ Wilde mysteries evolved.

But first, let’s discuss the genre. TJ Wilde Mysteries are in the romance/mystery/beach read style, they are very adult, definitely R rated. TJ is a strong woman whose life implodes and she is a straight up mess in Run Aground and has found her footing in Underway, but things never go smoothly, because what fun would that be? So nothing too serious here.

How did this “let’s write a book” begin? Believe it or not, one morning I woke from a dream, and it was pretty much the entire first chapter and general plot of the first book, Run Aground. I am not kidding. It was bizarre. And it would not go away. I’ve been writing all my life, but a full-length book, much less a mystery, was not on my life plan calendar. I checked. And then I double-checked.

Finally, I wrote out the first chapter. Then I wrote it again. And again. By that time, I thought, well, this is kind of a fun little piece, so I sent it to a few people I knew would get the in-jokes and enjoy it. The response I got back was “more pages, please.” So I wrote more pages until I got to about chapter five, and then life got complicated – I started my own business, and that was a time-consuming undertaking – so I had less time to write. Then Bixby came…and most of you know how that went. LOL

Nevertheless, I was being nagged by both the characters who would not go away, and my friends and family who would also not go away. And five chapters seemed an awful lot to waste. So I got serious and decided, well, why not, let’s write the entire thing. It took a while. What kept me going was I found I loved visiting the world and characters I created. I was always surprised when things went in a direction I hadn’t actually planned but worked because it was organic and authentic to the characters.

No spoilers, but there is a single line in chapter eight of book one, that I wrote as a throwaway line that became a plot point that now runs through all three books. That has been my favorite part about writing, how everything finds a way to fit together. As long as I have a solid beginning and ending, the story kind of unfolds itself for me. It was like doing a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. I love that. I also love reading romance/mystery/beach reads, so writing that genre felt natural.

The second book evolved after my bestest friend in the entire world and I were driving around Boston during my yearly visit. I had described for her the general outline of book two and we were scouting locations, when we stumbled on the SoWa art district and a Cuban art gallery with the most amazing gallerist.

And then suddenly, my vague outline had substance and heart. A few days later, she and I were walking along the beach (that I have walked hundreds of times in my adult life), and we were chatting about the outer islands, and she tells me this story of a now-abandoned hospital, that I didn’t even know existed. Seriously, I’d lived in the Boston area for years and I visit regularly. And suddenly, more of the story had taken shape. By the time I flew back home, the book was all done except for the actual writing. Oh, and a trip to Cuba.

I knew early on it was a trilogy – the mysteries are stand-alone, but TJ’s evolution (and have no doubt, this is all about TJ’s evolution) would need three books. From having her entire life turned upside down to finding her way again to flourishing (that’ll be book three).

That’s it. That’s how I became an accidental mystery/romance writer. I can’t say I love writing, but I do love watching the story unfold.

A full synopsis of Run Aground is here and a full synopsis of Underway is here. Excerpts of both books are here.

*****

I have read everything at the three links just above, and it was definitely worth it!

But first, some housekeeping. When we started Medium Cool, BG warned me that we Sunday evenings might not be great for him during the summer, and it turns out that his prediction was spot on. So until further notice, Medium Cool is changing to Wednesday evenings at 6 pm blog time.

So please mark your calendars: The next Medium Cool will be on Wednesday, June 24, at 6 pm.

And now, back to TaMara’s book. I can’t wait to ask her what it’s like to have your Dad read the sexy scenes in your book. That should be interesting.

~WaterGirl

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Celebrating Jackals: Dorothy Winsor Gets a John Scalzi ‘Big Idea’ Post

by WaterGirl| June 5, 20204:00 pm| 135 Comments

This post is in: Balloon Juice, Celebrating Jackals

Are things ever going to settle down? With everything that’s going on, that’s probably not in the cards for the near future.

Which makes it even more important to celebrate our victories and our accomplishments.

It can feel a little awkward, especially in these crazy times, to promote your own work or to be excited about something positive that’s going on in your life, so I hope this can be a place where we can all be excited when one of us has something good going on.

So here is the first post in what I hope will become a series: Celebrating Jackals

I asked Dorothy Winsor if she would kick off the series by talking about why she’s excited to have been one of the people chosen to write a Big Idea post for John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever. Her post will be about The Wysman, which releases on June 27. The hook for The Wysman:

As a former street kid, now training to be the king’s advisor, Jarka can’t stop hunting whoever’s grabbing street kids–even after the king orders him to back off. He also can’t stop wondering why the king ordered that.

I’ll let Dorothy tell us the rest – about the book, about John Scalzi, and about why getting a Big Idea Post is a big deal – in her own words.

Take it away, Dorothy!

Who is John Scalzi?

First, you need to understand that Scalzi is a very big name science fiction author. Here’s his author bio from Amazon.

“John Scalzi writes books, which, considering where you’re reading this, makes perfect sense. He’s best known for writing science fiction, including the New York Times bestseller “Redshirts,” which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. He also writes non-fiction, on subjects ranging from personal finance to astronomy to film, was the Creative Consultant for the Stargate: Universe television series. He enjoys pie, as should all right thinking people. You can get to his blog by typing the word “Whatever” into Google. No, seriously, try it.”

His best known book is probably Old Man’s War about a far future world in which the old are given young, artificial bodies if they consent to fight in an interplanetary war. I’m also partial to Red Shirts, which should resonate with “Star Trek” fans: A group of Star Fleet security guards realizes they’re dying at outrageous rates and takes action.

Additionally, Scalzi is past-president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He’s just a huge fish in the SFF world.

In contrast, I am a teeny, tiny minnow. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t know me at all. I scan his blog most days, but I hardly ever comment.

What is a Big Idea Post?

A Big Idea post is supposed to talk about what the central idea of the writer’s book is and how that idea affected the writing. To do one, you have to apply and explain what you want to do and why he should care. I applied with a previous book and was rejected. But this time, he accepted. Holy cow.

So I wrote about the inherently political nature of science fiction and fantasy books that take place in a world the writer made up. As soon as you make up a culture, you have to account for power. That’s it. And I guess it was enough.

Links for purchase, if you’re interested.

Here’s the Amazon link for The Wysman. And the link on IndieBound to order from independent bookstores.

And the link for ebook purchases not from Amazon (iBooks, Google Play, etc.).

In the meantime, the ebook for The Wind Reader, the first book in this series, is currently on sale for $.99.

Thank you, jackals.

🎉🎈🎐

Do you have any questions for Dorothy? Have you read any of her books? Do you want to talk about john Scalzi, or how cool it is that he does so much to help other writers, or talk about science fiction, or anything related? Great! Share something positive? Awesome. Maybe we can skip all the bad stuff for this one thread?

The Mighty Trowel shared some good news with us right around the same time that Dorothy learned that she had gotten the nod for the Big Idea post from Scalzi, which is what gave me the idea for Celebrating Jackals. I wish I could remember what that was!

You don’t need to have published a book or have received an award, but those work, too! Maybe you moved into your dream house, or you finished rebuilding your 57 Chevy, or you just got married or you’re retiring, or you had a kid, or you just passed your boards – when you have something to celebrate, I hope you’ll be willing to write up a little something and share it with us. Send me an email if you’re interested.

~WaterGirl

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Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Discussion of “A Tree Grows in Longmont”, by Mustang Bobby

by WaterGirl| May 10, 20205:00 pm| 81 Comments

This post is in: Celebrating Jackals, Guest Posts, Medium Cool with BGinCHI, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Tonight we kick off Episode 12 of the weekly Guest Post series: Medium Cool with BGinCHI.

In case you missed the introduction to the series: Culture as a Hedge Against this Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We’re Living In

You can find the whole series here: Medium Cool with BGinCHI

Tonight’s Topic: Discussion of “A Tree Grows in Longmont”, by our very own Mustang Bobby

I know that quite a few people were queued up to watch the play last Sunday. Of course, it wouldn’t be a performance if it hadn’t started late, right?

So we switched topics last week. We’re not sure ow many of you were able to watch it in the meantime. BG and I have both watched it – we’ll play Medium Cool by ear tonight once we see how many others were able to watch the play in these crazy times this week.

Take it away, BG!

I was really moved by this play, which on the surface offers us a series of memories about a relationship, but is then layered with meditations on love, family, responsibility, and desire.

What are your takeaways? Impressions? Thoughts?

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An almost top 10,000 blog!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Deploy the moving finger of emphasisity!

Let there be snark.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Shelter in place is one thing. Shelter in pants is quite another.

The house always wins.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

Too inconsequential to be sued

Shocking, but not surprising

We still have time to mess this up!

There’s some extremely good trouble headed their way.

Verified, but limited!

Wetsuit optional.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

All your base are belong to Tunch.

… down to kool-aid drinkers and next of kin at the trump White House

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

No one could have predicted…

Han shot first.

How do you get liars to care about the truth?

Celebrating Jackals: “The Fine Art of Rug Hooking” by donnah

Celebrating Jackals: Gwangung Has A Zoom Reading of His Play Today (Saturday) at 10 pm ET

Celebrating Jackals: Albatrossity Is Featured This Week at the Manhattan Arts Center

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – TaMara’s New Book!

Celebrating Jackals: Dorothy Winsor Gets a John Scalzi ‘Big Idea’ Post

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Discussion of “A Tree Grows in Longmont”, by Mustang Bobby