MORE from CAPE MAY

As you know I was in Lucille Festa's class and had never met Donna Hrkman until Cape May.   I found Donna to be very approachable and happy to share her knowledge.  While I have seen some of Donna's works of art via the internet, there's no comparison to seeing them in person.

All of her rugs have an emotional connection and for me some were more intense than others.  The Painted Lady was an interesting rug.  Years before color photographs some people chose to have them tinted vs. the generic black and white.  So her plan was to replicate that old style photo.  Donna is holding the rug so I could take a photo of the back.  The white wool ends you see tied at the eyes is to keep the loop for the spark in the eyes from coming undone.

The front of that wonderful Painted Lady was painstakingly done as it required her to paint a small section at a time so the dye didn't run into the other color.

The real Helen Keller had no sight or sound but she did still have her sense of smell and touch.  Donna wanted to bring attention to those facts in her hooked piece.  Notice the wording at the top of the rug "Knowledge is love and light and vision".  Donna googled the braille translation for that and hooked it at the bottom.

Christopher Robin and Pooh.

You  may be interested to see the real Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh photo circa 1927.  Look how detailed Donna hooked the sweater.  Well heck, everything!!!  But you can get that detail when you're hooking with dental floss thin wool, lol.

I would love to know more about Red Bird as I'm sure there was a powerful message in this piece too.  But I couldn't monopolize Donna's time forever.

Women's Voices, below, speaks for itself.  We have the right and privilege to vote and that time is coming up again soon.  

Running out of space to display rugs, these three were placed on the wicker seating.  The WWII Soldier is the rug which tugs at Lauren's heart strings.

The Semper Fi rug is the one which does that for me.  I cannot talk about or look at the rug without getting choked up or teary eyed.  Donna hooked it in the shape of a dog tag complete with hole on the right side for the neck chain.

Donna had a few of her steampunk rugs but there was no room for all of them.  This one did make the show, Steampunk Polly.

Years past I would walk the halls of the entire Chalfonte Hotel taking random photos in hopes of capturing a ghost (which didn't happen) or at least a few orbs.  While I didn't roam the halls last year or this year I did notice a few small orbs.  They are hard to see and I've circled them so you will have to tap on the photo and strain your eyes to see them.

Years past they have been much more prominent.  One such great year was 2016 and you can see that blog post HERE.

Hope you enjoyed Donna's rugs as I did.

Saundra

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