A Gigantic Wish Come True...."Craft In America" Visits My Studio
June 09, 2021
I must confess -- for more than a decade I've had a wish... that my artwork would be featured in "Craft In America," a Peabody Award-winning series about craft. And sometimes, wishes do come true. This past weekend a six-person crew arrived at my studio and home for a two-day blitz of video.
The experience is still overwhelming, even in retrospect, too much to describe or digest in one post. I am both exploding with elation and trying to get my feet back on the ground. While fresh in my memory and with elevated consciousness, I want to share some of the impressions and highlights through the next several posts with lots of images.
It started in late April with a surprise phone call asking if I would be interested in being interviewed for a segment on an hour-long program about jewelry in the documentary series, "Craft In America?" The caller, Carol Sauvion, is the Executive Director, Executive Producer, Director, and perhaps, most important, the Visionary who has developed "Craft in America" from the brainstorm of an idea to a 15-year run with PBS.
And this came about largely because of a sequence of three events:
- My creation of the Black Plastic Gyre Boa Constrictor Necklace in 2018
- The recent article about my jewelry work in Ornament Magazine which featured this same necklace
- The professional endorsement of Ornament Magazine Editor, Patrick Benesh-Liu
Carol said she wanted to move forward quickly with the shoot on June 5 & 6. This put Harriete into overdrive at warp speed through the month of May. Now I really had to finish the other artwork that I had already started and promised to complete which was overdue two months ago (more on this later), study and take the tests for re-certification as a Certified Group Exercise Instructor (my secret lifestyle), and clean up my studio after 14-months of accumulated "I can just push stuff aside since no one is visiting" pandemic mindset.
My studio was out of control. I had organically let detritus pile up leaving only irregular lilypad-like spots to barely step through. I hadn't cleaned or dusted my studio in more than a year (some parts perhaps for maybe two or three years). Chaos reigned in competition with sedimentary layering. The dust had accumulated beyond my realization.
Hours and hours each day cleaning, sorting, tossing, Goodwill, SCRAP, give away, repositioning, hiding elsewhere (e.g. stuffing the car), consolidating, etc. for over two weeks , soaring past 14,000 daily steps on my Fitbit without ever leaving my house -- I could never have cleaned the studio without the amazingly generous assistance of emiko oye, Jen, and Sara. emiko (my most trusted studio assistant from years ago) helped for three solid days during the two week cleaning marathon.
Anticipation fueled this grueling, intensive effort. Then the excitement morphed into trepidation during the last three days. Was I ready? Was my preparation adequate?
There still seemed to be a lot to do beyond just cleaning the studio to be ready for this oopportunity.
Stay tuned....getting ready for a "Craft in America" video crew. There was so much to do.....so little time.
Harriete