On-the-go Studio
- james girouard
- Aug 8
- 3 min read
I spend hours sitting on my living room floor working on hooked rugs. But I also put in lots of hours building rugs in many other places. In fact, travelling with my work might be one of my favourite aspects of my rug hooking practice.
Beginning on a frame, most of my larger work in this configuration is best suited to home. I can lay it on the living room floor, move it around, sit on the couch and rest it on my lap, and even hang it on the wall to see when it is not being built. I purposely make the stretcher frames out of lightweight wood, using glued bridle joints. The work is easy to pick up, rotate over my head, and flip around, allowing access to each edge and end. I work all over the rug at once, distributing and balancing colours and shapes as I go. Cheticamp-style hooking, on a frame that rolls away the ends to expose only one part at a time, does not work for me.
I spend hours pulling loops, and the frame on my lap gets incrementally heavier with every night’s work. On a nice enough day, I sometimes roll down to the park with a backpack full of wool noodles, coffee, and a stadium chair, letting the colourful burlap-stretched wing in my hand catch the wind blowing off the beach to pull me and my skateboard toward the hill on the point. There, I’ll sit against a bent tree and hook on the grass under dappled light. I love my local park, and working on the large frame there has me watching the sun and waves while creating beauty.
When a rug is three-quarters done, the image or idea starts to emerge and the most exciting stage begins. Right around this time, the glue joints on the frame usually start to pop and crack from the weight and strain. It will break if I leave it, but these are the signs that it's time to pry the staples out of the burlap with a butter knife and magnet, and free the work. Spread flat like a real rug, or rolled up, now the rug can really travel. It can fit in a waterproof drybag, which means it can be strapped to the back of a bike, easily thrown in a car or canoe, and even stuffed into a kayak. All of which I have done, and hope to do again.
Hooking outdoors, in nature, is one of the most wonderful parts of the craft. I imagine traditional hookers sitting on porches watching the sun trip across the sky, but maybe other rugmakers were more like me: artist vagabonds who strive not only to make beautiful things, but to do it in beautiful places. I decided to try it in places beyond my living room and farther than my local park.
My first overnight trip with a work in progress was a kayak trip to the Twin Islands. I was able to stuff the work into the hatch of my kayak along with many hours’ worth of pre-cut noodles, a pair of scissors, and a couple of hooks. A gorgeous sunny spring day with a following wind led to a clear but chilly night. When it was time to set up camp after hooking the day away, I found that my packing was incomplete - I had forgotten a camping mattress! Although the wooden tent platforms on the island are flat, it would have been a cold and uncomfortable night had I not brought... a rug. With just my stadium chair under it, that rug provided one of the best camping sleeps of my life. Cushy and warm, it compressed just a little under me. Now, if its a trip where I have time to hook, I bring a rug instead of a mattress. This applies to bike camping as well. In fact, at one gallery show drop-off that was close enough to reach by ferry and bike on an abandoned railway! I delivered the piece after sleeping on it on the beach the night before. Don’t tell the curator.
Ideally, all of my art-related events would be accessible by water or bike routes. I love getting around by my own power, and to me, the memories of where, when and how I have travelled are imbued in my work. I’m no plein air painter, but maybe a real-life rugger? By the time a rug is finished, it has gathered more than loops and colour. The travel does not diminish the work; it imbues it with a wider life before it is even finished.
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