eling group show, The Dyer's Art, which
opened at the American Craft Museum in
New York in 1976.
Jim Bassler, Skins
40" x 50" linen,
silk, sisal, synthetic
dyes; 1985
It was Jim Bassler's faith in making as
a pleasurable gateway to learning that
marked that summer. In one of the house's
linked buildings was a studio with three
looms. At one of these I sat for hours,
musing over wool in deep lapis and burnt
orange, derived from the color schemes
Cyndi and I had read about in D.H. Lawrence. When I started to inject a lighter
blue into my design, Jim, looking over my
shoulder, observed sardonically, "Oh, so
you're going to use Dodge blue?' I knew
just what he meant and returned to the
lapis. Jim, with prescience, often called
me Blanche, after Tennessee Williams'
heroine, Blanche Dubois, who relied on
the kindness of strangers.
I painted watercolors of the red gladioli in
the garden and of my friends. But most of
all I wrote in a journal, unfortunately now
vanished, that probably was more about
the intrigues of my girlfriends than about
the Mexico, probably now vanished as
well, that Jim and Veralee tried so hard to
make us see.
HYLAND
