A National Celebration Of Hand-Hooked Rugs Comes Close To Home

By Shannon Hicks

Now that A Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs X has been released, admirers and creators of original hand-hooked rugs can revel in large color photographs of some of today’s best designs.  A Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs, a soft-cover book series, is published by Rug Hooking magazine as an annual supplement. Rug Hooking is the only international, full-color magazine devoted entirely to the art of hand-hooked rug making. The magazine is published five times a year and provides technical and inspirational information for rug hookers of all levels.

A Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs is just that: a celebration of each year’s best rugs and wallhangings created by the readers of Rug Hooking magazine. While traditional, formal rugs have always made it into each annual release, editor Patrice A. Crowley acknowledged in her introduction to this year’s edition that “the trend has been toward new designs, personal adaptations of patterns, and highly original works.”

With one look at the rugs created by Sandy Hook resident Liz Alpert Fay, there is no doubt that creativity and a personal touch are certainly woven into each of her vibrant, playful and original designs. For that reason, Mrs Fay was among the 36 rug hookers honored by the publishers of Rug Hooking as being among the best original or commercial designs or adaptations produced in the world.

“Chelsea’s Rug,” the rug featured in A Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs X, is a natural outgrowth of Mrs Fay’s appreciation of children’s art. The 38 by 63-inch oval rug incorporates a number of her daughter’s drawings done while in kindergarten.

“I love the uninhibited way in which children draw,” Mrs Fay is quoted in the magazine. “To me, these images capture the essence of that feeling.” Mrs Fay has been teaching art, sewing, cooking and quilting classes for young children for years, and is now also involved in an outreach program through Silvermine Guild of Arts in New Canaan, where she goes into public schools and teaches groups of children to make quilts. She has also been making her own quilts for a number of years.

Three years ago Mrs Fay decided to fulfill a lifelong wish to learn how to hook rugs when she gave herself rug hooking lessons for her birthday. She was able to arrange for a private lesson with Redding instructor Gail Hill, who is a teacher for continuing education.

Through Mrs Hill, Liz was also able to join a Redding-based rug hooking group. The group is one of the country’s longest running rug hooking groups. “Some of these women have been hooking rugs in this group for more than 35 years,” Liz said recently, sitting in her comfortable Sandy Hook kitchen with completed works and works-in-progress competing for space.

In the time since she took her lesson with Mrs Hill, Liz Fay has completed 13 rugs. “Chelsea’s Rug,” her largest one to date, took her four months during 1999 to complete.

Another extremely personalized rug was “Rug For Aron,” done in 1998. The rug measures 34 by 27 inches and is also an interpretation of a child’s drawing, this one by Liz’s son. The rug shows a dog, with a primarily blue background, a multi-color inner border, and a black braided border.

“Rug For Aron” was among the works accepted into this year’s juried “Emerging Artists Exhibition,” a cooperative event presented by Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art and Ridgefield Guild of Artists. Mrs Fay was one of four artists chosen for this year’s show, the third annual presentation of an event designed specifically to help promote the careers of artists living in Connecticut and select counties of New York. “The thing that struck me about her pieces was the elegant way she blended the craft art of braiding and weaving rugs with painting,” says Megan Luke of the Aldrich Museum. Ms Luke was one of four curators for this year’s show. “Many of her works hang on the wall so they’re read as paintings.

“They are a perfect blend of two very disparate blends of art-making,” Ms Luke continued. “Most of the time craft art is seen as the opposite of fine art, but these rugs blended the two so successfully. That was one of the reasons we all responded so positively to her work.”

Coming up in November, Mrs Fay has two shows she will be participating in. First up is the Wilton Historical Society American Craftsmanship Show, a major annual event that is presented at Wilton High School’s Field House. This year’s show will be Saturday and Sunday, November 11 and 12, open 10 am to 5 pm both days. Mrs Fay will be among the 150 fine artisans and crafters from across the country who have been accepted into this year’s event.

The following weekend she will be at the Westport Creative Arts Festival, another weekend-long event, at Staples High School.

“This is a lot of fun to do,” Liz said last week. “I’m hoping to make a living out of my artwork and teaching. I’m hoping for a good response at these upcoming shows, of course, to keep going with this work, and to just keep enjoying it all.”