Random Acts of Living


Saturday, October 24, 2009

Golden Wheat AHSGR October 18, Fall Meeting

FALL MEETING and Election of Officers
Sunday, October 18, 2009 - 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
1:00 p.m. to 1:30, gathering and registration; 1:30-2:30 potluck dinner
2:30 to 4:30 p.m., program: Immanuel Lutheran Church
909 South Market, Wichita

Come enjoy a unique program at our annual Fall meeting. The meeting will include Election of Officers and a presentation of Wheat Weaving by Martha and Marie Voth of North Newton using Turkey Red wheat. Their picture and an associated article were on the front page of Active Aging at the beginning of August. You will want to remember to move your chair to the front of the room during the presentation so you can see because their beautiful handiwork is too fragile to pass around.

From our President:
Dear Golden Wheat Friends:
Our October meeting is fast approaching, and First Vice President Harold Popp has come up with another great program. Please put October 18 on your calendar and plan to join us as twins Martha and Marie Voth share their skills of Turkey Red Wheat Weaving and Marquetry with us. One of their specialties is making beautiful pictures of old buildings from wheat straw (marquetry). It is also time for election of officers. You all come!

...After our covered dish dinner and meeting with election of officers, Harold Popp led us all in singing some songs in German including "How Great Thou Art", dedicating it to my dad's memory.

Next was the program given by the Voth sisters on creating artwork from wheat. They said that in the beginning they had used wheat grain in their artwork and they really liked it but so did the bugs. Now they remove ALL grains and seeds from their art medium. They told us about coloring and shaping the wheat and showed us a special tool that splits a wheat stem into six fine pieces that they then twist into a tiny rope with another machine.
They showed how they would take a picture and make copies of it, adjusting and cutting it into sections to get just the right angle to begin making their art.
The different sections are on varying thicknesses of cardboard to give the dimensional effect.
The butterflies below were for sale. There had been three of them but one was sold before I got a picture of it.
The sisters also wore pins that they had made from wheat.
Notice the 'rope' pieces on the pin below. Click on the picture to enlarge it.
Here is a picture of a golfer and the original picture it was made from.
All Kansans out there will recognize our state seal.
I thought these sunflowers, wild geraniums and butterfly was really pretty.
The camera did not do justice to this depiction of Russian Belarus' Glorious Birds.You can see the depth quality on the porch of the house below.
Sorry I couldn't get a better picture of this grand prize winner, it was behind glass and there was quite a glare from the big windows above. For those not familiar with Wichita KS, this is the Sedgwick County Historical Museum, formerly the Wichita City Hall. One of Wichita's 'castles'.
This beautiful cross is a wheat depiction of the ornate iron crosses in many of the GR cemeteries.
Next are the barns and farm scenes. This one a combination of wheat and watercolor.
Many of these are on a velvet background. Note the chicks to the lower right that are woven wheat and mounted on the frame.
This farmyard belonged to their Uncle William, done from old photos.
They consider barns the 'Castles of Prairies'. This one is about putting up hay on the Voth farm.

Another very enjoyable and informative meeting. The Voth sisters are very talented and if you get a chance you should see their work in person, it is amazing!

5 comments:

Girl Tornado said...

WOW. Their art is absolutely amazing... you can see how much heart they must put into these, the detail is stunning!

Alicia @ boylerpf said...

Beautiful work..the pin detail is amazing and the cross is stunning! Hard to believe it is out of wheat. The sisters look like twins...I hope they have passed down this talent to others so it will carry on.

Peter said...

The Dynamic Duo's artwork is absolutely out of this world. I have never seen anything like it. Have they considering putting out a book so others can take up this great craft?

Take Care,
Peter

Anita said...

Beautiful!! I love wheat weaving, but have never seen art quite like this before...

Moonshadow said...

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. Marquetry is more well known in Europe. A search of straw marquetry even pulls up books about the craft. I asked the sisters about the tool used to split the wheat and was told that it came from Germany. If you google images of straw marquetry you'll see that most of it is decorative but there are pictures that have been done also.