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From the Judges:
The contrasting palette in the sky and sunlit street creates a powerful visual impact. The golden tones of the haloed crowd add an ethereal effect, and the diagonal shadows guide the eye toward the eclipse. Captures a community experience of an eclipse perfectly.
Totality: All Eyes on the Sky celebrates a joyful and moving once-in-a-lifetime moment in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, on April 8, 2024, at 3:28 p.m.—when the moon lined up with the sun to create a total solar eclipse and turned the day into night.
Never having hooked people before, I am pleased with how the figures and their shadows turned out. During the 1 minute and 32 seconds of totality (when the moon completely blocked the sun), the sky overhead became dark; the streetlights came on, bathing the onlookers in an ethereal glow and casting long shadows; and the temperature dropped five degrees. At that moment, the awestruck crowd that was gathered on Main Street cheered, safely removed their solar-eclipse glasses, and snapped photographs with their phones (depicted with iridescent metallic fabric) as they reveled in the rare phenomenon.
Totality: All Eyes on the Sky, 27 ¾” x 35 ½”, #3- to 7-cut hand-dyed and spot-dyed wool on linen.
Designed and hooked by Suzanne L. Flynt, Dummerston, Vermont, 2024.
I had traveled to St. Johnsbury with my family that day from our home in Dummerston to witness the eclipse. More than 160,000 people traveled to Vermont for the event. A joyful and memorable experience, the day was so meaningful that I was moved to create a fiber-art wall hanging incorporating rug hooking with a quilted border. The title of the rug pays homage to Mark Breen’s “Eye on the Sky” commentary presented by Vermont Public Radio in front of the Fairbanks Museum that day.
The sky was especially challenging, as it was dark directly above, but there was a yellow glow in the distance, which was the area outside of totality. To achieve this look, I spot-dyed about 10 pieces of white wool in shades of blue with varying amounts of yellow and hooked them using a nonlinear technique (pulling loops diagonally one way and then the other). I used hand-dyed wool throughout the piece to enliven the colors and suggest movement using varying hues and values. To create a sense of depth in the streetscape, I incorporated reverse punching to depict the buildings.
I finished my rug with a pieced and quilted wool border. The inner border was cut from a scarf that belonged to my mother, and the outer border was spot-dyed to match the brick buildings.
Totality: All Eyes on the Sky was exhibited at the Vermont Statehouse and won a viewers’ choice award at Hooked in the Mountains XXI.
Suzanne L. Flynt
DUMMERSTON, VERMONT
Suzanne was educated at the University of Vermont and holds a BA in studio art and an MA in early American culture and museology. She worked as curator of Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, Massachusetts, for 35 years, where she came to deeply appreciate the craftsmanship of traditional fiber arts. For the past six years, she has honed the craft of rug hooking, using original designs and innovative techniques to create hooked tapestries. She is a member of the Brattleboro Rug Social, the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild, and The International Guild of Handhooking Rugmakers.