Page 107 - CA 2019 Final(3)

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Arlene also teaches rug-making classes, through the Cobscook
Community Learning Center or on demand in other locations. In
three full days over three weeks, she shows small classes of three to
six people how to consider design and form, plan a shape, prepare
fabric strips and start a rug. The students work on their rugs during
the week. She said, “if somebody’s learning, use whatever you
have, and don’t buy new fabric. “You might not like it.”

Besides rug-making, she also does needlework, draws, and makes
glass jewelry, soap, lotions, and lip balms. She makes ornamental
quilts and wall hangings, using the tiny vertical stitches her grand-
mother taught her, and sometimes using her husband Mark’s stained-
glass designs. She’s learning rushing -– replacing the seats of three
of her grandmother’s chairs with fiber rush – and she restored another
one with an embroidered backing of burlap feed bag. She creates orn-
aments from bearded wheat, describing it as an old European and Scan-
dinavian tradition in which people showed how strong their wheat was.
She soaks the stems in water and ensures the heads are properly dried Braided rug created by Arlene Wren
so they won’t sprout. “These ornaments will last 30 years,” she said.
“A lot of people feel wheat is a blessing to have in your home.”

Arlene shows her work at the Grand Lake Stream Folk Art
Festival in July, and works with Mark in their stained-glass studio,
Wrenovations. “His business is the bread and butter; mine might
be the icing,” she said.

For information on rugs, classes, repairs, or any of Arlene’s
other work, email arlene@wrenovations.com, call (207) 454-2832,
or visit the studio at 6 Steam Mill Road in Robbinston, by chance
or appointment.

“His business is the bread and butter,

mine might be the icing,” Arlene Wren

Rbbinton, Maine

Arlene Wren shows off some of her bearded
wheat ornaments.

This style of chair seat is called “fiber rush”
work, a little different from caning, which uses
strips of wood.

Photos on this page by Arlene Benham.

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