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    STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Sept. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A Passion for the Creative
 Life, Textiles to Lift the Spirit by Mary Sheppard Burton, with Mary Ellen
 Cooper, editor, and Ed Kirkpatrick, photographer, took top honors at the
 annual Textile Center of Minnesota Book of the Year Award ceremony in
 Minneapolis, Minnesota.
     (Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20030930/CLTUFNS1 )
     The large, sturdy six-pounder in full color promises what it delivers:
 textiles to lift the spirit.  The book, published by SIGN OF THE HOOK BOOKS,
 is a coffee-table-sized 10 1/2 by 11 inches; 404 pages in length; and full
 color throughout.  (ISBN#0-9724463-0-3; $49.95 plus $9.95 S&H; For more
 information contact 814-355-2442, or visit www.marysburton.com )
     Each book nominated was judged in ten categories: pertinence to textile
 art; breadth of appeal; quality and clarity of writing; quality of
 illustration and photography; cover design and illustration; overall book
 design; editing, proofreading; printing, typesetting; quality of binding; and
 association with Minnesota's strong textile tradition (six of the creative
 fiber artists featured in the book are Minnesotans).
     A Passion for the Creative Life is, in part, an autobiographical
 compendium of Mary Sheppard Burton's life's work.  It looks deeply into the
 areas of creativity, cross-cultural ancient and modern fiber history, and the
 creative process and what it means to each artist. These are accompanied by
 the work of more than 50 of the foremost fiber artists in the world today.
 Traditional (and not so traditional) rug hookers like Mrs. Burton are
 featured-along with quilters, weavers, mixed-media artists, a doll maker, and
 several collectors of Navajo rugs, vintage fabrics, antique garments, laces,
 and tools.
     Author Burton is considered one of the best rug-hooking artists today, yet
 she treasures her humble beginnings. They have created within her, as she
 tells it, "an abiding appreciation for the little things in life." These
 things often become the monumental themes of her finest works of art--from a
 tiny teacup to a miniature black and white photo that evolved into the
 brilliantly colored "Moghul Taj," that graces the cover of the book.
     Her palette, as she describes it, is the best of all colors known to
 nature: especially the magnificent landscapes around her, the sunlit, and
 starry skies that frequent her Germantown, Maryland farm-and the depths of the
 waters that flow upon her beloved Eastern Shore.
     Introducing the book and its author, Max Allen, Founding Curator of the
 prestigious Textile Museum of Canada, writes, "Mrs. Burton's rugs are
 inventive and thoroughly original, astonishingly beautiful, historically
 significant, and wonderfully crafted. Her rugs reflect the deep individuality
 that runs through all significant folk art: using the most ordinary material
 and simple means, the folk artist produces unique and moving works. Mrs.
 Burton is a national treasure."
     Accepting the 2003 Book Award, Mrs. Burton issued to the assembled
 artists, guests, and staff of the Textile Center the same "Call to Creativity"
 that begins her book--a plea for originality, a deep look inside oneself, a
 painterly approach to color, and an historical understanding of the roots of
 all fiber arts.
     Explaining the process, she says, "A rug hooker often dyes her own wools,
 and cuts them into strips by hand, or by machine. The technique actually is
 quite simple: the rug hooker holds a strip of wool ten to twelve inches long
 and 3/8ths or more inches wide beneath the rug backing (preferably linen or
 monks cloth); inserts a special hook through the surface, and pulls up a loop
 of wool. The height of the loop approximates the width of the strip. The
 hooker inserts the hook into the next hole, and the next, each time pulling up
 a loop."
     Translating this process into an exciting book with extraordinary
 photographs and design is recognized as excellence completely apart from that
 of the artist-author. Ed Kirkpatrick, also of Germantown, Maryland, the book's
 photographer is "quite a special man," according to Mary Sheppard Burton. "He
 has an eye for beauty in many things, but he is able to project it in textiles
 just about as well as anybody else alive. His work hangs in places like the
 World Bank; he teaches photography at the Smithsonian; and has had covers on
 National Geographic and other books and magazines."
     Mary Ellen Cooper, book editor, who lives near State College,
 Pennsylvania, was founding editor of Rug Hooking Magazine. As such, she met
 many of the finest contemporary artists capable of "painting with wool"--among
 them, Mary S. Burton. They kept in touch, and because she also had a
 background in book publishing, it seemed natural that Burton approach her to
 publish this book, and for her to accept ("delightedly").
     There ensued many days and countless nights of research, writing, editing,
 proofreading and design. These translated into important sections of the book
 like A Call to Creativity, Searching Through the Threads of Time, Textiles
 That Lift the Spirit, and I Dream in Color. A complete timeline of fiber
 through the ages was drafted and added to the nearly fourteen years of
 research work that Mrs. Burton had already put into the book. The research
 became a year-long epic of publishing--a labor of love. Cooper says they early
 determined the book would be made "the way a book should be: bold-and never
 begging for color."
     When asked if she had been thrilled about the trip and the Award Ceremony
 in Minneapolis during which her book was cited "Book of the Year," Mary
 Sheppard Burton said what readers will recognize as one of her favorite
 responses, stated with a smashing smile, signs of humor all over her face, and
 wild gesticulations of her arms and hands: "Oh, yes. It's so wonderful, it
 makes my eyeballs wiggle."
 
 

SOURCE  SIGN OF THE HOOK BOOKS