My husband went to a Texas Archeological Society meeting in San Angelo, Texas, last weekend. We tagged along, because San Angelo is a quirky and interesting city. It has a small university, a big art community, and attractions like the International Water Lily Garden. It’s big enough to have a lot of commerce, but not so big that you can’t find your way around. You can see a lot of local flavor in the businesses, but the big retailers and food chains are moving in along the loop around the town.
A quick check of the yellow pages revealed a category for “Wool.” West Texas was a big producer of wool and mohair until the government subsidies were removed. Still, for San Angelo and surrounding areas there were a dozen listings under “Wool,” which included:
Ballinger Wool & Mohair
Eldorado Wool Co
Ozona Wool & Mohair Co.
San Angelo Wool Processing
Santa Fe Grading
Sonora Wool & Mohair Co
Southwestern Wool & Mohair Inc
West Texas Wool & Mohair Association
Western Wool & Mohair Co.
Wool Growers Central Storage
You’d think that such a wooly place would naturally have several yarn shops. Nope. The only listing under “Y” is “Youth Organizations and Centers.” No category for yarn, nary a yarn store. Oh, the local Hobby Lobby probably has yarn, but it’s not the same.
San Angelo makes up for this sad lack of yarn by having lots of art and artists. We visited the Chicken Farm Art Center. Among the wonderful painters’, potters’, and batik artists’ studios, we found an artist who works in mosaic. Her name is Mary Swain, and here is some of her work. I love how she uses natural materials among the tiles. This mirror frame has antlers worked into the design. Another mirror frame had fossil snails in the design. Mary coats the finished mosaic with some sealant, which gives all the components a glossy, wet-looking finish, and unifies the design elements. She said that a mirror frame takes her about two weeks to complete.
Mary’s mosaics are featured in other parts of the Art Center, like this step in the Gecko Gallery. She also decorated parts of Inn of the Arts, a bed and breakfast on site.
The Adult Literacy Council was having a used book sale–$1.00 for hardbacks, 50 cents for paperbacks. We couldn’t pass that up. A shop for really fabulous and colorful fashion and home decor was J. Wilde, also downtown. They had lots of knit and crochet fashions, plus lots of garments that combined knitting and crochet. Hey! TextileFusion at work!
My three-year-old ran out of energy about 4:00 in the afternoon, so we went back to the hotel, but not before I got a shot of this cute San Angelo mosaic is by an unknown artist.
