Victorian Houses

Dimensions: 18" x 24"
Materials: Wool on burlap
Designed and hooked by Sarah Lee Province, Silver Spring, Maryland, 1991.
Featured in: Celebration II

"Victorian Houses was one of my first original designs and pictorials. I had just met and begun taking classes with Roslyn Logsdon at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center in Laurel, Maryland.

I was in Buckeystown, Maryland, for a rug-hooking workshop and enjoyed seeing the main street lined with Victorian homes. From the pictures that I had taken, I noticed that you could look through the porches and see a row of white columns for the entire length of the street. Also I wanted to capture the beautiful fall day, with the sun streaming through the trees.

Roslyn's emphasis in teaching is to simplify the image in order to capture the essence of the scene. It is always a challenge to do this since it is tempting to try to include as much as possible. I sometimes draw and color-pencil or watercolor a preliminary design to help myself to see what to include and what I need to leave out for a balanced composition.

I used bits of hand-dyed wool and "as is" scraps of color in #3 and #4 cut for details and texture in the houses, trees, and grass.

Being chosen for Celebration II was a thrill and encouraged me to continue to find subjects for more pictorials. That has been my main focus for hooking until today."
- Sarah Lee Province, Celebration Hall of Fame 2018