Donna Hrkman 
Grand Canyon, adapted from a photo by Steve Kossack, designed and hooked by Donna Hrkman, Ohio, 2008.
I’m an artist, a designer and a rug hooker. Sometimes I get an idea stuck in my head- something I dreamed or something I saw that inspired me. I keep some images in the back of my cluttered brain for ages without finding a good way to express them. For me, one of those everlasting images was the Grand Canyon.
I saw it in person when I was fifteen, on a trip cross-country with my grandparents. Standing there from our vantage point and looking out across the vast beauty of the canyon, I felt that it was too beautiful to be real. I stood transfixed and I have never forgotten that image.
I hadn’t summoned those scenes again until a couple of generous friends gave me several large bags of wool scraps. The colors were amazing- more reds, pinks and purples than I had ever kept in my own meager stash of wool. When I pulled a large piece of spot dyed wool out, bursting with splashes of pink, peach and purple, I remembered, “Grand Canyon!”
That was all I needed. I dug out old photos from my trip but they were too small and faded to be of any use for the rug that I dreamed of making. I asked a photographer friend for advice and he sent me to one of his fellow photographers, Steve Kossack, who takes stunning photos of the American West. I asked Steve for permission to use one of the photos he took of the Grand Canyon for my rug and included photos of some of the rugs I have hooked, keeping my fingers crossed. I was concerned that he would either refuse to let me use his photo or charge me a fee that I could not pay. Within a few days, I got a reply…
To read the complete version of this article, please see the January/February 2009 issue of Rug Hooking Magazine.
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