Primitive rug hooking offers Annie many aesthetic rewards - the permission to draw animals and other objects as much from how they feel as how the actually appear, the chance to draw flat, to draw bold - in short, to draw naively, not consciously and with great freedom.

And then, of course, there is Annie's fascination with color - the color of old garments given to her by friends or found in thrift stores, and, most exciting, the color resulting from dyeing, say, a yellow plaid wool with blue dye, resulting in a most unusual green.

Annie has always believed that the best art is not thought out ahead of the making - and rug making and hand-dyeing both carry the gift of freedom and expansion. It's easy to change one's mind and remove and replace parts of a rug that don't work. This freedom makes for great joy and flexibility in the process.

Making a primitive rug is very direct and simple. Narrow strips of wool, burlap or linen, a hook, scissors are the basic elements. Annie uses her "as-is" wools as well as her hand-dyed fabric. One of the greatest pleasures of the rug making process for Annie is dyeing wool. She often does this on her porch, with a view of the Catskill mountains in the distance, in whatever weather there is, and with her dogs wandering around the porch. To dry the wool, she hangs the colorful rectangles on a clothesline or dries them in her dryer.

The strips of wool, about one-eighth wide and 15 inches or more long are cut and collected in bundles. Annie cuts the strips by hand with scissors and also uses a strip cutter, a small tool that cuts 3 strips at a time. She varies the width of the strips, believing that this extra attention gives her work a more primitive look.

A piece of foundation fabric, generally burlap or primitive linen, is laid out on a table or the floor and a design is drawn on it with a marker. Then the foundation fabric is stretched over a frame or hoop and the hooking begins. A strip of wool is held in one hand underneath the foundation fabric, while the other hand, on top, pulls loops up through the holes. Animals, barns, trees, geometric shapes are outlined and strips are hooked in, not in straight lines but in ways that reflect the subject of the design. A border is often added to the finished design.

Many collectors purchase their first rug and then find themselves thinking of other pieces, honoring beloved pets, displaying their old barn or favorite flower. Annie works on many commissions each year and enjoys the opportunity to work closely with her collectors to create rugs that add a playful primitive element to their homes.

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