Kathi Caldwell-Hopper exhibit at Belknap Mill

LACONIA — Hooked on Art: Rugs & Watercolors will be the October exhibit at the Belknap Mill’s Riverside Gallery. When choosing a creative outlet to explore, local resident Kathi Caldwell-Hopper says she draws or paints...or works on a hooked rug as the mood strikes.

“For me, it’s less about what I probably should be doing, and more about doing something that makes me happy.” Caldwell-Hopper is showing hooked rugs she designed and completed over the past two years. Mixed in among the rugs are watercolors and pastels she created as well.

With a background in art, hooked rugs were a new direction for Caldwell-Hopper 15 years ago. In recent years, the desire to draw and paint have resurfaced, and she takes her watercolors and supplies with her as she travels to freelance writing assignments in her work at 'The Laker' newspaper. She stops when she sees a landscape she would like to draw or paint, just for fun.  “I seem to have amassed a lot of watercolors and thought it would be fun to show some of them in this exhibit.” 

An additional feature for this exhibit is an eight by eight foot hooked rug, begun in the 1940s and believed to be completed in the 1960s depicting the M/S Mount Washington, done in primitive style. It is on loan from the permanent collection of the Lake Winnipesaukee Museum. “I fell in love with the rug the minute I saw it while at the Winnipesaukee Historical Society’s Museum. I thought the mill exhibit would be a chance to show it to the public because it is an amazing example of true old-style rug hooking. And it is of an iconic symbol of the Lakes Region: The Mount.”

Many of Caldwell-Hopper’s rugs and artwork will be for sale during the exhibit. An artist’s reception, open to all, will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 5-7 p.m. in the Riverside Gallery on the first floor of the mill. 

The exhibit is open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The Belknap Mill is at 25 Beacon St. E. For more information, call 603-524-8813.