The pattern of lines of this hooked rug represents the increasingly late formation of ice on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, NY, over the course of 119 years. The colors (dark gray, dark blue, light blue, yellow, light red, dark red) represent different weeks from November 16th to January 4th when the ice freezes solid for the rest of the winter, as recorded by the Ausable River Association. Each individual color-coded line represents the ice-in date for one year from 1903 to 2022 (the last line which is currently incomplete will be completed this winter).

As time progresses across the twentieth century from left to right, the general color shift toward warmer colors indicates how the ice is freezing later and later in the year, a warning of the effects of climate change and the threat to wintery pursuits in the North Country. The light grey color integrates into the icy border of the rug and represents years for which data was not recorded or has been lost. This rug was inspired by Nordic skiing on Mirror Lake in winter and was created in summer 2022 for the Adirondack Watershed Institute’s Wool & Water project to mark the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act.

Rug hooking is a traditional women’s fiber art of the poor in the 19th- and 20th-century eastern provinces and states of Canada and the USA. Patterned rugs for floors and beds were originally created from worn recycled fabric cut into strips and pulled in loops through a stiff backing of reused burlap bags. The wool in this rug is a combination of sustainable scrap material sourced from North Country clothes and blankets as well as fabric purchased from independent female rug hooking artists in New Hampshire and Maine who dye wool by hand.

Creator: Carolyn Twomey