Monday, August 25, 2008

Chaos in Maine

TWiNE 2008: A Contemporary Look at Tapestry will be at the Rivertree Center for the Arts in Kennebunk, from September 5-October 4, 2008.

Opening reception: Friday, September 5, 5-7 pm.
Tapestry Demonstration and Gallery Talks: Saturday, September 20, 1-3pm.

Rivertree Center for the Arts, 35 Western Ave, Kennebunk, ME.
Information: 207-967-9120

Tapestry Weavers in New England (TWiNE) was formed in 1991, to support contemporary tapestry artists, and to preserve and promote the ancient art of hand woven tapestry. This exhibit includes 40 tapestries by 21 artists.

My tapestry, "Chaos," was mailed last week, and although I finished it last November, this is its first time out of the studio. It was really difficult to weave, and involved a lot of "Penelopeing," tapestry weavers' jargon for unweaving.

The text was woven and unwoven at least 3 times before I was happy with it.

I used a mixture of white, black, gray and variegated yarns, in wool, silk and linen, and I spent hours turning and twisting the weft to get the black or white spots exactly in the place and at the angle that I wanted.

Here's a detail of it, so you can see the spots and specks.

"Chaos" comes from a 27 year-old oil painting of my messy studio table.

After the usual copying and dismembering, I traced a piece of it with black colored pencil, and suddenly the fallen cone of yarn started to look like a black hole in the universe.

I’ve been looking for Chaos in my work for years, and now that I’ve found it I hope it will hang around for a while.

5 comments:

K Spoering said...

Oh, I like both the painting and the resulting tapestry VERY much!! Good luck with the exhibit.

cindy said...

The tapestry is wonderful! I've always been a fan of monochromatic designs.

hester said...

oh jan, it's terrific. wonderful. Visually very interesting. Kudos to you

Jan said...

Thanks so much for the appreciative comments! I'm so glad you are all enjoying it.

Cindy, I enjoy monochromatic designs too. I like to make mine slightly more than monochromatic, but unfortunately in the photos it's hard to see that the black border is actually a mixture of black and dark purple. Another one in this series has thin red and blue wefts mixed with the black.

My New Years Resolution for 2008 was to get a website. But I decided a blog would be cheaper, easier and more fun.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jan,

Cool Blog, and I agree that a blog can be better than a website.

I am looking forward to seeing Chaos and the exhibit on the 20th!