“An Artist at Work!”

Last Saturday I took my show on the road, to the American Textile History Museum, where I demonstrated tapestry weaving outside the gallery where the American Tapestry Biennial (ATB8) is installed.

I love weaving in public, and answering all the questions.

As usual I brought my Harrisville “Friendly Loom,” which is just a frame on legs, with pegs for the warp.

The height is adjustable, so it fits easily in my car. I don’t use the pegs, because when I tried, my very tightly wound seine twine warp pulled the frame out of whack.

So instead, I just wind the warp around the frame, which means I can weave on both the front and the back. 

I put a piece of black poster board between the two sides so my eyes don’t get confused seeing both warps at the same time.

For this demonstration I put two narrow warps on the loom.

I started a simple geometric tapestry using the initials of the museum ATHM, woven sideways, on the right, and a landscape, also woven sideways, on the left.

The colored designs are taped to the top of the loom, and inked cartoons are stitched to the back of each tapestry .

This loom has no shedding mechanism, so I use a shed stick for one, and pick up the other by hand. I like weaving this way.

If you live near Lowell, Massachusetts, go see ATB8, and better yet, enjoy one of the upcoming lectures:

March 13, 2011  Under the Influence; or Is It Just Inspiration? 2 PM    

Susan Martin Maffei explores the effect of textile history, both of the past and personal, on the creative process and growth of her own work in tapestry. Her path, including an overseas internship, commercial studio work, and gallery conservation of antique textiles, provides insights into the development of the artist/ weaver of the 21st century.

April 10, 2011 Anne Jackson: Knotted Tapestries   2 PM

Anne Jackson makes vibrant, complex tapestries exploring contemporary ideas, often in a historical context. Focusing on her current project, 'The Witchcraft Series', her illustrated talk will cover the development of her work and take a wry look at the place of textiles in the art world.

May 1, 2011 Bodies of Work   2 PM

Focusing on the human form in tapestry, Micala Sidore examines the history of tapestry weaving from an Andean culture in 500 BCE to the present. For both newcomers to tapestry and those in-the-know, she suggests an approach to viewing tapestries, understanding what makes them successful, and appreciating the weaver’s work.

Small Tapestry International 2: Passages

I’m thrilled to have my newest Chaos tapestry selected for this wonderful  American Tapestry Alliance show of small tapestries, 100 square inches or less.

I’m also thrilled that I’m now obliged to visit Weaving Southwest again! ATA has organized a studio tour on April 2, the day of the opening, and I’m already signed up.

ATA has planned a Chimayo Weaving Workshop with Lisa Trujillo, April 3, 4, 5. Very tempting, but I don’t think I have time.

Sorry, I’m not ready to show the tapestry yet, I worry that everyone will be bored with it before the show opens. So I’m going to show just a little detail of it here. The title is “Turning From Chaos.”

Weaving Southwest; Taos, NM March 30 – May 2, 2011; Show opening: April 2, 2011, 5:00-7:00pm

Handforth Gallery; Tacoma, WA; June 1- July 2,  2011; Show opening: June 4, 3:30-5:30pm

Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen; Glen Allen, VA; September 15  - October 30, 2011; Show opening: Thursday September 15, 2011, 7:00-9:00pmHere are some photos I took at Weaving Southwest last July. Tapestries, rugs, scarves, yarn and you can’t see them but they also sell looms and spinning wheels! HEAVEN! If you can’t make it to any of these venues, you will be able to purchase a catalog here. The Passages catalog is not available yet, but you can still buy catalogs of previous exhibits to satisfy your tapestry viewing needs.

 

Technorati Tags: Tapestry Weaving,New Mexico,Weaving Southwest,American Tapestry Alliance,Chimayo Weaving

ATB8 Opens at ATHM

Lots of acronyms there! The American Tapestry Biennial 8 opened at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA on Thursday evening. It was a lovely reception, lots of artists, staff and other guests. I was relieved that the weather cooperated and I didn’t get lost.

It was great to see old friends from near and far, and to meet a new friend too. Marie-thumette Brichard came all the way from France. Her piece is beautiful and SO BLUE, and the way it’s displayed at ATHM makes it glow and makes you feel you are falling into the blue waves. Spectacular. Here it is at the previous venue, it’s the blue one in the middle. You have to see the real tapestry to get the feeling. It is 57.5 x 76.5

Kathy Spoering came all the way from Colorado, and her husband took some photos of the two of us with our tapestries. Mine is above and hers is below, and is titled “January.” It’s part of a series she is doing of each month. It looks an awful lot like those tree shadows on the snow in my front yard, but in fact, it’s HER front yard!

You can see that the walls are painted to compliment the tapestries which looks really great. They did an excellent job hanging the show, the groupings are very good, and I like the galleries, which are big enough that each tapestry has enough space, and yet small enough to feel intimate.

For once I did not take any photos of the exhibit, just enjoyed looking and chatting.

My daughter came along and it was great to share the occasion with her, and get her reactions to the work, since she’s quite an accomplished artist herself. This is a detail from a collage she did back in high school. You can click on it to see it larger.

Technorati Tags: American Tapestry Biennial 8,American Textile History Museum,Tapestry,Tapestry Weaving,Fiber Art

Dazzled by the Snow

It snowed a few inches last Saturday, then another 11 on Wednesday. I can barely  make it through a day without taking photos.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been weaving in black and white, but today when I went for a walk in Goddard Park, I kept having to take off my gloves, fish my camera out of my pocket and take some more pictures! I guess I need to hang it around my neck!

I’m thinking of a series of tapestries of very simple tree images. I was thinking of it even before the snow.

What I really mean is the spaces between the trees. If woven sideways, trees make perfect sense to weave, which would be new for me. I usually weave things that don’t make any sense at all, and I’m getting a bit tired of all that struggling!

Sometimes the trees are dark and the background is snowy white. Other times the trees are white and the background is dark. And I love the sun and shadows on the snow.

Sadly, the camera that has served me so well the past 4 years bit the dust. It traveled to Europe on our sabbatical in 2009, where it took thousands of photos. Somehow it got moisture inside the lens, and for what it would cost to get it repaired, it made more sense to buy another one.

At least I was smart enough to buy a new one that uses the same batteries, so I can use the 2 spares I already have. There was  a sale on, but they had run out of silver, and I didn’t want black because it’s too easy to lose, so I chose this bright pink color.

On the plus side, it’s 14 megapixels (although why would I need that when I mostly save them as small files for the web?) and has the image stabilization that the old one lacked.

Ring out the old Diary, ring in the new….

On New Years Day we had an impromptu “cutting off” ceremony for my Tapestry Diary. I have been weaving a small parallelogram every day since January 1, 2010, except when I’m away from home. At those times, I would weave all those “days” after I got home. Most days were simple, sometimes I just wove a color I felt like weaving, but on other days it seemed appropriate to weave something special. I have a small notebook that identifies those special days, like a birthday, my Mom’s memorial service, or this day when my grand niece Ruby visited from afar.  

Every month has a color scheme. Below is September into October.

This choice, as well as the choice of what to weave each day, was not something I gave much thought to…these decisions were quite spontaneous. I realized after a while that this project was really about the process and not the product. 

Each day I would sit at the loom and weave what I felt like weaving; at the end of a month I’d think about what colors I felt like using for the next month. I didn’t worry too much what each day looked like, after all, it was only one out of 365! Every  inch is a week, so the width of the tapestry has 7 parallelograms, always beginning with a Friday (because January 1 was a Friday). At the end, I had ONE day left to weave, so I wove an entire line that day, including my signature, the year and the words Tapestry Diary.

So back to the cutting off ceremony, my husband was a little perplexed to be intercepted on the way to his woodworking shop…and to suddenly find himself performing this (not so) solemn ritual, all properly documented with a camera.

The back side looked like a rya rug, I have spent some time trimming all those ends, but have not hemmed it yet. I also cleaned up the mess around the loom.

This project was woven with left over yarns from my Thrum Bag, which is still quite overstuffed. I actually threw away some of the short pieces that were lying around in my yarn basket and on the floor. I feel so virtuous.

I have started my 2011 Sketch Diary. It will consist of large pieces of paper, made into a grid. Every piece of paper, which has 20 days, will have a theme, and maybe a medium….so far, I am drawing moon snail shells and using a china marker. I expect to use this, as with the tapestry diary, to try out different approaches and techniques.

It’s very exciting because although I don’t know exactly what I will sketch, or how, I know that it will be an adventure, and a learning experience, just like the tapestry diary.

 

The last few days of October, and all of November and December.