What's Next?

Flip Flop is finished and blocking.  This is single ply yarn used for Colcha embroidery from Weaving Southwest.  I wove it on my large C. Cactus Flower loom at 10 epi.

 So how to decide what to weave next?  I am thinking about gathering inspiration from female artists I admire, like Gunta Stoltz.

Having the tapestry yarn arranged by color made it much easier to choose colors for a new project.

She, Silvia Heyden, Anni Albers and the other women of the Baushaus revolutionalized the art of textiles in the 1920s.  Moving from representational images to more  industrial and modern designs.

The 1920s was a time of considerable liberation for women, yet, unfortunately, many of the female artists and designers who studied at the Baushaus were denied entry to courses such as architecture, sculpture, painting or design classes. Instead, much of the Webereiwerkstatt (Weaving Workshop) was female.  

"We wanted to create living things with contemporary relevance, suitable for a new style of life. Huge potential for experimentation lay before us. It was essential to define our imaginary world, to shape our experiences through material, rhythm, proportion, colour and form.”

Gunta Stoltz 

 Gunta joined the Bauhaus as a student in 1920, revived the dye studio in 1921, became a junior master in 1927 and a full master the next year. She was dismissed for political reasons in 1931, two years before the Bauhaus closed under pressure from the Nazis

The small picture is an image of a watercolor Gunta did for the design of a striped fabric.  

I did a yarn wrapping replicating the colors and am going to try to interpret this in wedge weave.

Oops, I will need to unweave the black/ white circled portion.  It isn't woven on the diagonal.  I lost my wedge!  Loving working on my 22 inch Mirrix though.

Round the Mountain

This morning I headed to Black Mountain to do some work in our western office.  As I came across the continental divide it started to snow, big fluffy flakes that thankfully melted right away.  After work, I headed to the Blue Spiral 1.

This is a lovely gallery in downtown Asheville, NC with a invitational show called "Into the Blue."  So glad I was able to take in this show and see several tapestries by Connie Lippert.

Achadh
25 x 26

Detail of Achadh

Finishing detail of Achadh

Ghigau
25 x 24

Refraction
25 X 30

Ice Palace
26 x 30

I am a huge fan of Connie's work.  She is coming to North Carolina in March to do a wedge weave class for my guild.  More details here.

The show included a variety of work, paintings, sculptural pieces as well as the tapestries.

Reflections not Resolutions

New Year's Day is a natural time for reviewing the past year and thinking ahead.  2018 was an interesting year.  In looking back at my tapestries, I was not as prolific as I wished but had some successes and lots of wonderful opportunities for inspiration.  My current inspiration is arising from reading Connie Lippert's book.

The following quote from Martha Stanley really resonated with me as it did with Connie. "Time working in the same technique is always well spent, it teaches me as I push it in newer directions, trying to get closer to the core of what it can really do.  Look carefully for the parts of weaving that are trying to choose you."

I have written previously about my inexplicable attraction to wedge weave.  This is part of my artist statement.

"Almost immediately, wedge weave captured my attention. This ancient Navajo technique allows the weaver to transcend the vertical warp and horizontal weft by weaving on the diagonal. The distortion of the selvedges and the ability to allow the colors and shapes to develop intuitively at the loom appeal to me. It is a departure from the structured grid of life. "

The two pieces from last year that brought the most satisfaction in the process and product were both wedge weave with hand dyed yarns.

A Joyful Noise

Night Chant

Even playing with natural dyes and wedge weave with less than satisfactory results is enjoyable and rich with lessons.

What's a Madder You?

This piece resulted from a natural dye class at SAFF with Jackie Ottino.  We dyed Cormo with madder using different modifiers.  This was a small sample for a larger piece that will never come to fruition.  What I had envisioned with bright reds and purple became muted pinks and lavender due to iron in the mountain water we used.  Also cormo is lovely for knitting and spinning but not for tapestry weaving, it is simply too soft.

2019, I am going to work on some larger pieces, using the Zeus.  First I will finish this.  Starting with a little unweaving.  

There will also be more of these in the next year.  2018 included a fun class with Ruth Manning and these characters resulted.

Won't You Be My Neighbor ?

An old fashion selfie taken with my young kiddos in a photo booth at Crabtree Valley mall shortly after our move to Cary.  The fortune from a cookie from lunch that day.

Weave on into 2019 with health and grace my friends!

Silvia Heyden: Tapestries

A wonderful exhibition of Silvia Heyden's work opened Tuesday night at the Betty Ray McCain Gallery  This gallery is part of the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.  What a joy to see these tapestries in person.

The exhibition was curated by Lee Hansley and a talk was presented by Silvia's daughter, Francoise Heyden.

Francoise discusses Silvia's last two tapestries.

From Above

Francoise named this tapestry, she explained that Silvia loved to fly and especially enjoyed the view of the clouds from above.

A Weaverly Path

This was Silvia's last tapestry and was cut off the loom after her death by her family.  

Francoise lovingly talked about her mother sitting at the loom staring at this tapestry without the physical strength to engage the treadles and complete the weaving.  The detail below shows the butterflies of yarn and how close to completion it was.

Detail - A Weaverly Path

The opportunity to view this work up close after viewing book illustrations and digital photos was so meaningful to me.  I so admire the tapestries and Silvia's "weaverly"  view of the world.

Greek Wave

Berea Sunset

Detail - Berea Sunset

This detail of the bottom of one of the tapestries illustrates Silvia's feather weave technique.  I submitted my entries for the ATA's Beyond the Edge on Monday.  Silvia's work is a prime example of breaking the "rules" of tapestry and creating distinctive edges.

After the Storm

Eno in Motion

Francoise stressed her mother's emphasis on movement in tapestry.  Silvia said about her work "In my decades at the loom, I have never copied images, but rather have sought to let the patterns emerge organically as dictated by the process of weaving.  Instead of superimposing a form to be woven on the weft, I have always looked with my 'loomish' eyes to see what the weft and warp would allow me to execute."

I know I will be going to see these tapestries a few more times.  Let me know if you want to come along.  I have the documentary and Silvia's book but seeing the work up close brought tears to my eyes.  Thank you Silvia and family for this opportunity.

Recombobulation Zone

My favorite thing in the world is taking tapestry classes.  It is the jammiest of my jam!  I kept stalking Ruth Manning's website to find her woven faces class.  Last May, I gave up waiting for Ruth to come south and signed up for her class at Lost Art Fiber Studio in Wisconsin.  I am so glad I did.

Last Thursday I flew into Milwaukee and drove to Waukesha.  It is a lovely little town on the Fox river.

Friday, we started class with looking at Ruth's work and enjoying freshly baked pumpkin scones and coffee Nancy lovingly provided.

Ruth's work reflects a joy and vibrancy that I love and of course her use of wedge weave with traditional techniques drew me right in.

Ruth brought an amazing variety of colors and textures for us to work with and got us started on our woven faces.

She demonstrated various techniques and because the class was small, provided lots of personal attention.

Not having a drawing or art background, I had trouble with proportion.   The upper left pic shows my fellow with way to much girth, he would have looked like the incredible hulk.  In the bottom pic, the little bit of arm gives more definition to the body.  A helpful suggestion from a classmate.

Day three, the scones were orange and almond and the coffee was plentiful.   We worked on our eyes and hair.  Such delightful characters showed up!

I love this sign just past the screening checkpost at the Milwaukee airport!  I am home and so thankful to have had this opportunity.  Ruth is a knowledgeable and generous teacher and Nancy Wilson a terrific host.  The other students were so much fun, who knew Wisconsin people are so nice.

Shrooms

While camping last weekend at Parker's Creek we had a beautiful site right on the lake, a terrific climbing log and lots of cool mushrooms.  Riley and I tromped through the woods collecting all the different kinds of mushrooms we could find.  It was great fun, smelly slimy but fun.

I dutifully did research for the proper methods, there are many sites about dyeing wool with mushrooms.

• I placed my chopped up mushrooms into jars, filled the jars with water and let them "steep" in the sun for two days.
• Strained the extremely slimy and smelly mushrooms and placed them in cheesecloth. 
• Scoured and mordanted 40 grams of wool yarn.
• Brought mushroom/ yarn up to 170 degrees and held it for one hour.
• Soaked overnight and VOILA!

Five of the most uninspiring shades of beige yarn ever produced.

Bonus, it smelled so bad even after multiple washings... I threw it out!

Night Chant

It is a challenge to describe this tapestry's path from conception to fruition.  It started with the fabric scrap pictured below and dyeing yarns in a gradient to match.

The concept was holding space, also known as "suspended self importance" or it isn't all about me.  Being present without judgement or control and offering unconditional love and support. 

I sampled for this tapestry and lined up my yarns.  The original gradient plus black, some deep purple and purple and silver glitz.

I checked for value below using grayscale.  Thank you Tommye Scanlon

Finally began the weaving on July 8th at Arrowmont. 

Most of my family and friends know of my interest in all things Navajo, especially weaving related.  I was scheduled to attend a class at Arrowmont  this summer but unfortunately the Navajo weaving class had to be cancelled.  I'd read all of the Hillerman books over the last few months and enjoyed not only  the mysteries but also all the information related to life on and off the reservation.

Some of the most interesting information was about the religous ceremonies.  Especially the Night Chant.  This is a nine day ceremony, involving the whole family and community coming together to contribute to the healing and or restoration of balance to loved one.  The cermony is complex, involving multiple dances, sand painting, chants and more.  This is just a few verses of the poem.

Dark cloud is at the door.

The trail out of it is dark cloud.
The zigzag lightning stands high upon it.
An offering I make.
Restore my feet for me.
Restore my legs for me.
Restore my body for me.
Restore my mind for me.
Restore my voice for me.
This very day take out your spell for me.

As I read about the Night Chant I thought of dozens of people coming together, putting their lives on hold for nine days to dance, sing, chant and pray another into health and balance.  Holding Space Navajo style.

I finished this tapestry on August 3, 2018.  It was woven at 10 epi with hand dyed Frid on my C. Cactus Flower loom.