Shocked again. I still can't believe how big it is, this tapestry I'm about to start weaving.
There was another moment in April when I was shocked by the size of the piece. But time makes one forget and there were a lot of workshops to teach between April and today. So when I got the cartoon officially blown up last week, I had another shock.
In April I was an artist-in-residence at Hambidge in Georgia and I spent some of the time creating a full-size mock-up of this tapestry design. It was just done in cheap paper and my goal was to see the true size of the forms and to be able to move them around at actual size to see if I liked them. I also needed to check what the curves would actually look like so I could choose an appropriate sett for the piece.
This week the dye samples are almost done and the loom is warped. It was time to get the final cartoon enlarged. Kudos to Reprographics for helping me out when I realized that large format black and white printers are generally only 36 inches wide. I needed it to print to 38 inches and had a wee panic when I was quoted $900 for the cartoon at another printer. Brian at Reprographics took the time to explain why that other quote was likely so high and to convince me that if I didn't want to pay a fortune for it, I'd have to cut my design in half. After doing that, the cartoon was only $31. Thank you Brian.
I still had to piece the cartoon and the second "oh my! look how big that is!" moment came here. The longest panel stretched from one end of my kitchen all the way across the living room and there is no spot in my house or studio where I can lay out all three panels at once.
The loom is warped, the yarn samples continue to be tweaked and further trials made. Some of the final yarn has been dyed and I'm now in the process of weaving the client a sample for final approval of colors and fabric.
Last night I checked the blue to turquoise gradation and found all the weird things I did with the formulas (really? was I drinking?), fixed a few, threw out a few, and put together a few new formulas to be dyed. They are now cooling outside and should be ready to be woven tomorrow.
I am looking forward to starting the actual piece. Once I get a rhythm down I can project how long this behemouth will take me.
Send chocolate. I'm gonna need it.