Last month I finished a 500-mile backpack along the Colorado Trail. This beautiful route goes through some of the most wonderful scenery in a very beautiful state. I talked about my reasons for hiking the trail and included some photos in a blog post last week as well as HERE and HERE. And I did a preparation post about the art materials I was bringing along HERE.
In that post I talked about bringing along journaling materials including watercolors as well as a small loom and a spindle and fleece. I didn’t bring exactly those materials and not everything stayed with me for the whole 6-week hike.
When thinking about making art on the trail, I wanted to make sure I had some basic materials to record my thoughts and sketch out some potential tapestry designs. In general when backpacking I only bring journal paper and a pen. This year I added a small watercolor kit so that I could add some color to my scribbled sketches. I was surprised how effective having that little bit of color was. It turned out that that journaling was the most powerful art practice for me during the hike. A thru-hike is a big physical undertaking and your job each day becomes walking and making sure you have what you need for survival (water, food, a place to camp, the right gear). That doesn’t leave a lot of room for other activities.
The first few weeks I had more energy overall and was able to do some weaving. By the half-way point of the trail, my legs were stronger and I was managing the climbs and altitude like a champ, but I was tired and the more challenging terrain didn’t allow me the extra energy for weaving. So I journaled throughout the trail both with written words and drawing/painting, but I sent my loom home from Creede which is just past the halfway point of the trail. I kept the spindle and fleece and did do some spinning near the end of the trail.
Journaling and watercolor
I have next to no experience with using watercolor. I asked a much more experienced artist for recommendations about paper (thanks Sarah C. Swett!) and made signatures out of that paper to carry on the trail. My idea was that I would carry and use the signatures while hiking because I could just carry one or two instead of a whole book and then when off the trail I would sew them into a book about my hike. I have yet to do the final binding, but the signature idea worked well.* I used two weights of paper, a thinner paper mostly for writing and sketching and a heavier paper that would take watercolor without wrinkling. I made holes for a final coptic binding but stitched the signatures temporarily to keep them together as I used them.
In the photo to the left below (the first one if you’re on mobile), you can see the signatures I made**, some completed journal pages, and the writing tools I brought along. I talked to other people who were painting with watercolor on the trail and they definitely did not like the water brush I was using as a tool. I will admit that it is not very precise, but for what I was doing it was a good tool. In future I’ll try bringing a few better brushes but this also means I need a water receptacle on trail and every additional piece of gear weighs something!
The image to the right (second on mobile) is the watercolor kit. This tiny metal box and the mini pans came from JustCreateArtworks on Etsy. I chose the colors and she filled the pans for me. I was able to purchase some additional pans that I filled myself but it is a fussy process that takes some practice and was happy to have Jamie do it for me! The little bits of sponge just fill up the space so that the pans don’t move around. I attached tiny bits of magnet to the bottom of each pan to hold them in place and the little plastic Nestle cut from the lid of something fits over the paint and is used as a mixing surface. The blue folder behind is one I made out of a plastic pocket folder like you might get if you attend one of my in-person retreats. It protected the journal pages well.
Rebecca Mezoff, backpacking journaling kit
Rebecca Mezoff, backpacking watercolor kit
In the image below I’m about halfway through the trail. This was the day after I got snowed on overnight and I needed to dry my gear. So I have it all spread out in the sunshine to dry (yard saleing!) and I’m working on my journal and likely eating also. I ate all day long by this point.
Below are two pages from my trail journal. I was really enjoying the little drawings for the events of each day. I drew them in ink first and later added color with watercolor.
Rebecca Mezoff’s Colorado Trail Journal 2021. A crazy weather day with fog, hail, rain, sunshine, and overnight, snow.
Rebecca Mezoff’s Colorado Trail Journal 2021
Tapestry Weaving
I started the trail with my trusty Hokett backpacking loom. It is very small and that does make it hard to weave on, but I find that weaving 2 x 2 inch tapestries on trail is about all I’m up for anyway, so this 4 x 6 inch loom works just fine for that. In the photos below you can see some of the tools I used which included a tapestry bobbin, a shed stick, a 5 inch metal weaving needle, and a tiny tapestry beater.
The first image below is of the sunrise. I used the colors from this photo for the first weaving.
Sunrise from a campsite in Segment 2 of the Colorado Trail
Rebecca Mezoff, tapestry weaving on the Colorado Trail. Here I was weaving next to the river that runs through Alma, CO on a zero day.
Rebecca Mezoff, weaving on the Colorado Trail. A nice evening at the end of a nero (I hiked about 5 miles out from Copper Mountain). More energy, more weaving!
Rebecca Mezoff, weaving on the Colorado Trail. This tapestry is a combination of my handspun and weaversbazaar fine wool.
In Collegiate West segment 2, I got caught in a thunderstorm approaching Cottonwood Pass. I had enough time to set up my tent and I finished the first weaving and warped for another… while snacking of course. That is my bear canister which I called Lug. I added stickers from towns along the way to try to improve my relationship with this 2 lb, 10 oz piece of plastic. Near the end of the trail someone showed me their lighter bear can made by a different company.***
Rebecca Mezoff, warping a loom while thru-hiking the Colorado Trail and stuck in the tent in the middle of the afternoon waiting out a big thunderstorm below Cottonwood Pass on Collegiate West.
The second weaving was the colors of mushrooms I saw everywhere for the first half of the trail. There were SO many mushrooms and in so many different colors. I was using handspun for this tapestry so I was mixing the fleece colors using a small flick carder I made, spinning them on my Turkish spindle, then weaving them here.
Rebecca Mezoff, weaving on a Colorado Trail thru-hike, 2021. The mushroom tapestry started.
As I looked back at my photos from the trail, I realized that all the times I was weaving I was also doing easier hiking. This isn’t surprising as I had a bit of extra energy and time when doing those sections. This is at the very end of Segment 17 and was one of the last times I wove on the trail. Not long after this I climbed into the South San Juans and my energy went 100% to hiking after that. I sent my loom home from Creede because I was desperate to decrease my pack weight in any way I could. The loom kit weighed almost half a pound.
Designing for Tapestry Weaving
Perhaps the most important piece of art that occurred on the hike happened mostly in my head. I worked hard to shut down the roving commentary that happens most of the time in the human brain. Hard physical work is good for that. The more tired you get, the easier it is to stop the thoughts and just look at what is around you. This is a good space to be in for designing tapestries… or at least imagining what those tapestries might be.
I’m working on a series of tapestry designs based on some of the colors of flowers I saw out there. I’ll be showing some of this on Change the Shed coming up, so if you want to see what I’m working on, that program is free and there is more information HERE.
Spinning yarn for tapestry weaving
I love my little Turkish spindles. They are the perfect hiking tool because you can ply the yarn without any extra tools if you want to. They come very small and come apart for easy storage when you don’t have a project going. I spun fleece with colors I mixed for the two tapestries pictured above and at the end of the trail after I sent my loom home, I spun some roving other people had dyed.
Rebecca Mezoff, spinning some indie-dyed roving the last evening on the Colorado Trail thru-hike, 2021
The image below was taken after the trail. I was finishing the mushroom tapestry I started and I’m including it to show you the fleece and flick carder I used on trail to make the yarn colors. I was car camping in this instance and I still didn’t finish this tapestry because I need a mustardy yellow color and none of the fleece colors I had mixed to create it.
Rebecca Mezoff, still trying to finish that mushroom tapestry from the Colorado Trail!
If you’re interested in reading about my hike as it happened, I posted images and commentary on my Instagram feed starting on July 29th. You can find that here: https://www.instagram.com/rebeccamezofftapestry/
What did you make last summer? Do you ever do fiber crafts outside?
*A hearty thanks to Lyn Hart and Sarah C. Swett for your help with bookbinding tips!
**Signatures are just sections of the book. You take a stack of paper and fold it in half and then stitch it.
***A bear canister is a tough container you put your food in. You leave it outside away from your tent at night. Bears can’t get into it though they can push it around. I saw zero bears on this trip but I didn’t give up on Lug. The plastic bag inside the bear can is supposed to be scent-proof though I am skeptical that anything could deter a bear’s nose!