I’ve been home from Iceland for a month and a half now. My residency at the Icelandic Textile Center and the month I spent working with Icelandic fleece was wonderful. Perhaps even more important was the space it allowed me to sit still for awhile.
This week as I’ve watched the USA blaze up with rage and hurt and divisiveness after the SCOTUS decisions, it has seemed important to wait a minute. To sit still and find some grounding before reacting. The reversal of Roe v. Wade is a huge step backwards for women and sets a very dangerous precedent for rolling back the rights of all Americans (not just the half that happen to be female). And that is mighty hard to sit with. And the truth is, I don’t know how to react beyond supporting the people who have a plan.
Thinking about Iceland. We visited this wonderful waterfall our friends knew about and it seemed a special, secret place.
So I spent last weekend sitting still and doing some small weavings. I watched my judgey monkey brain say, that is too simple. That is too small. You’ll never express anything if you choose this. And I told that little voice to step off, grabbed the yarn colors of the roses in my back yard, and started weaving.
These rose bushes were here when I moved in. They’re hardy. They have to be because I don’t do much besides occasionally aim the hose in their general direction and trim them back at the end of the season. They seem perfectly happy to offer up white and pink blooms year after year and I admire that persistence.
Rose bushes; inspiration for tapestry.
I had two tapestry ideas. One of them I’ve decided to use as an example in the Summer of Tapestry workshop coming up in July, but the other I’ll show you here. For this second tapestry, I wanted to weave the colors of those rose bushes without any attempt at depicting their forms. I chose a tactic I love to use, spindle spinning locks of colored fleece to make a yarn that changes color as I weave it. I had fleece in two different pinks, white, and two different greens and that resulted in a little ball of yarn that was just perfect for my roses.
I used both the flick carder to open up locks and spin from them and a rolag made with handcards. I favor the yarn that comes from the locks as it is more like a combed preparation and less fuzzy for tapestry weaving. I don’t think you can really tell the difference in the weaving in this case though.
That judgey voice in my ear that tells me that my ideas aren’t good enough? It still comes around a lot. It is a sneaky little thing that pops in under my awareness and I have to actively root it out when I realize I’m listening to my monkey mind instead of weaving.
What if there is no such thing as failure in your artwork? What if our judgements about our work are just wrong or misguided or simply unnecessary? Unless you’re using the proceeds from the sale of your artwork exclusively to purchase food and shelter, I think it is safe to say that it is okay to let go of that judgement. Isn’t it more important to enjoy the process?
The rose tapestry not quite halfway finished and my travel tapestry kit.
The funny thing about that is when you weave anything at all, you get better at it. All of us, even people who have been making art in a certain medium for decades, make things that aren’t great. Who cares?! That pieces is just one step in a journey of exploration.
Sure, it is darn hard to get my brain to believe that when I’ve decided to just weave back and forth without even any tapestry elements like this little rose piece. That monkey voice will tell me repeatedly that this isn’t real art if I let it.
But the truth of the matter is, I had some wonderful hours of spinning and then sitting in a deck chair watching the colors build on each other as I wove back and forth, selvedge to selvedge, on a tiny tapestry loom. It was a wonderful reset in a difficult week.
My time weaving on Saturday was definitely therapeutic as it helped calm some of the worry demons but it also always helps jump-start my creativity. I woke up Sunday morning with many ideas for more tapestries and I couldn’t wait to get started.
Weaving that handspun weft and watching the color change.
I’ll be doing a lot of this small format experiential tapestry this summer because for the first time I’m teaching a workshop about it. The online experience starts July 1 and you can find out more about it and register HERE. It is my hope that if we as humans can calm our nervous systems down enough and sit still enough to observe the world as it is maybe we can make better decisions both in our personal and public lives. For me, these small tapestries with no real purpose beyond experiencing where I am today have been a huge step forward for me in my quest to live my best life.
I finished the rose tapestry and I enjoyed every moment of making it.
Rebecca Mezoff, The Rose, 2.5 x 3 inches, handspun, hand-dyed wool weft, cotton warp, 2022.