I’m enjoying the slow return of summer here in Colorado. Summer always means Summer of Tapestry for me. This online class came from my sketch tapestry practice and as I’ve been building this year’s class, I’ve been looking back at some of the pieces that meant something to me in years past.
I love this simple practice of spending some time observing, making notes, and weaving a simple, quick tapestry from what I observed. Most of these tapestries are small and the intention is that they don’t take long to make. My goal is to learn to appreciate what is around me and use the weaving to find a calm space in a chaotic world. I have to say that I’ve needed it more than ever this week.
Rebecca’s claret cup cactus tapestry
In last week’s blog post I showed you some of the early warm-up tapestries woven for the free mini-course including my claret cup cactus tapestry. I’ve seen a lot more mini-course pieces as well as warm-up pieces in the Summer of Tapestry class this week.
Inspiration for the claret cup cactus tapestry from this month.
Memorial Day weekend is upon us in the USA and I have every intention of doing some wandering, drawing, watching the clouds, and weaving another sketch tapestry. The first prompt for Summer of Tapestry opens on Tuesday, May 27th. Join us for 8 weeks of wandering and weaving! The community in this class is committed at a level that is highly unusual for an online class. This class is for all experience levels. I hope you’ll join people from all over the world for some tapestry sketches of things that catch our eye.
As I was reviewing some material for the class, I remembered this tapestry I wove in 2019 at Colorado State University Mountain Campus where I have taught many summer retreats. The Far Away cabin was a place I liked to walk every morning and it burned down a few weeks before we arrived that year. Since I was teaching sketch tapestry, I decided my demo that week would be a weaving about that cabin.
Far Away cabin just after it burned, CSU Mountain Campus, Colorado
Rebecca Mezoff, Far Away cabin, 2019, 2 x 3 inches
The final weaving had a piece of the yellow caution tape wrapped around the ruin and the blackened logs farther back with the mountains in the distance.
I’ve done many sketch tapestries in the last 10 years and it is my favorite practice to observe the world around me and slow down and experience it. If you’d like to join me, Summer of Tapestry starts in earnest Tuesday, May 27th. You can sign up HERE. It is amazing how your perspective can change by moving your chair just a few degrees.
I’m not going backpacking this weekend, but I did recently run across this backpacking video in which I wove another sketch tapestry from 2023. If you want to see what my wandering entails, this video is a fun one. Warning, there is a lot of high-mountain Colorado scenery. If you’re getting the blog via email you can watch the video on YouTube HERE.
If you don’t see me for awhile, I got lost outside.
