I stepped off the loom a bit ago because I had some design ideas running through my head--some inspired by the amazing work of Barbara Heller and photos I had seen of her ghost series. I got on the computer to see if she had a website and found many photos of her amazing work. Then I stumbled across the Canadian tapestry network and was surprised to see my blog linked there (thank you whoever is responsible for that one!). Well, that just made me think I'd better get busy and pay some attention to my blog. But the bottom line is that I really need to get busy and pay some attention to my loom. It is so easy to get lost in the online worlds at the computer and forget about the worlds I want to create in my art. I start to dream about shows I want to enter and which works will be good for what venue, and forget that the real experience I am touching is at the design table and the loom. Art, for me, is not about the show at the end of a body of work. It is about the experience of touching something essential within myself and putting that out in the world. It is easy to forget this when I get busy and flustered by the everyday happenings of life.
The Canadian tapestry network website will be a future source of inspiration and exploration as it is large and full of amazing work. I'm glad I ran across it. But for today, I must finish a piece I'm working on that was inspired by Anni Albers and her connection of text to weaving... more about that when I'm done with the piece. I feel myself ready to finish this work and move forward with a more personal series dealing with the layers in our lives and how we hide and express ourselves (thus my interest in the "ghosts" of Barbara's amazing tapestries).