In November of 2016 I was the artist in residence at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona for a month. For that month, nothing was expected of me except that I give two public programs at the vistor's center and that I go about the business of making art. I didn't have to produce anything during the month and I had pretty much full access to the park as long as I asked permission. I was given a casita right in the park to stay in--the only person staying behind the gates after dark. And I was able to experience the wonder of the painted desert alone at sunrise and sunset.

I wanted to do a sort of tapestry diary while I was there. I thought I would try to weave a 2 x 2 inch tapestry every day though at the beginning I wasn't sure I would stick with it as it took about 3 hours a night to do the weaving. But a few days in, I loved the process and I ended up weaving 27 tapestries, one for each day I was in the park.

I found that the process of doing that project in that place was very helpful to my creativity.

Deborah spoke at the Handweavers Guild of Boulder's January meeting last week and I was able to go hear her. She is an engaging speaker and she kept us laughing and following closely her stories of the weavers and explanations of the weave structures and looms. It seems to me that, just like here, there are many types of looms used there. The difference seems to come in flexibility. I was fascinated to hear Deborah describe how each person specializes in one kind of weaving and they rarely do anything else. Their string heddles are tied together in the patterns needed for that shaft for the particular weave they are making and to re-tie them means to get someone who knows how to do it involved, and with most things that become expensive and complicated, it isn't done. So weavers specialize.