Tapestry Weaving

Archie Brennan: builder of a worldwide tapestry community

Archie Brennan: builder of a worldwide tapestry community

Archie Brennan passed away on October 31, 2019. He was an artist, a teacher, and someone who had a significant impact on the face of tapestry today. Archie began his weaving career at 16 years of age with a seven-year apprenticeship at the Dovecot in Scotland. He was eventually became director of the tapestry workshop and also established the tapestry department at Edinburgh College of Art.

Please take some time to get to know a bit about his life, his work, and his thoughts about tapestry weaving. I believe it is important and helps those of us who are contemporary tapestry weavers place our practice in the broader historical context of this art form. Archie, perhaps more than anyone else in recent history, was able to express the shift that happened in the early 1900s from reproductive tapestry where paintings were copied in great detail to an artist/weaver approach where the weaver also designs the work. He was instrumental in creating this shift first through his work at the Dovecot Studios as a weaver and their director, then in other parts of the world.

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Yarn experiments and more little weavings

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Yarn experiments and more little weavings

I grew up in New Mexico so it always feels like coming home when we decide to come south for a little vacation. We’re back for the week spending some time with family and friends and watching the snow storms roll across the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I packed the car with a small selection of little looms, fleece, yarn, and a couple spindles for a week in northern New Mexico. Thus far I’ve finished a piece I started in Georgia and have warped a few more looms with some vague ideas what the next tapestry diary piece will be on one of them. I thought I’d share a few things I’m messing around with for fun this week.

North Georgia and North Carolina adventures in tapestry weaving

North Georgia and North Carolina adventures in tapestry weaving

I’m home from my two week residency at the Lillian E. Smith Center near Clayton, Georgia. I learned a lot about an amazing author and civil rights activist (Lillian herself, author of Strange Fruit) and I learned some things about myself. I also had some fun adventures. Let’s stick to the adventure part of the story for today.

I had some yarn adventures while in this part of the country. They include:

  • a stop at Penland School of Crafts

  • a visit to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) in Asheville

  • two interviews with tapestry weavers from the area

  • exploring Black Rock Mountain State Park

  • my own work during the residency.

Weaving in the woods: the Lillian E. Smith Center Residency

Weaving in the woods: the Lillian E. Smith Center Residency

I was fortunate to receive the McClure-Scanlin Residency Award at Lillian E. Smith Center this year. I’ve been here almost two weeks now and I’ve greatly enjoyed my time in the woods of northern Georgia. I came here to work on designs for a new body of work. I am reminded over the course of these weeks how slow that process is for me. But having a place like this to jump-start the ideas is highly useful.

At past residencies I’ve brought boxes of stuff: lots of art supplies, as many yarn color choices as I could cram into any corner of my luggage, and lots of ideas about what I wanted to make while I was there. This time around, I didn’t bring much with me: a watercolor set, some fleece and a flick carder, two spindles, two very small looms, and a small selection of weaversbazaar yarn. And of course I brought my walking shoes, a camera, and my design sketchbook.

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Circumnavigating Massachusetts

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Circumnavigating Massachusetts

During my New England trip, I had a weekend where I drove completely around the state of Massachusetts. I’ll call it circumnavigation though I think that only applies to boats. We were shooting photos in Harrisville, NH on Friday and I stayed in a hotel on the border of MA that night. From there I headed south of Boston for some time with Sarah Resnick who owns GIST Yarn and Claudia Chase (owner of Mirrix Looms) who made the long drive from her home in New Hampshire.

Tapestry retreat: Vermont 2019

Tapestry retreat: Vermont 2019

My Vermont retreat is always a time full of exploration, good food, and the sense of camaraderie that comes with people staying in the same big house for 5 days. This year was no exception and I enjoyed the five days with another exceptional group of people immensely.

The retreat was about color use in tapestry weaving. This is a huge topic so of course we only scratched at it a bit in the course of 5 days. But many great questions were asked and we played with many potential answers.

I like to start these color retreats by having people look at value. It is one of the most important concepts in design and I find that people disregard it so easily.

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A tapestry weaving demo

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A tapestry weaving demo

I made a video while weaving some of the tapestry I talked about in my last blog post. It shows me weaving for about 13 minutes on The Beckys. This is a tapestry diary piece about personalities and perception. This version of the video starts with me talking for a moment in my campsite and then the rest of the video is me weaving. I’ve added music in case you get bored, but feel free to turn the volume off after I stop talking if my music choices are not yours.

I made a second version of this video with real-time commentary about what I was doing and why for the Weaving Tapestry on Little Looms online course. If you’re in that course, you can find that version of the video in the Answer Vault section of the class. It describes how and why I am making the choices I’m making while weaving. If you haven’t taken it yet, now is a great time to do it.