Rio Grande walking loom

PLEASE NOTE 10/6/26: This loom was sold 15 years ago. It is no longer for sale. You can contact Rose and Eugene Vigil in New Mexico. They’re the only people I know who make walking looms for sale.

In 2004 I returned to New Mexico to learn traditional Rio Grande-style tapestry weaving at

Northern New Mexico College

in El Rito. I rented a little adobe apartment there and found a job working in the Mesa Vista public school system. It was good. I loved weaving at the college 2-3 days a week. In the spring of 2005 I took the loom building class from

Quentin Wilson

and made this 2 harness counterbalance walking loom with the assistance of my parents. Dad insisted on precise measurements, and the loom turned out well.

This photo is in my studio in El Rito. It has been a weaving studio for a long time--the building is right on the road and the walls are 5 feet thick adobe.

My studio in Velarde before the Harrisville Rug loom found a home here.

Until 2009, I wove all my tapestries on this loom. I love standing to weave as it seems easier on my body at times. However, in 2009 I received a couple looms from my grandparents who were moving to an apartment and I no longer have need of this Rio Grande. So I am selling it. I am 5 feet 10 inches tall, so the loom is taller than many of the walking looms you find in NM. It could, however, be shortened if necessary. Let me know if you're interested! The loom comes apart enough that I could fit it in my Volkswagen Golf, though it is easier if you can leave the large pieces together. It has a 40 inch weaving width and comes with an 8 dent reed. $550 OBO.

Here a few more photos I found in Rebecca's archives...

Me weaving in the El Rito studio while my mom reads a magazine by the woodstove.

El Rito studio tour, probably 2006. The pottery is by David Coleman. The weavings I did at Northern NM College.

Dye set up at my studio in El Rito.

Spiraling

This is my statement from the show Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus in Albuquerque (minus the Germany translation which you'll have to ask Cornelia for if you want it) at Open Space Gallery. A few people have asked me to post it so they could see it again.

Spiraling

i can't tell you who I was yesterday

everything i made this morning changed who yesterday was

today i made a tapestry while wondering about change and seeing

tomorrow's explorations may have different endings... or beginnings

a learning about collaboration

a movement through fear

a gleeful laugh of discovery

lifting a marvelous new color out of the dye pot

holding my breath as i pull a tapestry off the cloth beam at it's cutting off ceremony

i like putting individual threads together to make a crafted object that is also art

But mostly I revel in the journey.

______________________

The Bauhaus Project has been part of a creative three years for me. I have worked closely with other artists and learned about finding new paths together and apart. From the Bauhaus study I have learned about the importance of making things, of starting at the beginning, and of getting your hands dirty in the craft of the thing.

The Bauhaus was a school that challenged the way art was conceived and created. It was a place of people like Walter Gropius, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Gunta Stolzl, Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Anni Albers. They were giants, and they were just people. They are still challenging me today.

My finger has slipped off the control button... for better or worse

It used to be that I KNEW when my tapestries were pictured somewhere and where exactly they all were hanging. Recently I have realized that I no longer know this. My work has found it's way out into the world and I really don't know where much of it is. This is exciting in some ways--maybe my work is influencing someone else somewhere. Maybe in my very small way, I can create something that will help someone else.

I just found another blogger (Sandra Rude) who does fantastic complex fabrics who loved my work in Albuquerque and blogged about it here. I opened the Rio Grande Sun (local paper of Espanola, NM) yesterday and found a photo of Contemplative Garden in the Arts section with the press release for our show in Albuquerque. And the arts editor of that paper is going to do a story about our show in the next issue (if I actually sit myself down tonight and answer all his questions!).

The world has become a complicated place, and I am okay with not knowing where my creations have ended up. Part of my journey is learning how to let go of control. I am contemplating a new series of work that addresses the fragile and changing nature of life. We try so hard to make things archival, to hold on to people and memories and events... and often we clutch the past so tightly to our chests that we completely miss the present.

I love finding my images or news of my tapestries in various places. I hope that discovery continues for a long time. And for the photos, articles, and tapestry locations I don't know about... well I will imagine that they are making someone take a second look somewhere in the world.

As a related post script, I got a call from my father this morning. He is visiting some friends in upstate New York and found an article in USA Today about northern NM fiber trails with a couple photos of Weaving Southwest. There is also a nice video that has some footage of Teresa Loveless of Weaving Southwest dyeing and Lisa Trujillo of Centinela Traditional Arts weaving.

What else am I missing? (Or peanut butter blindness)

I have inherited a few minor "disabilities" from my father. One is a problem spelling. I think my mother's talent in this area tempered the spelling gene from my father as I am able to spell difficult words like Espanola, daisy, and pants. The other is a difficulty finding food in the kitchen. I can't imagine how someone couldn't find cheese in my parents' refrigerator (which at any one time sports an average cheese yield of 4-6 pounds--my mother is Dutch), but sometimes it hides nonetheless. This particular affliction struck again tonight when I was searching for peanut butter in my own kitchen.

About 10 days ago Emily spent the better part of a visit rearranging and cleaning my kitchen. She deserves beatification for this. And I am quite sure she kindly failed to mention many of the items she had to throw away. This difficulty I have seeing in the kitchen (things just become invisible, I swear) manifests itself insidiously in copious amounts of certain food items I am sure that I have none of while standing in the grocery store. I will buy 3 more bags of tapioca flour because I am sure that I have none (after all, I haven't seen any for quite awhile). Emily found a stash dated 5/2001 behind the mammoth bag of rice and another few bags stuffed behind the outdated salad dressing at the back of a bottom shelf. (Not long ago I opened a bottle of GF salad dressing that I had brought from home in a restaurant and the funny taste made me look at the date on the bottle. Mar 2007 is a long time ago for salad dressing.) Needless to say, there was a lot of food in my kitchen that was no longer edible. She got rid of it and had the good sense not to tease me too much after she found the 27th jar of opened pickle relish in the frig (I kept buying the dill relish when I wanted the sweet. I seem to have a shopping disability too).

Anyway, Emily left yesterday to bring Megan home and this evening I was in a post-Convergence funk and really wanted some peanut butter (though I would have settled for Nutella). I was reasonably sure that I had one of these substances somewhere in the kitchen, but wasn't quite sure where. I searched in every cabinet that, to my knowledge, contained food... to no avail. After 10 minutes I was frustrated and still no peanut butter.

I texted Emily hoping she wouldn't tease me too much as I had a sneaking suspicion that I was just peanut-butter blind. Sure enough. It was right in the center front of the middle shelf of the main food cabinet. It could not have been more obvious. But by the time I found it I had already given up. Cookies made from the Pamela's cookie mix I could clearly see hiding behind the olives (which I detest more than any kind of food) on the very top shelf... THOSE I could see.

I can see a design in my head and translate it fairly effectively into a tapestry, but darn if I can't find the peanut butter jar in the cupboard. My artwork is largely about seeing the world in new ways, exploring visual puzzles, and the visible/invisible-ness of what is real in the world (and what is real in the world???). I have to be honest. My inability to see the peanut butter when it is so obvious worries me. What else am I missing?

A new weaving generation

I had a couple days at home with Megan before she had to go back to her home in Mississippi this evening. She wanted to learn to weave on one of my big looms. Since I had a warp on the Macomber I wasn't using, I tied it up for her. I thought it would probably be pretty difficult for her to get her fingers around 10 epi and Harrisville Highland yarn, but she managed quite well!

I pulled out a bin of leftover yarn in various colors and she looked at what was there and announced she was going to weave an interpretation of a watermelon.

She is 10 years old. This is the result which took her just a few hours. If I can keep her off her horse long enough, she might be the youngest tapestry weaver in the next ATA non-juried show!

This is Megan with the Mystic Moon tapestry she designed at Enchanted Pathways. I wove this piece per her specifications. She is going to be weaving the next one though!

I (and I gasp and feel my heart sink when I write this) have to go back to work in two weeks... that is back to the job that pays the bills, which I like well enough, but summer was only 5 weeks long this year and that just doesn't seem quite right. This year I want to do some weaving projects with my kids (I am an occupational therapist in a small rural public school system serving a native american population). I am considering doing a project in conjunction with Mirrix looms, but even if I don't I will be bringing some various looms to school with me. Megan was my test pilot. True, she is much swifter than many of my kids who are in special education and often come to me with fine motor problems, but with a much wider sett and some fatter yarn, I think they will enjoy the weaving a great deal. I'm not sure how they'll do with the Mirrix and think I may also try a table loom as tapestry may be too complicated. I also have a couple inkle looms which may be useful. Perhaps I will try all three.

Home from the party...

Convergence ended yesterday afternoon. As the funny-man from Texas who volunteered to watch the entrance to the vendor hall much of the weekend kept telling me, "at 4:01 you won't be a newbie any more!" I had a first-timer sticker on my badge and he called me "newbie" every time I walked through the door. I warmed to the appellation after awhile. It is good to approach the world with fresh eyes.

There is much to say about the past week and I am not sure it is at all possible to get it down in any sort of coherent order. So here are some highlights for those of you who couldn't attend, and for those of you who did and perhaps had different experiences than I did.

I met many wonderful people this week. Many of them I had gotten to know a little bit online and it was a great deal of fun to attach a face to a blogger or body of art I had seen on the internet. I was also able to reconnect with some weavers I had met at Intermountain Weavers Conference and chat with old friends and teachers such as Northern NM College Rio Grande weaving instructor, Karen Martinez.

I enjoyed the ATA forum on Sunday. Lynne Curran and James Koehler gave lectures about their work. Mary Lane also did a digi slam with work of about a dozen tapestry weavers. I have some new perspectives on international tapestry weavers (okay, artists who are not American--I KNOW this is a long time coming, but sometimes it takes a lilting and lovely voice like Lynne Curran's to jolt my brain into recognition of a new perspective) which I will post more about after unpacking the dirty clothes and giving my new spinning wheel a whirl.

I took some fun classes which I talked about briefly in a prior post. Gregory Case's photo classes were extremely useful and I regret that I couldn't hear the last hour of the class Saturday afternoon. I did have an opening to get to.

Here are some photos from the Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus opening Saturday night. The gallery was keeping track of people coming in for the first couple hours and then the volunteer staff left and we don't know how many people came after that. At last count which was about 6pm I think, there had been 150 people to see the show. As the opening lasted another 2 hours, I think it likely we had over 200 people in one evening. I find that amazing considering how busy Convergence was and how far from the convention center the venue was. I was also so pleased to have people from other parts of my life attend. To those of you who came from places as far flung as Ojo Caliente and Gallup, thank you for coming! It meant a great deal to me to see your smiling faces and hear your words of support.

The following 4 photos of the show were taken by Chris Barber for the gallery. He graciously shared them with me since my camera stopped working about 5 minutes into the opening (yes, the new Nikon). His photos are likely better than any I would have taken anyway and it was a relief not to try to take any photos while at my own opening.

Thank you so much Chris for sharing these shots.

Copyright The CTB and SHR Trust, used by permission

Sunday evening we stopped at the Enchanted Pathways opening at William and Joseph gallery in Santa Fe.

This is Megan Swartzfager. She did the cartoon for the Mystic Moon tapestry (she also named it)

of the unicorn we had in this show. She was the artist. I wove the piece. I am happy to report that Megan has begun learning tapestry weaving herself and I hope that she may have a piece that she designed and wove herself in the next small format show. She is a young lady of many interests and talents, so it remains to be seen which ones get her time and attention.

I am sure that I will have much more to say about Convergence at least in my own head over the next week or two. Whether any of that makes it to this blog remains to be seen. The most important things are hard to capture in words or photos and my heart is full of gratitude for all the people who shared bits of themselves with me this week.

Convergence Day 3

Convergence Day 3.

A quick post with more detail to come. Convergence has been wonderful and exhausting... so much going on in my head.

The opening of Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus
Unfortunately my camera card malfunctioned and I didn't get any shots from the opening tonight. Here are a few Emily took.

Conni Gardella, me, and Maria Wilson. Maria is one of my unsung heroes (I am singing now I suppose). She is a well-known ikat weaver who has not woven for many years due to eyesight problems and stubbornly refuses to teach me ikat! She is unfailingly gracious and beautiful and I appreciate her kind words and encouragement about my tapestry career immensely.

Open Spaces Gallery, opening 4-8 this evening. The gallery space is beautiful. We were fortunate to get this space and I am grateful to Joshua Willis for all his help in hanging this show and making the exhibit happen. Open Space Visitor Center is a wonderful place and I highly recommend a visit.

Emily got two bouquets of beautiful flowers for the opening. Unfortunately due to the technological malfunction I don't have a photo of them at the actual gallery. This is Megan and I with the daisys.