Warm sunshine

Today is a beautiful sunny day in the San Luis Valley. The temperature is just above freezing and it feels warm and beautiful. As I trek in and outside again to check the dye pots and give them a little stir, I stop to watch the cranes circling high above my house. Sometimes I have to search a long time to locate them as they are circling so high they are just little dots in the sky. On days like this they do big lazy circles around and around, croaking and crying the whole time.

I am making black today. Very light and very dark. I am attempting to level the very light black (gray) with the addition of Abegal SET and sodium acetate to my usual glauber's salt. We shall see if it works.

The sun shines brightly in my south-facing studio and I am happily winding yarn. Life doesn't always seem so idyllic, but it is amazing what a little sunshine, some crane cries, and a pile of yarn can do for me.

Happy Monday from the San Luis Valley of Colorado. (I will let you know how the black turns out.)

A bad dye job

Today I was working to turn this yarn

into colorways for a class I'm working on.

I suspect that I waited a little too long to add the acid on this teal batch and the dye hit quickly. I use glaubers salt as a leveler and there was a lot of it in this dye bath, but clearly I did something else wrong as you can see the unevenness before I even took it out of the bath.

So I am afraid I am going to have to go back to using some of these especially for my lightest colors.

I used to use all three at various points (Synthrapol, Abegal SET, and sodium acetate), but dropped them one at a time as things seemed to be going well. Perhaps I'm having trouble with the well water here and probably I should test the pH of it right off. Heaven only knows what else is in it as it frequently smells like sulfur (which is a nice addition to the frequent skunk smell around here especially this time of year--we measure the seasons by the skunk migrations now).

Synthrapol can act as a surfactant to improve the penetration of water and dye into wool. I always soak my fiber overnight but this doesn't seem to be enough for the lightest colors.  Glaubers salt is sodium sulfate and is used as a leveling agent which I do use in all of my dyeing below about a 3 depth of shade and with colors as light as this teal, I use it at 10% WOG.

Abegal SET is another leveling agent which helps create an even color by slowing the rate at which the dye molecules attach to the fiber as well as increasing dye penetration. Sodium Acetate is a pH buffer and my research suggests it helps keep the pH of the pot from drifting upward at the end of dyeing. I am not sure I need to return to using it as my pots seem to remain below pH 5.0 during the whole process.

It is also possible that the pot was too acidic for the light color which helped the dye hit quicker. I don't usually measure the pH of the dye pot very carefully. The citric acid I use takes it down to about 3.5 and so I just put in enough to do that. But maybe pH 3.5 is too low for these light colors.

At any rate, I will have to take more care with the lower depth of shade colors in the future and experiment with some of these assists for them. The colors at DOS 1.0 or more are quite even almost all of the time.

Alas, this teal yarn is going to need a do-over. Good thing I like dyeing.

DY Begay's show at U.C. Davis

Sara Lamb had a post about DY Begay's show at UC Davis this past week. I really enjoyed her words about DY Begay and greatly wished I could have heard DY speak (not to mention seeing these gorgeous weavings in person).

Sara's blog is Woven Thoughts and the post Recharge about DY Begay is HERE. In her post, Sara has this to say about DY, which echoes my own feelings about this amazing contemporary Navajo weaver.

It was a quietly revealing and inspiring talk given by a woman who knows her true place, and her value, along the continuum of weavers, mothers, Dine, and desert dwellers.

DY's show is at the C.N. Gorman Museum at U.C. Davis. The curator of the museum was kind enough to send me a catalog the day she got them as I realized I was not going to be in the vicinity of Davis during the run of this show. The catalog is very well done and I recommend a copy. You can purchase it HERE.

Here is an excerpt of the artist statement in the catalog. DY's words:

I am blessed that I can stand outside my home (hogan) and see far in all four directions. There are formations outlined in stepped patterns painted in bundles of red streaks, subtle shades of pinks, clusters of dusty-ochre, and flickering sand tone colors. At dawn, shoots of pale baby blue awaken the sky, and I sometimes see deep dark indigo, pinks and shades of soft yellows. The sunrise is often my canvas - it seduces my imagination with colors, curiosity, and beauty. These images are replaced at the end of the day by flaming oranges as the sun sets for the evening and night takes on dark, forbidding colors. These daily encounters with light, color, remarkable land formations, and a lifetime of memories are the textures I reflect on, interpret, and explore in my tapestries.

I grew up in Gallup, NM near the Navajo Reservation and I can feel DY's descriptions of the land she is from in my own heart.

Here are two photos from the northeastern part of Arizona near Chinle where DY is from.

Hope

The cranes are back. This morning I was re-tying yarn skeins to get them ready for dyeing and I heard them through the double pane windows. I ran outside, and yes, it was the unmistakable sound of sandhill cranes calling. This is the front of the troop. Thousands and thousands more will be arriving in the next few weeks.

These birds are a big sign of hope for me. It is a time of indecision and uncertainty in my little family. The return of the cranes is something I didn't think I would be here to see, but here I am. They make me feel hopeful. Time isn't linear, it moves in circles. The good we plant comes around again. I am so happy to witness the return of these big beautiful birds. They'll be here a few months before heading north to Oregon or Canada to their summer nesting grounds. Maybe by the time they leave I will be following them on my own migration.

Here is a video compiled from photos and video taken over the last year. Listen to the sound of thousands of cranes circling. The cranes arrive in the San Luis Valley sometime around Valentine's Day, stopping here after leaving their wintering grounds at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. They will be here for a couple months before they fly north for the summer. They stop here again in October and November on their way back south with their new young in tow. Most of these cranes are greater sandhill cranes as opposed to the famous flocks of lesser sandhills on the North Platte in Nebraska.

Look what the brown truck brought today!

Look what showed up on my porch today while I was out walking the dog this afternoon.

That is 30 pounds of white yarn that is soon going to be dyed for my students.

There is nothing better than a big box of undyed yarn waiting for the magic that turns it all the colors of my color wheel and many in between. I love dyeing yarn in a weird, unexplainable kind of way. I probably shouldn't love it. It is really hard work. Those pots are heavy and there is a lot of water to schlep. There is the messy process of measuring the dye in both liquid and powder form. Then there are the constant trips inside and outside again to check the temperatures, add the acid, make sure the burners haven't blown out and that I haven't run out of propane. There are the pots I forget to time and have to guess (actually I'm getting pretty good at telling what stage the yarn is at and rarely even use my thermometer any more). There is the worrying that I am wasting too much water and the attempts to reuse some of the dye baths (which usually does work out). There are the dark evenings when I am in the backyard with my headlamp rinsing yarn to hang and the times I have to try to keep it from dripping all over the house because it is too cold or windy or smoky to leave it hanging outside. But still the magic of the resulting colors, which are surprisingly almost always what I expect, is really fun.
 
The weather is much warmer now and as some days it is even above freezing, I think I may be able to brave the dye shed before too long. I am looking forward to making this white yarn colored.

Here is my niece helping her auntie with the last batch of yarn I dyed before the weather turned colder than is really reasonable.

The "missing" tapestries at ATB9

Here at last are the last 16 tapestries from the American Tapestry Biennial 9 at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. I was heartbroken not to see many of these pieces after traveling from Colorado, but I am grateful to Ellen and Phil Robertson for going to the show, taking these lovely photos, and allowing me to post them for you to see. The placement of the remaining tapestries is in the main hallway of the museum. It is a high-traffic area and so the tapestries should get a lot of viewing. I am pleased that the tapestries are up but wish I had been able to meet Barbara's Sarah Rebecca, Myla's trees, and Dorothy's landscapes in person.
**With apologies to Myla, there wasn't a photo taken of her entire piece. If anyone else went to the exhibit and has one, I'd love to see it. This is one of the pieces I really wanted to study.

As I was unable to view these tapestries myself, I am mostly just going to post the photos with a few comments from the catalog (which can be purchased from the American Tapestry Alliance at this link: http://americantapestryalliance.org/catalogs/).

In the catalog, Archie Brennan states that this is the third "partial portrait" he has done based on styles of clothing he wore in the 1960's, 1970's and 1990's.

Each tapestry focuses on the illusion of contemporary clothing in tapestry weaving that has run through the history of pictorial tapestry over more than 2000 years. Such a subject matter is one of the many themes (words / postcards / line drawing / reconstruction / windows / etc.) that I have focused on since the late 60's.

Partial Portrait-AB-Once Upon a Summer, Archie Brennan; 23 x 15 inches, cotton, wool

Partial Portrait-AB-Once Upon a Summer, detail

Joanne Sanburg says about this piece, "My goal is to communicate a specific personality type with my art and artifacts." I can only chuckle and remember fondly Peggy from ATB8. Thanks Joanne.

Bebe, Joanne Sanburg; 36 x 23 x 1 inch, wool, raffia, twine, silk, cotton, synthetics, embellishments

Bebe, detail

This is one tapestry I have seen before, as Kathy Spoering and I currently live in relatively close proximity (what is 400 miles in the American West? ... to most of us who have lived here a long time, it isn't all that far). It was nice to see the photos of this puppy dog again. Kathy says that this piece is also called 'The Dog Days of Summer' and is one of a series of 12 calendar tapestries she is working on "to categorize the movement and regularity of change in my life.... The 12 tapestries attempt to capture simple moments in time that can represent relationships, passions, or the bits that added together, sum up my changing life." I first saw this piece at the Intermountain Weaver's Conference in Durango, CO and was pleased it was showing again in a bigger show.

August, Kathy Spoering; 18 x 18 x 1.5 inches, wool, cotton

August, detail

I always enjoy Janet Austin's work. This is yet another piece in this show with text in it (see THIS post for the others). Janet says this about the piece in the catalog:

My tapestries grow out of my drawings and paintings. The Chaos series evolved from one 27 year-old painting of my messy studio table. After the usual copying and dismembering, I began to trace a small segment with black colored pencil: in a flash, the fallen cone of yarn morphed into a black hole in the universe. I had found the Chaos I was seeking.

On the Edge of Chaos, Janet Austin; 21.5 x 24 x 1 inches, wool, linen, silk, rayon

On the Edge of Chaos, detail

Here is yet another piece I would have loved to study in detail. Anne Brodersen says in the catalog,

Three things are basic in my work: The daily sense of impressions of strong nature -- the word -- and the material. I try to evoke the essence of the impressions I get from nature in simple idiom. My works often reflect the surface of the big, ragged landscape where everything is constantly formed by the wind. At other times I read the landscape closely, go deep down into the details, use many colors, and the lines and a more delicate technique. Often I work with words as a motive power. I search for a series of strong words, or one powerful sentence. On these I attach associations of form, color and experiences.

I love this description of her way of working. I will have to search out Anne's work in the future.

Departure, Anne Brodersen; 43.7 x 41.7 inches, cotton, linen, wool, silk

Departure, detail

Who can help but love Pat Williams' work. I find it so much fun every time I see photos of it (or once, an actual piece in ATB8). Here is what Pat says about this piece in the catalog:

Thousands of red winged black birds mysteriously fell from the sky onto roads and roofs in Beebe, Arkansas January 1, 2011; over 100,000 fish died at the same time in the Arkansas River. Over 500 black birds died at the same time in Louisiana. On October 11, 2011, there were more reports of dead birds falling from the sky in Sweden, and millions of dead fish have been found in Maryland, Brazil, New Zealand, Italy.

 I would love to know how she does the beautiful edge of the tapestry. I don't have a detail shot of that.

Red Winged Black birds: Memorial to Their Falling From the Sky, Pat Williams; 59 x 21 inches, wool, cotton, lurex

Red Winged Black Birds: Memorial to Their Falling From the Sky, detail

There are a lot of beautiful techniques in this piece. Nancy Jackson says this about it in the catalog:

The primary intent in my work is to look at humanity and the world on a spiritual level with particular attention to human failure and our responses to failure. Images of movement, change and transformation and a sense of being guarded, protected, and nurtured in the process are also important to me. My understanding of being "guarded, protected, and nurtured" does not eliminate suffering and it is not equal to happiness, comfort, and security.

Lakota Creation Myth II, Nancy Jackson; 47.375 x 21.125 inches, wool, cotton

This detail is helpful to me. It appears the tapestry was woven sideways and uses a lot of color blending in the weft bundle as well as hachure technique.

Lakota Creation Myth II, detail

Lakota Creation Myth II, detail

Lakota Creation Myth II, detail

I saw Marie-Thumette Brichard's piece in ATB8 when it was in Lincoln, NE and loved it. This piece is also fascinating. And I love her statement in the catalog:

Today when everything must be done in a great hurry, tapestry may seem to be anachronistic. For me tapestry is an obvious fact, a slow, solitary work, out of time, where creation feeds on technical constraints and the tactile pleasure of weaving, touching the material, intertwining the threads, the rhythm of the spindle sounding like music... All my work is inspired by my maritime environment and mainly the Isle of Groix, its light, its colors, its rocks. 

Glaucophanes et Prasinites 2, Marie-Thumette Brichard; 51 x 51 inches, wool

Glaucophanes et Prasinites 2, detail

Of all the pieces I didn't get to see, I have to admit that missing a meeting with Sarah Rebecca was the worst blow. I am fascinated by Barbara Heller's imagery and her ghost series tapestries. She must use a split warp technique (doubled warp) for the more detailed portions of these tapestries. Here is what Barbara says about this tapestry in the catalog:

With this tapestry I have returned to my ghost images from a new perspective. Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah are the four matriarchs of Judaism. My Sarah Rebecca represents all the people dislocated from home by fear or hope. They have traveled through time and space to find a better life and their spirits linger on in their homes and in our memories.

Sarah Rebecca, Barbara Heller; 48 x 70 x 2 inches, linen, wool, cotton, rayon; photograph courtesy of the artist

Sarah Rebecca, detail; photograph courtesy of the artist

I really admire Dorothy Clews' work. Her work exudes earthiness and feels like I imagine her home in Australia feels. I was able to see a few of her pieces in a show she was in in Albuquerque, NM in July 2010. From the catalog for ATB9:

The fragile fragment - a flower, person, a culture - out of place, but nonetheless embedded in harsh antipodean soils that give it a new context. Wherever I have travelled in Australia in the most unlikely environment and climate I have found plants from elsewhere, roses in the black soils of the Queensland outback and pansies in the harsh red soils of the Northern Territory sometimes thriving, sometimes not. My own gardens have been planted with exotic plants mixed with natives. These precious fragments of memory make their own story of adaptation and relocation, in the space between one place and another on the opposite sides of the globe creating a new antipodean landscape.

Antipodean Landscape, Dorothy Clews; 9 x 6.75 x 0.5 inches, seine twine, raffie, antique tapestry

Antipodean Landscape, detail

I love the pencils in this image as well as the wonderful framing of the face. Deann Rubin talks about this tapestry being part of a "series of small tapestries reminiscent of vintage children's blocks.

Draw/#2 Pencil, Deann Rubin; 10 x 10 x 1.4 inches, cotton, wool, silk, other materials

Draw/#2 Pencil, detail

Mary Kester says this about her work in the catalog:

My tapestry images are visual responses to the enigma of Neolithic stones. Standing stones are objects unexplained by written language and affected by elapsed time. Their shapes, purposes, and the meanings of their inscribed symbols are outside our frame of reference. My vision of them leads me to build them back, to rearrange them, to place their symbols as I will to evoke their potent presence. I respond to what I've seen with fiber forms in the visual language of texture, shape, color and the illusion of depth.

Broken Lintel, Mary Kester; 54 x 62 x 4 inches, wool, cotton, linen

Broken Lintel, detail

I don't have a photo of Myla Collier's Urban Forest (17 x 52 x 1 inch, wool, cotton). If anyone goes to the show and takes one, I'd love to see it. I think the first detail shot is fabulous. Myla says this about her work:

My recent work has focused on woven interpretations of the lush landscapes and environment of my hometown, San Luis Obispo on California's Central Coast.

Urban Forest, detail

Urban Forest, detail

Erica Lynn Diazoni provided a poem with this piece in the catalog.

Thoughts
are small stones.
I pick them up, like pebbles on the beach.

I put them in my pocket.
As I roll them between my fingers.
I simply notice and take delight.
Here smooth, here rough
This one cold, this one warm.

I take the pebbles back out
Setting them carefully
back on the sand
And marvel at their raw beauty
gleaming back at me.

Psyche, Erica Lynn Diazoni; 5.11 x 6 inches, wool, cotton

Psyche, detail

Suzanne Pretty:

The modern landscape often contains elements of the natural world juxtaposed to the world of technology and machines with its flash and glitter. Construction trucks are parked in a tidy row at the road side ready for the next day's work. The patterns are very different from the William Morris patterning of vines and birds. These trucks create patterns with harsh colors and chrome pulsing with power. These scenes, juxtaposed and infringing on the natural landscape, occur at a rapidly increasing rate. In my work I focus on these intersections at the very edges with the contrast and blend of the elements.

Road Construction in Detail, Suzanne Pretty; 9.4 x 7.9 inches, wool, silk, cotton, linen

Road Construction in Detail, detail

Bozena Pychova:

My tapestries are always based on my own designs and I weave the vertical way to see the whole composition. The characteristic sign is my enchantment by a line and depth of the colorful spaces clustered in changing configurations. The tapestry "Blue Prelludium" also had a colored design - a simple drawing. During the realization, I used streaky strands of different thickness according to the needed tint. I let this material go through the warp. The strands appear only where the material allows it, which brings inspirational moments to me. In the case of this tapestry, I also started to improvise with color spaces and their tonal values and I played with them like with musical tones, which gave the title to this piece of work.

I love how she blends the blues which you can see in the detail.

Blue Prelludium, Bozena Pychova; 59 x 67 inches, wool

Blue Prelludium, detail

When I started posting the photos from this show, I never intended to show every single tapestry. But now it looks like I almost have. My perfectionistic tendencies have reared their head again, but hopefully it has been useful to people who didn't get to see the show at all. I realized when looking back that I missed a few tapestries from the initial group. Here they are, these photographs are mine.

This tapestry by Tori S. Kleinert reminded me of a quilting method I tried once which I think is called Bargello. I like the movement of the blocks and the curved forms at the bottom. This piece was behind glass and was difficult to photograph.

Semblance of the Ancient Ones, Tori S. Kleinert; 5 x 7.75 x 1 inches, cotton, linen

This piece was woven sideways and had the interesting feature of empty warp threads between the squares. Carol Chave says in the catalog, "After Albers," five linked tapestries, was inspired by Josef Albers' Homage to a Square series. (Tapestry in the distance is DisConnect by Linda Wallace.)

After Albers, Carol Chave; 18 x 86 inches, wool

After Albers, detail

The fiber in this Barbara Burns piece was very shiny cotton which made a photograph difficult. The expression is well done and this piece is on the back of the catalog.

Little Spinner Girl, Barbara Burns; 13 x 13 inches, cotton

Ann Booth:

Recently I have been working on a series of portraits I call my Sheroes (female heroes). Women who have been strong role models along my spiritual journey.

I like the way Ann uses shapes in her pieces to move color and create background as in the surface behind the figure in this tapestry.

Munirih Khanum, Ann Booth; 25 x 26 inches, wool, cotton

Munirih Khanum, detail

 Helen Gold:

Sometimes I look to the past for inspiration for a tapestry project. Seated Woman is a tribute to the barrier breaking modernist art forms of Fauvism, Cubism and Art Nouveau. The women, textiles and interiors of that period are the spirit of this tapestry.

Seated woman, Helen Gold; 19 x 17.5 inches, wool, cotton

Seated Woman, detail

The End

(for the moment)

The last of the ATB9 shots... for now.

Here is the last batch of photos from the American Tapestry Alliance's American Tapestry Biennial 9 (ATB9) show at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. I do hope to see someone's photos of the missing tapestries when they are up though!

***This just in! I was able to get some good photos from a wonderful student who will let me post them. I will get those photos up this week so you can see "the missing" tapestries.

This is the last in a series of blog posts about this show. Click these links to read the others:
A Call to Action for Tapestry Artists
American Tapestry Biennial 9
ATB9 goes New Mexico
The shape of tapestry and ATB9
It's all Sarah's fault (and more ATB9)

Linda Wallace's piece DisConnect won one of the Teitelbaum awards. I loved studying this piece. The color use is wonderful with beautiful gradations in the forms (see detail below). The colors in the borders change as you look around the piece (and I can't swear to it, but I think she used some chenille in the rich brown parts). Her technique is wonderful and the imagery about women and cultural burdens is engaging.

DisConnect, Linda Wallace; 48 x 32 x 1 inch, wool, cotton, linen, silk, metallics

DisConnect, detail

Thomas Cronenberg's tapestry is one I have been waiting to see. I love the drawing-like lines and the simplicity of the piece. And I loved finding secrets in it I couldn't see in the catalog photo.

Daheim (At Home), Thomas Cronenberg; 61 x 43.7 inches, linen, wool, silk, mercerized cotton

Daheim (At Home), detail

Lialia Kuchma's piece Crane is large and fortunately they hung it in a spot I could stand back and look at it. I loved the flat but intense blue of the crane figure. The yarn had no variation in it except up near the head and the intenseness worked well in this piece. The flat plane is broken up with black lines which give it a little motion. The background field is hugely textured and interesting in itself.
Here is what Lialia says about this tapestry in the catalog:

regarding the tapestry CRANE -- during the period of disquiet in Ukraine, especially after the disappointment of the last election I felt compelled to give substance to this concern. thus the crane, a symbolic and popular image in Ukraine-the blue shape of the crane defined in its boldness on a heavily textured field appears to hover in a stasis over a geography of a restless history.

Crane, Lialia Kuchma; 63 x 87 inches; wool, cotton

Crane, detail

Cecilia Blomberg's piece was one that I looked at several times before I felt at ease with it... and then challenged again. It is both abstract and realistic and I finally felt like I could see the water and the boat as a realistic portrayal and then shift back into the more abstract work I saw when I first looked. It is a lovely piece.

Mates, Cecilia Blomberg; 35 x 49 inches, cotton, wool, linen

She used a lot of eccentric weft in the water.

Mates, detail

Alex Friedman's Macondo is about the Deepwater oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. Alex writes in the catalog,

'Macondo' represents both the subjective and environmental dark forces that obscure the clear waters. The oil dispersants used are banned in parts of the world. How long these toxins remain and what the eventual damage remains to be seen. However, in time, nature has a way of overcoming these adversities and my hope, symbolically represented by the bright green tips of the sea plants, is that there will be some restoration of the natural order.

Macondo, Alex Friedman; 72 x 38 inches, wool, cotton

Macondo, detail

Becky Stevens' Home Safe Home made me think of being wrapped in my house (probably reading a book and absorbed in some imaginary land) while the cold night and sea monsters roamed outside.

Home Safe Home, Becky Stevens; 24 x 18 inches, wool

Home Safe Home, detail

Elizabeth Buckley's Dialogues Through the Veil also bears mention. It is also a lovely piece with outstanding technique and wonderful secrets that you see the more you look at it. You can see her piece on the ATA website at this link.

I am including the video of the show here again in case you missed it the first time.