A whole lot of tapestry weaving in one place

A whole lot of tapestry weaving in one place

I attended the opening for American Tapestry Biennial 11 in San Jose last weekend. Here are a few thoughts and photos from a weekend full of old friends, new friends, and tapestry. The video gives you an overview of the show. . . .

Discussion ranged from why tapestry was their preferred medium and what the strengths and weaknesses of tapestry as an art medium are, to contemplating the sublime in tapestry. I was silently egging Barbara Heller on in her desire to talk about the place of tapestry in the art world and the tendency of tapestry to be shown mostly in medium-specific shows, but alas, this was apparently not the forum for that potentially divisive discussion.

A game of yarn chicken

A game of yarn chicken

I finished the piece today. Emergence VIII. Three panels, total size, 54 x 54 inches. Though really I should say I finished weaving the piece. There is still a great deal of work to be done before it is hanging in the client's home.

At some point yesterday I realized I might run out of one of the colors in the spiral. This almost never happens to me with weaving anymore. Because it used to happen a lot and now I dye much more yarn than I think I will need for a piece (see photo, right--yarn for this very piece). But I miscalculated a particularly wide spot in the spiral and there I was. 5 inches from the end with an amount of yarn that looked suspiciously slim.

Refusing to panic, I looked around for another ball of the missing yarn.

Deborah Chandler and the Traditional Weavers of Guatemala

Deborah Chandler and the Traditional Weavers of Guatemala

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.

The Christmas Loom

The Christmas Loom

I made a new holiday video this year of the Christmas Loom being decorated. There was a little problem when we moved into this house that involved two spatially incompetent and rather scrawny college movers, my very heavy 40 inch Macomber, and a set of stairs to the studio that turn on a small landing. The loom now lives in the living room and is a pretty good stand-in for a Christmas Tree.

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A review of the A-I-R tapestries

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A review of the A-I-R tapestries

I thought I would put all the little tapestries I made at my artist-in-residence in one post. I have included links to prior posts at the end--some have more details about individual tapestries.

I wove one of these each day. Most of them took about 3 hours to complete. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it despite the amount of time it took to finish them and I ended up doing one every day of the residency. Here they are with their inspiration. Most of the tapestries were woven at 12 epi on a 6-dent Hokett loom. The warp was mostly cotton seine twine though there is some linen in there and the weft was mostly Weaver's Bazaar 18/2 wool though there are some wool singles and some handspun.

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Leaving the desert

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Leaving the desert

I had a marvelous month as artist-in-residence at Petrified Forest National Park. I learned so much about myself and making art, and was reminded again how much I love wandering around the desert. This place was perfect for that. I know many of you can't imagine not having trees, but there just aren't any there except in the bosque. That means you can see forever, and if you're paying attention, you can't get lost. So I walked and walked wherever I wanted and always found my way home again before dark. That also meant that any time I was near the bosque (where the water is when it rains), I scanned the cottonwoods incessantly for sleeping porcupines. One of the biologist interns saw three one day and I was determined. But alas, none were found by me.