France Tapestry Tour 2019, Episode 2, Beauvais

France Tapestry Tour 2019, Episode 2, Beauvais

We took a bus about 100 km from Paris to Beauvais to see the National Tapestry Workshop there. It was an incredible day. There are three workshops supported by the state (Manufactures Nationales): Beauvais, Gobelin, and Savonnerie.

Beauvais is divided between the town of Beauvais and another site in Paris. This is because Beauvais was heavily bombed in WWII. When a new building was built decades later, weavers were able to volunteer to relocate to Beauvais so about half of them are at the workshop there and the other half are at the Gobelin in Paris.

France Tapestry Tour 2019, Episode 1

France Tapestry Tour 2019, Episode 1

I am currently on a tapestry tour of France with Cresside Collette of Australia. Cresside has run similar tours of France and the UK over the last decade. She is the perfect person to guide us in our enjoyment of tapestries made from about the 15th century to today. She was a weaver at the Victorian Tapestry Workshop (now Australian Tapestry Workshop) for 15 years and has had a successful career as an independent artist. Take a look at her website for more information and her portfolio.

We are leaving Paris tomorrow for Angers. While in Paris we have seen The Lady and the Unicorn, had a trip to Beauvais to see the tapestry manufactory there and today we went to the Gobelin and saw both the Beauvais workshop and Gobelin workshop in Paris. I will talk more about these workshops and the trip to the Cluny in future posts.

I thought I might try my had at video blogging. In the hiking world this is called vlogging. I’m actually not that good at taking video on the run, so this is a mash-up of still photos, video, and narration. It is done quickly because there is much to see and do here! But I hope you enjoy a little look at my trip to France. I’ll be doing more of these though I can’t guarantee how soon I’ll finish the videos.

I'll try to avoid getting arrested.... like that time in Prague

I'll try to avoid getting arrested.... like that time in Prague

The first time I went to Europe it was 1997. I was young and my partner at the time was busy at some herpetological conference all day for a week. So I explored Prague for a few days with the wife of another conference attendee. She was a friend of sorts back home but after what I’m about to tell you, wasn’t so keen about my company any more. I suppose I can’t blame her.

I knew nothing about travel in Europe. But once I figured out the subway, I thought I was pretty invincible. I convinced my friend to visit Prague Castle with me. After marveling at the guards and the size of the thing, we wandered down a small alley. I thought the stone walls and cobblestones were wonderful and definitely there would have been a gate or something if we were going the wrong way, right? There was the most adorable iron door in one of the walls, just taller than me with a round top to it. And it was standing ajar. I peeked through and there was a huge, somewhat overgrown garden on the other side. What the heck. I convinced my friend somehow to follow me through the gate though in her defense I still remember her protests twenty-two years later. We wandered uphill through the trees and overgrown paths and not one time did it occur to me that we shouldn’t be there.

Decisions. Yarn shouldn't be the hardest one.

Decisions. Yarn shouldn't be the hardest one.

With some encouragement from the smart people in my life, I have almost everything ready for my tapestry tour in France next week. That actually feels like a minor miracle. Not only are all the paperwork, insurance, credit card notifications, bills at home, and travel arrangements made, but my suitcase is also packed. This is going to be the new normal for me because it feels great not to be rushing around worrying about what I forgot at the very last minute.

But there is one last thing. Does anyone else have a problem deciding what fiber projects to bring on a trip that will be two weeks long? There is some weird little voice in my head that thinks it is the end of the world if I run out of fiber. Even though I know they have yarn in France!

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The Mighty Ugly

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The Mighty Ugly

. . . The same thing has to go for tapestry weaving. It might be that I weave something and then weave it again another way and then again and again… and the good thing about that is then I have something that art people call “a body of work.” How cool is that? I thought I was just correcting mistakes! I find myself looking at weavings my online students make and recommending they try that idea again. I mean this in the sense of, “That is a great idea! Run with it!” and I hope they take it that way.

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Making ugly things

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Making ugly things

I’ve made some ugly things lately. Not on purpose really, they just turned out that way. Mostly they’re tapestry diary pieces. Sometimes they’re other fiber projects. I find that if I make something that I just don’t like, I will still pin it up on my tapestry diary wall, but I won’t tell you, dear readers, about it. I started wondering this week why I leave certain things off the blog and I can pretty confidently say that it is because I’m disappointed with them. Or perhaps if I’m even more honest, it is because I want to preserve some superhero tapestry artist image which I’m sure I’ve blown my cover on long ago anyway. However, in a social media glitz, glamour, and gossip world, who wants to post something that turned out kind of ugly?

I can’t always pinpoint exactly why something doesn’t satisfy me. I do tend to be more of a process weaver than a product weaver, so it does take quite a bit of “ugly” to make me lose interest in a weaving. I really enjoy the process of making things, and much of the time I care a lot less about the finished product. (I hear there are people with the opposite affinities. Is this true?) So when something doesn’t quite feel right, I tend to take advantage of the fact that I own piles of looms (for teaching of course) and just start something new. As you can imagine, that can leave a studio full of UFOs.*

Eleven

Eleven

The blog began eleven years ago, April 20, 2008.

I started it on Blogger before I had any thoughts of ever teaching tapestry much less making weaving my whole career.

I moved the blog to my website years later and though it could use a good going over with an eye to fixing links and making a better tagging system, it is one long glorious song about the joy of making things.

Occasionally someone will write me and say they sat down and read the whole thing from the beginning. I like to think maybe they had the flu and had inexplicably run out of unread books and Harry Potter movies. But maybe it is just the sign of someone who starts a project and decides to see it through to the end. That seems like a trait a tapestry weaver would have. Plus there is a lot of good stuff in there though it is mixed with a lot of goofiness.