Tapestry Weavers South Retreat Anderson 2009

In late August, I went to a retreat with a group Tapestry Weavers South. It was two days prior to the opening of the Woven Visions exhibit where I have send Intersecting Sine Waves and Comet in the Night Sky. I wanted to take advantage of this retreat because it was close enough to allow me to commute from home. I'm going to take few blog entries to talk about the whole experience - like breaking out the exhibit itself, and the location of the exhibit. But for this entry I'll just talk about the retreat!

As I said before we had two days prior to the opening of the exhibit. One member who coordinated the exhibit invited everyone over to her house for dinner Wednesday night. It was a simple and great meal. I enjoyed meetin everyone and getting to listen in at the meeting for what the buzz is in the tapestry world. I was welcomed warmly and I looked forward to the next two days.

Thursday we were supposed to start first thing with a lesson in wedge weaving, but I think we were all to excited to go in and see the exhibit. It was just being finished as we started gathering. Here are my two in their "natural habitat".

I particularly liked the venue. We were at the Anderson Art Center which is a renovated CSX warehouse - complete with interior brick walls and large windows. I'll blog on it later!

We finally did allow ourselves to be coralled into a conference room for our class. Many complemented Connie because she not only demonstrated, but had us actually weave with acrylic yards aon matboard looms as she would do with her elementary school kids. It will be interesting to see if more wedge weave shows up in other's pieces!

Lunch that days was sponsored by Yes Yarn and was a "lunch and learn" session that was open to the public. We had many weavers to visit, but the group that really captured our hearts were the 6th graders from the Montessori school. During the more official part of the lunch, the president of the TWS talked about the basics of tapestry weaving and asked the kids in particular to try and figure out which direction each piece was woven as they wandered about the exhibit.

We later overheard three of the boys who went even further and began a game of interpreting the pieces. It was impressive and eye opening to hear what they thought.

We then did go shopping at Yes Yarn. We were greeted quickly by the resident rabbit. I'm sory but I can't remember his name. As you can imagine, his fur is periodically spun!

I restrained myself to only a couple of skeins of silk that will go with some other silk that I was gifted. I did though learn that there is a local apalca farm that spins them in their natural colors. I will be looking into that. We wandered back to the hotel and gathered around laptops to hear about people's experiences in Africa and teaching classes.

Dinner that night was at Olive Garden!

The next morning the juror - a prof from U of Georgia - came and gave us a critique on all of the pieces. I thoroughly enjoyed this because I learned so much. There were a few things that she said I had heard before, but the main takeaway was to design such that the viewer will continue to look through different areas of the piece. Then the afternoon was with the professional photographer who came to record the show. Prior he talked to us about how to use our camera to make better journalling of our pieces.

It wasn't long before the opening began. It was great to see friends there that had driven an hour to see me and the work. Another surprise was running into my advisor from college. It was a great time and I look forward to doing this again! Now how can I get more vacation...

Woven Visions - Tapestry Weaver's South

My morning has begun with finding the above on Laura K Aiken's blog. This is inivitation cover for the Tapestry Weavers South exhibition at the Anderson Arts Center that begins later this month. I plan to exhibit Intersecting Sine Waves and Comet in the Night Sky there. I am thrilled to see that Intersecting Sine Waves made the invitation cover! Such a great way to start the day! Thanks for posting that Laura!

For those in the area:

Anderson Arts Center
Opening Reception:Friday, August 28, 2009 • 7:00pm
Lunch & Learn Thursday, August 27, 2009 • 12:00 noon • $7
Join the Tapestry Weaver Exhibitors in a discussion about their artwork, their process and their passion.
Lunch is included in the $7. Call 222.2787 to register!

A Special Thanks to Tapestry Weavers South Sponsors:
John C. Campbell Folk School
American Tapestry Alliance
Tapestry Weavers South Exhibitors: Liliana Crespi • Marti Fleischer

Final Touches

I am known best for my ability to start things. Blank sheets of paper are a thrill to me. I love the potential in them. Today though, I want to tell of a couple things I am finishing so we can celebrate the weaker side of me!

Dakota's picture and mat are finally in their frame. I think I may make an official page just for it - as I did for other pieces.

From there I am still preparing for the Tapestry Weavers South Exhibit in Anderson starting in August. Intersecting Sine Waves will be part of it and somehow the piece needs to hang. I have been researching on the ATA site with an article on mounting tapestries and decided that I liked the idea of hanging with Velcro and shopping confirmed this is preferred route for me and this piece. The issue though is that ISW has been through wet finishing and does lay flat, but does not hang as flat as I would like. Since it is long and thin, I found the bottom tends to twist. We can't have that, can we?

So my dear husband James has allowed me access to his tools (and his guidance in using them) and we have built an "I" that will have Velcro at both ends to secure both ends of the tapestry down and to allow it to hang up flat. The wood is poplar from Lowe's and we made 1/2 lap joints on the ends to keep the frame from tilting on the wall when it is hung. The joints were glued and then stapled. The whole piece has been sealed with clear polyacrylic. Next weekend I'll work with the Velcro. Not quite finished but getting very close.

Now the beauty of finishing is that there is space now to start something new! I thinking looking towards Christmas and that really will require a starting with blank sheet of paper. Yeah!

Intersecting Sine Waves

Intersecting Sine Waves, 9” x 35”, 2009
Wedgeweave, Wool and Cotton

Two sine waves in white and ash move in opposite directions down the weaving. Each wedge of the weaving alternatively belongs to one sine wave or the other. Therefore, the wedges cause the sine waves pass through or intersect one another without always touching. The waves are bounded by the “sine wave” edges of the whole work and lie on a wave of background color.

This artwork has caused the artist to question how much her life intersects with other lives without touching them or being touched by them, but never the less being influenced to continue in her path. Also how much her life is supported at the edges and in the background in ways that may seem for the moment far from where she is. It is a comfort to know that life will cycle back and around.

Birth of a Tapestry

I came to the last intended wedge and thought I don't have enough purple yarn. I looked back at a color blending sampler I had made and considered tearing it apart. I did take one square of purple of out it and began to weave that last wedge. I only made it a 1/3 of the way across. "There's not enough," I thought. So I decided to look for the "happy mistake" and see how I could creatively get out of this. I ended up blending the purple with red. It would technically be the next block in the color pattern if I had chosen 4 colors.

I put it in and thought of Sue from Life Looms Large where she painted her sun room and was "deeply uncertain". She waited a week to see how she felt. An article in the latest Tapestry Weavers South newsletter talked of a group's visit to Sylvia Heyden's recently where Sylvia said if there is something not right in the tapestry it is likely that the color value is not correct. She also only uses 3 hues in a piece. I gave it 4 days and was still not settled, so I took the purple/red out and tore apart that color sampler harvesting all the purple I could get. It worked and I have exactly 2 feet of purple left. With no more purple, it seemed time for me to finish it off.

My first tapestry teacher always makes a special deal over taking a tapestry from the loom. I believe she even called it a birth. So here we have the birth of the wedge weave...

I'm still fascinated with the light shining behind it....

I also enjoy how the warp snakes back and forth to make the undulating edges.

So now we'll let it rest and I'll likely work on the back since I still have all the ends to work with. Then of course is how do I want to display it. Hmmm, the possibilities!

Coming to Light

I approach this blog wondering where to start! I really should just blog more with smaller entries, but I found it easier to just try once a week. I think a higher speed internet connection is in my future....

The chimney is down to the ceiling. We no longer have a hole in the roof and the stack of bricks has grown immensely. I had thought about a patio with them, but I think there is still more than I need. Hmmmm....

I did get marigolds planted in the vegetable garden to help ward off bugs. I like the splash of color. Now I'm just hoping the squirrels and birds will share some of the tomatoes and cukes with me.

Future Cucumber!

Future Tomatoes!

The wedge weave still moves forward and we are coming into the home stretch. I spent a little time with it in the backyard this weekend. It's one of the beauties of a small pipe loom for tapestry weaving! I discovered something this week with the wedge weave. The loom is warped continuously, so I'd added some black foam between the front and back to block my vision of the warp in the back. Seeing everything became a mass of white and I couldn't tell which warp I was grabbing when. Anyway, the weaving is long enough now, that I don't necessarily need the foam and I was tired of it falling out - so I removed it. Then, I made the discovery. Light shines through the white spaces making them glow like a lamp shade. I have not figured out what to do about it yet, but there's something there. It was hard to photograph but maybe you can see the difference between the top half that's backlit and the bottom that's blocked by foam? Especially, the one white wedge in the middle that's partially blocked?I had washed a quilt and threw it on the line the same day. And loved some of the photographs from the backside with the light coming through. How often can one complement some thing's backside???The reason I washed the quilt is we had taken it would to Lake Robinson for lunch. We were greeted by a number of Canada Geese who obviously are not shy of humans! There were two sets of goslings though that were just precious to watch.

Up on the Housetop, Click, Click, Click

It has rained most of the weekend here, but according to the radar we have about 5 hours of sunshine this afternoon. James had started a project on Friday of taking out our chimney. It's all part of the kitchen renovation. The house was built in 1945 with a chimney for the furnace and one for a coal burning fireplace. In the 1960s, an addition enclosed the coal burning fireplace chimney within the house. We placed a set of gas logs in there and every time we used them more heat escape than was put in the house. So it's going for more room and a set of ventless logs. Here's the before pictures - in the house, in the attic and the protected hearth!

He was able to get it to a stopping point on Friday, but waited and waited for the rain to subside. So with the great forecast, he's up there making all sorts of noise! I'm countering him by continuing tuning the piano!

While I was out checking on him, I notice our amaryllis are in bloom. That is actually a rare thing. My in-laws are in Charleston and their bloom regularly. We took some and most have not lived since it's that much cooler here away from the coast. In any case, it was a welcome surprise!

The blue yarn came in for the wedge weave and that is continuing nicely. I completed the green and blue green blocks and likely will complete the blue block today.

Lastly, I could use some help. Tapestry Weavers South is having an exhibition on August and I've been working towards entering it. The wedge weave in fact is heading that way. A second piece I framed this weekend. It's really a sampler that I created last year to try some transparency work for a larger piece. It's a geometric, as you see, with a number of different lines. I liked it enough I've combined it with a metal mat and continued the lines on the metal. The whole then is in a simple black frame. It was quite difficult to photograph since everything reflected in the mat - including me and the camera! I want to name it and I'm at a loss. Got any suggestions?

Time to go check on the clicking from the roof and make sure he's not coming down the chimney like old Saint Nick!

The Blues

First off, a family of blue birds has decided to come live in our yard. We had built a 16 apartment birdhouse for purple martins on the porch of the garage many years ago. Starlings have been the only ones checking it out and not even every year. The blue bird has decided the bottom right apartment is theirs. He's been checking out the domain and generally bullying everything that moves.

Blue-green has made the scene on the wedge weave. Progress is going, but just not as fast as earlier this year. That's okay - there's plenty of time, but I'm more concerned about running out of the blue yarn. It's going to happen, but I think it'll make it through the blue-green blended section. I was planning to change the colors back on the other side of a plain green block. So soon I shall make a trip to Asheville!

Lastly, I am blue over the fact that I really do have a string thing! I thought I had control, but when I heard $0.50/lb for silk - I had to go! It turns out there is a yarn distributor about 1/2 hour from me and he normally works in truckloads for all sorts of industries. A friend's aunt found him and he had told her to come by. The friend invited me along and I was eager to see what could be. It turns out the distributor has a number of samples and basically wants to give them away. When he was pulling out a few cones, he kept saying "There's not enough on here to really do anything." All I thought was, "That spool is lifetime supply for me!"

I have 5 cones of silk that likely was for upholstery. They are in red, gold and white. They scream Christmas to me. Then, there is the space dyed silk that is blue, lavender, mauve and khaki. My friend was getting samples for his aunt. I told him I would glad share this one with her. I'll never use all of it. Lastly, there is the spool of white fine silk . He had a few more of it, but I don't know that I'll use more than one. When I asked what to pay him, he just said for me to take it. Here they all are, my latest yarn acquisition with no projects planned! Oh I'm in so much trouble!!!