And I just keep on falling more and more in love.
Yesterday we finished dressing our looms for the double cloth sample, the introduction to our next and final project. I spent a total of about eight hours on this sample including the time I worked on it outside of class. It’s a rough version, I haven’t finished everything off yet (though I did surge it) and you can definitely see abnormalities in the warp; I had a few warp threads break, but my instructor told me to just keep going, and I decided to embrace the imperfections and now I think it’s really quite beautiful. I see it as something like a prayer cloth, with it’s many holes and pockets being comforting places for wishes and dreams.
Each colored section is woven differently. From the bottom up:
The first half of the turquoise is woven with both sides closed but is fully open between the edges. The second half of that section is open on both sides and the pocket extends below it. The green section is also open on both edges but is not connected to the tube below it. For the next two sections, the first is open on the right edge and sealed on the left, and the second operates vice versa. Next up is a hole woven in the center with sealed edges, and above that the cloth is joined in the center and open on both edges.
While that was all very exciting, and also magical, what was really fun was the pickup. Stuffed pockets, geometric shapes, and abstract imagery; now this sounds like my kind of weaving. I also had a lot of fun with this project because I had never woven something so tight and so fine before; I used bamboo in the Ikat project, which was very fine, but because I used a Sweedish Lace draft the cloth was a lot more fluid and draped more, where as this cloth is very solid and much heavier. I think I’m going to use a similiar yarn for my final project, because I plan on getting very pictoral, getting really frustrated, and pulling my hair out.
I do my best brainstorming in my sleep, or near sleep, so this morning when I was either coming out of slumber or tenatively wandering into it I started to think about how I should approach this next project. I have a lot of things to think about for this project after our frist crit in terms of how to approach weaving so it’s seen as an art object, and not as yardage hanging on a wall. How do you transform that experience for the viewer so that they are able to see the cloth as something more than just a piece of cloth? (“I don’t want someone to think I just tacked a scarf up on the wall.”) Of course, a lot of this has to do with display- how does that change a viewer’s expectations. What is the balance between craftsmanship and the intricacy of illusion? I could go on and on, but I’ll only exhaust myself.
That being said, I began to think not in terms of a weaver, but of what inspires me as an artist. I immediately jumped to storytelling, which seems to be my theme for my life, and I started thinking about Sandra Brownlee (an incredible weaver who does pickup with sewing thread- I couldn’t find a solid website for her, but you should look her up) and historical cloths; tapestries, tribal costumes, and back to Ikat. All of these things have such history to them, whether it be of a consciousness or a culture. And all of them tell a story.
These are sketches I did regarding a personal folktale I told late one night and decided to write down and illustrate. It’s called “Lana and the Spool of Thread” and it is about a little girl who can never get enough sleep, but finds comfort in the magic of a hammock woven from her hand. What better subject for pickup and my passion for storytelling is there in this world!? I plan on doing more illustrations by hand and using them as loose reference for my weaving. I know there will be little panels running up the length of the cloth, but I can’t decide in what direction I want it to be read. In any of case, I have plenty of time. Time to order more yarn!
Speaking of, some yarn arrived yesterday morning, so I just thought I’d share the additions to my small but happy stash:
I am so glad that Cally gave the link to your blog. It is wonderful!
The top part of the top pics looks Egyptian to me. And being a newbie drawing student, I admire your wash technique in the banner. Very much.
You pose some interesting questions regarding artistic expression as a weaver. This is something that I meditate on as well, though I never seem to accomplish it in a truly satisfying way. But then, it’s one of the things that keeps me weaving.
I took a class in double weave a number of years ago. Your sample piques my interest again!
[…] be taking this piece, as well as the doublecloth sample and my ikat piece to a high school tomorrow to do group critique and a college Q & A with high […]