Period/Full Stop

Then this morning, we dismantled our exhibition, which in my case took all of 23 minutes. With Ben's help, of course. And now the various piece reside in variously not-exactly-convenient places in my house.

 

I realize now that the one I got really very wrong are the postcards. They look much too dark and unattractive; I wouldn't buy them. I should leave at least a couple of days to work out the colors and values of the printed cards and not feel bad about taking up a lot of the designer's time because, ummm, the values and saturations in my cards are looking sad.

EDIT: I'm doing a little ac/counting. I prepared 96 postcards and sold only 8 at $3 each; I also prepared 68 buttons and sold 24 at $2 each. They are insignificant, but still it's worth making tiny affordable things to take away if I can't be bothered making middle-of-the-road affordable things also. Thanks you, Marlborough Weavers, for the most part! 

Debriefing - Part 4 of 3 (and I Think the Last)

We had a lukewarm meeting yesterday. Some were unwell, some were tired, and someone was very late, (though she did text the hostess, honest!) It was not quite the debriefing I had hoped for, but then I knew it was too soon for that. We mostly talked about where we want to go in our making individually.

I learned, or Pat told me, I work differently, at least from the other members of Strands. I have to see things in my mind, be it a specific piece, how it's installed in an exhibition in a specific part of a specific gallery, or the exhibition as a whole. I looked forward to discuss our exhibition as a whole at earlier meetings, but that wasn't to be, which still feels like a lost opportunity for me, because among the five of us, we've been to a fair few exhibitions in a fair few countries.

Things I make are site-specific, if you can call it that. It's always been so. Someone who's helped me a lot at one point was a woman whose back I saw at the Nelson School of Music, late-middle-aged, petite. In my mind, she rushed down a cobbled street as best she could in her heels, in an autumnal early evening to meet her husband, who is patient and kind but always annoyingly punctual, at the Opera House. She wore black some days, very dark brown other days; her husband preferred grays and blacks. Because it had been the kind of day where Summer had clearly refused to leave completely, she foolishly left home without a coat. Goodness me, I'd have to make her a large shawl, won't I? This is why my non-commission pieces tended to be very short at first, not just because I am short.

A whole cast of characters lived in my head, taking turn in telling me what they needed. There's no doubt I enjoy this process, and over days and weeks I fine-tune the item in question while ignoring them speaking, singing or humming. But I've always done this so I never gave it much thought. More recently, I don't always have a human protagonist, but the cloth flies on its own accord, in a specific context.

Pat told me others probably didn't work like this, and that's why others found it difficult to talk about what I wanted to talk about sometimes. 

About a year ago I declared to Ronette, Pat and Nola that after nine years of trying, I gave up designing according to prescription. While working on Pillars, Curvy and the Friends(hip) piece, I played around some, using tricks I've picked up in various design courses, but on the whole I ended up working the way I normally do. I'm always open to other/new ways, and if I come across a better way I'm more than happy to amend/switch. What I'm saying is, I finally don't feel the need to catch up with people who went to art/weaving school. After all, I say I'm self-taught in my blurbs. 

So working with the group for 18 months ended up a kind of a home-coming, a full circle, getting a little sharper picture of myself as a maker. I feel a kind of a quiet contentment, almost a confidence, at having tried other things, having observed other people work in their own ways, and relearning/reconfirming what works for me. Yeah, I don't fell like I need to catch up with anything or anyone, but need to keep making the way I've done. And I love working by myself.

Interesting that Maria, too, found her returning to where she was once, but more focused.

If I think of something else I learned, I'll tell you about it, but I think that's beyond debriefing. 

Reviewed

The local newspaper has done a review of our exhibition. I must say, I never ever thought of Shoji screen partitions in Japanese homes when I was making the pillars. It's always interesting what others see.

Debriefing - Part 3 of 3 and the Last on "Beginnings" (I Think)

This will probably the last post regarding "Beginnings" unless something dramatic, funny, or dramatically funny happens.  I've not thought about it for a while, but I prepared these debriefing drafts a while back and the sentiments are still true, so decided to post them.

I feel a little bit confident in being able to bring to life pictures in my head, albeit it in a much-revised (reduced?) version, and within the limits of knowledge/skill/equipments. I've done this with shawls, but I have now done one that's bigger and unutilitarian. (Though I still insist Pillars fabric make really nice jacket/three-quarter length coat; just mind the floats.) I don't know if it's the same thing, but I feel more at east with where I am and what I make.

For years I hoped to one day buy a purpose-build computer-controlled loom with preferably more than the current 16 shafts, and to that end I tried to save my pennies, though they have a nasty habit of dissipating when I "needed" books and workshops. In the last year or so I've started to think I shall never be blessed with that kind of funds and am slowly coming to terms with it. One of my goals was to have such a loom by the time I was 55, (6 months to go now,)  so I am fully familiar with the loom by the time I'm, say, 60. I've noticed in recent years I forget things faster than I ever have and it takes me so many repetition to learn something new.

I'm not sure if I've given up, grew up, or something else. Part of the decline in equipment lust has been due to living with a project for longer, and I hope, delving deeper. I also enjoy revisiting an old idea. This new mode gives me great satisfaction I did not experience when I was hopping from one idea to the next. I even stopped wanting every new weaving book that comes out, which is a big change. And I've become addicted to the quieter, more subtle, inner satisfaction in my making.

(Still, if you have a computer-controlled 24 or 36 (or a home Jacquard!!!) sitting around unloved, talk to me before you turn it into fire wood.)

In the event I do accumulate some nickels and dimes, I think I prefer to travel now. And experience other places, architecture, and cuisine. And speaking of food, I most definitely have to exercise; six months lock-down was good for the soul but most definitely not for the body. I feel fat in my fat clothes now!  

Debriefing - Part 2 of...

Last night, members of Strands and some husbands/partners met for a lovely Indian dinner in town, and we decided to meet on Wednesday for debriefing. So I'm thinking about what I got out of the Strands/Beginnings experience.

As usual, my weakness is technique. If I can weave better technically, I could spend more time and brainjuice on ideas, concepts and desgin and such. But, oh, it was lovely to weave not colorful things but muted and nuanced Pillars. That is my old 0,0.

As regards design, I came across this definition while drafting an earlier post; "linearity, 5. Compare painterly designating a style in the arts, esp painting, that obtains its effects through line rather than colour or light and in which the edges of forms and planes are sharply defined."

This made a light bulb go on. Six years ago, Randy repeatedly said to make the color changes painterly; he also used many music terms, which I didn't know, and the impression I got from Randy's repeated instructions was, "not how you usually do it." The above definition, and six more years of weaving, make better sense to me in a passive way; I understand the words, and I may be able to look at artworks and point out what's happening, but I'm still not sure how to use this as an active knowledge.

And speaking of using knowledge actively, I'm going to bother Alison to see whether she can shed light on where/why I get stuck at the same place every time while following her process, once her joint exhibition with Dianne settles. I believe understanding it will give me alternatives in designing, even if it may not be my preferred method. But who knows; I'm always changing my mind about things.

The Strands member to go through the most marked change was Pat in my view. Her tapestry style used to be clear and crisp, represented here at the far left, but sometimes even more stark. Her new "River Walk", far right, is a great departure for Pat, in the finished piece and in the design process. I love the nuanced lines and the contrasts of big and small color areas; it is as though her spirit was freed and I still hear her sigh of relief. Click on the picture to see the tiny shapes on the sides of the river; that, to me, represents what's new about Pat's making. It's wonderful she can do both styles, and no doubt in-between ones now, but having said that, my preference is still for her cleaner pieces. And I know I don't have to apologize for my taste. I'll need to ask her to let me photograph some and show you some time.

Me, I liked having monthly show-and-tell sessions because it made me work incrementally, and regularly, not just when it felt right, and I didn't have to aspire to make all my samples pretty, as discussing ugly samples helped me get a better inclination of why I liked what I liked. I observed a broadening of my taste, and, cough cough, a little less cynicism.

I didn't observe any change in the way I worked, I still prefer to make what I see in my head and bring it into my world. It's time-consuming, requires many revisions, but in the end pretty straight forward. Sometimes I enjoyed the powwow about ways of exploring ideas, sometime not. My allegiance is still to loom- and cloth-weaving, and makers engaged in more "free-hand" techniques just don't comprehend the restrictions, and the subsequent joy, of our grids. Often Pat and I would have to reflect on how another member's suggestion would translate to my kind of weaving.

The people/group-dynamics was, ahem, difficult. I wasted a lot of time regurgitating conversations and chewing on Rescue Remedy pastilles. It was roller coaster ride, some meetings leaving me on an unimaginable high, some wanting me to leave the room and curl into a fetal position. I am a person who requires a lot of time and effort quietening voices in my head at best of times, and my honest feeling is, A) I don't need the interruptions, B) I'll gladly forego the highs for stability, and D) oh, but I might miss out on some spectacular joy.

So, I guess that's where I'm at for now.

EDIT: I'm not saying Strands members are particularly difficult people; I have too little experience working in an intimate group, but they are all good people, and I'm probably the most opinionated.

30 Months of Work - My Bits in "Beginnings"

Catalogue: "I weave cloth on looms." 

Collaborative Book: Meg Nakagawa

I grew up watching my mother knit, sew, and embroider while listening to her chant how she yearned to weave. That weaving is the ultimate textile work thus became my creed. Mom started weaving when she was 60.

I had my heart set on becoming a writer since I was six. After coming to New Zealand and studying editing, I discovered my two contrasting preferences: to write flowery descriptions and saturate the pages with ambiance in the first draft, and to cull to the bare minimum in the second. Unable to reconcile the two, I took up weaving for non-verbal relief.

 In weaving, the vertical warp threads are either up or down; they trap and hold the horizontal weft threads. This simplicity suits me. “Weaving” comprises of a series of steps, only one of which is the weaving on the loom. Small decisions made in each step present potential points of no return, after which editing becomes onerous or impossible. I find this linear progression serene. And now I write for fun.

Curvy
Growing old and becoming an invisible middle-aged woman is not fun, even if one’s shape never changed much after Age 3, skipping the svelte teens. Late last century I caught my middle-aged shape in a Bridge Street shop window. Since then I see it everywhere. The line in this piece was originally my chin in a self-portrait.
Cotton 

West End (of The Silk Road)

As a child growing up in Japan, I knew the Silk Road started at our end, winding through China and India, reaching somewhere beyond the Big Buddhas. I imagined colorful cargo undulating on camelbacks.

Early this year I learned there are indeed tributary routes crisscrossing my old stomping grounds; silk products from the region were collected in Hachiohji City, transported on carts pulled by animals or carried on the backs of men, to the port of Yokohama and shipped beyond. I imagine growers and weavers in years past may not have known where their silks went.

This is a mirage of the old capitals in the West imagined from my end of The Road.
Wool, pine

Buttons covered in handwoven cloth (and this is the best Ben or I could do with the colors.)


Postcards: my postcards are not in the Strands Shop, but at the front of the gallery for now. We are meant to give the pinter 24 hours for orders, but depending on how you look at it, I gave them 4-7 hours, so I wasn't sure my cards can be done. The printer got them done, but by then I was too tired to negotiate a plinth, so I'll go do it next week.

"Beginnings" - A Textile Exhibition

Approaching the gallery. You see the collaborative book to the left. Facing us is Jo's page, with her first eco-dyed piece, and it's not for sale. Mine's to the right of hers.

Pat's tapestries beyond the book. The far right piece is a big departure from her normally tighter look.

Exhibition blurb and sign fashioned after our poster.

We decided two exhibitors will be present on Saturdays to speak to visitors. Today was cold and rather empty, I was gold. But it's a good time to read each other's statements and have a closer look at the work.

Ronnie's banner and Jo's scarves to the right, Maria's dress in the middle (sideways, unfortunately,) and Ronnie's Spain piece. 

To the right are Pat's black & white work in the manner of Ohshima Tsumugi, with recycled pine paper. 

Looking towards the biggest space. On the lower plinths are two of Ronnie's works based on maps.

Turning slowly clockwise, we see Maria's other garment using peat moss from Finland. 

Further clockwise we see Jo's areas with the strongest political overtones. (She's a dedicated environmentalist.)

Looking back.

Back in the front room we have the Strands Store.

Until last Sunday night when we finished hanging, I was ever so disappointed about not being able to complete my Friends(hip) piece. But looking at our exhibition as a whole, because it is full of muted natural colors, I didn't regret not having the oh-so-saturated red piece any more. It was meant for another exhibition, as Dot suggested Sunday morning.

Aftermath

Well, they're up, the brouhaha has finished, and I don't have to go into town today. Imagine, my first quiet day in five days! Now if I could only stop the ringing in the ears...

I shall do a proper exhibition coverage here at Unravelling, but for that I need some more/better pics. Even though Ben and I've accumulated a couple hundred so far, they just don't seem to be... you know... the right ones.

But the opening happened last night. I so didn't want to go, and I dithered in different areas of the buildings hiding and bothering Vicky who "manned" the reception area as people started to come in. But I spotted a friend, and then I felt more at east. It was nice to see people; weavers, textile folks, our lovely, lovely photography friend Diane, former workmates, and my drawing class classmates. Some memorable moments: Deb Donnelly organized Yoshiko Wada workshop two years ago, but she was the minder and I was the, well, the trouble student so I didn't have the chance to get to know her then. She popped over from the North Island, and there may be a chance to see her in April if I decide to go to a workshop on the North Island. Errol Shaw and I talked a little bit about scale of work, but darn it, he speaks so softly and, again, I'd liked it better if we could sit and talk in a quite place. I might track him down and ask him more in a while. In the pic is Sharon, who is not only a textile artist but a very close friend of Jo's. After most of the crowd had left, we were lamenting the slow and excruciating death of New Zealand wool/textile industry and how hard it is for us to source wool yarns with scale left on.     

The highlight would have to be this: my Self-Portrait piece was hard to find, and many of my friends had to ask me so I'd take them to it. Well, three of my classmates from Ronette's drawing class and I walked over, they read the blurb, and we burst into laughter. We are roughly in the same age range, (born within 20 years of each other probably), and I told them exactly when and where I became aware of my own body shape, and we've all been staring at beautiful naked ladies once a week for over three years and go home and, well, to some degree look into the mirror in awe that the image looks nothing like what we had in our heads. And I'm really looking forward to going back to class in a few weeks and being among them.

I'm still not switched on. I'm babbling on the keyboard. I had hoped to plunge right into cotton scarf on the Warp of Shame, but this is the fourth morning in a row my arms can't stop shaking. I hope it's psychological. I think I'll eat chocolate ice cream for breakfast and go to bed with a book. (Gale winds outside, just so you don't think I'm slacking off.)  

Thank you everybody for your support, encouragement, compliments, and what I appreciate the most, laughing alongside me when that was the only thing left to do. I hope your laughter has been as animated and loud as mine.

Postcards

I love stationary, so I do look forward to seeing my postcards.

And you can tell what kind of photos I like, can't you? Ben and I just couldn't get a good picture of the Self-Portrait in the assembled stage, so I will try again tomorrow but I might forget about that one.

Monday

I'd imagine all five of us are tired to the point of liquefying.  My last job before the opening has been to choose and edit photos so I can email four or five images today for the printers to crank out postcards tomorrow, then for me to pick them up and put price stickers on them in time for us to set up the opening at 4PM. Others have remained upbeat, but I'm exhausted; part of my problem has been that the group has met three days in a row with at least one more to go. While they are nice people, you know I spend most of my life not speaking to a living souls besides Ben and now I can't stop female voices echoing in my head. While I'm interested in meaningful conversations, (thank you, Maria,) being asked how I feel annoys me. Especially when this is asked as a space-filler. I mean, what is one supposed to feel after working on a project for 30 months and see the stuff hung for the first time? Relieved, I suppose? I won't lie; I can't wait to get out of the gallery and have quiet days in my basement.

Goodness, I'm grumpy.

My sparky, Josh Roberts, ended up coming to the gallery three times today. His conclusion was a) he really liked the job Duncan did lighting; b) with the pillars not touching the floor, he felt the light fixtures would be too prominent, especially if backlit; c) backlighting would make the texture (and therefore a bit of the pattern) disappear which would be a loss; and d) lights he had in mind are bluer, while the rest of the gallery is lit in soft yellow lights, which would result in disharmony. From our conversations in the last few months, I wondered if Josh is an artist as well; he said that's not the case, but he's lit many art exhibitions (and commercial premises); it's been a great pleasure to have him advise me from his perspective over the months. Thanks, Josh. 

Anyhoo, though not suitable for the postcard pool, I particularly liked this image. Don't ask me why but I keep thinking of Afghanistan.

Nice to See You All

This is the first time I saw them, individually and collectively, vertically and in full lengths. I felt as though I had been pregnant for 30 months with quads and finally delivered. And then the detachment settled in. I usually enjoy the editing and fine-tuning but yesterday I was tired and indecisive. Ben got a five-hour good workout. 

This is Ben's attempt: he was either sitting on or lying on the floor they look longer than they are.

Very early on, I built a scale model of a corner of the gallery with pillars of various lengths and widths and people 150cm (me) and 180cm (Duncan) tall, to get a better sense of scale and design. Yesterday Duncan said in the first instance his eyes went to right about where the design changes, so though I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing, it sure went to plan. 

I meet my electrician, who's already been to the gallery to see them, to discuss his lighting proposal. Then we get interviewed by two local newspaper folks. I also need more photos so I can have postcards made.

Until late yesterday I still felt terrible about not having the friends(hip) piece in this exhibition. But after most everything was hung, I realized the big gallery hasn't got saturated hues and now I see perhaps that piece was meant to go to another exhibition. That very red piece would have stuck out like a very sore thumb. 

This morning I'm so tired I feel like my soft tissues will slip off of my bones if I don't stay still. But onwards and upwards... 

Sunday

It started this way...

And ended this way.

Back: Pat, Duncan, Maria, David, Ronnie and Ben
Front: Meg, Jo

I'll post more picks very soon.

Cherry Blizzard and an Apology

Whatever petals that remained after the rain on Wednesday is blowing away today. Moments before this, there was a strong gust from the lower side of the hill, (right) which caused a pale pink cloud to dance up in the air. Strong wind during the cherry blossom season is called Sakura Fubuki, or Cherry Blizzard, in Japan and we share a regional, collective sigh with the joy of the season, (depending on the year it's the mid-March graduation season or early April start of the new school/work year,) and the disappearance of something so fleeting and lovely. Which is probably appropriate for my mood of the day.

It pains me to have to post this, but I apologize I am most probably unable to make a Friends(hip) piece to include in the upcoming exhibition.

Because of the variety of width of your gifts, I decided to weave the piece on the 16-shaft Louet Klik, so I can modify the number of pattern picks to suit the inlay weft. The idea was to do some fancy threading on 16 and use a simple lifting more or less in twill. This loom is 16 inches wide, so I thought I could weave a 14.5 - 15 inches; my first mistake; it's too wide and I don't have a good handle on the beating. (And not a good time to recollect I've only ever woven up to 8 inches on this loom.) The second mistake was to use all 16 shafts: the shed for shafts beyond, say, 10 is but a sliver and with the slightly sticky wool warp, I have to pry open every pattern shed with my hands or a stick, which is not only time-consuming, but rough on the warp. 

With that in mind, I simplified the draft, narrowed the width to 12 inches, rethreaded, and tripled the weft for faster weaving, and sampled. The design is now so dumbed down, it looks like a school project, and elementary school at that! It doesn't have the gift inlay wefts sticking out like relief against a flat red background, and the "chin" shapes look like badly balanced undulating twill with jagged bits. After seven samples, I can't make it look like something I wove, like something I'd like to put my name on.

I have half a day tomorrow, half a day Monday and 3/4 of the day Tuesday to do something about this if a light bulb lights up, but I've felt totally defeated the last 24 hours I'm not sure if this is going to happen. I've considered a cotton warp, using the Warp of Shame still sitting on the big loom, took out my RH and Mom's frame loom, but haven't come up with anything. Yet.

So, I apologize. They are not coming off the cork board because I know I can do this, and it's got me very interested in designing with multi-layered weave, but it's just not happening right now. And I'm disappointed because though in a different shape this was something I wanted to do when "Beginnings" was still "WYSIWYG".

Now, I'm going to hem and finish the pillars. And try not to feel so bad.

Debriefing - Merely Part 1 of... - Or, "To Sirs, With Love"

Although I'm in the middle of threading the last piece for the exhibition, (which will be installed, golly, in a week!!) since I wove the last plain weave shot in my fourth pillar, I've been debriefing with myself about the exhibition and the last two years of my making. That's pretty much the length of time I spent obsessing about large blurry thingamajigs hanging in a tall space. I'm glad it's over; I've no residual sentiment. In fact, it's worrying how far back in my past I've put them; they're piled up on the floor unfinished and perplexed looking, and I step on them from time to time while doing other things. I suppose I should finish them, make the casings, cut and drill holes in the dowels, sand, thread fishing lines, spray-paint the metal bits, etc., etc., etc. If I weren't such a control freak, I would hire someone for these.

I feel a shift in my focus. This morning on Facebook Pracownia na kaszubach (though that's not her name) linked to a whole lot of photos by this weaver, and again, I was filled with nostalgia that at one time I would have gone googoo gaga over her work. I think her work is wonderful, and I may even be tempted to buy one if I had the chance to feel them, but I want to weave something different. I was taken aback to find myself wanting movements. I felt smothered in the rigidity of repeats.

Yeah, it's that pesky word, "dynamic" all over. I know Randy (by which I mean Randy and Brian, and not the Randall Darwall brand,) injected me with the idea six years ago. It felt like an annoying prick on my head at the time, but the injection filled every fluid part of me, every gap between the cells inside my skin. Back then it felt as if he was drowning out my aesthetic. I'm told it takes seven years for all cells in a human body to be replaced by new ones, so the injection must has been taking effect, seeping into my every new cell, and my conversion is 6/7 complete.

(I still have the 1/7. Just last night I was reading the graphic design book, and this section had good and bad examples of page layouts. Alongside it reads: 

"Centered elements create passive white space, while asymmetrically-positioned elements create activated, dynamic white space... Passive white space is static. It looks motionless and 'left over.' It isn't used to guide or draw the reader into the design. Passive white space is hte chief offender in making documents ugly, if indeed, they are noticed at all."

Centered or left-justified, hands down my preferences were the most conservative, evenly-spaced passive pages. The eyes feel restful and comforted and I can concentrate on reading, rather than the eyes jumping all over and not taking in any one information.) 

It's also taken me six years to "study" Randy's work instead of being bulldozed by R&B's awesomeness and my adoration and admiration for the two. (Still feeling slightly miffed they didn't decide to adopt me and take me away at the end of the workshop.) It's only this month I felt comfortable enough to handle his scarf I bought to have a closer look. (Still feeling somewhat begrudged Megg, Ali and Jill for skipping the kowtowing and going straight into accurate analysis of elements in the piece. "Gosh, you guys don't know R&B like I do!!!!!" OK, not so much Jill, she knows them way better than I. And lest you wonder, I've only ever taken a five-day workshop with them, so I don't know them know them. Nothing scarier than a cyber stalker.) But where is the ceremony if one simply picks up a Randall Darwall and ... and... looks at it analytically?  How dare they???)

(Regaining composure, wiping tears from laughing at myself, and a little bit from the acute lack of awe by some.) Anyway, looking at the one which resides in my house and many others on the Internet I have the niggling sensation that I have begun to sense what Randy meant by "painterly" and various musical phrases. Yeah, I'm slow. But I don't mind that my 0,0 is a smidgen closer to what Randy taught us. And I think I am fulfilling what Randy suggested; I'm doing my own apprenticeship.

Where to after the exhibition? I wan to revisit exploring the visual elements of Log Cabin, Shadow and Corkscrew Weaves. I want to explore the tie-down part of the tied weaves. I'm now curious about designing with multi-layered weaves.

I want to use my colors. Pat burst out laughing whenever I say this, but Connie's recent "Shabby Journals" (which are anything but) gave me the push to return there. While I now see 50 colors are nicer than five, I want to explore more analogous combinations, and sheen/saturation contrast. I feel my way of using many colors so far has been just piling up hues, and though I think I'm more open to accidents than before, I also want to train my eyes/hands to use colors in a controlled, considered way.

I'm also sticking with Alison's design process because if I understand what is blocking my way into doing things her way, I sense it will aid me in developing designs further than I do. And this is important because I've come to feel my design process is rather naive and I'm itching to move a step forward.

OK, enough blathering. Back to threading. Thanks for letting me bend your ear and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Window Display

We install the exhibition a week from tomorrow. Page & Blackmore, the only independently-owned bookshop in Nelson, has kindly lent us window space to promote our exhibition. When I approached the window this evening, a man was looking carefully at the display, stepped back and read the poster, and I was very pleased.

Stella, in the floral dress in the above link, carefully chose not only the subject of the books but also the cover design and colors. Thank you so much, Stella and P&B.

Already End of Thursday

And I admit there have been more than a few heart-stopping moments this week, including a heavy beam falling on Ben's forehead and the back of my head simultaneously while I tried to wrangle a few more picks out of a warp. But the mistakes have been so stupid I will not admit to them under torture. Unless you serve me Long Island Iced Tea first.

"Friends(hip)"
The draft. Now I'm wondering about renaming this piece from "You've got My Back; I've Got Yours" to "Chin Wag", which is a term I learned in New Zealand from a woman born in Liverpool and raised in Australia.  Which name do you like better?

This is the pattern side; there is one warp end for the plain/inlay side for ever two pattern warps, which works better than 1:1. Since I'm weaving this on a table loom I needed a dead easy lift plan. 

"Self-Portrait"

This is the wet-finished Self-Portrait; it still needs to be affixed to a foam board roughly the size ofthe black line, and it's not as crooked as it appears in this photo. I must admit for something I whipped up in a few days, I am pleased with it. As you can see, I desperately needed a few picks of plain weave at the top.

"Merchandise"
Studying pictures of your buttons and my swatches, I felt the colors and color combinations in my swatches are too "specific" and the buttons would not have the "something for everyone" appeal. So I'm weaving a short length of simple twills on the Self-Portrait warp. I think buttons from this will be immediately identifiable as "related to that piece" in spite of the different structure, which is a bonus. (The Self-Portrait draft has floats of up to 11 ends so was not suitable for small buttons.) But I think I'll make a few gold-and-blue buttons for myself.

Postcards. I need your help. Please see below.

Imagination
Or is it creativity, experience, or just common sense? Yesterday Maria had a photo shoot of her exhibition garments and I was envious of her imagination. I don't want a beautiful young woman, (or even a man,) sauntering in the woods with my pillars, but I have only three ideas for work photos: piece on loom, close-ups or installed-centered-symmetrical "Big Pictures". I've Googled gazillion textile and student exhibitions and catalogues in the last year months, but short of installing the pillars somewhere else, I came up with nothing new.

Which leads me to my conundrum and I hope you can help me. If you go to a textile exhibition and there are inexpensive postcards of the works, what kind do you prefer?  I think as mementos of an exhibition, I like pictures of whole works, unless the close-up is really attractive. Or do you have a so-out-of-the-box suggestion I'll have to go to the next zip code to execute? Also, would you buy "just interesting pictures", i.e. the colors or contrasts drastically altered from works you see in the exhibition, or only truer images? Please, please, leave comments/suggestions/experiences.

Other members of the group don't like postcards and are going for greeting cards with envelopes, but as some of you know I am so a postcard girl so I'm going solo on this one.

Catalogue Submission

We were supposed to send three photos and an artist statement to Jo today as her husband David is creating an exhibition catalogue for us. With 30 minutes to spare, I sent the following:

Usually I spend days photographing with mine and Ben's many cameras at different times of the day and parts of my house, but this time I don't have enough  pieces completed so it was a quick 15 minutes. I didn't have an opportunity to hang a pillar pillar properly so the top one was taken in my laundry again, the pillar folded in half and hung, me kneeling on the floor looking up. The second is one of the two samples of the Self-Portrait, third is the Self-Portrait in progress. Happily, that is now off the loom.

What's funny is the two projects are so different in scale, and yet in photos, you can't really tell. Bad planning, but I don't have time to worry about it.

If you are anywhere near Nelson during October, say somewhere in the Southeastern Hemisphere, please drop by.

The Warp of Shame

That long painful howl you heard from the bottom of the planet today was moi.

Though for a much shorter period than usual, I did observe, arrange, and edit my warp colors over several days, during the day and at night, on sunny and cloudy days, with and without the lights on. So why did I have such a different picture in my head than what was right in front of me? I am speechless.

The irony is, if I set out to make a rainbow gradation warp, I doubt I would have come up with such a smooth transition.

GROAN!!

Can I be a Tiny Bit Enraged?

Yesterday I woke up with the memory of rage, (that's the best description I can come up with,) and resolved to take whichever is the most pragmatic next step I can come up with. It was a result of spending several hours in the night stewing over the design "process".  As I said, I was stuck at the same place as 10 years ago, and it was evident I hadn't learned Alison's processes then or since.

Without getting into too much detail, because obviously I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing even though I understand the words in the instructions, the steps I am supposed to follow are: Research; Broad Concept Exploration Drawings; Specific Development Drawings; Technical Problem Solving and Sampling;  and finally produce a woven piece. Each step comes with instructions/suggestions of techniques/material so I can narrow down choices before moving to the next.

The distinction between Broad Concept and Specific is where I get confused, not in words, but in the doing. This could be an artificial distinction, as Alison had to give instructions and grade and feedback and she can't have everybody working willy-nilly.

What is evident is from all other art courses I've done since Round One with Alison, I've picked up a whole lot of techniques for exploration, but I continue to operate in the familiar swirly, roundabout way where I go back and forth using many/all techniques to explore multiple ideas in parallel, until, wham, a choice jumps out. This is how I always operated, but in Round One I got severely told off for my "scattergun" method. Whereas I always saw my way as trying out many/all permutations. But having observed other people's processes in these ten years, I also know I don't develop ideas as far as other artists do.  

Ronette's drawing classes forced me to be at ease, (that's the only way I can describe,) jumping into new ways without visualizing the outcome, so it's not fear that stops me. I think I'm more comfortable making choices at different points than prescribed by Alison, and after much scattergunning in the exploration. Waddyano? I'm not as linear a thinker as I had always thought to be. I contemplated emailing Alison in the hopes she'd set me straight but I didn't even know how to pose the questions. 

I congratulate myself for learning other people's processes and making them my own. I don't have many original ideas, and this realization made me feel like a Big Girl. On the other hand, the Convent School Girl wants to follow orders religiously, (ha!) and I'm forever hopeful other people's processes may take me to places I could not myself; it's like a design joyride.

The night before last, I wasn't sure why I was so angry, but I was, very much. Usually when I wake up in the middle of the night I can steer my thoughts to more practical design issues, or imagine flying or jumping on a trampoline, (yup,) and eventually go back to sleep, but that night I stewed and stewed and stewed.

Thank the Weaving Goddess it was the BG and not the CSG who woke up yesterday morning. I continued the process just enough so I can get to practical stages with Self-Portrait and Friends(hip). Last night's awake hours were spent visualizing and calculating making lists and today I can get in real work.

But I intend to revisit this block after the exhibition opens and see if Alison can shed light. And make something based on her process that is further developed than where I normally end up. Touch Wood.