Life of a Less Frantic Weaver

I'm thrilled my life is going back to normal, and it seems to be a good, new normal where I'm able to mix work and housework in good measure. Six months of lock-down was wonderful for my soul and psyche, but the house and garden suffered, and incremental housework is about all I can handle. The garden will come later, but also very incrementally.

Where work and housework converges is me sorting through exhibition-related stuff, putting work stuff back into the stash room or workshop, and restoring what is as close to "order" as I had before the lock-down. I know I'd be so happy if I did an overhaul of the stash room, (not redoing shelves or painting, but wiping all surfaces and reorganizing contents,) but it makes so much more sense to get through a few pending projects before I do this. So I might clean my closet and polish my shoes and purses instead.

I used surprisingly little yarns for Pillars; disappointingly little to tell you the truth, but I got reacquainted with my stash and have a lot of ideas for nice, kind merchandises. And maybe even some gifts for the family for my next trip. Even then, I won't have a roomy design room; I'll still have large cardboard boxes under the table. But I think workshop and stash room reorg would be, oh, soul-cleansing. So that's something to look forward to.

Speaking of stashes, Deanna from DEA rang a couple of days ago; she is hoping to holiday with her family in the Nelson/Tasman Region. Of all the people in the world, including Ben, Deanna is the one person who knows my yarn purchases and I can't fool her. Once again she asked me when I'll be working on Ben's Happi; though it's always been one of my top priorities, I think I'm hesitant because it involves, albeit basic, sewing. It would be nice to get on to this one, as it will be my first for-sewing weaving.

While cleaning out my files, I found these two pics Ben took I hadn't noticed, but really like. It's almost a fading memory, this exhibition. Do you enjoy exhibitions in which you have your work once it opens?  

New, as in Old

Boy, I'm glad I got around to posting the pictures of the exhibition. I'm sure you know what I mean; don't we feel "over it" by the time the exhibition is finally hung? I can't imagine what it's like for authors to have to schlep their books when they have so moved on to the next, and perhaps the one after. Still, I admit, I'm glad I did the pillars.

So it's great, in this case, I always have unfinished projects so I can get back on the loom bench full speed. Last week, I tried to make two drafts for scarves on the Warp of Shame, but they didn't look good sampled, so I revisited handweaving.net. I guess it stands to reason, but every time I go there I have a specific project in mind, a mood I want to create, and yet often I gaze at the same drafts. Do you? This time I made myself sample ones I've never used as far as I can remember. I'm going with the *'d ones.

I also finished fringing one of the two Hearts blankets under the coffee table. I wove these in or before May 2011, apparently. It had been so long since I last fringed I my hands had to get used to the motion. I hope to wet finish this on the weekend and put it in the Refinery shop next week.

I'd like to continue getting a few more unfinished projects out of the way before I start new ones, but I am working on two projects in my head; a pink/ivory/brown baby blanket for Hearts' sister, and scintillating colorful cotton pieces, possibly 60cm or wider.

And if I wasn't chipper enough this morning, guess what awaited us in our PO Box, after a long journey from California...  Remember this?

Yay, yay, yay! Life, and my head, are getting back to normal.

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.

Breathe, Weavers, Breathe

"Making things that take attention and care is not a waste of time; it’s reclaiming time."
Elaine Lipson

A Quickie

Maria has her exhibited items on her blog, and points to The Nelson Mail article on our exhibition. Her Un-Wedding Dress is particularly lovely when a breeze comes in from the back door; I like to think there is a guardian angel looking over our entire exhibition during its duration and she likes to remind us of her presence every so often.

I've been reading Elaine Lipson's recent TSA presentation in Washington DC. I like rereading her thoughts on Slow Cloth every so often to make me recalibrate my thinking. I'm a stubborn and slow learner so I can be achingly impressed by others' work and other influences but I don't feel it filters through to my making easily. At least not in less than half a dozen years. Still, getting away from visuals and taking in Elaine's words nudges me back to my 0,0 position. How do you see your work? What do you think of Slow Cloth? Her words are easy to read and, I feel, invites you to explore your own interpretation. Leave a comment on her blog, if you will.

I've been dying to weave a scarf with on the Warp of Shame but just can't seem to come up with a suitable draft. So instead of getting back on the bench this morning, it seems I need to do some time with draft-drafting.

I'm not liquefying-soft-membrane-melting-ly tired any more; just a bit tired from sleeping so much. I should have a tour of the house and pick up work stuff and put them where they belong and make a list of how/where/when to clean. But, you know.... Meh.... 

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...