So you know how just over a year ago I went away for a weekend and did a little experimenting with a backstrap loom? And remember how I gave a little report at the end of July about my month (a whole month!!!) of weaving on this loom -- only to find myself writing again and again, and again about the loom and the cloth I couldn't stop making, not to mention the upcoming show at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center in Tillamook, OR where said cloth would actually be hanging on public view? Well all that cloth is now there, and both it and I will be at the opening reception on 9 July, 2017 from 12 - 4 PM. Be great to see you! And for those of you for whom it is just a teensy bit too far, I hope to to have pics of how it looks in real life, rather than just how I imagine it to be, for the blog post after this. In the meantime, Weave on!
What is it? A collection, yes, but a collection of what -- similar objects? Similar ideas? How do you know when you have one? Can long narrow strips of metaphorical fabric in a three panel needlepoint comic about chasing dreams that I stitched several years ago and blogged about here --a comic that at the time seemed complete unto itself-- morph into other work that is seemingly different but actually, oddly, the same in spirit? Well yes, I think it can. Not that I was thinking about connections as the work unfolded. I'm rarely that organized. But looking backwards, and drawing another comic leads me to see that work that felt new and wildly unconnected while I was making it is actually just another step on an undulating path. So when the deadline looms (pardon the pun), ready or not (and I'm not, quite), it feels perfectly reasonable to fit things together, make an inventory list, label the tapestries, roll up the panels of comics, press the translucent panels of cloth, bundle it all up, take off my boots, and cross the river. Then eventually, when all is unrolled and hanging on white walls, or sweeping through the air in a light-filled gallery, we can call it a body of work, or not -- can't know for sure till it is up. But either way it'll be time to lace my boots and continue on, where ever it is that I am going. Or maybe next time I'll just go barefoot.
I cannot stop staring at this cloth. The way it moves in space is mesmerizing (at least to me), and the way it feels -- almost like it is not there but better. Each time I sew these panels together I am newly surprised by how much pleasure I get from their finished physical presence-- as much, indeed, as I receive from making them.. Perhaps it is because, after years of using value and color to depict the play of light and air on objects, my yarn now gets to play these elemental forces all by itself. And since light has been informing all of the work, the old and new are connected in an unexpected and essential way, Or maybe it is not that at all but rather because I don't really know what it is, I keep being amazed. Or maybe,
isn't knowing that matters at all, but noticing. Back from the lovely show at La Conner, it is time to turn my attention to my next big event: "Luminous Cloth" at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center in Tillamook, OR 3 July - 3 September reception 9 July from noon - 4 PM This means it is time to figure out how to hang fabric I've been making all winter. There are some big decisions: Hanging rod or no hanging rod? Flat or draped? Fringe up, fringe down, no fringe at all -- or all three? After decades of sending tapestries off to shows around the country, I've got a system down, part of which involves making the hanging device for each tapestry as soon as it comes off the loom -- usually a structure that holds the tapestry yet lets it float cleanly against the wall. Last year, obsessed with mobiles as I was, I spent weeks bending wire and messing about with fishing swivels to finally come up with about five different approaches for the show at the Pritchard Gallery, none of which will work this year, alas. Indeed, since I started making my materials before I even thought about what they would become, much less how they would go together or be displayed, it's back to the drawing board -- or jar of hanging hardware as the case may be. Like the mobiles I want these to hang out in space so they can interact with the light -- both front and back-- and move with local air currents. But unlike the tiny but sturdy mobiles these swaths of cloth are large and delicate so need some support sturdier than wire. Should those supports be round or flat? Is it best to sew a pocket for a rod, or, as with my tapestries, stitch the cloth to the fabric covered stick? Do I want to cover the hangy things with fabric at all, or can I paint them? Must I try both with every one? The two most important things are that they hang in a way that I like (which isn't necessarily flat), and that whatever system I use, it is a. easy for the gallery crew to manage. b. straightforward to ship a, however, is more important than b. so I may have to pay through the nose to get my long narrow boxes to the coast of Oregon. Should have thought that part out before I sewed them all together eh? Except that this cloth is very bossy and has led me by the nose through this entire process so I rather doubt I had (or will have), much choice. At least they don't weigh much and I can do a lot of experimentation with binder clips and clothes pins. These panels are actually only part of the show.
Soon I'll talk about some of the other work that'll be there till then --I'll be hammering and sewing. As regular readers of this blog know, I've been weaving nothing but balance plain weave on a backstrap loom for the past 10ish months, switching back and forth between linen and wool. If asked at the beginning I'd never have guessed that all this non-pictorial simplicity would hold my exclusive attention for so long, but a couple of weeks with linen, then back to wool for a time-- --then off to linen again has continued to delight. There is so much to love about each and my miles of plain weave are made ever interesting by these periodic changes. The forgiving nature of wool never ceases to satisfy as does wool's penchant for grabbing onto itself and thus staying where I place it, even in very open structures. Linen is less forgiving and is not so inclined to stay put, but once woven the fabric stays open and deliciously translucent while bouncy wool will happily relax into any space provided. Wool bounces and stretches and drapes and glows. Linen holds its shape and undulates and whispers and glows. Both are satisfying to stitch. A few weeks ago I wrote, among other things, about the difference in my feelings toward the linen and the wool fabrics, indicating a stronger connection to the wool-- a connection I thought unlikely to change and which I attributed to me having spun the yarn. But now, though the attribution remains the same, the difference does not. For a few days ago, just as I was finishing up a longish linen warp, I discovered some forgotten samples from a linen spinning workshop I took in 1992. There wasn't much -- a few plied yards, each wet spun from bleached sliver, tow, and what is now a rather messy bundle of long strick flax. But Golly, they felt good to work with, inconsistencies and all. I'm sure its all in my head, this difference in my feelings, but so what? I doubt I'll become a passionate flax spinner, (famous last words), but one of these fine days I'm going mess about that messy bundle and see what happens. In between, of course, the yards of wool.
And if any of you have any linen spinning advice (esp. on a spindle), I'd love to hear it! Just in case, you understand... nothing serious. Sometimes I think my love of mending has nothing to do with practicality and everything to do with the energy of time. It is as though the fabric itself is imbued with accumulated stories and by continuing to use it, by saving the good parts of beloved but unwearable clothing to make other things and then mending them again when, surprise surprise, they continue to disintegrate, the stories in the fibers not only stay put, but also get to keep unfolding in ways that might never have been predicted decades, or days before. Two weeks ago I posted about fixing my running shoes and in the comments Lisa asked: "At what point does the "Ship of Theseus" kick in and they become not the original shoes?" I dont' have an answer to that, though it is fun to think about. And certainly once I've covered up all of this-beloved-but-vanishing linen-that-was-once-my-favorite-favorite-jacket with chain stitch, the nature of this particular bag will be quite different. I might feel a new person when I carry it. Or perhaps it'll demand a fresh purpose. Being stuffed to the gills with spindles and pens and notebook and wallet and phone and empty bags for whatever I might find, or unceremoniously twisted into a sort of a backpack while I bicycle downtown, or hanging patiently on a hook waiting for me to do something--anything--out in the world and away from the studio, is probably not that much fun. But it will be usable, which is the point. Yesterday I wound a linen warp -- the first in a while-- and I noticed, as the strands unwound from the cone, how very differently I felt about the yarn than I have about the hand spun wool with which I've been weaving for most of the winter. Setting aside the widely different nature of the two materials for a moment (not least the ability of my camera to focus easily on linen and not so much on wool), with the wool I am careful and careless at once and work with familiar ease. We, the yarn and I, already have a history together and therefor a kind of casual trust. I know what to expect from it even as together we make something new. Its flaws are my flaws and therefor both forgivable and irritating. Like a piece of clothing I've been wearing forever. Or shoes I made for my feet. With the linen (which I inherited, unlabeled, from a retired weaver), all is new, all unknown, and though I can admire its sheen and color and texture, it is not until I've leaned against the backstrap for a few hours, not until I've unrolled and washed and stroked the yards of cloth, that I begin to feel a connection with its future. It's not bad. Indeed, it is exciting. Until yesterday though, I hadn't been able to name the difference. Note: Margaret Sunday wrote a wonderful piece for ATA talk, a forum for members of the American Tapestry Alliance which you might think about joining if you are not already a member, about the inherent creative possibilities of the juxtiposition of the new and the familiar: "...we are simultaneously neophobes (haters of the new) and neophiles (lovers of the new). Where/ when the two qualities meet, ie: where their contrast is most intense, is the ah-ha!" My attachment, then, is not fear of the new.
Nor is it a belief that my labor is so precious. Indeed, one of the many reasons for making and mending my own things (particularly if I can connect with the material from the very beginning), is because I'm distressed by how little others (usually women, at least in the garment industry), are respected for their labor. My hands and the work they do are in no way more important or valuable than anyone else's. It's just that they are mine to use and abuse and admire as I will. So I've grown attached. As I do. :-) One of the myriad lovely things about spinning miles of white wool and weaving it into yards of white cloth is the thinking time. Today, being Valentine's Day, I'm supposed to be thinking about Love. But instead, as I open each shed, slide the stick shuttle across the warp grasp it with waiting fingers, adjust the position and angle of the yarn with the flick of a wrist and press that strand into place before opening the shed again, I dwell on devotion. Devotion feels kind of like love, but more, well, nuanced. It includes commitment and a bit of obsession. There is passion, to be sure, and inspiration-- at least now and again, but not too often and not too much. I think it also includes dedication, but without the need for ceremony. No externally imposed ceremony, I mean. Devotion is all about the simple daily ceremonies of doing of whatever it is. Indeed to me it feels active. It involves a practice: stuff to do, a thing or an idea with which to engage even when inspiration has gone in search of something more stimulating or popular and passion is taking a nap. There a simple kind of pleasure in devotion,
pleasure that has nothing to do with measurable results or goals and can be as seemingly simple as transcending boredom, which is sometimes no more than a willingness to keep going despite the prickles of tedium, until the tiniest shift in the light or the brush of hand against cloth feels like the center of everything. In 1989 I learned to weave because I wanted to sew clothing from yardage I had woven with yarn I had spun myself. It seemed a simple goal. But Shirley Medsker, Professor of Textiles at the University of Idaho and reigning monarch of the massive light and loom filled expanse on the the third floor of the College of Home Economics (now family and Consumer Sciences) building, made it clear that quite a few scarves and placemats and dishtowels would have to go on and come off various looms before I would be ready to think about yardage. And every scarf and dishtowel and placemat and baby blanket and shawl had annoying warp ends that needed to be managed in some way or other. We (Shirley's students), could hide them with a hem or elegantly emphasize them with hemstitching. We could braid or twist the warps into sinuous clumps or experiment with knotting techniques from around the world. None really appealed. Warping was fine. I liked to warp the looms. But this business of dealing with the ends -- Ugh. Yet there they were, on every single warp. Obligingly (I was an anxious student with ideas about going to Vet School), I tried many of the suggested methods but never quite got over my knitterly affection for a clean selvedge. Perhaps weaving wasn't really for me after all. But I had a wedding dress to make, and I still liked warping, so I persevered. Then Shirley insisted that I take a tapestry workshop with Joanne Hall who was coming to town.. I fussed a bit (this was so not what I cared about), but eventually succumbed and, needless to say, Shirley was right and I was sunk. Weaving images was just so interesting. Joanne taught us to weave from the front, drop the weft tails to the back and use linen warp as in the Scandinavian tradition, so this was what I did for the next few years. Eventually, however, dealing with the warp at the end of each project made me crazy once again. The Linen was lovely to work with and smelled delicious, but all that effort at the end of a tapestry to hide the cut ends was horrid. Tacking the strands to the back, weaving hems to hide them (always unsightly and bulky), or otherwise managing them in some fashion seemed both makeshift and un-worthy of the textile I'd just woven. And I won't even go into my discomfort with all those weft ends dangling at the back--a different kind of seemingly unavoidable fringe--that wore away at my affection for what I was making. Perhaps tapestry wasn't really for me after all. Luckily I came across a couple of books--for how else would an isolated tapestry weaver gather information in the days before the internet? From Working With The Wool by Noel Bennett and Tiana Bighorse I learned to 1. Start with a wool warp (hand spun because who would trust anyone else's warp and anyway where would I buy it?), and 2. Weave in in all the ends while building shapes (wool on wool holds together so well). Perfect. Two problems down. Then from Peter Collingwood's book The Techniques of Rug Weaving, I learned a twined edging that leaves a clean edge with just a little braid at the corner as a reminder of the clothness of the thing and entirely eliminates those unsightly and bulgy hems I hated so much. This kept me quiet for the next five years/ fifteen or so tapestries. But you know how it is -- a gal can get in a rut and needs the odd jolt. In my case, I think I was tipped into a new direction by one too many people complimenting my work with some variation of the phrase: "It's almost like a painting!" And though I know they meant it kindly, this phrase began to feel like sandpaper on my skin. "Thank you so much," I would invariably say. But inside I began to fume: I'm not a painter. This is not a painting. See that cute little braid in the corner? See how I have not tortured it by stretching it permanently on a frame? See how nicely it moves and flows when you walk by? See how I can roll it up and tuck it under my arm or use it as an extra blanket when shivering on a cot in a motel? See how it looks good in all light levels? See how it absorbs sound? Tell you what. I'll weave a series of pieces where the fringe is essential to the composition--now, just try to find painted fringe that looks as good as the real thing. I dare you! You could paint a better match box, for sure, but not the fringe. Clearly I had something to prove, which is always energizing. Plus it was exciting, a time filled with new techniques to learn and 'unvent' as Elizabeth Zimmerman used to say: how to weave out over nothing and still make sure that the woven shapes stay in place, for instance. I also loved that the grey fleeces I was using for warp could show themselves in all their glory. During that time I also wove a lot of nudes, though perhaps this was merely a parallel evolution. At any rate, I worked this way on and off for the next three years until new ideas took hold, as new ideas invariably will. Eventually, too, I decided to give myself over to paint for a chunk of time (egg tempera), so i could see what all the fuss was about. This too, was interesting and surprising but didn't take in the long run. Painting is so...so... wet. But I did discover that some tapestries could be paintings, which was useful. And that others could be novels. This was even more important because the novels led to comics which in turn led to a four-selvedge tapestry workshop with Susan Martin Maffei when I needed an infusion of brilliant tapestry energy, and that in turn freed me at long last from the quandary/ tyranny of edge finishing. Indeed, insofar as I seem to have some kind of big revelation/ shift /fit about my work every five years or so, this business of incorporating four selvedge warping into my practice was seismic. The lack of warp ends that had to be 'dealt with' in one way or another, led me to fall in love with the physicality of the objects I was making in a whole new way. Their distinct edges and clean backs have, for me, a visceral integrity I find difficult to articulate, but which has allowed me to get the work off the wall and into the air where the cloth can interact with the world (mobiles, books etc) in what feels to me a truly textileish way. Which, if you're a regular blog reader you'll know, has accidentally and almost against what I thought was my will, led me to the super simple, translucent and utterly textileish lengths of cloth I have been weaving for the last few months,
lengths of cloth I am now sewing into larger swaths, lengths of cloth every one of which has fringe.... I wonder how this will turn out... For the last few months (as many of you know), I've been spinning wool and weaving long narrow pieces of cloth. These vaguely scarf-like strips range in length from 40 - 110 inches, in width, from 2 to 9 1/2 inches. This body of work began with what I thought would be a fleeting desire to learn about weaving tapestry on a backstrap loom. Turned it it was the tapestry part that was fleeting, the loom part that stuck, and the practice evolving into making translucent cloth with fine hand spun singles, settling into hours and hours and weeks and weeks of over under over under with nary an image or word to be found. What was this about? Search me. Once washed, each strip has been nestled among the others piling up in my cedar chest, Out of sight out of mind. Mostly. Then this morning I started sewing them together. This may not like a seem a particularly momentous thing. But when I say I had no particular goal in mind, what I really mean is that I have had about a thousand different ideas about what to do with this fabric --and as long as I was just making and collecting, all were still possible. Many of these ideas are still possible of course since I still don't really know how I am going to hang/ display/ share this body of work, but as I am scheduled to have a show at the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center in Tillamook, OR in July/August 2017, displayed they will be. Today is not the day to go into all the possibilities that may or may not lie ahead. Talking about, much less writing down ideas before they exist in the physical world is a sure way to flatten them before their time. And so much is still unclear. But today I dressed up in grey silk trousers, a black shirt, vest and even a necklace (I'm not generally much of a jewelry person), and took the next step. It is time.
PS -- And speaking of Exhibitions, I am proud that a collection of my tapestries (mostly the Rough Copy series)-- will be displayed in LaConner WA at what is now called The Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Art Musum (Formerly LaConner Quilt and Textile Museum), from May - July 2017 It is very exciting to have work in two such wonderful Northwest textile centers, if a teensy bit scary as they overlap by a month (July 2017), which means there needs to be entirely different work at each place. YOWZA. Back to it. xoxox to all. One of the calming things about weaving tapestry is that what you weave is what you get: the work on the loom looks pretty much as it does when it is done. At least this is the case with my tapestries.** Even wet finishing (total immersion in warm soapy water), doesn't change the images, though it does improve the hand and drape of the cloth. **If using some weft faced techniques, wedge weave for instance, tapestry fabric will distort when cut from the loom; Connie Lippert and Alex Friedman use this technique to great advantage. This consistency from loom to finished cloth does not, however, translate to the balanced plain weave fabric I've been creating for the last few months. My experiments thus far have not been exactly scientific, of course, so everything I say must be taken with a grain of salt. Indeed, I'm not sure I'd even call them experiments -- more quiet meandering explorations-- but each each thing I try has taught me something, shifted a pre-conceived idea, or led me to slightly alter my direction, and that is always interesting. Last week I wrote about spinning wool singles for this cloth, and promised to talk about sizing this week. I had hoped to do some experiments with flour paste between then and now, but didn't get around to it so can still only speak to xanthan gum and gelatin. Starch, too, awaits future experiments. But here's what I know so far. The comic above shows the basic procedure: total immersion of clean damp yarn in one solution or the other, followed by weighed hanging until dry. In this phase, I much preferred the gelatin. It dissolved easily in a small amount of cool water, then became nicely liquid when further diluted with hot. I immersed the skeins, squeezed the solution through, then hung them to drip. note: I'd used gelatin before, immersing dry rather than damp yarn; this time i found, unsurprisingly, that the yarn absorbed less gelatin solution. More on this later. The Xanthan gum (I used the recipe in Sarah Anderson's wonderful book, A Spinner's Guide to Yarn Design was not so straightforward. It probably would have been easier if I had followed Sarah's recommendation to use a blender to mix the Xanthan gum with the water though. Not having a blender, I tried a whisk and ended up with a gloppy, lumpy solution a bit like egg drop soup. I finally pushed it through a sieve which got rid of some of the lumps, but the consistency (which Sarah had described), continued to be, well, gloppy. This meant that it needed to be worked into the yarn with more vigor than the gelatin and, once hung, that it took forever to dry. It also meant that it didn't pool in the yarn as much as as the gelatin, which is a plus (I had to turn the gelatin skeins more often.) Given the consistency of the xanthan gum, I expected that once they were dry the strands would be glued to one another and hard to wind into balls. This turned out not to be a problem. Indeed, the yarn seemed less stiff and 'lineny' than the strands sized with gelatin. This stiffness is something I'd liked with earlier gelatin experiments as it made the yarn easy to manage, especially when threading heddles, so I was a little disappointed by the lack of stiffness in the xanthan gum skeins. Perhaps I needed to spend more time working it into the yarn? Or perhaps it would be possible to warm up the xanthan gum slightly and make it more liquid which might make it go more easily into the yarn? I don't really know what it is though, so maybe heat will make it do something else entirely. I'm a big fan of gluten (my husband and son are bakers), so don't have much call for such things to hold my bread together. Anyone know anything about this? I also found the gelatin sized yarn less stiff than with the earlier gelatin experiments when I had immersed dry yarn into the solution. Next time: Dry yarn. In the actual weaving, there was not much difference. I did have a broken warp with one of the the brown xanthan gum sized pieces, but I believe that had more to do with a careless join in the spinning phase than any particular failure of the sizing. Of course if I had used gelatin on dry yarn, it might have held together a little better, but I can't do the experiment on that particular strand of yarn, so that is only speculation. Today I'm weaving with leftovers. The warp is unsized wool (3" staple suffolk X), the weft a motley collection of sized and unsized singles. In all of them it is the twist/ grist relationship that makes the difference -- also that that the sett is appropriate to the yarn.
In short: sizing can be helpful, but the yarn needs to be up to the task. Gosh, it always comes back to yarn, doesn't it? |
Sarah C Swett
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