bit by bit, inch by inch

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining. There is a promise and perhaps a hint of spring-pregnant with waiting. The camellia buds are swelling. I saw the first of my Grandmothers violets of the season. The moss in the side yard is beautifully green. The last week or two has been busy, dreary, tax season and solitary in the evenings. I am definitely ready for a trip to the coast, seeing a movie or going to the opera-Anything!! that doesn't take place in my home, yard or studio. Spencer is working 50-60 hours a week doing taxes-probably a good thing. He seems to enjoy the people he does taxes with. Even closing in on 45 years I enjoy his company and friendship and miss im when we don't get a chance to talk and do things together.

The ducks are starting to migrate over the house. Chene' is chasing them as they pass over the yard. He's got this thing about geese and airplanes. He has great hearing. Spencer thinks I should be grateful that he only chases flying geese and airplanes. He starts barking and running towards them before we can even hear them. Wry/Rya is back from becoming an "it" and hernia surgery. The results of the hernia surgery have turned him into a leaping ballet dancer with incredible karate chops and jumps. Usually done and around the dog for maximum exsposure and impressive value. Chene' is learning not to try and follow him, anymore over the furniture. Chene' drops like a rock trying to follow Wry/Rya graceful jumps and ascents. Chine’s ungraceful splats can be heard all over the house.  Can't seem to get it across that belly flops should be done in water and not hardwood floors.

     

I am proofing the galley for the So Warped book.

 Pat's illustrations are incredible. I wish I had been lucky enough to have a book like this when I started tapestry weaving. Especially since I didn't come at tapestry as a weaver, but as a surface embellisher (old term for surface design). Everyone just assumed I knew how to warp a loom. I can't tell how many times I reinvented the proverbial wheel.  At this point it is around 90 pages and still growing, BUT, Pat and I can see the end of the process. In some ways this has been the hardest of the books because it isn't actually about technique and a new program had to be learned-In Design by Pat. I like the fact that it's has no frills, but is loaded with information and packed with pictures and illustrations.

The last month has been difficult. Pat has been recuperating from 2 surgeries and I have had some type of atypical something that has still left everyone wondering.  I feel fine now and am back to exercising and my better Bones and Balance class. Everything always seems to be behind or running toward major deadlines.

Yesterday I realized that I don't have a piece for the next ATA small format show that fits within the 100 square inch perimeters. I still have a year, but with small format the year slips away really fast. My Orange Kona piece is only half done, but at least it's the hard half. It will be going to ATA unjuried small format show-Enchanted.

I am building a galvanized pipe loom to photograph for the book and to illustrate the Gobelin heddles I used to use all of the time.finall figured out that a entretoise just means arched template.  Of course back then I loved sitting on the floor and weaving. Now I want a chair and cushions for my hip. I started weaving on a galvinized pipe loom in 1978-79. I wove on clear up[ into the 90's.  It was before I could afford my Shannock. It's so easy to put together and adapt and inexpensive. I spent several hours picking up pieces for the loom yesterday. I think the Home Depot people were glad to get rid of me by the time I found all of my bits and pieces for the loom. Things have changed since I built my last galvanized pipe loom. They barely carry galvanized pipe anymore. Everything has moved to copper or plastic pipe.

I think of all the looms I have been trying and researching I am beginning to really like my new Mirrix-best. I loved my hagen, but it's to difficult to get anymore. The heddle system and treadles on the mirrix is quite unique and portable. I am not so fond of reaching up and shifting by hand each shed, but the treadles do away with that problem. I find it to slow and it irritates the scar tissue from my hand surgeries to do for very long at a time.  With the treadles I don't need to worry about my shoulders or my hand pulling treadles or shifting the heddle bar. Also a definite plus when I am demonstrating to students both hands are free to point and weave. I am starting the thinking process for weaving a tapestry on it. Maybe I will weave two tapestries side by side so that I can practice taking one off and continuing weaving on its companion.

Both the Kona piece and “He who Tells...”have some interesting colour phenomena’s that I photographed and am trying to weave in the two pieces. In “He who tells...”I was photographing on Mary’s Peak at sunset what I am now using as the background for the piece and an interesting flash effect occurred. The green grass and trees suddenly flashed red. I was actually able to photograph the happening. I am trying to weave the effect in the background. By rights if you mix red and green you come up with grey or a muddy brown at a distance. I am using chine’s to try and get the effect of the red and green as they mixed in the photo. Logically your mind tells you can't do that because grass and trees are green or red. It almost shimmers. But it's amazing how the two colours when mixed on a bobbin and then woven become one colour and blend together. The Kona orange piece is a mixture of blue and orange to get a slightly foggy appearance as the colours blend together in the hatches and the Chinés. There is black foliage in front of the sunset that makes the orange appear particular bright. The thing that really interested me was the orange didn't seem to affect the bushes and the houses in the fore front. The colour splashes and houses all stayed magenta and turquoise-rather cool contrast to the intense oranges and blues.

The real problem with these colour mixes is they never photograph well or simply disappear in the photo of the work. One ends up trying to explain how the effect is really there, but you can't see it in the photo or slide. They need to be seen in person to get the correct effect. The blending is so subtle especially with the small needle thread tapestries. In some ways the colour relationships defines how you wish to use technique. Is the technique more important than replicating the picture or the design the design? Is there a difference or a new paradigm being created between architectonic, graphic, colour usage and blending almost photo realistic work? Is this starting to take the place in the tapestries some of us create? Well, at least mine. It's definitely a move away from the bold simplified designs that were woven in the past and ruled by Lurçat's dictates about what good tapestry should be. Based on the premise that all colours fade thier for the technique will become the design rather then the colour elements. To me it's more of a revisit to tapestries of the late 1700's a way from the tapestry designs of the apocalypse and earlier. For me and my tapestries not a bad idea!

I wish I could figure out this new blogger problem. It  seems to have a bunch of new features and no spell check.   What is it about us that always wants to change things whether they need it or not.  

Tell next time cheers and all

    
    

Between and Betwixt

Between, in the middle of, at intervals, in the midst of, among, betwixt, interjascence, etc, etc, etc. Things barely started and nothing near finishing or even begun enough to have a definitive personality. ..which always seems to morph into waiting, biding time, attend,anticipating, mark time, delay, tarry, lurking, hovering, dangling, wait in suspense,be left hanging...boredom and depression. Well, guess that pretty much covers my feelings for the last week or so. Think I better leave the thesaurus alone for a while. Just another way of killing time is to play the curious game with a book, but so much fun.

Now that I have written the words it feels almost humorous or possibly ironic. They sounds so static and lacking in energy-lackadaisical-almost. I still put in 8 hour + days. I have just added things like holidays, company, shipping times, cooking, Doctor appointments, research and writing.

I decided to start over on one of the Kona Balcony sunsets. I love the photos and the colours I took while setting on the veranda/balcony. Last Friday the electricity went out for about 5 hours. Fortunately, i had finished cooking our Friday Thanksgiving dinner eating in the dark was interesting. I was able to get out my collection of kerosene lamps to helpwith the darkness. My Father-Grampa- couldn't come on Thanksgiving because of a very long standing commitment to deliver Thanksgiving diners to the Elderly and infirm. He's 84. I am not quite sure when he things elderly starts. So, we changed diner to Friday. So when it got to cold we went to see the movie 2012. I kept laughing about valcanos and sky. They really needed a better colourist.
I had been away so long finishing so many chances I had lost the colours in my head. So I am resetting up the warp to start over. I'll need to finish it in the next week or two, because we will be photographing warping the Shannock loom for the So warped book Pat and I are writing.
Part of my research for this week has been the warp weighted loom. When i was requesting photo's of various tapestry looms Fireside Looms offered me a photo of the Sami warp weighted loom. The photo on the left is actually from wikipedia and is a Icelandic loom. I have had a sort of background low key fascination with warp weighted looms since I was at OKAC formerly known as OSAC doing undergraduate work. Marlene Kerrigan who taught Craft history showed slides of Greek pottery with warp weighted looms incised and or painted on the vases. Of course their is also the story of Penelope and Ulysses and of archaeological finds of viking loom weights and weaving. Pat who has a a really good background in Scandinavian weaving informed me that the warping begins with a rep weave that stabilizes and creates the top selvedge. The wefts of the rep become the warps for the tapestry or other weaving that can then be rolled around the top beam with the weighted warps hanging down the front of the loom. I am going to set up a small warp weighted loom. The process is totally fascinating to me. Beating is done with a two handed batten, so, any tapestry would need to be woven straight across the fell line and not up or down in this case.
Adventures of a Beginning Silversmith

Well this is as far as I have gotten. It's starting to come together. The top is laid out. One side is finished and the two sides are ready to sew together. My way of getting around pieces that are two large for me to handle. The pieces will be stitched together with gold thread/wire.







You can sort of make out the letters of the word miracles on the right side of the black paper. The green looking stones are Peruvian Opal and the other stones are died agate. These are the two tapestries that will be inside the box when I finish. Today almost became a little two exciting. I learned several valuable lessons. One, always work with shoes on. Two, always check the torch fittings and make sure they are tight. Three, Remember where the shut off valve is and reach for it first. Four, move fast, panic later. Five, Remembering, it's a good thing to keep Chene' in the house and not the studio when working with silver. No matter how much he wants to be in the studio.

Other then a melted floor, a few flames and scaring myself half to death nothing bad happened. A fitting on my torch head came loose and exploded/popped off the supply line in my hands and I dropped the flaming torch and pieces of the torch on the floor. Andy is going to check my torch for me to make sure I didn't damage anything and I am good to go. Probably not necessary for any reason other then my sanity. Valuable lessons learned without a lot of damage. Andy checked it a few minutes ago and taught me a little more. Helped me mark directions on the tank for turning off the valves. Gave everything a clean bill of and health and I am good to go again.

I am making great strides on a new monograph on Soumack and tapestry. I decided that my handouts for my class at ASCH 2010 were getting to be so many that perhaps they would make a good monogragh. I think I may also be teaching a variation of the class at the Eugene Textile Center. I have had several students come to the studio wanting to learn how I do my lines which are soumack and lacing. This week I also finished writing the chapter on the Old Believer tapestry loom. We just need to photograph the process for So Warped. Pat completed several major sections and layout on warping.

I had two small mentions in national Magazines- Fiberarts for an ATA award and An article about Small Expressions. There is a photo of one of the 3 pieces I had in Small Expressions.
Guess that's all for now.

Bye for now!

I am finished two weeks later then I wanted to finish, but 7 of those days were tied up in very long silversmithing classes. It is so good to be finally done. I'll leave it on the loom for a few days and keep looking for threads and missing lines.

I really enjoy silversmithing-novice that I am. FFP purchased a smith torch so that I can work a little larger, if I want. Putting it into the studio is a big scary step for me. It seems like a really big step. Acetylene torches burn so much hotter the the small torches we have been using. The tank is larger-much larger and has many more pages of stuff one should be aware of and not do. In the culture and age that I grew up in so much of what I am doing now was not in the job description we were taught was the right thing to emulate-like using tools. I was supposed to marry a husband that would take care of that aspect of my life. I am married, but not to a man who can handle tools and or do any of the whole tool thing. So as I stumble on-hopefully- I won't blow up the studio or remove a finger or two in the process of learning. The next step is to buy a Fordham grinder before I wear out my Dremel-another step up. BUT, again as always I am more interested in how I can apply and combine the silver designs with tapestry. I am such a beginner!!! The next snaps are the pieces I have designed in class with Don Norris when he comes to Albany. With the exception of one pennant that is a piece I did on my own that contains a piece of broken china from my favourite set of dishes that I love. It seems the odder the shape the more I love the design. I have never gravitated to or felt the pull of using small oval stones.

In another day, hopefully, I will be ready to start my large format wool piece. I am not sure I can get it done by the deadline at the end of the month. I want it to submit it to the ATA exhibit. The deadline is 5 weeks away from now. I already have a smaller sewing thread piece to submit, but would like to do a wool piece just to see how my small format images will translate to a larger format and scale-again. I seem to be continually testing and focusing on how the images will apply in the two formats. Scale doesn't seem to be an issue. I know that the smaller the scale the more detail I can have in a given area/piece. There is a balance in creating the format size that sometimes has to do with the scale of the rib structure that I find unendingly interesting and fascinating. I have no desire to weave a large format piece in a small scale or a small format piece in large scale.

With the silver I can't seem to design small uncomplicated pieces. Every design I have done so far-not that there have been that many-has felt the need to be larger with more complicated elements not smaller. The opposite of my tapestry weaving with the exception that i keep adding more elements and complexity to the designs. Most of my silver pieces are bearably wearable because of the size of the piece. Too large to be practical in everyday settings. I guess it could be that I am not really wanting to design jewelery that will be worn or adorn the body, but architectural pieces-well-small boxes and reliquaries that can be closed, locked, used for concealment or concealing the tapestry images. Again for the same reasons that I put many of my tapestries in wooden boxes that could/can be locked. The nice thing about doing the boxes in silver is that I will be able to do my own boxes and not have to depend on someone else to do the work on the boxes I design. When I research metal working I find that I am focusing on pieces from the the 3rd century to the 14th century. Most of it is gold. I prefer silver. I wil probably be using some of the same elements, but in silver. Many of favourite are Russian, Viking and Celtic-not- surprisingly-American Indian. Another case of nuture vs. environment.


I am still researching soumack and its various structures that can be used in tapestry. This is a Turkish piece that uses a very interesting vertical and horizontal soumack to create a grid. The background surrounding the soumack is tapestry.

These are shadows from the City of Refuge that I think might make good a good soumack study. I took these while I was in Kona this last summer.

Cheers and all,

kathe

Never enough time!!!

My last entry was May 29 right before I spent a week in Kona. Today is the 18th. I have done very little weaving since my return-a pass or two.

Sunday Pat and I are leaving to teach at Midwest Weavers conference. We are driving. Wednesday evening I have a very short presentation to give at the Falcouner Gallery at the Small Expressions exhibit. Pat is also in Small Expressions and giving a presentation. I can hardly wait to see how badly my framing was destroyed when I sent it. The framing problem cost me third place in the show. I was notified that I had received third prize and that it was being rescinded because of problems with my piece. I have added the letter to my class slides/lectures as a reminder for my students and myself about how framing can make or break a piece. I learned a valuable lesson always make sure the glue is dry on the framing before you send the piece.
One of the big disappointments on this trip is that we had a day between the Gallery talk and when I start teaching. We were making arrangements to go to the Vesterheim Norwegian Museum to view tapestries/Rolaken. They “furloughed” the curator that would have pulled the tapestries I wanted to look at for technical details. Now I will only be able to view them digitally and perhaps not see the details front and back that I wanted to see. It’s disappointing for everyone I know. Everyone-not just me- is losing out by not having this kind of resource available.
I have spent most of the day doing a 60 second animation of the construction of So Between Two. I really enjoy putting together power point slide shows for classes. My daughter-in-law Kathy has been putting together slide shows and DVD’s of family and friends trips to Kona. She’s really quite proficient. I left her my flip Video Camera. I think she’ll have fun with it. To me it was just one too many digital things to carry around. I prefer my new camera which is much more like the SLR’s that I used in the past. I love using my lenses and remote cable. Another great feature is I can set the lens to correct for my vision. I don’t have to wear my glasses anymore to take pictures. It allows me to be a little steadier when taking pictures.
I have over a thousand pictures that I took while in Hawaii. I desperately need to organize them for use in my cartoons and colour studies that I weave. Fortunately, I have almost a month before I teach at IWC. I find it interesting that 10 years ago I would have come home with maybe 7-8 rolls of slides and perhaps 50% of them would have been keepers. With a digital camera, I filled up a 2 gig card in my camera. It will take me months to go through and sort through what is usable and what is not. I have hundreds of floral shots and close-ups, even more sunsets and family pictures.
Several of the shots are of plants that I took at an arboretum near Kona, Hawaii. Several of the flower species have only 3 bushes left on the island.

Originally, all of the hibiscuses on the Island were white with pink stamens and pistils and now they come in every colour. I was also very lucky to get shots of the volcano glowing at night. It was closed on either side of our trip up to the volcano because of the vog.

My favourite flower shot is the multicolour sweet smelling flower whose name I can’t think of at this point. We were given leis of this flower when we arrived. They lasted the whole time we were there and perfumed everything they touched. My Lei is now drying above my computer and I can still smell it’s very slight scent. The flower is plumeria.

Beginnings-The intensity of getting started-again

I think that keeping a blog is a little like weaving tapestry. If you don’t adhere to a schedule it doesn’t get done and/or updated. The ancestors take over and you just never get back to it, OR, only back to it with great difficulty and only if one is really trying to be disciplined and only if one can control the multiplying distractions that can happen in a studio. Yes-I know that was a very long run on sentence, but sometimes a run on sentence is a needful necessity. I have been busy doing other “needful” things like teaching and getting lectures set into PowerPoint-one of those things that actually does –eventually-make life easier. If one can stay on task long enough to sort through 30-40 years of slides and enter them into the computer by scanning, resizing and labeling. So many excuses so little time.

And now the tapestries-I am working on two new tapestries’ at the same time-Finally.

I have just finished reading a book on Optical blending-Ellen Marx's book, Optical Color and Simultaneity which is leading me into reading a second book Color and Meaning by John Gage. I have decided to see if the concept of simultaneity really exists in the true since of Einstein’s theories in relationship to weaving two diametrically opposed tapestries side by side. This is what happens when one spends a whole weekend updating ones research on optical colour blending for a class on colour that I am teaching at IWC this summer. It wasn’t until the end of the day when my eyes were so blurred out from playing with simultaneous contrasts that I realized the play on words/ideas that were happening with the words simultaneous and simultaneity and how it relates to my weaving several pieces at one time.

Anyway-The two pieces are a colour study of a Kona sunset that was taken from my son’s balcony on two different evenings with the vog in play-really 2 pieces one on top of the other. Vog is a combination of fog and vapors from the erupting/venting volcanoes near Kona. The first evening the sunset is as red, orange and as violent as one can possibly see. The next evening as lavender and pink, soft and visually brilliant as one could wish for. The two colour studies are 5x 7 inches and the other is 10 inches by 14.5 inches.

And finally-the "serious piece"-a piece called So Many Chances. It has many different elements all having to do with chance and what if’s. One of its most interesting elements is a border taken from a scan of a piece of my Grandmother Schoolcraft-Todd’s filigree crocheted lace. There are elements from both Grandmothers with a lot of Ikotomi thrown in for good measure (for an explanation of Ikotomi-see-SPIDERS ARE MYSTERIOUS”: THE SPIRIT OF THE SPIDER IN LAKOTA ART AND LORE by Ron McCoy-Drawing on surviving ethnographic records, this article offers some observations about the use of spider symbolism in Lakota belief and art. Volume 34 Number 2 spring 2009)
I have always wondered about the elements of chance that have to do with determining ones fate. Life has so many small and large variables that can affect everything just like the butterfly sneezing in China. It seems that life and the quality of life often hinges on chance elements that aren’t terribly controllable. How do you stop a butterfly in China from sneezing in China and changing the outcome of the weather a thousand miles away? So Many Chances are about those elements and what happens. All these elements layer over an intense landscape of water and sunrise and/or sunset-life or death. Both can become either are often dependant on the chances and choices one makes by chance.

Beginnings 2-6-09

Okay-It’s been another week. I am documenting where I am at on my new piece(s). Not Far!
The loom is almost warped and spaced. I will be weaving a sunset on one side of the piece “So Many Chances”. The sunset will be fun because it will be taken from one of my Daughter-in- laws photos of the vog in Kona. The vog creates the most wonderful colours. I am not quite sure how healthy it is to breath, but then again the color is wonderful and so far the volcano is only spitting vapour. I use the sky pieces as colour studies. I learn a lot from them. I think on this one I will work on making clouds appear to be soft and whispery in lavenders and soft pinks.

The other tapestry” So Many Chances” is being developed from the notes and an Idea map that I did at the ATA retreat with Jane Kidd a few years ago. The retreat helped me refine and add to the Prokoff journal techniques that I have modified for developing ideas and various design problems. I was first introduced to Prokoff by one of my design teachers (Louise Klemperer) when I attended OCAC in the late 70’s. I have used and refined the Progoff technique for developing ideas and focusing ideas in my art work for years. You can see from the pictures of the cartoon in process that I am using a collage like technique that I like to design with from my snaps and drawings.
I am finally ready to attempt to weave “the piece.” Has it actually been 4 years since the retreat? WOW! But then I did turn 61 yesterday. Once I finish the cartoon! My Grandmother’s Irish filigree crochet in the borders and my other Grandmother’s string piecing and geometric designs. The technique has to be different in one direction. Should be interesting how I figure out the techniques so both directions of the border look the same, seems a little daunting to weave.
The biggest design problem is how to combine elements from both Grandmothers because they were so different in every way and define the way they both perceived chance. The tapestry is being a real problem in several ways. It seems to have a mind of its own. The amount of elements and objects in the design are becoming a little chaotic, too tight and too claustrophobic. I envisioned a plains scene with ledger book horses and or ghost dancers and falling images from the sky. Nothing wants to stay where I want it to be and it is evolving quite distance from my original idea. There is so much stuff that needs to be in the design that it’s crowding out the landscape. Perhaps it needs the claustrophobic feeling.
I was beginning to thing I had a ghost in the studio rearranging my cartoon pieces until I discovered my studio helper had discovered how to climb from the floor, to a book crate, to a chair, to my design surface. I caught him rearranging my pieces while I was taking orders on the phone. He definitely has his own idea about studio time usage. I have been teaching him to fetch his yellow felt ball. Guess Chine’ decided after the third climb that if he brought me his ball and waited where he could be found we could go play fetch. The day before today he learned a hard lesson about double sided tape by tyeing himself up and then trying to pull it off with his feet. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Chene' has so much hair between his toes-well all over- really. The yellow thing hanging from his neck is a house leash he wears in the studio so that we can catch him when he's in speed demon dog phase and has stolen something to get attention.

Anyway
Until next week