Emergence

Rhythm and Rhyme, Fuller Lodge

I drove down to Los Alamos, NM to see my pieces in the Rhythm and Rhyme show at Fuller Lodge on Monday. I was pleased to meet the directors of the art gallery and to see the current show.



My pieces looked great and I received a Juror's pick award for Emergence I.

Emergence I, 48 x 48 inches, hand-dyed wool tapestry


Emergence III and Emergence IV were also accepted to the show.






Photos of the work in the show can be seen on the Fuller Lodge website for at least this month.

Emergence V: The Center Place

Emergence V: The Center Place, 44 x 44 inches, hand-dyed wool tapestry
photo: James Hart

This is the fifth piece in my Emergence series.
Here are links to the others (or you could just look at my website HERE to see them all):

Emergence I --the first of the series, helped along by some good solid design advice from James Koehler and woven while apprenticing with him in 2008-2009. It was in American Tapestry Biennial 8 as well as the Bauhaus show in Albuquerque in 2010. This tapestry is now at Weaving Southwest in Taos, NM

Emergence II --This piece was in the Bauhaus project (Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus) show at Michaeliskirche in Erfurt, Germany. From there it went to Weaving Southwest in Taos where it was bought by a college in Colorado for their permanent collection.

Emergence III --This piece was in Fiber Celebrated 2011 at the Intermountain Weaver's Conference in Durango, CO in July 2011 and is now hanging at Weaving Southwest in Taos waiting for someone to take it home.

Emergence IV --This piece is at Weaving Southwest also.

This piece started coalescing in my mind when I was at Chaco Canyon the day James Koehler died. You can see what I wrote about that time HERE.
The feeling of expanding horizon in the desert southwest is important to me. Chaco Canyon is a place where the sky is huge and I am but a small observer of the shifting universe.
The questions about ancient people and the artifacts and unanswered stories they left behind are also endlessly intriguing to me. This piece is full of questions.


A traveling tapestry studio

I am in a bit of flux.
A state of flux (which reminds me of Back to the Future I'm afraid... which tells you about when I was a teenager) which is unlikely to resolve soon. So for the present moment and until at least January, I am living in Cortez, Colorado. We were hoping for Durango, but it turns out Cortez is okay. It is surrounded by mountains (Sleeping Ute, Mesa Verde, La Platas) and isn't all that different from the small NM towns I'm used to--except there seems to be a lot more white folks here... that kind of throws me off a little some days. I'm working here as a traveling occupational therapist (which just means that the job is temporary and someone else finds me housing).

So my studio has to be a little bit more portable. This is my Macomber workshop loom which found a place in my car (and many things had to be rejected so the looms could fit in--my car is small! But who needs extra shoes anyway?). This loom, or so she says, was my grandmother's first loom. She is a little creaky now and I'm not at all pleased with the lack of very tight tension (okay, it is pretty darn good for a little folding loom, but it isn't the Harrisville!) and the tiny beater, but overall she weaves a straight fell and creates a nice tapestry cloth. What can you expect from a loom that is at least 50 years old? In fact, Grandma insists that this was Mrs. Macomber's own loom which she sold my grandmother upon request.  I never quite bought that story, but have no way to verify it, so perhaps Grandma is correct. My grandmother gave it to me years ago with 4 harnesses in the 8 harness castle.  The last time I worked as a traveling OT (2003-4), I added 4 more harnesses to it, so now it has 8. I just called up the Macombers (they don't have a website, don't even look), gave them the serial number of the loom conveniently etched on a metal plate attached to the loom, and they undoubtedly sifted through some dust-covered index card records, found the needed parts (which they still make--can you believe it?) and shipped me off 4 more harnesses and the necessary treadles. Amazing.  What will happen when those guys bite it? Macomber lovers everywhere will cry long and hard, that's what.


Nothing can replace my Harrisville rug loom.  But for now I am weaving on the little looms.  I've just put the warp on the Macomber for a commission in the Emergence series, and my trusty Mirrix is waiting in the wings in case I get desperate for something somewhat less wonky. Cassy was trying to help me warp, but I ended up with a big threading error, so perhaps she wasn't as helpful as she could have been... you know, if she had gone out for pizza for us instead or something.


Drawing the cartoon on mylar for the next piece on the coffee table in the little rental house. Turns out coffee tables of this shape are great for a 16 X 48 inch piece.

That is the whole studio at the moment... guess I'm lucky to have some smaller looms to cart around... and a job too.

And here is the studio I left behind, empty (well, except for the yellow lab--but I didn't leave her there).


Being a traveling weaver isn't all bad... Being in the heart of historical, ancestral puebloan country, a few days while the weather is nice here and there isn't something I can complain about!  This is Hovenweep National Monument.

And just because I mentioned it earlier, this is the Cortez cow.
(I'm hoping for some better sights than the cow this weekend.)