Tapestry Weaving

Learning the basics of tapestry weaving: Foundations Tapestry Retreat 2019

Learning the basics of tapestry weaving: Foundations Tapestry Retreat 2019

I just got home from an amazing week teaching my Foundations Tapestry Retreat at CSU Mountain Campus. This is the fourth retreat I’ve taught at this location and I have loved every single one. I didn’t want to leave yesterday but I’ll be back there next year for two retreats in June.

Three Lindas and two Karens

This group of twelve women included three Linda/Lyndas and two Karens. I will admit that it made learning the names easier for me, but in general everyone seemed to become a cohesive group quite quickly. It is my belief that the location of a retreat self-selects certain traits in people. Tapestry weavers already tend to be people who have a certain level of fortitude and even a little stubbornness and from that pool of potential retreat participants, the high-mountain setting, the difficulty in getting there, and the promise of time outdoors further self-selects people who are pretty darn easy going. These women* were a group that got to know each other fairly quickly, shared ideas and experiments, and made sure everyone was included in all the discoveries happening. I’m so grateful for their good humor, laughter, and can-do attitudes!

The workshop focused on beginning tapestry techniques. We started with warping tips, yarn choices, and how to create a structurally sound textile. From there I presented the basic tapestry techniques and allowed each weaver to choose where they would start their explorations. Everyone made different choices, but in the end, every single person had a good grasp on the basics and had started incorporating their own design ideas into their weaving.

Eleven

Eleven

The blog began eleven years ago, April 20, 2008.

I started it on Blogger before I had any thoughts of ever teaching tapestry much less making weaving my whole career.

I moved the blog to my website years later and though it could use a good going over with an eye to fixing links and making a better tagging system, it is one long glorious song about the joy of making things.

Occasionally someone will write me and say they sat down and read the whole thing from the beginning. I like to think maybe they had the flu and had inexplicably run out of unread books and Harry Potter movies. But maybe it is just the sign of someone who starts a project and decides to see it through to the end. That seems like a trait a tapestry weaver would have. Plus there is a lot of good stuff in there though it is mixed with a lot of goofiness.

Making choices

Making choices

Anyone else really bad at making decisions?

I’m the worst.

I suppose it depends on what I have to decide about, but sometimes I’m a twitching mess of indecision. This place is painful and I’ve worked hard to learn to settle into the reasons for the struggle and listen for the right answer. That is slightly easier to do when it comes to which pizza to order than when I’m trying to decide on a design for a huge tapestry. But let’s face it, even choosing clothes for a trip to see tapestries in France can seem pretty difficult some days. (It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, right? The weight of the world in a pair of shoes…)

These sorts of indecisive moments become a habit. At least they do for me. This is part of my personality and one that I wish was different some days. I want to be one of those people who just know the right answer and go with it quickly. But I’m not. Maybe you’re not either.

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Making long-overdue color choices

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Making long-overdue color choices

My studio Fridays this year have been devoted to getting the yarn and design ready for a new large tapestry. I don’t have a name for it yet, but the inspiration came from my artist residency at Petrified Forest National Park way back in 2016. That experience made me think a lot about time. Petrified Forest does have a lot of petrified wood—trees that grew when Arizona was near the equator and fell in some great event 220 million years ago. The park is also full of amazing landforms that are stratified. As you walk through the landscape you’re walking through landscapes formed during entirely different time periods. The only way I know to travel through time in a single day.

During my month at that park, I did a daily 2 x 2 inch weaving every evening about my experiences in the park that day. I spent much of my time hiking, sketching, and taking photos. In my little casita after the early winter darkness fell, I had many hours to do some weaving. On day three of the residency, I wove a piece about the layers I saw everywhere.

An artist's evolution and the legacy of a teacher

An artist's evolution and the legacy of a teacher

Every year of the last seven years on March 4th I’ve written a blog post in honor of my teacher, James Koehler, who died unexpectedly in 2011 at 58 years of age.

Last December I gave a lecture to the Rocky Mountain Weaver’s Guild in Denver about my experiences as James’ apprentice as well as an overview of the parts of his tapestry practice that he shared with me. As I went through some new material which was generously shared by other apprentices and his sister and read through at his autobiography again, I especially appreciated revisiting the progression of his artistic work. From initial tapestries woven when he was a Benedictine monk to much less representational works later in his life, I could sometimes hear his voice talking about his inspiration, his process, and the tapestry rules he made for himself.

I’ve put a page on my website with links to more information about his work including video and audio HERE.

Weaving love

Weaving love

Valentines Day. An easy day to latch onto the idea of weaving tiny things, maybe even a heart. Whether or not you embrace a day which often just seems like a Hallmark holiday designed to get us to buy chocolate, wine, and flowers (admittedly I love all those things), it is a very good day to remember to love the people around you. Be kind to each other!

Color in the Land of Enchantment: Taos 2019

Color in the Land of Enchantment: Taos 2019

Taos 2019: Color in the Land of Enchantment was a lot of fun. This tapestry retreat in Taos, NM wrapped up earlier this week after five days of experimenting with color.

One of my goals for the retreat was to help people lose the fear of color when designing for tapestry. This is a deeply seated fear for many of us—making color mistakes. We believe we are “bad” at color. We remember our elementary school teacher who told us our tree trunks could not be purple. Trees are brown. I am here to tell you that she was wrong. Sometimes tree trunks are purple.

We did talk formally about color theory. But we also messed around with exercises in paper and yarn. Color aid paper plus rubber cement* leads to sticky fingers, but also to revelations about how colors interact. Wrapping yarn combinations around cards can also be surprisingly interesting. And if you start moving those cards around, you can create a palette. Sure, eventually you need to weave a sample especially for a large tapestry, but we need a simple place to start learning how to do this. When designing for a particular piece, it is important to understand what you are trying to communicate. A lot of that communication comes through color and value choices.