Rebecca Mezoff Blog — Rebecca Mezoff

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What am I really doing again?

You may have seen these "What we do" posters on Facebook recently. This was the one I had to pass on (thanks Mirrix!). I think it is funny, but not quite accurate.


What my spouse thinks I do (this one is pretty accurate):

That is me stuck in the back of my car after the hatch slammed down as I was trying to move a loom out of it--the hydrolic hatch holders failed and I was trapped. Emily took a photo before she let me out.
What Society thinks I do:
OR

What my kids think I do:

What my friends think I do:


What I think I do:


What I actually do:
Emergence VI, 15 x 49 inches, hand-dyed wool tapestry
Emergence II, 45 x 45 inches, hand-dyed wool tapestry




The Draw Loom

I had the opportunity to go to a "loom gazing" yesterday. I wasn't entirely sure what a loom gazing was, but pretty quickly realized it was just as it sounds--a gathering of weavers looking at looms.  Jacque Hart lives near me and she has been a weaver and artist her whole life. Her house/studio was a fascinating collection of looms. The Pueblo weavers guild drove over the mountain for a studio tour and I was allowed to tag along.

The Other Looms

Jacque has a house stuffed with looms.  I counted 5 looms that were at least 45 inches weaving width and a large assortment of small looms tucked in corners under piles of wool and weaving. I missed the demonstration of the AVL, but it looks to me like this is where Jacque does her "production" type weaving.

I thought everyone had moved on to computerized AVL looms, but Jacque still uses these pegs and I adore her for it. This was really the first computer after all, was it not?

This loom is a 32 harness Macomber which is definitely an old dinosaur! It was one of the first looms people called "computerized". All the shaft changes were entered one at a time on this little key pad and stored on a memory key. Jacque said it takes forever to put them in. She had a hilarious accounting of using the loom, what with the solenoids switching the shafts and the clatter of the air compressor which is the mechanical assist for lifting those metal shafts, the noise was too much. She would love to sell this loom if anyone is interested! It is definitely a little slice of history.  And you'd get very strong lifting those shafts since the air compressor has been disconnected. The loom looked like a 72 inch width one to me!


The drawloom

The most interesting of the looms to me was the drawloom.  I had never seen one before and Jacque spent quite a bit of time explaining how it works.
I have done some pick up work in the past and so the concept of this loom seemed fairly straightforward as Jacque explained it. Basically the pattern for the fabric goes on the front 10 pattern shafts (the regular countermarch shafts of the loom) and the "pick up" threads are on the back 60 drawloom shafts. Jacque treadles whatever ground fabric she is working (satin, etc) and then also pulls the shafts for the pattern she wants raised before putting in her shot.

 These are the pulls that control the drawloom shafts on the back of which there are 60 on this particular loom.

 You can see in this photo how the standard Glimakra countermarche loom is to the left and the drawloom extension is hooked on the back of it. This loom takes a lot of floor space!

These U-shaped weights have a name, but I can't remember what it is. Please comment on this post if you know!
 This loom looks particularly challenging to set up.

There is a very interesting article with pictures HERE about how to set up a drawloom and how it works.
Glimakra also has a page of information about drawlooms.

The Fabric

Jacque had some fine examples of her work for me to look at. Can you guess which pieces were done on which kind of loom? All photos are of work done by Jacque Hart. You can contact her through her website if you are interested. She has some gorgeous throws and coverlets and also does other functional textiles as well as wall pieces. Here website is HERE.




The Animals

And of course I took a quick tour of the animals on my way back to my car. The sheep were adorable and I just wanted to brush the angora bunnies! Dangerously, Jacque mentioned that she has baby bunnies who need homes. I beat it to my car at that point lest a bunny cage find its way onto my back porch and I find myself learning to spin angora.

I had a great time thinking about complex weaves again and learning about the drawloom.
 Isn't weaving grand?




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.

Warping the LeClerc Gobelin loom

I have never before used an upright tapestry loom except for small frame looms and my Mirrix. My grandmother Marian gave me her beloved tapestry loom when she moved across the country a few years ago. I was so enamored of the loom my grandfather gave me, the Harrisville rug loom, that I had neglected this beautiful LeClerc.  But when I moved to Alamosa and was faced with which loom I could most easily liberate from the storage locker in Taos, the LeClerc won easily. So I brought it home and my father put it back together for me and now I am ready to have a whack at using it.

It needed some cleaning up first however.
The linen warp that my grandmother had last put on the loom was still rolled on the top beam. I loved the curtain of linen it made when I pulled it down... but eventually I had to cut it off.



But not before examining how it was warped!
Clearly the loops from the cross end of the warp were at the top indicating to me that a warping board was the best way to warp this loom as opposed to some modified Navajo warping technique. As I knew Tommye Scanlin used to have a loom just like this, I consulted her for advice and she was exceedingly helpful.

I found when I unwound the old warp that water had dripped onto the top beam at some point when this warp was sitting in my grandmother's dining room waiting for a Maurice Sendak tapestry (see blog post HERE) to be woven and the two iron bars were rusted. Upon the trusty advice of my Uncle Carl, I used plain old vinegar to get the rust off the bars. I made a sort of tub with plastic sheeting and the widest crack in our back deck. It worked perfectly and only took a couple cups of vinegar. After a little scrubbing with steel wool, I had perfectly clean bars again.





There was also an issue with mold on the apron. The new version of this loom which LeClerc still makes doesn't have the canvas apron. The rod attaches directly to the beam in a slot. But this loom is an old one and the apron molded where it was wet. I opted, in this dry climate, to wait to replace it and rolled the mold right back up. I will need to replace the apron sometime soon.


I wound a warp on my warping board.  Here are the warp sections hanging ready to be put through the reed.

I then threaded each loop into every other dent in an 8 dent reed (warping for 8 e.p.i.). I held the reed vertically with two clamps as I did this and slid the loops onto the bar which would hold the warp loops at the top of the loom tied to the bar that goes through the apron rod.

The entire warp was put through the reed.  Unfortunately I don't currently own a 60 inch 8 dent reed and ended up using two shorter reeds to accomplish this. Because this piece has several sections, the break between the reeds didn't matter. If I was doing a piece without sections, this would not have worked.

With Emily's help, I tied the reed onto the frame, leash sticks below.

The warp was slowly rolled around the top beam and then tied at the bottom like you would a floor loom... ready to weave.


My grandmother loved to mark things and much of my weaving equipment like these leash sticks are covered with her writing.
Another helpful resource for warping and for this project was Kathe Todd-Hooker's warping book, So Warped. It is available from her business, Fine Fiber Press. She specifically mentions a wide variety of looms and how to warp them and I recommend all tapestry weavers, especially ones like me who like to play with a wide variety of looms, have this book on their shelves.

One of my favorite bumper stickers, also from Kathe Todd-Hooker
After the warp is on, you still have to tie leashes. This loom comes with a 1 1/2 inch leash bar which has adjustable height via chains on each side of the loom. 

The leashes are tied one at a time to pull forward the second shed. I learned this method of tying leashes from Archie Brennan and Susan Martin Maffei in their tapestry course, Woven Tapestry Techniques. I have never tied leashes like this before as I usually use a loom with harnesses and treadles. Archie's description in his DVD course is helpful and clear.

I used a long copper bar to hold the open shed in place. The leashes are used to pull the back threads forward to make the other shed.



And the loom is tied up, the tension extremely even if I do say so myself!

Now all that remains is to turn this:

into a finished work of art.

Tales of a Traveling Weaver continued....

I don't feel exactly like I am traveling any more because I am living in a house with furniture some of which actually belongs to me and because my family is here... and also because I used to live in the San Luis Valley. So here I am again.

I made a few trips down to my storage locker in Northern NM to pick up some furniture and especially, the LeClerc loom. My adventures warping that loom are following shortly. This mural is in Espanola on a construction dumpster.


Alamosa has a small college, Adams State, who hosted one of my favorite bands on March 30th, Driftwood Fire. It was my niece's first concert. If you want to see a great video of one of their beautiful songs, check out this video of Appalachian Hills.


Rhonda Mouser opened for Driftwood Fire.

I hope not to be in traveling mode forever, but while I am, experiencing new things is fun and broadening. Take for example, this horse which belongs to one of my current patients who lives just a couple miles from me. My patient's land and barn was burned in a recent fire. Her neighbor was burning his fields (they do this a lot this time of year apparently--and when the wind whips up to 50mph it doesn't seem the smartest thing to me, but I'm not a farmer with a blow torch) and a gust of wind spread the fire burning at least a square mile including her barn. Her renter saved the horse and the rental house and now this old guy is living in her front yard. This horse is 35 years old and I can't help but wonder what sort of biomechanical nightmare his spine is.

There was a spring trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Medano Creek flows only part of the year and it was just reaching the visitor's center the weekend we were there. Locally this creek is called "the Alamosa beach" because the water is warm and the sand is fun to dig in, even if you are a bit older than the diapered kids with sand pails.

The end of the water. Eventually the creek will flow wide and strong all the way around the dunes to the Blanca wetlands where the water supports many species.


The pattern is important. Sometimes a life looks like chaos from the outside, but the pattern is steady underneath.


The Cask of Amontillado

I grew up with a father who loves the likes of Robert Service, Garrison Keillor, and Edgar Allan Poe. While other kids were watching Sesame Street and the Electric Company, I did not have the pleasure of a television to rot my brain away, but instead listened to my father making up stories (he is especially good at ghost stories), quoting The Cremation of Sam McGee (by Robert Service: Alaska has a special mystery to the Mezoffs), or reading the likes of The Pit and the Pendulum or The Telltale Heart (Poe of course).

So you can get some of the flavor of my upbringing, here is part of Robert Service's The Cremation of Sam McGee:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee. 

I can't remember the multitude of Bible verses I was required to memorize in the conservative Christian elementary school I attended, but I could recite this verse in my sleep. Good stuff. Thanks Dad.

One particular sequence of events in the last month reminds me of the Poe tale, The Cask of Amontillado.

If you don't remember the tale from when your father read it to you, it is a typically gruesome tale of retribution, wine, and catacombs:

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick - on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position ; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. 

This particular story comes to mind due to some recent work I did in the backyard involving a certain skunk hole:

This is the hole that has plagued my life of late--the most popular entrance to the space under the house where the skunks seem to want to set up permanent residence.  This hole needed to be plugged... which I proposed to do, though I had never worked with it before, with the use of this material which I found in my landlord's junky and luckily for me, unlockable shed:

...with this material I planned to make it impossible for the skunks to access the space under my house and to wake me up with their cloying, neurology-impairing stench. And the gradual cementing of the access hole is what brought to mind The Cask of Amontillado in which Fortunato meets an unfortunate end behind a brick wall.

Yes, I learned to mix concrete... and built the base of an impenetrable skunk barrier (skunks turn out to be right good little diggers when given the impetus--see the LAST skunk post if you dare HERE).

And then I spread some flour (gluten free!) over the concrete and I waited. I got up at night and I checked that flour. I put down more flour to make sure I wasn't missing tracks.

And nothing happened. For nights and nights, which was of course making me cranky as I hate being woken up in the middle of the night and that skunk just wasn't cooperating.  Then one night, I saw this:

There were tracks heading out of the hole.  And from there I sprang into action.

I closed up the hole with rocks.  Very heavy rocks.  Rocks weighing more than skunks... even if they were working as a team and had their own block and tackle. They were not moving these rocks. And I added wire mesh through which a skunk of average size could not fit.

And then I concreted the rocks in place and covered them with gravel which skunks clearly don't like to dig through.  And I thought that I had won.

But a few weeks later, I found that I had not. In the middle of the night I woke to a noxious smell and a sinking feeling in my heart. The skunk was back. Unbelievably, the skunk was back. I couldn't find the entrance and I have been forced to believe that I walled a skunk under there that has been subsisting on mice (yes, we have those too) and perhaps water from the washer which drains into the yard and more mice... and that perhaps that skunk had died under there and I was in for a long unpleasant smelling experience. The holes are all plugged, but the smell continues. Actually, it sounds kind of like the ending of an Edgar Allan Poe tale after all. Poor Fortunato.  

In pace requiescat !