Fall has come

I live very close to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Last weekend I climbed to Mosca Pass in the park (a great hike along a stream which is not too strenuous--although people have complained that when I label a hike as "easy" that doesn't mean they won't need to be carried out on a stretcher. All I can say is, get your Colorado Search and Rescue CORSAR card before hiking with me). It was beautiful, but I was completely shocked to find the aspens well on their way to full yellow. I don't know how I let this sneak up on me. It happens every year around this time. I like to keep my level of denial high in the fall. I desperately cling to hiking season and hate to admit that I might have to abandon my beloved mountains until as late as June unless I'm willing to take up backcountry skiing... which I'm not because I'm a total klutz and afraid of smacking into a tree at 60 mph.
So, the winter is approaching. I'm hoping for one more backpacking trip into the Sangres the end of October... but the thought of camping under a tarp covered with snow is a little daunting. BUT winter is a good time for weaving and my studio space is sunny and warm in the winter. So bring on the snow (and if you don't know, Alamosa is often the coldest place in the nation--routinely hitting -30 degrees F especially in January)... maybe I'll get some weaving done.
This little guy was hanging on for dear life. Sort of how I feel about letting go of summer.

From skeins to tapestry...

This is a photo of the yarn I dyed a couple months ago for the piece currently on the loom--also pictured here. The dye job took about three days as I only have one two-burner stove currently... so it takes a couple hours to get two colors. There are many more than two colors here. And since I was attempting to dye on the porch of the cabin on three of the windiest days summer in the San Luis Valley had to offer, I had to build little wind breaks around the stove with coolers and pieces of plywood and do the measuring and stirring on my knees. They're still recovering. But the sight of the finished yarn drying in the wind (the wind is good for fast drying) with Mt. Blanca behind them was worth the effort.
And then those colors started making a tapestry--this piece on the loom has a labyrinth motif (which really isn't a labyrinth at all because you couldn't walk those paths continuously, but it was what I had in mind while designing). The design hanging on the loom in the photo is only part off the piece. Just wait a few more weeks and I'll show you the whole thing (with luck and some extra time).
Weaving has been good for me lately. It brings me to a similar place that yoga or long distance hiking brings me... some indescribable place of peace (and sometimes exhaustion).

Actual Size

They say size matters, but sometimes smaller is better. This is a photo of a car I saw outside the yarn shop in Buena Vista. I'd love to drive a Mini Cooper, but there is the small matter of being able to afford one, and then fitting four big dogs into it not to mention weavings, yarn, and stacks of books that usually accompany me pretty much everywhere. I guess the mini is not for me. My little Volkswagen Golf will have to do for now... and once it goes to the big car place in the sky (hopefully after many more years although I may be deluding myself as it has almost 170,000 miles on it now) maybe then I'll be ready for a mini. Or maybe by then someone will be making a super fuel efficient, small, high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle that can handle my tendency to drive up dirt roads looking for trailheads (which has caused me twice to have to replace the oil pan on my Golf--thanks to my brother-in-laws it didn't push me into bankruptcy), the snow drifts that form instantly after a half inch of snow falls and the wind sculpts it into cement walls, and the mud that is axle deep after that snow melts. And we can't forget the 4 big dogs. I don't think that is too much to ask of a vehicle. Oh, and considering the miles I drive for my job working in the rural school districts around here, I'd like it to get at least 45 mpg. I'm pretty sure this car doesn't exist at this point. I'm also pretty sure the mini isn't going to meet any of my criteria.

But really this post was connected to weaving because the car was sighted at the YARN SHOP. Of course I was buying knitting yarn, not weaving yarn. Fortunately for my budget, the weaving yarn I use is all the same and comes from a mill in Harrisville, NH in very big boxes, all in white which I dye myself. This doesn't leave much room for impulse purchases. As far as weaving goes, the yarn shop holds little temptation. Unfortunately, I also love to knit and find it an essential activity when stuck in situations where I have to stay awake (like meetings involving lots of boring discussion on policy and procedure or gatherings with people I'm not the most interested in)... so the knitting gets me in trouble in yarn shops. I've recently discovered the Yarn Harlot. This woman is an unbelieveable knitter. I want to watch her knit somehow because I just can't believe she knits as many items as her blog features. She is a knitting goddess for sure (and her books and blog are damn funny). I'm not sure if the knitting has just become a distraction from my focus on weaving, or if it is an essential part of my life. It does often save me from falling asleep or drifting off into reverie at inappropriate moments when used as described above. And I've knit up an impressive collection of baby hats lately. I don't know enough baby heads to wear all those hats.... but I figure eventually I'll be off on some other kick and the hats will last until the baby heads show up. Despite the overpopulation problem on this planet, babies seem to continue to arrive. And when you consider how cute those hats are, how could you not want a baby to put under it?

Lastly, here is a photo of one of the dogs on top of my Golf. I think she was trying to tell me that she is both a goddess, and that I shouldn't be so angry when she misbehaves. After all, well-behaved women seldom make history! Her name is Ten. Actually, her name is such a long story I can't get into it... but her full name is Big Ten-Jita-Pumpkin Martinez-Diez-Barbie Cinnamon. And sometimes she just gets called Trouble.

Bauhaus Talks

I had a great trip to NM the end of May to continue working on the Bauhaus project with Cornelia Theimer Gardella and James Koehler. Conni finished the description of our project--she got the lions share of the work here as she was translating German to English and back again. Fortunately she is exceptionally good at this! Here is the link to the project description should you be interested:

Bauhaus project description

We are working on finding grant money to help us fund the project and also trying to firm up some show locations for the summer of 2009. We are hoping to get into a community gallery in Erfurt, Germany as our first stop. We'd like to find a gallery in New Mexico to hang the show in late summer or fall of 2009.

Bauhaus Project

2009 is the 90th anniversary of the Bauhaus—a German art school that existed between 1919 and 1933 in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin, Germany. The Bauhaus’s students and teachers were such people as Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Georg Munch, Walter Gropius, and Gunta Stolzl (among many others). Although the Bauhaus ran for less than two decades, the influence of the design theory and ideas about art had far reaching effects. Many ideas begun at the Bauhaus continued at schools in the United States such as Black Mountain College after the German school closed in 1933.

I am currently engaged in a Bauhaus project which is the brain-child of a good weaving friend of mine, Cornelia Theimer Gardella (www.corneliatheimer.com). She is a native of Erfurt, Germany and she and her husband Kurt split their time between Germany and northern New Mexico. Conni wanted to do a project connecting the ideas begun at the Bauhaus in the early 20th century and its influence on contemporary tapestry artistry. She approached myself and James Koehler (www.geocities.com/jamesrkoehler/) to collaborate on a project that would explore the ideas from the Bauhaus and connect them to our current work in the southwestern United States. James, Conni, and myself are all contemporary tapestry weavers. Conni and I have been mentored by James Koehler for the past several years and I definitely feel grateful to be included in this project which will continue our mentoring relationship and further my knowledge not only of contemporary tapestry, but of some of the art forms’ roots in Bauhaus ideas.

We are planning a show of our work in Germany during the 90th Bauhaus celebration. All three of us will display works hopefully in a gallery in Erfurt--Conni’s home town. Our plans also include a workshop accompanied by lectures designed to connect the Bauhaus ideas with our current work in New Mexico (and Conni’s continuing work in both Germany and New Mexico). We are currently looking for a venue for the show in New Mexico when we return from Germany, probably in the fall of 2009. If we’re lucky we’ll be able to also make a connection at Convergence in 2010 (we’re hoping for Albuquerque!) and perhaps show the work and repeat the workshops a third time. Our next challenge is to secure venues and find some grants to support our travel and teaching.

Memories of Utah--Weaving inspiration

My partner and I spent 5 days in Utah last month with my extended family, some friends, and 5 assorted dogs (fortunately only 2 of them were ours). The weather was beautiful and the amazing canyons of Butler Wash and Comb Ridge near Bluff were just as fabulous as ever. If it weren't for the rainstorm and the clay puddle my tent was sitting in the morning we were to leave, I might still be there.

I especially enjoyed the rock formations on this trip. The striations in the rock and the colors that swirled around each other reminded me of weaving. The tactile aspect of the various rocks and the walls of the cliff dwellings were interesting to me and brought to mind my love of the tactile nature of fiber and weaving. Touch is so important to experience. Can we allow this when we're making art also? There were many remnants of cliff dwellings in those canyons. I marveled at the way the rocks were stacked and placed decoratively in places. I could feel the grooves fingers had made in the mud used for mortar so many years ago.

A new way of journaling...

This is my first foray into blogging. It has not been a process that intersted me in the past as I do my journaling on paper with a fountain pen. But a smart woman convinced me that it would be a good addition to my website and a great place to explain in an informal way my weaving process. So here I go!

This week I mailed the last piece I finished (titled This Time I Dance) to a friend who purchased it in Denver. It is always a little sad to see a piece go (especially because this one just came off my loom a couple weeks ago and I like to have a new piece hanging in my studio a little longer to push me along), but it is good to know that it is appreciated by a friend. After all the work of designing the piece, dyeing the yarn (which for this piece was a lengthy process of about 50 colors), weaving the piece, finishing it, photographing it, and looking at it on the studio wall for awhile, putting it in a box and relinquishing it to a postal employee seems a little shocking. But we have to let our art go so it can find its own way in the world and so that we artists can move on and create something new.