New Mexico Fiber Arts Center. . . in Santa Fe!

Before I get to the main story today I want to let you know about a fun fiber event happening this weekend in Santa Fe.  Hop on over to the annual Fall Fiber Fiesta, Nov. 22-24, at the Scottish Rite Temple, 463 Paseo de Peralta in Santa Fe, 9-5.  It's a bonanza of hand-crafted fiber art and gifts--handwovens, hand-knitted, crocheted, spun, felted, and quilted items.  The event is free to the public.  The Artists' Reception 5-8 Friday night features live music, refreshments and a silent auction for a $10 charge.  I'm not exhibiting this year but I'm planning on doing some serious holiday gift shopping.

This event is sponsored by a mainstay of the New Mexico fiber arts world:  the Española Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC).  EVFAC has offered classes, a shop full of tempting fiber, tools, and books, and sponsored fiber art exhibits and sales for over twenty years.  It is truly the hub of the fiber arts in Northern New Mexico.

Now EVFAC is expanding with an exciting new presence in Santa Fe.  The former Amores Yarns is now the New Mexico Fiber Arts Center, located at 328 S. Guadelupe Street in the Railyard district, home to many contemporary arts venues.  The Center will spotlight the work of a handful of artists periodically.  I am thrilled to report that my work is keeping company there with the amazing work of  tapestry artist Mary Cost through late January.  (And we have each sold a piece already!  Yay!)

Mary Cost's tapestries hang above a luscious assortment of yarns, some hand-dyed locally.

Store buyer/manager Leslie Zwail offers a warm welcome and deep knowledge of the artwork, yarns, and vintage textiles on offer.   Those are my pieces Mater Dolorosa, Red Letter Day, and Mary (Yes) on the wall. 

These pieces in my Fences series are available.  From top:  Barbed,  Falling, and Bruised.
I just finished Barbed this week.

Barbed.  That's actual barbed wire.  

The first Fence piece, Gate, has sold.  

The third artist featured at the moment is actually a collector, Diane Hanson.  Her treasure trove of rare vintage and folk textiles is available for purchase through New Mexico Fiber Arts Center for a limited time.  I unfolded and petted most of the pieces in this gorgeous collection when I was there for the opening.  Still mulling over what I can bring home with me. . . .

A few of the gorgeous indigo batik textiles available.

Handwoven linens

The Center also offers gorgeous handmade wearable art by local artists including Cynthia Boudreau (nuno felted work) and Julia Stephens (eco-printed suede and leather totes).

Shawl by Cynthia Boudreau

Felted coat and beret by Cynthia Boudreau

Eco-printed leather/suede tote by Julia Stephens

Concurrent with EVFAC's Santa Fe satellite is that the Española location is rededicating itself to serving the local community, with new programming for school children and people with disabilities. A full roster of events is available here. 

If you are planning to be in Santa Fe, be sure to add New Mexico Fiber Arts Center to your must-do list.

Collage to Tapestry Cartoon in Española, New Mexico

Weekend before last, I taught my first workshop in New Mexico, at Española Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC), a major hub of all things textile in the state.*   Six students from around the country braved wintry weather (we did get 6" of snow one night!) to learn more about how collage can be used to generate a weave-able design for tapestry.  They made collages, did yarn wraps to test color ideas, translated their collages into tapestry cartoons, and began weaving samples.

By the way, I am teaching Collage to Tapestry Cartoon at two other venues this year:  the Weaver's Guild of Minnesota in Minneapolis, March 13-17, and at the Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association conference (MAFA) in Millersville, PA June 27-30.  I'd love to see you in either location!

Here are a few photos from the three-day workshop.

Marlena begins to assemble a landscape collage.

Wendy ponders two of her collages. . . . and a beautiful palette of yarn.

Patricia has several strong collages from which to choose  to work.

Wendy and Janice look at work so far.

Evelyn and Cindy give each other constructive feedback before deciding which collages to develop into cartoons.

Cindy makes yarn wraps to test colors before weaving.  Those are all her hand-dyed wools!

Patricia begins to weave a sample of the colors in her collage.

Marlena's sample in progress.  Excellent texture!

Wendy's sample, above, and collage, below.

I love how in this class each student's work is uniquely theirs.  Each student makes several collages which express their own style and tastes, and then everyone makes their own choices about how to develop their collages into tapestry.  My teacher's heart was warmed when I heard a few students confess that they are now converts to doing the "adult" thing and making samples before starting to weave their tapestries for real.  I can't wait to see what they all do next!  

* (Check out the New Mexico Fiber Crawl May 17-19, 2019 with fiber events at studios, galleries, farms and shops around Northern New Mexico.)

Weaving community: a whole lot of gratitude

Yarn ball Christmas tree with moomintrolls who might be up to mischief.  Thanks to Rebecca Mezoff (and Emily) for letting me steal their idea for the tree.  Moomintrolls are characters from Finnish folklore.

At this time of year, if we are lucky, we celebrate the winter holidays with family and friends.  We celebrate friendship and love and laughter, and we are grateful not to be alone in the darkest part of the year.  We look back over the past year, recalling the good times and the bad (and the weird and the downright ugly).  With luck we might estimate that the good outweighed the hard.

I was thinking this morning about how fortunate I have been to be part of a sustaining artistic community every part of the way in 2018.  In the Atlanta area, I found my tribe at Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance (SEFAA), which hosted my show of tapestries in February and March.  I was honored to have friends not just from my neighborhood but weavers from Florida and North Carolina, come to see the show and give me their considered feedback.  You know who you are, and I am grateful!

Opening reception for ICONIC show at SEFAA.  Photo:  Nancy Langham

When we moved to New Mexico, I left one community and was humbled and so happy to be welcomed into another one.  The Las Tejedoras,  High Desert Tapestry and Las Aranas guilds have become my local fiber tribe.  It is thrilling to be among so many dedicated weavers.  I am looking forward to teaching Collage to Tapestry Cartoon at Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC) in February and deepening my connection with several weavers there.*

One of the best things to happen to me in 2018 was the Handweavers Guild of America's Convergence conference and the subsequent American Tapestry Alliance meeting and retreat.  It was fantastic to meet, teach and weave alongside gifted artists from across the country.  The workshop with Rowen Schussheim-Anderson has changed my approach to tapestry in exciting ways.

Next year will afford me the chance to teach in four locations around the country, and I am deeply grateful to those weaving friends (again, you know who you are) who have helped me make those connections.

Finally, I continue to be grateful for the online community I have found on Instagram and Facebook.  I am as dismayed as anyone at the ongoing revelations about Facebook's cavalier attitude toward users' privacy (to put it generously), but I continue to feel that what I learn there from fellow artists and weavers far outweighs the negative.  Instagram has introduced me to fiber artists worldwide whose work inspires and teaches me something almost every day.

Last week I was touched to get thoughtful and valuable feedback on both social media when I publicly asked for help figuring out how (or if) to handle next year's tapestry diary.  (If you're wondering, I've reached a decision but I'm saving it for the next blog post!)  Weaving is a solitary pursuit, but sharing our work in progress, our questions, doubts and occasional triumphs makes it all easier.

I suppose it's not surprising that weavers are good at coming together, constructing a sturdy fabric in which each thread is a small but indispensable part of a larger, beautiful whole.  As I look back at 2018 and forward to 2019 I hope to continue to be one of those interlaced threads.

Santa Fe Plaza 

I wish for you, my friends and colleagues near and far, all the blessings of community wherever you are and whatever you do.  The online community is wonderful, but let's remember to get out of the studio and make connections in real life too!  Keep an eye out for those solitary threads who might be snagged or unraveling, and bring them into the web.  We're all in this together.


* There are still openings in the class at EVFAC.  Click HERE to register.

roundup of studio news

October was a fun, hectic month of travel and visits with friends.  Studio work has proceeded however, in fits and spurts, here and there, and since it's been awhile since I posted about actual tapestry weaving, here's an update.

Experimentation and percolating of various ideas continues, in short.  These are the three looms I'm working at these days. 

I am weaving the wedge weave landscape/sky piece that I had in mind awhile ago, nearly done with that.  I'm enjoying blending strands of 6-ply DMC floss.  Love that sheen!  I'm playing around with small slits, as you can see.  Tentative title:  Crosscurrents.  I'm weaving on the Glimakra "small Freja" loom I picked up at Convergence.  It's a great little frame loom with screws at the top that allow you to adjust tension.  But the comfortable weaving area is only about 6" high on this size loom.  I suspect I will be needle weaving those last several rows. 

I'm starting to develop new classes and am sampling for those.  Stay tuned for more specifics on that front. (Visible in the center loom in the photo at top.)

Speaking of classes, I am happy to announce that I am teaching my Collage to Tapestry Cartoon workshop at the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC), in Espanola, NM Feb. 22-24, 2019.  This is the same class I taught at Convergence this summer, with the addition of a third day for optional weaving/sampling of the cartoon you've designed.  You'll learn to use collage (cut-and-paste) to design your tapestry and how to translate it into a cartoon you can weave.  Find all the details HERE.  

Work on the tapestry diary on the Mirrix continues, with one stripe for each day's sky color (days out of town are orange).  I weave the name of each month at the end of the month. 

And I'm still exploring the potential for collage and mixed media in tapestry . . . and not just in the design stage.  I've got a few collages I'm beginning to translate into cartoons, waiting to see which one grabs me and doesn't let go.  I have completed one small piece I'm pretty excited about, but I can't show it to you yet as it's in the jurying process for a show.  

Exciting news!  This piece from my Mary series has found a new home with good friends.  It's always so gratifying when someone responds so wholeheartedly to to your work.  Thanks, Alice and Dave!

Mary (greater is what she bore in her mind) handwoven tapestry 19" x 15" framed
(c) Molly Elkind

And . . . faithful readers (with a very good memory) may recall that a few years ago (OK, three and half years) I was inspired by a trip to Istanbul and the chance to view amazing tile work in the Topkapi Palace.  I decided to design and start making a new quilt for our bed, to go with the lovely rug we purchased there.  That quilt, drum roll please, is FINALLY FINISHED!!!  As in quilted (not by me), the binding sewn on, and washed, dried outside, and put on the bed.  Hallelujah.  

I'm finding the bright white is a bit jarring next to all the off-white tones in the room.  Next time I wash it I may tea-dye it. . .

I hope your life is giving you some occasion to say Hallelujah these days!  (At least a qualified hallelujah?!) 

Recall-Recapture-Remember fiber exhibit at Tansey Contemporary

I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the above-named exhibit the other day in Santa Fe.  An important family celebration kept me away from the opening last weekend, timed to kick off the 2018 New Mexico Fiber Crawl, but I hear it was a hoot.  The show remains up in Santa Fe through June 17, when it will travel to Tansey's Denver gallery for July 7 - August 5.

This exhibit, sponsored by the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC) in collaboration with Tansey Contemporary Gallery of Santa Fe and Denver, showcases invited and juried artists from the Southwest region.

Tansey Contemporary Gallery, 652 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM

The show's theme was expressed in this way:  "Does our past build us, or do we build our past?  Things remembered can be as sharp as the current moment or so blurred that only a feeling remains."

This dovetails nicely with the questions I've explored in my Mary series, questions about the ongoing impact of the image and myth of the Virgin Mary for women down the millenia.  I was thrilled when my piece Mary (Yes) was accepted.

Mary (Yes) by Molly Elkind back left;
In Mind by Amanda Speer back right 

There is much to see in this show, and work by other Tansey gallery artists is also on exhibit so the space is chock-full of cool stuff to look at.  I would love to share all the fiber pieces with you, but time and space do not permit.  And in fact there is a complete slideshow HERE and an online catalog with artists' bios and statements HERE , so you can browse to your heart's content.  I recommend taking the time to read the artists' statements.  Here I will focus on the work of those weavers whose work captivated me on this visit.  I plan to revisit the exhibit and imagine I will find more work that pulls me in then.

For me it was a thrill to see this piece by Elizabeth Buckley in person after having only seen it on a screen. 

Elizabeth Buckley, The Veils of Time, 60" x 50".

Elizabeth's mastery of values, hues, subtle color gradation and transparency in tapestry are breathtaking.  She fully exploits the techniques of the medium to serve her image without letting the techniques become an end in themselves.  And the image itself conveys a sense of layers of deep time in the landscape, alluding to the sea that used to cover much of New Mexico.

detail, Elizabeth Buckley, The Veils of Time, 60" x 50"

detail, Elizabeth Buckley, The Veils of Time, 60" x 50"

I could study and learn from this tapestry for a long time. 

I could say the same of Cindy Dworzak's piece Circles.

Cindy Dworzak, Circles, 39" x 37"

Again, my eye delighted in the subtle gradation of colors, the use of transparency, the masterful tapestry techniques employed . . . and all those overlapping circles!  Circles are probably the most difficult shape to weave in a medium based on the grid, and here Cindy has woven bunches. . .and made it look effortless.  I was interested to learn that for Cindy this piece recalls her mother's love of color and the complexity of her personality. 

detail, Cindy Dworzak, Circles, 39" x 37"

detail, Cindy Dworzak, Circles, 39" x 37"

Speaking of grids, a couple of artists explicitly acknowledged the woven grid while at the same time bending it to their own will.  These pieces prompted me to wonder "How did they do that?"  I do recognize various shadow-weave patterns in Amanda Speer's piece but in the brief time I had I couldn't tease out how she managed to blur their edges and transition between them.  A look at her statement disclosed that she works with ikat dyeing.  This piece, with its mosaic of color and complex pattern set off by a black border, is dedicated to the 36 young people who perished in the "Ghost Ship" warehouse fire in Oakland, CA in December 2016.

Amanda Speer, In Mind, 38" x 38"

Jennifer Moore is well-known for exploring the possibilities of doubleweave.  She writes that this piece's design revolves around fractals based on the golden proportion.  The central rectangle spins off smaller, proportional rectangles in multiple generations. . . much as the human family reproduces itself and its cultures.  I have a very general understanding of how Jennifer wove this but I marvel at the nuances of color gradation and luminescence she achieves.

Jennnifer Moore, Introspection, 40" x 30.5" 

I must include a look at two more tapestry artists before closing.  Navajo/Dine' weaver Titus Steiner Cody wove a piece that is rooted in Navajo methods and imagery and yet feels utterly contemporary.

Titus Seiner Cody, Somewhere Triptych, 37" x 68"

Cody credits the influence of his grandmothers, both in teaching him to weave and in handing down the creation stories of the Navajo, which are pictured in this piece. Again, there is much to see and to study here.

detail, Titus Seiner Cody, Somewhere Triptych, 37" x 68"

detail, Titus Seiner Cody, Somewhere Triptych, 37" x 68"

Finally, Irvin Trujillo included a piece informed by a number of influences:  his own multiple-generation heritage of Rio Grande weaving, the patterns in a Tunisian headscarf he observed in a Santa Fe museum, and the protests of the Arab Spring that occurred during the time he wove the piece.  Because he was limited to a small loom at the time, the piece was woven in two strips and seamed down the center.  The weaving is of course meticulous. 

Irvin Trujillo, Emergence in Tunisia, 80" x 48"

I was interested to note that this piece is woven in half silk, half merino wool, at a very fine sett.

detail, Irvin Trujillo, Emergence in Tunisia, 80" x 48"

There is so much more to see in this exhibit than I have presented here so briefly, fascinating and gorgeous works in stitch, sculpture, quilting, and mixed media.  If you are in Santa Fe or will be in Denver in June, I urge you to see the show.  Or at least curl up with the online catalog HERE.