How does travel impact your work?

Summer is a season for travel, and it seems like a good time to raise a question with you, dear readers, that I've been mulling over.  How does your travel impact your creative work, in fiber or any other medium?  Do you try to take what you've seen and translate it into your own work?  Or is travel more inspiring in a general way, allowing you to step out of your daily life, refresh your mind and spirit, and broaden your visual horizons?  I, along with many weavers in the US and around the world, have recently enjoyed following the textile-oriented travels of Robbie LaFleur and Rebecca Mezoff, and I am excited to see how their travels and research impact their work.  Their generous sharing of images and insights has already been helpful for many of us in the weaving community.

My own recent journeys have not been quite as far afield or as intensely fiber-focused, but I've taken a couple of fun trips so far this year, one to Guatemala and the other just over a week ago to the Four Corners area of the U.S., encompassing Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and Monument Valley Tribal Park.  On each trip I took dozens, maybe hundreds, of photos, and my mind was whirring with ideas as to how I might take what I'd seen and use it in tapestry somehow.

In the Four Corners region I was awed by the scale and patterning of natural formations.  At Zion, desert varnish painted the cliff walls with shiny areas and with abstract expressionist drip patterns.  I learned that in geological terms the wedge weave pattern in the cliff faces is due to crossbedding of different layers of rock.

Rock walls at Zion

Rock wall with crossbedding (or wedge weave) at Zion

At Bryce Canyon I was intrigued by the weird and wildly detailed hoodoos formed by erosion.  Scores of spires and narrow fingers and canyons made cities of orange and white rock.  It was spectacular, and yet seemed impossible to try to weave, at least for me.  If you abstracted the detailed forms enough to weave them you'd lose the impact, I think.  (I'd love to see a tapestry inspired by Bryce that proves me wrong!)

"Fairyland" section of Bryce Canyon

 The formations of Monument Valley are truly monumental.  In movies and photographs the monuments are often pictured all together in the landscape, and thus they can look smaller than they really are.  In person the scale is immense; the tallest formation is 1000 feet high, the height of a 100-story building.

"Big Eye Hogan" at Monument Valley.  The same forces of erosion that shaped the monuments are at work carving the eye in the ceiling of this giant alcove. 

We love to look at the strange and unusual in the landscape--but does it make for good art?

In Guatemala, the landscape was gorgeous,  but I was most enchanted by the vibrant colors and the exuberant mixing of patterns in traditional Maya clothing.  I admired the incredible workmanship in the dyeing and weaving.   But since I returned, I've not found a way to directly translate any of that into my own work.  It could be that Mayan weaving is Mayan and not for me to emulate.   I have, though, continued to explore and research the ways in which color, culture and place intersect.  (If you have any books or articles to recommend, please share!)

Market in Antigua, Guatemala

Woven huipil, or blouse, from Guatemala

But the question remains--how do you take what you've seen on a wonderful trip and use it once you're back in your regular environment?  I know that there is no one answer that could work for all artists, all trips, and all ways of working.  And yet I want to somehow integrate these experiences into my work.  I want them not to be isolated experiences.  It could be that they are influencing me in subliminal ways I'm not even aware of, which would be great!

In all these places I feel shrunk down to my right size, very very small in the grand scheme of things, and that is oddly comforting.  (Another way to say it is that I'm getting out of my studio and out of my own head!)  Perhaps this is the feeling that I can try to convey in my work, rather than a literal depiction of any of these places.  Hmm, how can I depict in visual terms the feeling of being small in a vast, diverse, and mysterious universe??  I recently read an article about British textile artist Claire Benn who is doing exciting work along these lines.

I did make sketches and notes of ideas after my trips; I will revisit these and see what "has legs" and is worth pursuing.  I'm curious about how you respond to travel once you're back in your studio.  Have you taken a trip where you've seen or done things that resulted in new work, perhaps even a new direction for you?  Or is it enough for travel to be a chance to rest and refresh your mind and spirit, to refill the well?  I'd love to hear from you, in the comments below or on Facebook or Instagram.  

Collage to Cartoon at Weavers Guild of Minnesota, or, The Teacher Learns a Few Things, too!

I'd been excited for months about the prospect of teaching at the Minneapolis Textile Center for the Weavers Guild of Minnesota.  I told anyone who would listen how, as a new student in fibers in the mid-1990s, I read about the Textile Center's founding in Fiberarts Magazine and dreamed of visiting such a wondrous place.  Little did I think I would ever teach there.

The experience exceeded my expectations, despite the best efforts of an airline-that-shall-not-be-named (hint:  named for a region of the country and known for blue airplanes) to delay both my arrival and my departure from the Twin Cities, and to make rescheduling impossible without two in-person trips to the airport.  But Betsy Konop at the Textile Center and Robbie LaFleur at the Weavers Guild rolled with the punches, rescheduling my Thursday night lecture to Friday night, chauffeuring me around, making sure my tech was set up and working perfectly, and generally taking care to see I was fed and entertained.  Thank you, Betsy and Robbie!  And thanks, Robbie, for your kind blogpost about your experience in the workshop.

The students in the class worked very hard and very well.  They gamely tackled every exercise I threw at them, made wonderful collages, and began weaving samples before the weekend was over.  I was reminded of some of the stumbling blocks that can impede a new weaver's progress, and I learned a little more about how to effectively teach this subject I am so passionate about, designing  for tapestry weaving.

Kevin and Nancy share feedback on their collages

Barb and Vicki respond to each other's initial collages

Veronna and Connie look at Veronna's log-cabin inspired collage

Kevin shows his weaving in progress

Robbie's collage and weaving, almost halfway done

Jan holds up her torn-shape collage next to her loom

Connie's weaving in progress

Leading up to the visit, I had seen online tantalizing glimpses of a show of Scandinavian weft-faced weavings that was on display at the Center, and I hoped I would have time to see these wonderful pieces while I was there.  As it turned out, the pieces lined the walls in my classroom!

I had plenty of time to study them as students were working.  Local collector Carol Johnson assembled many weavings from mid-20th century weavers.  Some of them were made from kits or widely marketed designs, and it was interesting to see various interpretations of the same design.  Robbie has written several posts about the collection on her site; this one is the most recent and contains links to the others.  (Sorry for the skewed perspective in these photos; looms were in the way!)

I was especially delighted to have a chance to talk at some length--though I know we only scratched the surface of the subject--with Robbie LaFleur about Norwegian tapestry.  In the Twin Cities, where so many are of Scandinavian ancestry, that weaving tradition is a focus of intense attention.  I learned that in Norwegian and other tapestry traditions, slits are not used, but rather dovetails and other types of decorative joins--dozens of types of joins!--and the backs are a perfect mirror of the front, with all weft tails needled in.  I resolved to buy my own copy of Norwegian Tapestry Weaving by Maria Brekke Koppen, in order to study those joins.  Robbie also shared this call for entries for fiber pieces in any medium inspired by the famous 11th-century Baldishol Tapestry from Norway.  While at the moment I do have ideas for tapestries lined up like planes on the runway (ahem) waiting to be woven, I am mighty tempted to do something for this as well.

I love looking at tapestries and fiber online.  Facebook, Instagram, ATA newsletters, and other weavers' blogposts are wonderfully inspiring.  But nothing beats meeting weavers in person and getting our fingers into the "space between the warps" together.  Thank you, weavers of Minneapolis!