Reading, writing and thinking are part of our weaving practice too

Heads-up: Wordy post ahead with not much eye candy. If I know anything about tapestry weavers, it's that when we're not weaving, many of us are reading!  If you're looking for your next good book to curl up with, maybe something here will help.  

Lately I've been having to cut down on my weaving time, alas, because my shoulder is complaining. I know better than to weave for 2 hours without a break, but I get into the zone and then my body reminds me later, in a most unpleasant tone of voice.  Rebecca Mezoff reminds me that above all, I need to stop and take a break every 25 minutes. The link on Rebecca's name takes you to her  review of a book called Wellness for Makers.  Now I'm setting the alarm on my phone for 25 minutes every time I start to weave.  And forcing myself to obey!

Here are the two projects that have been mostly stalled for a few weeks as I recover.

This tapestry will be layered on top of the larger, previously woven piece.  Working title:  The Wreck.  Warp: 12/6 cotton seine twine; wefts: plastic, silk, wool, cotton, paper. 

 

 

A pulled warp canoe.  Working title: Bivium.  Warp: 12/6 cotton seine twine; wefts linen, plastic, paper, wire.

The upside of this down time is I have time to play/work/write in my sketchbook and especially time to read the art books I received over Christmas. This has been really good as it allows me time to think about where am I going in my work, and why? What am I trying to say?  And what's the best way to say it?  Does every idea I have need to be woven by hand, or are there pre-existing woven grids I can use as I continue to explore 3D options? Cheesecloth? Hardware cloth? Experiments await. . . 

 

Two fiber books I've really enjoyed recently.  The top one is the catalog for the current exhibit (closing 1/21) of the same name at LACMA in Los Angeles.  This book was named the "one of the best art books of the year" by the New York Times!  The second book is a fun look at loopy open mesh constructions being used in all sorts of non-traditional ways. 

These are the browngrotta gallery catalogs I've been enjoying.  There are way too many to choose from!

 I've been swooning over the elegant, finely crafted work in the catalogs from browngrotta gallery in Connecticut, a home for fine craft for the past several decades, and publishers of dozens of gorgeous catalogs.  I know that for me it's important to make work that is as visually attractive and finely crafted as possible. And like the work browngrotta features, my scale is small to medium.  It is made entirely by me (not a workshop of artisans) and it's destined for the home rather than the massive public installation. 

As I read, I'm mulling over what exactly I want to say in my work. Just calling viewers' attention to the climate crisis is no longer enough. How do we respond? Where do we go from here? How do we manage our grief and despair? I dislike work that preaches at me overtly, no matter how much I appreciate the sentiment, and that work is not mine to make. I've read or am reading a couple books on this subject recently that have enriched my thinking: Solastalgia: an Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World, edited by Paul Bogard,  and We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope by Steven Charleston.  I recommend both if this is a topic that interests you.

As I think about the enduring appeal and importance of fine craft, I realize that hard-won human craftsmanship, in weaving or any other medium, craftsmanship honed by instruction, practice, and time, is actually a hopeful thing that points toward our own abilities to find creative and beautiful solutions to problems. And the same symmetry, pattern, color and textures that I love in fine weaving are an imitation of these same qualities in the natural world, qualities that inspire many of the weavings we make. It's a beautiful feedback loop: nature-->craft-->nature. And it has been going on for as long as humans have been making art. 

I've just started reading a book adjacent to this subject by Adam Gopnik, The Real Work:  On the Mystery of Mastery.  Gopik takes on the subject of mastery, how is it achieved, what is the "real work" involved, in all sorts of fields, not just art (he discusses magic and magicians at great length).  And the chapter on how this modern art critic decided to take drawing lessons from a traditional realistic painter is fascinating.

It's clear that climate change is happening with devastating effect, everywhere. The best we can do now is try to slow it down and to ameliorate its effects. We need to cultivate every ounce of resilience in ourselves, in our communities and in our global community to meet the challenges head-on. 

I do believe, outlandish as it may sound, that our creative practices and even our tapestry weaving, allow us to hone our own resilience. We are constantly problem-solving as we weave, looking at the problem from various perspectives, crowd-sourcing solutions from the hive mind, doing our very best to do our best work. This is the creative persistence and cooperation we need everywhere. 

I'll close with my favorite line from the apocalyptic novel I read during the pandemic, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. In it a traveling troupe of players makes their way through the landscape of a ruined society, struggling to survive and offering performances for the ragtag communities they encounter. Painted on the side of their wagon of instruments and supplies is this: "Survival is insufficient." Humans need art, and always have.

Summer Reading

Lately I've treated myself to a bunch of new books.  Yay!  Next to new yarn, new books are my favorite thing.  If you are looking for some fun art and fiber books to dive into, here are some suggestions.

101 Things to Learn in Art School by Kit White.  This was recommended to me a few years ago by Rowen Schussheim-Anderson, who was teaching an ATA workshop at Convergence.  Even though I did go to art school, I found a number of thought-provoking assertions here.  Some I agree with:  "5. A drawing (or a painting, photograph and so on) is first and foremost an expression of its medium."  Amen to that; a tapestry is first and foremost a tapestry.  Some of White's assertions seem self-evident:  "81.  Art is apprehended through the senses as well as the mind."  Well, yes. This is a great book to read if you're looking to discover your own submerged ideas and preconceptions about art and to deepen and challenge your thinking about what you make and what you see. 

from Kit White, 101 Things to Learn in Art School

The Language of Ornament by James Trilling.  Humans have been decorating themselves, their clothing, their homes and tools for, well, forever.  This book describes that ornamentation in broad strokes, illustrated with objects in many media and from many cultures, and teaches the reader to "rediscover long-neglected skills of visual recognition and analysis."  Ornament aims to give visual pleasure purely for its own sake (much like woven tapestry); emotion is translated into pattern through intense labor.  Trilling explains how decorative strategies across the world generally involve one or more of the following:  stylization, abstraction and elaboration. My favorite chapter was the last, about ornament in the modern and post-modern era.  In 1908, architect Adolf Loos famously wrote an essay entitled "Ornament and Crime," calling for the elimination of decoration from architecture and design.  Trilling shows how ornament never really died out; it just took new forms.  I took lots of notes on this book and expect to turn to it often to stimulate and refine my ideas.   If you enjoy art history, you'll enjoy this. 

from James Trilling, The Language of Ornament

A Field Guide to Color:  A Watercolor Workbook by Lisa Solomon.  I confess I haven't had a chance to delve into this yet, but it looks like lots of fun.  If you enjoy messing about watercolors, you can do it right in the book if you like, playing with liquid color while exploring color theory in a hands-on way.  I'm looking forward to it.  

Pattern Design with over 1500 illustrations, edited by Elizabeth Wilhide.  This book is pure eye candy.  It's a hefty compendium of textile and wallpaper designs, reproduced in full color and organized by theme and style.  Small capsule histories of influential designers and design firms are interspersed throughout.  I am not a surface designer exactly--much of what is here would be difficult or impossible to translate to tapestry--but for me it's been fun to poke through and notice what I like, to see what kinds of designs, colors, spatial arrangements, etc. keep grabbing me.  Maybe clues for my own work??   

from Elizabeth Wilhide, Pattern Design

The Intentional Thread:  A Guide to Drawing, Gesture, and Color in Stitch by Susan Brandeis.  The gorgeous photos in this book and the thoughtful,  experimental approach to stitching is really tempting me to pick up an embroidery needle again.  Dangerous!  I love that Brandeis has approached embroidery from the perspective of design principles such as line, density, composition, value and so on.  Her work and samples show how excitingly contemporary embroidery can be.  

from Susan Brandeis, The Intentional Thread

Mark Adams:  Catalog Raisonné of Tapestries.  More eye candy for tapestry weavers especially.  I love the bold, graphic botanical and garden-themed pieces Adams did, and how we used both flat and blended color in his pieces.  In some cases the tapestries are reproduced next to the in-process designs and cartoons, and it's fun to see how the weaving developed away from the cartoon in some cases.  Lots of food for thought here for practicing weavers.  (And aren't we all always practicing?)

from Mark Adams, Catalog Raisonné of Tapestries

Have you discovered any art or fiber books recently that you're excited to share?  Tell us about them in the comments.   

Christmas books!

We are a bookish family, but even for us this was a Christmas heavy in books given and received.  I am thrilled with the reading I'll be doing over the next several days and weeks.

Most of these books I have yet to really look into, but I can tell you a little about the three I've begun so far.

I am most of the way through Weaving a Chronicle, by Judith Poxson Fawkes.  It's an absorbing account of one weaver's evolution in technique and style, her commissioned pieces and the pieces done for her own purposes.  I love the effects she achieves using inlay techniques with linen warp and weft.  It's not traditional weft-faced tapestry, but it is really beautiful.

Judith Poxson Fawkes, Homage to Flax, 67" x 73", linen inlay, 1998

For this piece Fawkes traced actual flax stems, from her own garden, with their seed pods directly onto her weaving cartoon. She remarks on the irony that she chose to depict the hemisphere of the earth in which flax is not currently produced and speculates that perhaps she was subconsciously wishing it would return to the Western hemisphere where it was once plentiful.

I am nearly finished with Conversations with David Foster Wallace, a series of interviews with the now-deceased writer.  He was a very smart, thoughtful guy best known as the author of the novel Infinite Jest.  His thoughts about the writing process, the creative life, and the limits of irony will resonate with artists in many media, I think.  I have bookmarked so many passages; here are just a couple;

Writing fiction takes me out of time. . .. I sit down and the clock will not exist for me for a few hours.  That's probably as close to immortal as we'll ever get. 

This is exactly how I feel while weaving tapestry, as if I'm out of time.

Elsewhere Wallace, like Grayson Perry, talks about how post-modern irony has reached a dead end.

. . . it seems like the big distinction between good art and so-so art lies somewhere in the heart's purpose, the agenda of the consciousness behind the text.  It's got something to do with love.  With having the discipline to talk out of the part of yourself that can love instead of the part that just wants to be loved.  I know this doesn't sound hip at all. . . .Really good work probably comes out of a willingness to disclose yourself, open yourself up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making you look banal or melodramatic or naive or unhip or sappy, and to ask the reader really to feel something.

For this tapestry weaver, this remark seemed especially relevant:

If an art form is marginalized it's because it's not speaking to people.  

Hmmm.

On the top of the stack of new books is one my son read and pressed on me.  Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country.   Though it was published in 1999, it is startlingly on point for our current social-political climate and is actually a best-seller on Amazon at the moment.  Rorty, who died in 2007, was an academic philosopher whom I was fortunate enough to take a class with while I was studying English at the University of Virginia a million years ago.  This short book is a series of lectures, so while it's thoughtful reading, it's not impossibly dense or hard to follow.

Right after the election, you may have seen this quotation from the book make the rounds on social media:

members of labor unions, and un-organized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers - themselves desperately afraid of being downsized - are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else. 
At that point, something will crack. The non-suburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for - someone willing to assure them that once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen and post modernist professors will no longer be calling the shots...
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion... All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.

 Amazing that this was written in 1998, huh?

I'm only partway into the book, but Rorty writes about how Walt Whitman and John Dewey's small-d democratic vision for the potential of America has much to offer us today.  Rorty decries the cynical despair of the post-Vietnam left and calls us to believe in the potential of our country to still achieve its high ideals of liberty, justice and equality for all, despite the sins of our past.  It's fascinating and timely reading.

I try to keep politics out of this blog, and I will strive to do that in the new year, but I just had to share this.

I hope that your holiday brought you what your heart desires, and that you enjoy the chance to curl up with some good reading in the new year, if not before!

summer reading

Memorial Day is behind us, the weather is warming up and the kids are out of school, or soon will be.  It's time to look forward to lazy late afternoons on the deck, reading and sipping your favorite fizzy beverage.  Here's my stack of summer reading, from bottom to top:

The Coptic Tapestry Albums and the Archaeologist of Antinoe, Albert Gayet, by Nancy Arthur Hoskins.  I've been taken lately by the charm and communicative power of ancient Coptic Egyptian tapestry.  Contemporary tapestry artists admire Coptic weavers for their ability to invent their designs as they wove, without elaborate prepared cartoons.  I want to know more, and this book is one of the few I can find on the subject.  So far it's fascinating. 

Weave-Knit-Wear by Judith Shangold.  I've looked through this book once or twice but I want to delve into it more deeply, studying the instructions for fitting, pattern-making and seams in handwoven fabric for garments.   Beyond scarves and wraps, there are patterns here for jackets, vests, tunics, bags and even a baby sack.  Lots of gorgeous color photos have whet my appetite to finally get serious about handwoven garments.

Simple Woven Garments by Sara Goldenburg and Jane Patrick.  Again, lots of mouth-watering photos for inspiration.  I like how several of the projects in this book offer suggestions for variations in styling and yarn choices. Lots of these projects seem designed for the rigid heddle loom, which excels at using novelty yarns that are thicker or more delicate than those I usually use. Further study is needed here. 

Woven to Wear by Marilyn Murphy.  Are you noticing a theme here?  When I try something new I tend to start by researching it to death.  I've had this book for awhile now and flagged several pages of projects I want to make and nifty tips on weaving and sewing.  There are sections on Yarn, Drape, Designing, Weaving Tips and Techniques, and Finishing.  A nice bonus is two-page spreads about several noted designers of handwoven garments. 

Unexpected Afghans, by Robyn Chaculla.  My dear daughter gave me this book for Mother's Day.  I've been cheating on my weaving a bit with crochet at odd moments here and there, and she knew I was looking for ideas for an afghan that might serve as a bed covering.  There are projects ranging from retro 70's-style granny square designs (only a couple) to elegant, clean-lined modern pieces. I never knew you could do cables in crochet!   Now my problem is, how to choose just one to begin?

A Life in the Arts:  Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative & Performing Artists by Eric Maisel.  Maybe this book will help.  I've started it and stopped it a few times--the bookmark is in the chapter on Blocks!--but every time I return to it I'm amazed at the wisdom to be found.  I've turned down many pages, and underlined and starred many passages.  Encouragement for the journey from a psychotherapist who has specialized in helping artists for decades. 

Warp & Weft:  Woven Textiles in Fashion, Art and Interiors by Jessica Hemmings.  Darling son gave me this on Mother's Day.  (Do my kids have my number or what?  Books always fit.)  I'm reading this now and really enjoying this look at cutting-edge textiles from a noted scholar in the field.  So far I've seen how artists have pushed conventional notions of Threads, Light, Motion, and Sound.  I'm really looking forward to the next chapter, on Emotion. 

Why We Make Things and Why It Matters:  The Education of a Craftsman by Peter Korn.  This was a Christmas gift; it's been on my bedside table for too long now.  Korn has been making furniture for about 40 years, but this is not a how-to book; it's more concerned with how making things can create meaning and fulfillment in counter-cultural ways.  I expect to find more affirmation of the handmade life here.  

The Handmade Marketplace, 2nd edition, by Kari Chapin.  I am always looking for marketing advice.  This book is chock-full of ideas and tips that I've flagged and need to follow through on, from a young DIYer who's much more adept at social media than I am.

Looks like I've got plenty to keep me busy into the fall.  What's on your summer reading list?