"Switchbacking up the warp"* at Intermountain Weaving Conference

Last weekend I spent three days immersed in wedge weave, in a class led by Deborah Corsini at the Intermountain Weavers Conference at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.  It will be hard to capture all that we saw and did in that time in a brief post but I'll try.

Wedge weave is a particular type of eccentric weaving that was done for just a couple decades by Navajo weavers in the late 19th century.  In wedge weave, you weave diagonal lines at an oblique angle to the warp, first in a band of diagonals slanting in one direction that goes across the width of the warp, then in a band of diagonals slanting in the other direction.   This approach pushes the warps out of their vertical alignment and creates the distinctive scalloped edges that characterize wedge weave.

Deborah Corsini with her piece Rip Tide

Deborah holding her piece "Trail of Tears" that was included in the exhibit of work by leaders and IWC board members.
Notice the use of slits as design elements. 

One of the biggest treats of the workshop was the chance to see up close two Navajo wedge weave rugs held at the collection of the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College.  Museum staff invited us behind the scenes to examine and photograph two historic rugs.  It was thrilling to see how differently each weaver used the wedge weave technique.

While at first glance the design might seem simple, the more we looked, the more we found to see.
The second rug featured bands of plain (regular, perpendicular weave) between the bands of wedge weave.  We also noticed that the dyes had faded and/or bled, but felt this did not hinder the appeal of the rug at all.  In fact, in this second rug especially, the churro wool was incredibly lustrous (and hard to capture in the photograph.)

On the workshop's second day, Deborah shared an extensive PowerPoint lecture featuring the work of contemporary artists using wedge weave.  It was exciting to see that what might appear at first to be a fairly straightforward technique has almost endless possibilities. Many artists, including Deborah herself, have truly found their own unique voices in this approach.

Before the workshop, I had done a few pieces in wedge weave, but there were some stubborn technical questions I couldn't resolve, and I sensed that there was more I could learn.  Deborah immediately solved the technical issues and in one-on-one conversations pointed me toward several possible directions to explore.  For me wedge weave is a capacious and friendly format that can be abstract or representational (or both at once).  It can be regular and geometric or delightfully irregular and organic, even nearly three-dimensional.  I have found that when I have a wedge weave on the loom, that is often the piece I turn to first when I have time to weave.  Hmmm. . .

Deborah shared that her teacher, Martha Stanley, said that "I now know that a technique in a sense chooses me, not the reverse."  I have felt this too; I never expected to be a wedge weaver, but I find that I keep returning to it, for the handy structure it imposes and the improvisation that it encourages within the constraints of that structure.  Right now I am seeing the world through a zig-zaggy lens!

Here are some of the samplers we wove in the workshop (apologies to those I was unable to get good photos of):

Nancy's piece

Kristi's work

Cindy's piece

Carol's work

Evelyn's work

Toni's work

Lyn's work

Lyn Hart also had a piece in the art exhibit that incorporated wedge and eccentric weaving.  Here is her piece Polen Verde, a rendition of a desert tree that blooms in yellow and scatters pollen abundantly in her part of Arizona.  The three green trees are done in wedge weave.

Lyn Hart, Polen Verde

detail, Lyn Hart, Polen Verde

My work, still in progress.  I will end it with a couple bands of zigzags similar to those at the bottom of the piece.

This piece, Color Field, by Deborah Corsini inspired me to experiment with feathers.

Thank you, everyone at IWC that made this conference happen, and thank you, Deborah Corsini, for inspiring us to begin to explore the possibilities of wedge weave.

* This was Deborah's phrase as she summed up our workshop and I just loved the way it described the course of our journey up the warp.

Treadle to the metal

The Eldorado Studio Tour is coming right up (May 18-19 in Eldorado, just outside Santa Fe, NM) and I'm weaving my little fingers off trying to get a couple more small pieces finished in time.  I think I'll make it.

Here's the third in my series of small wedge weaves inspired by the skies out here.  It's called Snowrise, and I'm trying to convey the place on winter mornings where the clouds and the snowy mountain tops merge and blend so you can't tell them apart.

detail of Snowrise, in progress.  (c) Molly Elkind 2019

The other series I've been working on is Fences, inspired by our broken-down barbed wire fences in Eldorado, and also by our national conversation about fences, walls and borders. I make that connection explicit in the first two pieces.

Gate, (c) Molly Elkind 2019

Falling, (c) Molly Elkind 2019

In the third piece, still on the loom, I'm using sky colors that look like a nasty bruise.  In fact, the piece is called Bruised.

Molly Elkind, Bruised in progress, (c) 2019

And of course it's not just about getting the weaving done.  There's finishing work--cleaning up the backs and edges of new tapestries, steaming and mounting them on linen-covered stretcher bars.  This part is tedious, but it's amazing how mounting them can really make them look finished, isn't it?

Screwing in those tiny screw eyes for the wire goes easier with a few sharp taps with a hammer.

And as with any show, there's lots of administrivia going on around the edges.  My contribution to the Tour effort is to post the artists' work on Instagram (follow @eldoradoartsandcraftsassoc or #eldoradostudiotour).  And just for my own work, there are prices to determine, labels to make, postcards and brochures to distribute, sponsors to recognize . . . you get the idea.  Plus, since three of us are showing at our house/studio, we need to start thinking about where to put all the art. . . and stow away everything that's not for sale.  Ack!

So, this is a quick post but I wanted you to know I haven't forgotten the blog, and my faithful readers, completely.  If you're in the area, please come see us!  Click here for all the details about the Tour.  If you're not, please send good vibes our way.

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?!) 

Percolating, part 1

Our move in April from Georgia to New Mexico came at a natural break point in my tapestry work; I had just finished up two series of work for a show in Atlanta.  Since we moved, I've kept up with my tapestry diary, taken a wonderful workshop with Rowen Schussheim-Anderson, and shot loads of photos, but I haven't been weaving new tapestries until quite recently. 

I've been feeling so gobsmacked by the incredible landscape we're in that I feel I have to figure out how to respond to it somehow before I can do anything else.  As I said to a friend here, a potter and New Mexico native, "I feel like I need to get the landscape out of my system before I can do anything else."  She replied, "You never will."  

I have a feeling she's right.  I've identified several themes or subjects on my walks and hikes so far that seem to have staying power, and I want to explore them all in tapestry.  Right now, all at once. 

The first is the amazing, huge, ever-changing sky.  There's a saying that in the West the sky starts at your ankles.  

I'm already depicting the sky in a limited way in my tapestry diary, weaving a stripe that represents the color of the sky each morning.  When we moved, I made the tapestry wider (taller) to indicate the magnitude of the move and the "bigger" sky out here.  

Molly Elkind, Tapestry Diary 2018, January-March

Molly Elkind, Tapestry Diary 2018, April-August

But I want to do more with the sky.  I've got some sketches for a wedge weave piece that I envision fairly small, at 10 epi or so, in DMC cotton floss.  

I think I can probably just dive into one of these wedge weave designs fairly easily.  (Famous last words!)  I'm hoping to use the diagonal movement of the wedge weave to suggest the movement of the air and clouds somehow. 

I'm also thinking of using images of the clouds and sky in combination with other images.  Here's a photograph with a chalk drawing of a yucca seed pod superimposed.  This needs a lot more development, obviously, but it might have potential.  

  

Percolating, percolating. . . collaging, sketching, photographing. . . Next week I'll share another of the themes I'm pondering.  As always, comments and feedback are welcome!  Tell me what's percolating for you!

From Ab Ex to wedge weave

In January I wrote about a visit to the Women of Abstract Expressionism show at the Mint Museum in Charlotte. Here's a detail of one painting by Joan Mitchell that I especially liked:

detail, Joan Mitchell, Cercando un Ago, 1957

I concluded that post this way:

"I was surprised to find that while gazing at work with so much energy, movement, and color, I felt a paradoxical stillness and calm.  A meditative reflectiveness that I feel in front of . . .  weaving.  Of course I started wondering if there was some way to bring the energy, movement and spontaneity of this kind of painting to tapestry weaving. 

But that's a story for another day."  

Well . . . today is another day!  At the recent retreat of Tapestry Weavers South,  Connie Lippert introduced us to her signature technique, wedge weave.  It's a lot of fun, seems to go quickly, and while it's quick to learn it has an amazing potential for variety.  Just check out Connie's website for some fabulous examples.  You can also see some lovely wedge weave tapestries on Michael Rohde's site, clicking here, on the "small tapestries" link under Galleries.

So this for this month's tapestry diary I'm doing wedge weave.  The "rules" are that I'm using only yarns from my scrap bag, and that there are five horizontal bands, one for each week of the month. Here's where the diary stands today, roughly in the middle of the fourth band:

I'm having fun playing with color, seeing how I can make disparate colors work together by using the right proportions.  You can see that I'm not weaving the full 7" width.  As I'm weaving, it is 5" wide and will be 7" tall.  It will be turned sideways in its final form, so that the long, scalloped edges will be the top and bottom.

I'm pondering whether I can use wedge weave in the background of my next Mary piece.  I'm immensely encouraged by these tapestries which fuse imagery with wedge weave.

Connie Lippert wove a map of the world entirely in wedge weave.

Connie Lippert, Paradise Lost?, wool, linen, natural dyes.  32" x 47"

Ruth Manning has recently finished Donut Man.  You can read about it on her blog.

Ruth Manning, Donut Man 

I am transfixed by the way Ruth has integrated realistic imagery into a wedge weave background. She has handled the wedge weave areas with such subtlety, blending colors and values so that they do not shout Zig! Zag!  I love the tones of white and beige in the upper right, and the hatching in the top center.  The man eating the donut is the still focal point in a busy, blurred background full of movement.  There is much to see and learn from here.  Thank you, Ruth!

I'm hoping I can achieve a similar feeling of the still, iconic Mary at the center of the tapestry I'm planning.  Here's a sample where I'm experimenting with yarns and colors. The large striped wedge at the top is my attempt to make one of Silvia Heyden's "feathers."  Click here and here for more about Silvia.  She worked improvisationally in something very like wedge weave.

Here's a few sketches of the next (last?) Mary piece.  I'm thinking of it as a companion to the Mater Dolorosa (sorrowing mother) I just finished--same size, similar Churro yarns, but with a different mood.  Working title:  Mater Potens (powerful mother).  I'm not finished with the design process yet, though, so stay tuned for changes.