I’ve been dyeing small amounts of wool fibre with found dyes (backyard plants and minerals) in preparation for some future small weaving projects. I’m quite taken with the dyeing process — although I’ve seen plenty of photos of dye projects, actually watching the pigments develop from plant matter and change with additions of alum or iron, and in turn stain wool fibers, is fascinating.
A few weeks ago I outlined what I’d like to have done by late fall as far as paintings, weaving, embroidery, and possibly a few resin/plaster objects — this is helping me freely move between projects and mediums with the intention of completing them all at some point in the winter.
I am interested in being able to pin up a collection of work from the last year that reflects this decision to “move around”, and to look back on work that accumulated slowly and in small increments of studio time. I just want to see what this will look like as a group of things, and not sure I want to plan what to do with it yet beyond looking.
Last year an old neighbour (a rock hound) stopped by and gave us a collection of fossil shards he had found — one piece with a few ghostly imprints of ginkgo leaves. Its edge reveals paper thin layers of ancient silt — each layer an amount of time, I forget how long, compressed. He said the place where he found this fossil was a tall bluff entirely comprised of these thin, silty layers.
I’ve been holding this fossil and imagining the cliff entirely built from those little units of time and dust, meanwhile thinking about the similarity of the sedimentary layers to the weft fibers in weaving. I’m very new to weaving, and getting used to the accumulative aspect of it, and am impatient, but I have noticed that certain areas of the weaving remind me of whatever podcast or show was on in the background during that stage of the project. I realize the weaving is a sensitive recording device.
Pertinent Links:
The Weird Show Podcast interviews photo/embroidery-based artist Diane Meyer , who pixelates photographs with thread. I listened intently to her description of her daily studio schedule: after her 7 yr old was in bed, knowing she could make 72 stitches per hour, losing some sleep, and switching between projects to take the pressure off.
Jennifer Mao: I love her pay-what-you-wish approach to sending out her woven/embroidered pieces — and there’s a great interview where she discusses this via Seamside Podcast.
See you in August!