Weaving in the time of COVID

 What’s on my loom?

Being a bit distractable it often happens that I end up working on more than one thing at the time, never mind the knitting project that waits for bouts of TV watching. I have just finished a largish black piece using leather (40x60 cm). It was very enjoyable weaving that, I loved the way the rug yarn worked with boucle mohair and lurex weaving yarns. Now to work out how to hang it…..

At the moment I am working on a small white tapestry that is at a sett much finer than I usually use and it is slowly, very slowly, progressing. I am not the most patient person in the world, and as I work as well I like to feel I am achieving something in my spare time, which is why I usually work on something a bit more chunky that builds up more quickly (‘quick’ is a relative term in tapestry weaving to say the least!). Although the fineness of the white tapestry is interesting, it is quite flawed - I have been using homespun yarn mainly, all manner of fibres in the weft, but mainly wool and silk. Homespun can at times be uneven and so it splays out the warp and has surprisingly made the piece wider as the weaving progresses, rather than narrowing which is the most common problem in tapestry weaving).  And if I think about the weaving speed, or lack thereof, this piece is quite testing: weaving for say, 3-4 hours in the afternoon on this piece which is about 21 cm wide I manage just about 3-4 cm across its width – so either I am a slow weaver or the thing just demands a different way of thinking about making. The making process itself becomes the thing, I can’t force it or become too impatient for it to be finished.

To move things on a bit I am therefore also weaving a sample in greens with a bit of blue, brown and purple at a more sensible sett. I am quite excited about this, as it is in preparation for something large. 

A Polish tapestry

Recently a Polish tapestry came up for sale on an auction site and I bought it as I have been interested in various former Soviet countries' tapestry cultures for a while now and have been gathering a few books on the tapestries of Estonia, Latvia, Poland and Russia. So finding a tapestry from 1975 or so seems to fit very well with my readings of that era.

You may ask what it is in these tapestries I like - I was introduced to tapestry weaving in Denmark as a teenager in the mid-1980s. This was a time when the aesthetic of the fibre arts movement had been disseminated for a while through various publications and books, mostly of a 'how to' nature and I went regularly to the local library to explore the latest in tapestry weaving books. Of course these books did not deal with Eastern bloc tapestry, but the aesthetic was hinted at in the use of natural fibres, natural colours or vegetable died yarn. I don't really remember what the iconography related to - probably themes such as butterflies, abstraction, or evocations of folk tapestry motifs - like in Sweden Danish folk textiles used a type of kelim type of design, and my mother has such a weaving from 1906 or so.

Whatever it was, I was hooked on tapestry and used homespun coarse wool, explored exposing the warp, used dog hair yarn and other experimental elements. And now, decades later, as I slowly re-engage with tapestry weaving, and with experimental art work, I find going to the Eastern European weavers as they were then, now Baltic, Polish, Hungarian and so on, there is much to learn from them. There is just a tiny hint of the innovations from the Polish art weavers of the 1960s who came from art colleges and the unique experimental tapestry culture they experienced there.

This may all sound a bit rambling, but I don't want to pursue a major exposition on the last 50 years of tapestry weaving, just to say that I think the 1960s and -70s fibrearts continue to be a great source of inspiration and freedom of thinking about the medium. Much focus on the tradition of tapestry and a purist frame of mind around the perfect surface and reproducibility can be useful in commercial work, but I prefer the freedom and openness to possibilities that the medium can also provide and which was proven so well by the fibre artists of the mid 20th century.

So here is the main body of the tapestry - there is no maker's mark, no label on the reverse:

When it was shown on the auction site it was very difficult to see the proper colouring, the details and full scale of the piece. It is around 99 x 124 cm large, a good size, and the weft is thick. There is a pale yellow border down the sides and the image is of flowers - not sure what they are meant to be, but you can see that the flowers are made up of small round details that either sit in a plant arrangement or are scattered on what might be the ground. in any case there is good use of colour, nice shadowing techniques and it deserves to be seen as a whole. I took a picture of it outside to show the colours better, but indoors I suspect it will have a warmer feel, those oranges, reds and brown will provide a warmish glow.

 

 

Details of the tapestry

A detail of the back of the tapestry that shows how thick the weft is. The warp is linen and a hem has been woven to enable the top and lower edges to be folded back. It looks as if the tapestry was glued(!) to something for hanging purposes which is not great, and I will be sewing on a strip of fabric to enable it to be hung with a pole.

Perhaps not the greatest work of art but still a decent and robust piece and I do like the flower details a lot. I am hoping that it will continue to spread a little inspiration as I walk past it or sit and mull over what to do next. In a way it would have been nice to know who the maker was, I do not think it was necessarily a hobbyist, but it could have been I suppose. A professional would have left their mark, or perhaps someone took off the label which would have told us more.

Completed tapestry woven works: Crapapple in white and green and a white textured piece

Crab apple

Throughout December until now my work has mainly been on tapestry weaving. In a previous post I showed a work in progress where I wove on a wooden block and it has turned out to be a fairly respectable piece in two parts.

I should say that these blocks were quite hard to weave; I used a kebab stick as a shed tick and had to needle weave to complete the surface. When the work got to the top and the last rows had to the be woven I had to sometimes/often lift individual warps with a pointed implement to get the needle underneath - a very slow and laborious process.

The warp was linen and the weft was a varying mixture and blend of all manner of handspun and commercial yarn: wool, silk, paper, linen, angora, viscose, latex covered yarn and more. I used only natural and white for one block and white-greens for the other. The greens were mainly dyed using Dylon cold water dyes.

They were photographed in more of a studio setting and so the colours seem a bit more enhanced, but they work together and suggest plant shapes as I had planned:

 

Here are some details of the different sides of it:

 

Basically I have wanted to work with interlaced wrapped elements for a while so this was opportunity to try this out, and as you can see the top of the white block was a mass of interwoven twisting elements.

 

Trying to work out how to finish off the linen warps around the nails, I platted the threads around the nails and tucked them under which in the end was the tidiest and allowed the threads to be cut and they now lie flat against the wood. 

 

 

Another couple of detail images showing each side of the green-white block: Here I used some twisted wrapped elements but used more as features on the surface rather than as a mass, and on the other side I woven in a more graphic pattern partly inspired by Bauhaus type compositions, weaving it flat without any surface additions.

 

 

White texture

 

Over Christmas and into January I was working up a largish sample (26x54cm) in white tones using a mixture of handspun yarns, commercial natural and synthetic fibres. I had bought this raw silk which had a very interesting texture, quite stiff to the touch (although it went soft in handling during the weave) and I had wanted to wrap a number of warps to enable the yarn to be shown off properly.

 

I set out to create a sample that would be big enough to be a wall hung piece and would show off the different textures of mohair, paper yarn, rayon, wool, cotton and linen, and which would provide a neutral background to the raw silk.

Here's the final tapestry, off the loom but quite finally mounted:

 

You can see that I built in some areas using small squares woven in paper yarn to make the background area a bit more interesting than eccentric weft only - the squares were pretty randomly placed and spanned either 3 or 4 warps.

 

Close up you can see how the texture on the right works - the raw silk lies in bunches over 3-5 warps:

 

Looped mohair was also used and I think this needs to be used sparingly if used in this sort of work, or as features in large tapestries as it projects out from the surface and can be a bit too much of a contrast if the surface needs to be flat. In general I should mention that with so many different thicknesses and qualities of yarn I needed to keep an eye on how thick the weft became. Sometimes it probably got a bit too thick or thin, although overall the final piece feels fairly even. I think that you can use the density of weft to good effect in a textured tapestry and I want to explore this some more once I get onto my new loom (an old Dryad rug loom - more to follow soon).

 

I am quite satisfied that the bunches of yarn around the warps worked as I had planned. I wonder whether you could wrap around even more warps and then use that effect in particular ways, but this would probably need a larger piece. As it is a couple of people have said that the  final effect feels like fungus on trees or perhaps more like the texture of birch bark, so I am happy that the organic feel of trees has been captured in this way.

I like the use of paper as a design detail in the squares, but see that I probably need to continue learning to control my edges as they tend to move in and out a bit depending on the thickness of the weft.

Third course at West Dean College - Experimental textiles

West Dean College offers a great range of course from calligraphy to drawing, to stone carving to textile courses. I am working towards their Foundation Diploma and as part of that I choose drawing and textiles courses.

Recently I attended an Experimental Textiles course with the tapestry weaver Philip Sanderson and the embroiderer-mixed media artist Michael Brennand-Wood. They have worked on a project together, a tapestry which they showed us, having asked each of the attendees to go through what we had done and what we might want to do during the weekend.

The course was set up to be pretty free. There were wooden frames in different sizes, rectangular or square, warp yarns, drills, nails, fabrics, ropes and other things that might inspire. I had not had time to think about designs, and am happy that I didn’t as it might have been inhibiting on the development of the work over the weekend. Instead I had brought a couple of Japanese obi, with tsuzure flowers and mushrooms. This was just meant to be the trigger ideas and my work that weekend went off at a tangent at one point.

It was a very busy weekend, and I didn’t finish the samples I started. I began by painting a large frame with India ink and attaching this large black grid created by a net. Within this grid I then tied a warp of thin linen in different colours, pinks and purples, but instead of just making a vertical warp I wove into it as well. This was to continue the idea of the grid from the black webbing, but it caused a fair bit of trouble when I came to weave, as I could only cover one or two warps at a time when I started weaving in the weft. It did mean that I could weave from all four angles, which was interesting and opened up a different way of thinking about the design. I could turn the frame and weave from any side, which is very different from weaving from bottom to top.
 

 I had brought a bunch of wools, cottons and novelty yarns, commercial and hand-spun. I tore some fabric to create some fabric 'yarns'.

 

 

Here's the frame mounted in the workshop ready for weaving with the warps added, below is a close-up of the warps woven over the black net. Michael showed me how to do a type of chain stitch that I could tie across the black netting, that is the thicker blended yarn you see toward the lower half of the image.

I started with weaving-in the flower inspired by the obi. The weft was made of blends of pink, with silvery colouring in the spaces between the petals. Hence I now have a section of woven flower and a larger section of loosely woven warps which I need to integrate in some way. Philip had suggested I look at developing some baroque or rococo style swirly sections that would evoke some swirls on the obi. And so to try out some of the techniques Michael showed us I had a go at wrapping aluminium rods with other blends which I bent to shape.

The woven flower in progress. It was looking good in a chunky experimental sort of way, it is clear how the wefts have been woven from all four sides.

The sample in progress, I had loosely woven yarn on the left to prepare to add other elements. I also started to wrap strips which I will continue to make to make a denser area to the lower half of the piece. The 'S' shapes are the wrapped aluminium elements.

Half way through the course this sample I decided to make another sample made of bits being taught on the course, so I would have something to refer to. So, I started wrapping the frame, dyeing the warp with ink, weaving rolled newspaper, thick velvet ribbon on a small frame. Then I was going to place it somehow within a big frame, but I borrowed a book from the college library and got diverted by a fantastic technique I wanted to try out, so ended up warping up the large frame with two thicknesses of warp and started weaving textured structures and stayed within the grid of the weave.

 

Small square frame with fabric wrapped around it, I tried out rolling newspaper and wove in paper sticks and broad velvet ribbon.

Trying out a chunky weft and pulling out the weft to make a loose wavy surface. I added a wrapped element to create a bit of interest in the blue and wove in a strip of felt, rolled newspaper, fabric yarn and more conventional wool weft. I tried out winding wire with fabric and winding aluminium rod, which became a quite organic shape I liked, I will use this again at some point in the future.


The main theme for me of the course was the experimental nature of the techniques, materials and tools. There was no real design approach being espoused, but a permissive environment of ‘try it and see’ which was valuable in allowing all manner of ideas and testing to be done by everyone, and the resultant works were therefore very different. I think mine looked a bit rough, but I think this is due to the nature of the materials and testing of techniques – and both samples are still unfinished. The work was process driven and it enabled a variety of responses and will be a useful point to work out next steps. Right now I am thinking about how I now will integrate the two sides of the large sample and have got some coloured wefts to finish the other sample. In the long run I think there will be space in this approach to permit myself to try out new things and not be too worried about getting a perfect think out of it from the start.

Textiles 1 - Assignment 5 tutor feedback

After each assignment we receive feedback from our tutor. The OCA asks that we publish this on our blog, so here it is. I have had mixed feelings about the course overall and how distance learning works in the creative arts. Text in blue is my commentary, text in black is my tutor's words:

Overall Comments

Congratulations in completing this final part of Textiles 1: A Creative Approach.   It is clear from the work you have sent me you have worked hard to use the design process to develop ideas and final textile pieces.  You have used research material to inspire drawing work in a range of mediums.  However there is a lack of evidence that you have worked through a number of textile samples in order to come to conclusions about the direction of your final design.  Having said that your final weave piece is a clear development of your blurred tree photographs. 

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

During this assignment you have created a theme book based on trees, exploring their forms, colours and design potential through drawing and collage.   Though your drawing skill still needs developing you have used it regularly to explore your theme with some success.  There is a pleasing use of mark making to explore the structure of trees, for example the page where you use lightly painted some what watery lines accompanied by splashes of colour in blue and pink.  I suggest you develop this loose style further, using mark-making exercises to develop your style.  Mark making video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LrZGoW6-iw

Comment: yes, I agree, I am still a novice at drawing and have not done as much as I had intended. This last module fell at a time when I was also doing professional studies and an exam for my work, and I have to say that splitting your mind into work and art is not easy when there is pressure on.

I try to work loosely when I draw. I find that as a new person to drawing I get quite tight and worried about drawing which takes the enjoyment away from it. So I try to be more playful, although it is difficult. So, useful feedback.

Throughout your theme book you have used collage to develop and play with ideas.  I particularly like the collage you have built up using different green papers in a linear arrangement that reflects the image opposite of a pine forest.  There also appears to be a conscious effort to investigate texture through collage that works well in this project. 

It would have been good to see a group of textile samples that came from this work, placing the samples alongside the work to illustrate how your ideas developed.  It’s possible you conducted your sampling earlier in the course, if this is the case I suggest you organise your work in way that explains how drawing influenced you sample making. 

Comment: I didn’t have time to do much sample making. I was nearing the absolute final date for submission and decided to work straight on the loom as I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to make. It is worth repeating here that I primarily work through process, i.e. I work with the material and experiement as I go along. The course material suggsted we could work through process and I chose to work in this way, which is my preferred approach. I knew what colours I wanted to use, and the technique (in the case of the green sample) I wanted to try out. There was little point sampling when the final thing was itself a sample and the process of working through it was the main concern of this method. It would have been different if I was planning something that needed careful thought and working out for example in terms of size, blends, representation or interpretation, but that was not necessary in the case of either samples as they were worked through on the loom. Tapestry weaving is a slow process and there is quite a bit of time to think during the work.

You have sent three larger textile samples (including the book cover) with the rippled weave being your final piece I think.  This is quite an exciting piece of textile work with its free use of colour and energetic texture.  It clearly is a development of your photographic experiments.  It has been crafted with care but also feels like an inquiring piece of work that captures the blurry movement in your photograph.  

Comment: Originally I had intended to make four pieces for the final work, to reflect trees through the seasons. This was a bit ambitious in the end and the two woven pieces I have included represent an exploratory work that resonates with the ‘summer’ theme that is based on the abstracted photographs my tutor mentions, and the ‘spring’ theme, based on the photo-manipulated images of magnolia stellate from our garden. The feedback is useful and clear, I am encouraged that the work is seen as careful craft work, that is my intention with creating samples, and final work.

What are your thoughts on this body of work; blurred photo, drawings, colour palettes, collage and textile sample conclusion?  What did you learn about the design process? How did the drawing work affect your thinking?  Where did your ideas come from and how did you respond to them?  Was the final outcome what you expected, not just in regard to techniques but also in its aesthetic?  This reflective thinking and recording that thinking is an essential part of the course, making up 20% of your mark.  I suggest you include a reflective piece of writing of about 500 words on your learning log to conclude this journey.

Comment: I am a bit confused about some of these questions. I put a lot of effort into describing my process for the ‘stellata’ piece, looking at the image and choosing wools, selecting colours, working in sections etc and referencing Fiona Hutchison’s work for the green sample etc. I will add some more words into the blog in a separate post, and will consider the aesthetic dimension. Some supporting wording is also included in the final reflections section. Maybe my blog isn’t clearly set out?

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

For this assignment you have conducted an in depth study into trees, using this as your theme to inspire design.  This spread nicely into architecture in particular church interiors.  You have collected the information in the form of photographs and cuttings.  It is nice to see you have mixed paints to create colour palettes from these images.  You have also used drawing and collage to explore the potential of the images too.  These are all really good ways to explore your research material so I suggest you continue to do this in your future studies.

Comment: yes, I like collaging, using texture and working out colours, good to hear she likes this technique. I went on a Cas Holmes course on creative journal making which was a good introduction to how to work with papers, samples, sketches etc. I think the box I made for the sketchbook course earlier in the year was useful in that respect as well. I believe that I pick up impressions from many different sources, including from an in-visible source such as music, and they all leave traces in the subconscious that get worked through when I am developing my ideas in some way.

You have also gathered imagery and information about other practitioners, for example Fiona Hutchinson whom you explain you met taking part in one of her summer schools.  You include some lovely imagery of her work, including sample pieces on her studio wall.  To get the most from this experience and from other workshops and talks you have attended it is vital to explain what you have learnt.  Not just in terms of techniques but also ways of working - how an artist develops their ideas, their design process, how they use drawing, sampling and times of reflection.  From this you ought to spend some time considering how what you have learnt will affect the way you approach your own creative process.  This critical reflection is essential when studying towards a degree but it will also assist you creating more meaningful and considered textiles. 

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Further to what is written above your learning log is well organised with imagery of your work and details of techniques and methods used.  I suggest you develop you critical thinking skills by writing about how your ideas come about, how you respond to these ideas through drawing and making and then write an evaluation of drawings and the things you make.  This will assist you in gaining a good mark at assessment and it will also encourage a deeper understanding of your own personal design process.

Comment: OK, this is a similar comment to the one above about writing about process and ideas generation. I mentioned that I felt I had done this already, but will do a bit more. There is something personal about idea generation and process development that I feel should not always be revealed and disclosed to the world, and I am still not sure what it is that is being asked here. 'Telling all' is almost turning oneself inside-out in public, and although there is a movement for people to open all to the world on the web I do not necessarily want that. There has to a space for one's own self and quiet making. For example, one of the course tutors whose course I attended was quite sensitive about her process and did not want this shared with the world on another person’s blog.

My first tutor on this course thought I should spend more time making and less on writing - I have since been asked to write more. I have spent several years in university undertaking critical writing on art and design, and reviewing design thinking (design history to MA level), and I continue to have to think hard and write in my daily work. 

I believe that practice is itself a mode of expression, and yes, there should be words attached, but in the design and art disciplines surely making, as praxis, should be the primary mode of expression. The work is the embodiment of the learning and the thought process. Perhaps this is a limitation of distance learning that there is no immediate discussion of the work. In classes with tutor feedback and real presence we discuss the work using language to describe and reflect, but it is an immediate and responsive environment to support the work and we find essences in the spoken rather than writing long realms of text. Writing so much on a blog feels artificial and can become a chore, it ditracts from the work to some extent. Add to that the expectation of participation in on-line environments (sometimes with more self-revelation) and there is little time left for making.

For me it is the process that is the important thing above everything else.

Pointers for further study

• To work within the time scale provided by the OCA (you work arrived 2 days after you course finished) – yes, I submitted late, but that was due to work pressures and over-reaching my project
• Develop your drawing skill – agree – I am going on a couple of drawing courses at West Dean college soon, and will take life drawing classes locally to where I live
• Include your reflective thinking and analysis of the work you make – Hmm, see my comments above
• Write about what you have learnt during workshops, talks and when looking at your research material.  – again, I thought I had done this. I am keeping the writing slim-lined and will try to write just enough, as I still think the making takes precedent over writing.

 Pointers for assessment

• Reflect on this feedback in your learning log
• Make suitable adjustments to your work in line with tutor feedback.
• Reread your feedback forms to check you have used all the tutor suggestions.
• Look at the learning outcomes and the assessment criteria to judge whether your work has met the requirements.
• Refer to the assessment guidelines on the oca website, Research ▷ By Course Area ▷ Textiles ▷ scroll down to page 2 ▷ Assessment Guidelines: Textiles
• Aim to organize your work so that it tells the story of how you went about achieving the outcomes.  You did this by conducting research, doing drawing and making samples.