Monday, December 8, 2008

What's next.............

In July of 2006 my husband and I went to Alaska. One of the highlights of our trip was a bus tour of Denali National Park. The park is abundant with wildlife - black and grizzly bears, moose, caribou, Dall sheep wolves, fox and birds. The park is also the home of Mt. McKinley. But the most outstanding memory for me is Polychrome Mountain. I was awed by the shape and colors present in the natural rock. They were even more vivid in the pictures I took with my husband's new digital camera at 10x magnification. My immediate reaction was, "I must weave this."

I came home and played with the picture in PhotoShop Elements enhancing the hue and saturation, but as a new tapestry weaver the project seemed too difficult for me to undertake. So I put that aside and worked on other projects.





In June of 2008 I attended HGA Convergence in Tampa, Florida. I stayed on for the American Tapestry Alliance Retreat and took a 3 day workshop with tapestry artist Joan Baxter. The workshop was titled Designing From a Landscape. It was the perfect opportunity to begin designing and working on this tapestry.




Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Beginning.................

This is the beginning of my blog. I am not so sure just why I am doing this. As a handweaver and a tapestry weaver I have enjoyed and learned much from viewing the websites and blogs of various tapestry artists. I suppose this is a kind of journal to share with friends and family what I have learned on my fiber journey.
After many trials and errors in learning the ins and outs of designing this blog, I feel that I am finally ready to publish my first entry. I am sure that I will be refining the process as I work on it. Just as with my tapestry......I am continually learning and experimenting with new techniques.

So if you will, please join me on my journey...................
I started weaving tapestry about 3 years ago when two of my weaving friends started to teach tapestry classes. Rita Landau and Betsy Snope are students of Archie Brennan and Susan Martin Maffei, internationally known artists. Rita and Betsy are members of the Wednesday Group. http://www.wedsgroup.com/about.html I immediately loved the process and the ability to created artistic pieces with fiber. I enjoy working with the colors and textures of yarn and seeing the amazing visual results.

Of course, as with anything, there is a learning curve. After many hours of trying to master circles and angles, picks and passes, highs and lows, open and closed sheds, hatching and hachure, I finally was ready to weave my first real piece. This tapestry incorporates many of those techniques. It is cotton and wool and measures 6"x 10".


The next two tapestries were completed in between weaving the final tapestry on this post. The Butterfly is done in cotton and is 6 3/4"x5 1/2".
Lady in Red is done is cotton and wool and is 6 3/4"x5 1/2".


This last piece was just recently completed. It took me 1 1/2 years to finish. I am a slow weaver, but there were many times when I became frustrated and didn't work on it for several weeks at a time. I called it Francine. It is wool, cotton and metallic thread. It measures 10 1/2"x13 1/2". It is inspired by a painting by the artist Yitzak Tarkay. http://www.aejv.com/tarkay-bio.htm