Before graduate school, I made a lot of plain weave inlay work (see below for example) for the wall. I loved using a hand towel format for work as it tied so well into the idea of home and traditional women's work. I've done a lot of exploring weave structures but when graduate school hit it made weaving very complicated. Weaving for me is all about the process, the inner journey and the time engaged in making. Weaving is a happening, and the big moments happen in the making. I can look back at some of my earlier work and remember how I felt when I was making the piece. I can sometimes trace what was happening in my life at the time. The finished fabric is a time capsule in this way. When I cut work off the loom, I’m often sad. The time with those threads is done and gone.
Convergence 2014
Woven Brocade - cotton, and rayon.
20” x 23 ½”
September 2014
Grad school really wanted work churned out fast and encouraged me to work bigger. I lost a lot of the intimacy and time at the loom and was really dissatisfied with the work. The mentality of many people in school was “make it bigger and paint it red.” During my second year of school, I injured myself working on a loom that was too big for me and with VERY heavy shafts. It took me a long time to push back on my professors, to say I wasn't interested where they were pointing and to go my own way.
I've been slowly returning to the loom now that I'm two years out of grad school. I'm reclaiming it as my time. Weaving is about the process for me and not the product. A lot of weavers will be shocked when I say I love the planning process and warping the loom more than the actual weaving part. I use the cloth I create now and then in my work and I think that trend will likely continue.
Recent color play on the loom. Using hand dyed yarns to optically mix. Absolutely no plans for this other than to make cloth and use up bundles of warp threads (the rainbow colored vertical threads) I found in a box from grad school.