New Year, New Plans and New Loom

January 10, 2022

After taking a few weeks off, I’m back in the studio. I’m rearranging some furniture, downsizing others, sorting out various stashes, and making donations. This year I have some transition occurring. My family is planning a move from St. Louis to Minneapolis later this year. It has been a few decades since my last move, but I still remember the process well enough to start organizing and downsizing early in the planning process.

After visiting Minneapolis in the fall, we began to research and talk seriously about making the move. My husband describes Minneapolis as a park with a city tucked into it. It isn’t far from the truth. The ready access to walking paths and parks that wind their way through the city and out into the suburbs were a huge factor in our decision. I’ve had a hunger to be near water most of my life we will be near so many lakes and rivers. I feel a particular link to the Mississippi River and I’m really looking forward to getting to know it upstream. A trip to the headwaters is on the list once we get settled.

As an artist occupied by place and nature, I know that the move will impact my work. It has already begun to seep into my idea sketches. I also look forward to engaging with the many cultural and arts organizations. The Weavers Guild of Minnesota is a rich active guild with a wonderful vision for building toward the future. The guild is house inside the Textile Center, their building with a gallery, shop, library, and meetings spaces as a result of a unique merging of thirty organizations. I plan to spend some time researching in the library!

A little over a month ago, I received a Bexell Cranbrook Countermarch Loom. The loom has been in storage for perhaps twenty years, and it needed a little cleaning. I’ve been tackling the cleaning a little bit at time. The loom will be wrapped for moving and storage before I can assemble it later this year. I hadn’t planned on adding a loom to the mix, but it will pack up nicely and is very easy to move. Even the largest pieces I can carry myself.

One of my favorite things about working in textiles is the many avenues for research for the history of tools, makers, and techniques. The Cranbrook loom offered an opportunity for some reading and the story is quite interesting.

The loom was designed by Finnish artist, Loja Saarinen and Swedish craftsman, John Bexell.

Saarinen designed the textiles for her husband, architect Eliel Saarinen’s buildings. Loja was unhappy with the looms in her studio and after working with Bexell, the Cranbrook Loom was born. Today, Cranbrook looms are made by Schacht Spindle Company. They are still highly prized by weavers. The loom I have was made by the original Bexell company. It is much smaller than most with a weaving width of only 36.” Countermarch looms can be enormous. Some are large enough for multiple weavers to weave side by side. The looms are well suited for a variety of woven textiles—everything from delicate linens to heavy rugs.

The loom has cleaned up beautifully and the craftsmanship is remarkable. The wood has aged to a rich honey tone. The same wood was used throughout even in places no one would ever see. Schacht has an article with more the history of the Cranbrook Loom that you can read here.

Eliel Saarinen designed many of the buildings at Cranbrook. He taught architecture and later served as president. Cranbrook has a rich art history, particularly of textiles, and many educators have studied there. I would love to take a trip to Michigan to visit the campus someday. Cranbrook offers on-campus tours, virtual tours and talks on a variety of subjects. Much of the archives are online, including many fascinating photos. They also hold the records of the Saarinen family. Last year I attended a fantastic lecture on Loja Saarinen’s studio.

To Learn More Visit: Cranbrook Center of Collections and Research

Marianne Strengell with Loja and Eero Saarinen (architect for the St. Louis Arch, 1958
Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Hidden in Plain Sight

November 9, 2021

For many of us, there are topics that we keep returning to repeatedly; things we just think about over the course of our lives. They can show up in the literature and stories we are drawn to, the art we appreciate, or just pulse under the surface. As an artist, much of my work and research has centered on connections with nature, family, and heritage. These themes have been with me for a very long time. I thought about it when I worked with children of immigrants as a teacher. I wrote about finding home in an undergraduate literature class.

I have a long history of searching for my family story. Somehow, I’ve always known I needed to know more about my mother’s people even though it was difficult to get information. People that knew were often reluctant to talk about it and I spent many long years not understanding why this was the case. My mother’s people were deeply silent – by nature and because of unhealed trauma and secrets. Despite the silences, and the deaths of people who had the information, I’ve been able to piece a lot of the information together thanks to the internet. My childhood sleuthing has begun to provide answers. Through understanding my immigrant great grandparents, I even discovered why I was so drawn to express my love and connection to nature in my artwork. It was all there waiting for me.

I used to say that I didn’t receive any family recipes that were linked to family. This has turned out to not be quite true. My mother was a very good cook and she recorded many of her greatest hits for me before she died after years of me asking and trying to write down how she made my favorite dishes. Like many cooks, she didn’t record ingredients and how much she used. Finally, one year for my birthday she sat down, and I still use her set of handwritten cards. I’ve started to scan them for safe keeping.

There was one favorite dish that she would make, cauldummer, and the family would accuse her of making up the name. Cauldummer is a delicious blend of hamburger, rice, breadcrumbs, spices, and eggs made into oval shapes and wrapped in cabbage leaves and baked. I looked for the word in recipe books and menus and never spotted it. My mom would swear it was a real word, but I could never verify it until a few years ago. One evening after eating a dinner of cauldummer, I wondered if the internet could help me. After a quick search I found it, Kåldolmar, Swedish cabbage rolls. I had a family recipe, from my mother’s mother’s Swedish side! It was there all along, spelled phonetically, and hiding in plain sight. I’ve had this phenomenon happen many times over the years that I have been diligently searching. Seemingly separate clues with unknown connections.

The most recent example was found during a recent trip to Minneapolis. My husband and I were shopping in a Nordic store when I found a mug that tripped a memory. The Swedish flower design stopped me in my tracks. I remembered my mother had a set growing up. Here was another trace of heritage that was unexplained and unremarkable. I bought the mug, and it is now a favorite. After I posted about it on social media, a friend who was downsizing homes reached out to offer me a creamer that matched. I am delighted.

I recently finished a project connected to my Swedish ancestors. Many years ago, while visiting with my mother’s sister, I was shown a counted cross stitch sampler that my great grandmother, Maria, made while in Sweden as a twelve-year-old girl. I took a picture of it – unfortunately under glass with lamp glare, but I’m glad to have it now. I’ve thought about the piece a lot over the years. I don’t know what became of it after my aunt’s death. I thought that I would just have to be consoled by at least having a record of its existence. If I’m honest though, it makes my heart hurt a bit.

Last year, as part of the Swedish weaving group with my local guild, we had a challenge to use linen yarn to make something for the year. We did a group order for 16/2 linen yarn from Sweden, and I knew what I wanted to make. I wove the ground fabric to recreate my great grandmother’s sampler. I painstakingly mapped out Maria’s design, fudging here and there when I couldn’t exactly see or count her design. I finished stitching the piece two months ago and now it is framed and on my wall. It was a piece that I felt compelled to make, even when I had to rip out hours of work due to a miscount several times. Having the piece completed has soothed the ache that I feel with the original work not in my ownership. It is a work of devotion and honoring those that came before.

A photo print out of the original with notes (left) and my recreation of the sampler.

I love how Maria has included her family on this piece. Maria’s father’s and mother’s initials are in the middle on each side. Maria’s initials are on bottom center. I even left her original backwards S. On each side of Maria’s are her sibling’s initials. Maria was one of four children, but the youngest was not yet born when Maria stitched her piece. This textile represented her identity and where she came from. Knowing where you came from and your connections to the past are often taken for granted. When you don’t have this piece of your identity, it leaves an open place in our understanding. There are many ways to fill emptiness.

Knowing Where to Look

November 3, 2020

Since blogging a few months ago about reclaiming weaving, I’ve been thinking about where to find my weaving impulses. I’ve tried a few things lately that interested me at the beginning, but then my interest wandered. I’ve flipped through books, Instagram feeds – nothing filled me with fire.

Then I happened upon an Instagram post featuring the tapestry of Finnish artist Soile Hovila and I felt an excitement build. Her work isn’t the traditional tapestry that I was taught with the warp threads covered by weft. Her warp threads were exposed, and it felt transgressive! Why? We get these rules set down by some mysterious “they.” Then an artist challenges them quietly and reminds us that rules are a temporary thing and always subject to change. Hovila’s work shows how she sees into the world with washes of color and light. The movement and quiet are combined skillfully and transport the viewer into her world and the way she sees.

Her act of exposing warp and weft supports the visual imagery of her work and the importance of it being a textile. There is nothing hidden. It isn’t a textile trying to be anything but itself. The exposed warp isn’t distracting or lack of skill on her part, but a carefully considered decision.

If I had made it to Finland in the spring, I would have seen her work on exhibition at The Craft Museum of Finland. That smarts a little, but for now I’ll have to view her work online. She has a lovely Instagram feed and shares her progress with the tapestry on her loom currently.

Where do you find your inspiration, where do you find your way through times when you feel stuck? How do you ask for help when you feel lost? Sometimes I think that the harder I chase my desire to find my place back at the loom, the more elusive it will become.

So how to solve this little problem? I work, I pay attention when something inside me perks up, surround myself other artists working away in their studios (even only if virtually for now), I look into the world, I write, I try to explore and push myself a little more each day. I know I will find it, I trust that, but it isn’t always on my desired timeline. I have plenty to work on, my task list grows each week, so I show up each day willing to get to work.

I have taken a few things off the loom recently. I did a sample with torn strips of map printed silk organza with some left over natural linen from my first transparency sample. I was curious how the silk “rags’ would look and I’m intrigued by the result. I have a book about Finnish American Rag Rugs to dig into for research and maybe that will be informative for where to go with this sample.

“rag” sample with printed silk organza - in window for light to pass through

Another piece off the loom is this small 7” x 7” transparency sample. The base cloth is 12/1 linen. I was cautioned that I might need to be gentle with it and prep it with some sizing. Of course, that means I dyed some and threw it on the loom without any sort of fuss. I wanted to see how much harassment it would take. It held up well and the loom waste looked a little fuzzy toward the end from friction. I’m happy with the fabric it made, and I’m interested in the imagery. I’m interested in the areas of open warp and weft. How that might impact the visual message of the piece? I have no idea where this is going, but I’m curious enough to keep working to see if a path emerges. I love the idea of using a traditional Finnish way of weaving and seeing if it has a place in my work. plan to do some embroidery on the cloth to push it a little more.