Messiness and the Creative Process

I really love getting a peek into other people's studios and seeing how their work comes together. And I often find myself marveling at how neat and organized and precise their work areas and creative processes are.

Does anyone else have a completely messy, disorganized creative process? I'm kind of all over the place. I start at one point and wind up somewhere completely different most of the time, it seems. A case in point - this piece that I may or may not finish in time to try to enter into the HGA's Small Expression Exhibit (deadline approaching fast, yikes).

I started with permafrost photos, and some messy sketches of just general ideas, thinking, at first, that I'd weave yardage.

Most of my ideas didn't involve any sort of repeating motif, though, so I thought yardage probably wasn't the best end result, and switched to thinking about a smaller scale piece that would stand on it's own.

Next was to work out possible approaches for weaving, and I started with thinking I'd do some sort of doubleweave project, with an undulating twill in earth/water/methane colors with a white huck lace second layer that would float over, or possibly interact with, the undulating twill fabric.

But when I got the warp for the undulating twill onto the loom, I liked it too much to cover it up with the silk for the lace layer! So the silk is going on my little Harrisville 4-shaft loom, to be woven separately. I started sampling on my undulating twill, and then thought about maybe embroidering over it and skipping the second layer completely.

I explored some embroidery stitches - fun, but not what I was hoping for. So I kept weaving away on the undulating twill, thinking - oh, phooey, I'll just make a scarf, I guess.

But then I started playing with some longer samples that are already off the loom, thinking I could weave flexible wire into the fabric, to give it a 3D shape, possibly a spiral. I adore spirals, but ultimately rejected the idea as too overworked, though it might work nicely on a small piece of fabric (ideas for a project later on!). I kept manipulating the fabric, wanting it to speak for itself, and wound up here:

And now I feel like I'm getting somewhere. I've got to get going on weaving my white silk huck spot/lace fabric and then get up the guts to actually start cutting and stitching this fabric into what I'm thinking will be the final result.

But, talk about fits and starts! How do artists like Lotta Jansdotter (love her work) wind up with such gorgeous journals to share when talking about their process?

Testing out Weft

Yay, ready to weave!

Oh, no, actually, not quite yet, first I have to fix my tieup, which is my least favorite thing to do in this whole process. Sigh. A dobby loom would fix this problem (no crawling under the loom to tie your treadles up), but when I had one I never used it. It was a really lovely loom (a LeClerc Weavebird), a 16-shaft compudobby, but there was something about having to make up my mind about what I was going to weave before actually sitting down to do it that put me off. (And, yes, you absolutely can change your mind, you just make adjustments in your weaving software, but I found that a real barrier too.) Maybe I'll try another one some day, but, for now, I'll put up with crawling under the loom to tie up.

Coffee makes everything better. :) And after that, I can get on to another fun part, testing out weft yarns!

Permafrost Warp

I really enjoy mixing up colors and fibers - when I have the time! Inspired by the permafrost photos, I pulled a bunch of cones of yarn and then them sit around contemplating one another for a while:

To see if they'd play nicely together. So far so good! I don't really do yarn wrappings, though sometimes I do twist yarns together to see how they look, but mostly, I just think about how wide my warp is going to be (about 15" in this case), how many ends per inch I'll use (28 epi, since the yarns up there are a combination of 14/2 alpaca/silk from Webs and 8/2 Tencel from Webs and I'll be weaving an undulating twill of my own design), think about how I want the color proportions to end up, and start winding away!

I tend to warp front to back so I can move things around if I feel like it:

But I'm liking how this is looking pretty much the same as I wound it.
I'm in the process of beaming now (all threaded through the heddles) and will post again when I start weaving - choosing a weft color is going to be interesting (eeps!).

HGA's Small Expressions 2016

I've been hearing a lot about permafrost lately, and decided to do some googling. And I came up with some really compelling images...

 

(First image by Josh Haner/NYT; 2nd image from NASA; 3rd from USGS).

Beautiful and devastating at the same time - I'm mulling over how to work them into some sort of piece, perhaps to try to enter into the HGA's Small Expressions 2016 exhibit. Assuming I can get my ducks in a row before the fast-approaching deadline in January!

On my Macomber at home is...

Some more deflected doubleweave, my own draft. This time it's on just 8 shafts, and it's psuedo-yardage, it is destined to be chopped up into 3" squares and sent off to the members of the Weavers Guild of Boston (in other words, it's the Guild's winter sample). Weaving with 14/2 alpaca silk from Webs that I had in my stash, lime green and teal in the warp, grey and grey-teal in the weft. It's been a while since I've woven yardage, it's freeing not to have to worry about tucking in ends and making neat selvedges!

As my son reminds me every day... Christmas is a week away, yikes! Wishing everyone a lovely holiday, and wishing for some snow here! (Supposed to be 60F next week, terrible news if you're a skier. Which I am. Dratted El Nino!)

New Blog, First Post

First posts are always a bit strange. So instead of talking your heads off, I think I'll just post some pictures of what I've been up to lately.

Embroidering cities (this is Barcelona, and still in progress).

Renting a new studio at WAS, yay! (Studio 511)

Weaving some deconstructed pinwheel scarves with hand dyed yarn

Embroidering Montmartre in Paris

Enjoying eggs from our new chickens!

Getting teary visiting WAS again after a long hiatus with no studio there

Weaving deflected doubleweave in tencel for Complex Weavers study group

Here's the deflected doubleweave after washing

Little notebooks that I bound myself (and screenprinted, yay!)

Dying alpaca/wool/silk yarn (winding skeins into balls to weave with)

A whole bunch of screen printed coffee cups...