Blog - Page 16 of 100 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Tackling the dreaded first

For me, my studio time is the time that’s actually spent weaving. Several months ago, I wove four small pieces. Those pieces have long been finished, and my brain has been working on what to do with them. They’ve been on my to-do list all of those months, but today during a conversation with my accountability partner Carol, it came to me that I need to tackle these BEFORE weaving. Duh! So, after a walk, weeding the garden, being stung by fire ants, mowing the shoulder-high thistle plants, and shower, I dug those pieces out of hiding. Then I couldn’t decide about a background. Off to Photoshop. Of course, the final decision my be decided by the color of linen I can find in the stores. This whole process is an experiment. I may do some other small pieces and need to have a go to technique for finishing.

So what do you think? What color should the background be? From looking at the samples above, I think I can safely rule out black. Please vote or suggest a color. Really. Seriously.

What to do

From Instagram

Yarn shelves in the studio

According to rainfall charts, our previous highest rainfall total was in 1982 with 13.66 inches. We have now surpassed that and have over 14 inches, and the month of may is not over. Wettest May on record. From drought to flooding. Wichita Falls previously had no water in its lake, only cracked soil. It is now above level. Water everywhere. Squishy yard. As one who usually enjoys rainy, cloudy days, the weather is now affecting my mind. Sunshine is reason to go outside and dance!

My grand plan to work outside has been hampered, even though really difficult weeds pull up easily from the saturated soil. Of course, before tackling those tall weeds, I first poke around with a rake because this weather has flooded out usually hidden critters. Like snakes.

So I have been weaving (halfway finished with the big loom project) and getting slightly frustrated with my yarn storage solution. I already had these locker baskets when I bought the shelves. I had the baskets hanging from picture hooks close to the ceiling all around the studio, and others on makeshift shelves. I decided to consolidate all of these baskets. The problem is that the baskets are slightly too wide to put four on a shelf. Hence, the frustration when I try to pull out a basket. Time for a trip to the Container Store, pretty much my favorite place ever. You can see the red line of the first basket I checked out. I would need to buy lots of those or the black boxes in the pic below. One is see through (an advantage) and one has a lid (an advantage).

From Container Store

At this point, instead of spending money, I may just reduce the wire baskets to three per shelf, hang the extras back on the wall, and be done with it. See what an exciting life this is?

From soggy North Texas

Yes, soggy. As is my steps sound like I’m walking in a bog when I go outside. The sun has been a rare event here, and as you can see (thanks to Accuweather), won’t be around much until June. Yet, I’m still reluctant to complain since we’ve been in a drought, and the rains will end. In August I will be wishing for rain.

So, what’s been going on during this perfect weaving weather? Not much. A bit of weaving here, a bit of unweaving there. I’m very unfocused right now. The Fort Worth Weavers Guild has a rug study weaving group, for which I am the mentor–how weird is that? We have a Facebook page where we post pictures, questions, resources, and messages for help. Trying to explain dovetail joins and what the weft does on the return trip, has made me admire anyone who can write articles or a book on how to do something. Words are hard!

I have gone down a couple of rabbit holes also. You know, those computer research projects that lead into something else that leads into something else, and so on.

One was seeing Kay Sekimachi’s work again. I’ve written about her before, and I am still fascinated by her work.

This picture was on Colossal, which in turn came from My Modern Met. How did she do that? I really would like to know. There is an exhibit of her work at the Bellevue Arts Museum. *** By the way, Colossal has so many interesting art articles it’s worth a weekly visit.

If any of these pictures look familiar, it’s because they came from my Instagram account (user name sherriwcoffey).

More rabbit holes later. I really am going to weave today, I really am going to weave today, I really am going to weave today …

***(In the Realm of Nature: Bob Stocksdale & Kay Sekimachi is organized by Mingei International Museum, San Diego, California. The local presentation of this exhibition is curated by Stefano Catalani.-See more at: http://www.bellevuearts.org/exhibitions/in_the_realm_of_nature.html#sthash.SWxFNFpA.dpuf)

ArtWalk 2015

One version of my booth

Back home and the car still sits with its load. The first thing I did was get to the loom. Right before I left, I realized that I had not followed my design for the piece I’m weaving. After playing around with the design as woven, and thinking about it over the weekend, I took out 8 inches this morning. It didn’t take as long to unweave as it did to weave, but it still took a long time. If you’re wondering why I unwove instead of cutting the yarn, it’s because of how much yarn is dyed. So again I have a fresh start, but this time there is a printout of the desired finished product sitting alongside me on the loom bench.

It was a beautiful day for browsing art, although the crowds were down this year. This ArtWalk-er comes every year, but I think this is a new costume.

On the way home, I stopped by Wildseed Farm in Fredericksburg for some flower love. This part of Texas, known as the Hill Country, has a huge German influence.

Cartoon puzzle

cartoon puzzle

This may not be the my smartest move, but for the piece I’m working on, I decided to make the cartoon myself. I wanted the cartoon to be 25 inches horizontally, so in Photoshop I changed the image size to 25. Yep, there’s no way I can print that. So, also in Photoshop, I fairly evenly divided the drawing into 16 pieces, then copied each section and printed each one out. Then I taped all the pieces together, and voilà, I had a full size cartoon, unwieldy, but a cartoon.

Next I cut a section of gridded vellum and traced over the cartoon. Ready to move to the loom, where, unfortunately, the cartoon needed to be smaller, as in 2 inches smaller. Back to the computer. Repeat the process. Weave. And it works!

Now, would it have been better to have copies made at FedEx? I don’t know. My reasons for not going that route are:

Frequently copies have to be redone because the employee doesn’t know how to set it up to meet the (my) criteria.
I would have had to go back again anyway after I discovered that I had made the wrong size.

Money-wise, by the time I pay for the paper used, printer ink, etc, it might have been less expensive to drive to town, but then I would have to add in fuel. The time spent on this may have been equal.

What do you think? How do you do cartoons? Or maybe the questions is, do you make cartoons?

Gallery walk-Dallas

Wall Gallery really had a fast turnaround time for getting the new frames done. First, the area where my work hangs. This is such a fuzzy picture, or maybe it’s my tired eyes. The pieces look good among this group of artists, I think. To the left of the door is Door (ha ha). It’s sandwiched between two sheets of acrylic.

I’m sure everyone knows how difficult it is to take pictures of reflective material, so I’m going to ignore that. You can see how there are white “nails” holding the sandwich together. This method is the less expensive method of framing with acrylic.

To the right of the door is Path to the Sun, which is mounted on linen and framed inside an acrylic box. You can barely see the linen, but it’s a natural color. No one was asked to make a decision on that, but next time, the gallery and I both think that white would be better, similar to most gallery walls. We all prefer this method of framing, and of course, it’s the more expensive method. Since I have been researching methods for mounting for several months, I was not surprised to find out that itty bitty stitches were used to stitch the piece to the linen. Those stitches are not in just one section, but all over

Wall Gallery

It has been busy around here. As usual at this time of year, the weeds are trying to take over, like some kind of horror film. I did cut off the small, multicolored piece, but no finishing yet. Instead, I tied on the warp and started weaving again. That’s what we always really want to do, right. To heck with all those have-tos, need-tos.

I also made a trip to Dallas to visit Wall Gallery. They kept four pieces, and have a plan to frame them in a completely different way. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

Interesting structures

The other day I was reading the Wall Street Journal, and came across a book review with a whole pag e of architectural pictures. Fascinating stuff! In fact, this kind of article is the whole reason I read the WSJ, that, and because it was a free subscription. The picture that caught my attention was, I thought at first, a microscopic something or other. But no, it’s actually a building in Dubai called the GEOtube Tower designed by Faulders Studio in 2009. (A Google search turns up some amazing images of their work.) building in Dubai is covered with steel mesh, which is bathed in saltwater, which I’m assuming causes rust to form and creates the interesting patterns. It’s worth going to the WSJ page and looking at the slide show of structures. I often find a seed of a design idea hiding in architectural pictures. The book is on one of my wish lists at Amazon.

Monstrous weed, has little hairs that cling, small purple flowers. appeared suddenly a couple of years ago.

My to-do list is a mile long this week. Along with trying to keep a monstrous weed under control, I am working hard to get studio time in again. Living in Texas, we don’t complain about rain, but every time I have time to plant my vegetables, it rains. I did get the beds weeded, though. Tomorrow, said Scarlet.

I love this stuff!

For some reason, I’ve ended up with a pile of green yarns that I don’t like very much, so I decided to overdye them with turquoise. The image above left is the original colors and below that is the dye result. As you can see, there’s not a huge difference in the final colors, but the olive one on the right turned out to have a lot of depth to it. I have more of these same colors, which I will overdye with blue.

I’ve also been dyeing yarns for the next project, that is if there is ever a new project. I’m thinking the small piece on the loom may never end. There’s just something about having 50 butterflies going that seems to slow things down. Because of various life circumstances, my weaving time has slipped, so I’m working really hard to get back that discipline. My goal for the week is 18 hours of loom time. At the rate the current piece is going, it may take 2-3 weeks to finish. It’s size is only increasing by 1/2 inch per day.

I love seeing the yarns coming out of the depots! Wonderful colors. More pics later.

A teeny glossary

My last post was short, included a big picture and lots of weaving words to go along with the “lots of color.” With that in mind, here’s a bit of terminology. This only applies to my weaving, not the big world of weaving in general. We all have our own methods. It would be great if anyone wants to jump in here and add to the discussion.

By the way, that colorful picture of all my butterflies? It’s worse now. I just seem to keep adding them.

Warp-The threads that are on the loom. In this case, they are white and will not be seen in the finished weaving.

Weft-The yarn that is being woven. It goes horizontally across the warp and will cover the warp completely. It is what is weaving the design.

Weft butterflies-Butterfly is the name given to the organization of the weft because of the shape. Weavers may also organize their wefts on bobbins. Here’s a video about making butterflies. Rebecca Mezoff also has one here. I tried to embed them, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards today.

Sett-The refers to the spacing of the warp threads. In this case, 6 epi means 6 ends per inch.

Reed-A device that keeps the warp threads in their place. It is as wide as the woven piece or wider, made of two top and bottom horizontal bars in which metal dividers are inserted. The reed being used has 6 dents (spaces) per inch.

Sley the reed-old terminology, before 1050, from Middle or Old English, for inserting each warp thread into the spaces of the reed. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sley