Learned something new

Learned something new–I had no idea that the weaving of Navajo blankets began so long ago. The quote below is from here. And you can see the Sotheby press release here.
While it is thought that Navajo blankets were woven from the late 1600’s, very few dating from before 1850 have survived. By that time the blankets were well established as a trade item throughout large parts of the American West. The going rate for a Navajo chief’s blanket was one hundred buffalo hides, twenty horses, ten rifles, or five ounces of gold. Chief’s blankets were expensive – by 1830, they were the most expensive garments in the world, but were known for holding their value and were essential for high ranking members of the Plains and Prairie tribes.
And another artist, Joyce Pensato. Several things fascinate me about this artist. The fact that the above piece is painted with enamel on linen is one. But then I checked for other images, and it seems that Batman is a continuing theme, just now branching out into color, and the way she works. See quote below from here.
Pensato draws in charcoal and paints in enamel. For years her palette has been black, white and silver, though color is beginning to make an appearance in her recent paintings. Her drawing process is one of making marks, rubbing them out and making more marks, with line being the essential form. In her paintings, the line is made of enamel that initially appears to have been applied quickly, though its varying densities and its field of drips and splatters makes it clear that it wasn’t done in a single shot. In both drawing and painting Pensato is committed to finding the linear form that captures her subject matter, the cartoon characters and toys of contemporary American culture.
Somehow, an artist using cartoon characters to make this kind of art is surprising to me. But I am interested in line, and of course, color. More images here.

Busy time of year

Except for those busily completing Christmas gifts, is anyone else doing any weaving? I’m certainly not, but the to-do list has gotten much shorter. There are still a few niggling things that need to get done, and more that haven’t even been added to the list. Like hem towels.

I took some old recipes from grandmothers and great-grandmothers, scanned them, and had towels printed at Spoonflower. This was my first experience doing this and I learned a few things–well, really just one major thing. I’m happy with the cotton/linen fabric and with the way the recipes look. However, I did not choose a good placement on the fabric. They are centered on a fat quarter, but in the wrong direction. I could have printed two on each towel. As it is now, I think they will be too small for “tea” towels, so I am going to take some of the excess fabric and add to the length. Of course, this all could have been avoided if I had just ordered one as a test. Hmm…well, I really didn’t know how long it would take to receive them. I’m sticking with that story. Of course it’s not about impatience!

More wedges

The wedge theme continued…..

I woke up and had the idea of stacking the wedges. I cut out a wedge from the piece I wrote about earlier and traced around it in a way that I found attractive. I then scanned the drawing and colored the wedges with shades of blue in Photoshop. These aren’t the exact colors that I would use in a weaving, but the best I could come up with in that program. If I decide to actually weave this, I’ll work on the colors more. Maybe change to shades of red?

Below is the result of using the wedge motif in multiples but smaller. This would be done with weft-faced ikat. I’m kind of itching to do a little ikat.

I really love the ideas that come in moments of non-thinking. I also like the feeling of looking at things differently. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but this is my only experience with an art class–in a long ago photography class, our first assignment was windows. That was it. I looked at every window I came across. Shadows in windows, reflections in windows, cracked, broken, jagged windows, the shape of windows, flaking window sills and the wood that divides windows. That class was ages ago and I still think about it and look at windows. I’m hoping the same kind of thinking will possess my brain again–after the holidays!

Pantone time again

Until I saw the article in the WSJ this morning, I had totally forgotten about Pantone and its color of the year. How could that happen! There’s even a video. I wanted the graphic at the bottom of the print edition page, but alas, it was not to be. But in my search, I went to Pantone’s website. It’s worth a look to just see their slideshow of green things–ahem, emerald things. In addition, there is a link

to the Pinterest page. For someone who loves color, well, it’s wonderful. Color everywhere!RainbowI saw this on their products page, and was interested enough to go to Dick Blick and find out more. Sad to say that the reviews weren’t good.

I bought this last summer. Is it green? Turquoise? Was I ahead of the trend or still trailing behind?

What do you think of Emerald?

Lines and curves

This was in ArtDaily today, December 6. I love the lines and curves, not only in the building itself, but in the reflection. Wonderful! Then I read it was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, who died on December 5 at the age of 104. I had just heard a piece on the radio about him. Seems he has the credit for making Brasilia what it is, architecturally speaking.  If you look at the Wikipedia page, the images show his fondness for curves and lines in many, if not most, of his projects. Do you notice the lines and patterns of an object when you see it? It seems that’s what I notice–can’t tell which comes first–color or line.

More about working in a series

Earlier I posted about Matisse and the exhibit at the Met–something I would really like to see. This exhibition clearly demonstrates Matisse’s series work. I recently completed a Working in a Series workshop with Lisa Call. You can go to her website and see my comments and a few of the designs I came up with. I am not through with the design process by any means, but it’s a start. Matisse was one of the artists that Lisa wrote about as part of our education.

I started out thinking I would do a series about layers, something I’ve been thinking about for a few years. (A trip through the mountains will do that to you.) The piece above was woven with that in mind, so I took the bones of that piece and started to expand on it. I didn’t like anything I did. Nothing! Finally I just took that wedge shape and expanded on it.

This is what I came up with. Still not loving it, but it’s acceptable. And this is what I used to get myself weaving again. At least it’s something! What I have found is that as I sit there weaving, more ideas are coming. Funny how that works, isn’t it? More on wedges next time.

Who weaves in a series?

Matisse, process, and series

Have you seen this? If not the actual exhibit, but articles about the exhibit? This Matisse exhibition is right up my alley, and I would LOVE to see it. Below is a quote from the NYTimes.

“…this exhibition …sheds new light on Matisse’s penchant for copying and working in series.”

The exhibition at the Met will be up until March 17, 2013. Not only do these painting show his series work, but also glimpses of the process. The review likens these paintings as an “excavation.” How interesting! Also interesting is this bit:

In the 1930s Matisse began having black-and-white photographs taken of his paintings at regular intervals as he worked on them.

Maybe some wisdom for the weavers among us. Take pictures before it rolls past the breast beam! Because tapestry is slow, and I weave on a horizontal loom, I do write down date and how I began the piece, so that when I finally get to the end, I can do the same thing in the finishing. But I love reading about his process (seeing the works would be even better, right?). As I’ve mentioned before, having the artist’s sketchbooks or some other depiction of process, well, that’s what fascinates me.

Going back to the first quote above, the copying part—and I took that partly as copying “masters” but also his own work–maybe that would be useful to improve one’s own weaving and carrying forth the design into new territory. What do you think?

In the meantime, I may need to buy the catalogue for this exhibit. At least it’s cheaper than a trip to NYC!

Photography

This picture looked familiar, and so it was. I wrote about Edward Curtis before, but the NYTimes has a review of a new book about him, including a slide show of photographs. Sometimes I think it’s better to not know much about people. Art is much easier to appreciate then. Not true, really, but the knowledge of the person behind the work does influence the emotion that a work can invoke. Or maybe not…what about you?

Moving on to another segment of our history…I love quilts and own some very old ones. I also have quilts made by my grandmother, using scraps from clothing, not only from my dresses, but also from my sisters. However, I don’t think of quilts as a story telling venue.

Back in June (yes, I know, that was months ago), there was a review for an exhibit at the American Textile Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. This exhibit is about textiles from the Civil War era. A quote from the review:

To cut off the Confederate Army from access to new uniforms, tents and bedding, the Union troops even kidnapped female knitters, weavers and seamstresses and deported them northward. “You don’t just let them stay there so they can move a hundred miles south and work in another mill,” said Madelyn Shaw, a curator of the exhibition “Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War,” opening Saturday at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Mass.

Check out the review, because books and another exhibit are mentioned.