Sherri Woodard Coffey

Completely gratuitous pictures of rugs from a market in Peru

Yesterday I went with my new friend and mentee to check out a couple of looms for her to buy.  The owner of these looms died in 2005, and the children were getting to the point of selling her house, so the the looms needed to go. One of the looms was a Handcrafts Studio Loom, 46 in. 8- harness, made in Tarzana, California. The other was a Schacht table loom on a stand with treadles. There was also a LeClerc table loom, and two upright Navajo-style looms, plus boxes and boxes of books. As this weaver/spinner taught spinning, there were also many spinning wheels, which we did not even attempt to look at and saved for another day. I brought home the books as a donation to our guild, Amy took the bought the large loom, the Schacht, the upright looms, bench, etc. She can hardly wait to get these up and running in her new studio. The large loom will have to wait until after her trip home to California this week. It is upstairs so will require dismantling and the pick-’em-up truck to get home. We were both really excited about this adventure.

Also yesterday, while weaving, I got up to check something, moved the wrong way, and pulled my back. I could hardly get up the stairs to look at the looms yesterday. I couldn’t believe I did this. I don’t have back problems!  Today I spent with a heating pad, reading and napping. The good news is that the back is better, which is good thing since I need to get up early and do the regular maintenance on the car. That plus the regular grocery day probably precludes weaving for tomorrow, but Thursday …   

Yippee! I’m finally weaving after what seemed like a long hiatus. The fish is still on the loom, but his nose is finished, and I’m weaving back the other way on him now. That means that I’m somewhere in that area above his eye. In the pic on the right, the yellow part on the loom is the lower “fin”, for lack of a better word. Thank goodness I make notes when I start weaving, just to make sure that the start and finish of a piece is the same. Wonder how I learned that! My notes look something like this:

• knots with warp
• 2 inches of D Red for hem (I’ve decided that smaller pieces should be hemmed)
• knots with 2 strands D Red weft (to mark where hem is folded)
• 1% red for 2 in
• Pick and pick for 2 in. with green and blue/turq
• royal blue 2 in for fish background

At this point, I can still see where I started, but the notes are very helpful after those details get wound on the cloth beam.

We had our guild meeting Saturday—lots of fun. My friend Margaret brought the metal woven basket she bought (the one in the picture from the last post). By the time she got back to Vesna’s booth, both the artist and her husband were ecstatic. The had sold almost everything! I wish I had had the opportunity to get back to their booth myself.

We also had a program by Pat Souder, who is so talented and has so many good ideas. The program was on embellishing the felted bags that folks had done at the previous meeting, but all of her ideas could be used in other applications. One that stayed with me—using pieces from silk flowers. I have lots of handwoven fabrics from my other weaving life that could be sewn into bags and embellished. Hmmm….  But I’d have to find silk flowers in a resale shop.  Pat also makes masks, her true love. Many of them incorporate handwoven fabrics.  Check out the Gallery page of the FWWG to see one of her masks. Be sure and click on it for a larger image.

Today I awoke to thunder. I’m loving the rain we’re getting right now. Not a downpour, just nice, steady rain. It’s lovely to weave in this kind of weather, so after some housecleaning chores, I will do exactly that.  Back to my fish. I hope I can reconstruct what I was doing and where I am on the plan.

These are not great pictures (taken with phone, not real camera), but I wanted to share some work by a couple of the artists in attendance at Main Street. I walked right by this booth thinking that I was looking at painted and fired pottery, kind of like Talavera. Well, it’s not that! These are turned wood with the mosaics made of seed beads. The link below takes you to the Main Street page where you can see some more of their work. These pieces are really wonderful!

Marilyn Endres & Eucled Moore

Wire Weaving

Naturally, I always look for weaving anytime I go to an art festival. This picture is also not very good, but try the link to Main Street to see this artist’s work. The picture shown is of what looks like a paper bag that has been folded down. It is made of gold wire, so it also has kind of a burlap-y look to it. Vesna has some wonderful pieces, and I fully intended to go back and buy one, but it really got busy over the weekend. I’m sure I’ll have another opportunity.

Vesna Yankovich

I’m having a really hard getting going again. I know it’s kind of normal to have a let down after an event, but this is getting ridiculous. Partly, it’s just that I’m really, really tired.

I have a list of things to do differently for next time, the most important being to remember is sunscreen and all the flexibility you can muster. Another thing I learned is that Rubbermaid containers are the way to go. Then things will not have to be placed on a table each night in case of rain. The booth space was a little different than expected. Evidently things were changed this year in a couple of ways. The canopies were a different kind and located in a different area along the street. The new fire marshal wanted booths on both sides of the street rather than in the middle as in years past.

Rain! I hate to ever disparage rain, since we nearly always need rain here. It rained Friday, and opening was postponed for 2 1/2 hours. My feet got wet and cold, and because my thermostat is in my feet, I was cold all day. But once the rain stopped, the crowds came. Boy, did they come! It was great. Lots of interest, nice comments, much talking to folks, and great people-watching. Interesting being on the artist side of a booth as opposed to walking the aisles of a show. Even if folks didn’t stop, it was nice to hear the many positive comments as they walked down the street. Even more people came on Saturday. Watching from my booth area, I felt a little claustrophobic. And there was conflicting music—Cajun on one side and whatever band was playing on the other. I was very lucky to share my booth space with a wonderful sculptor, Chris Hunt and his fiancé Tammy. And I am so lucky to have friends, my sister and brother-in-law who came out to help. Thank you Margaret, Margaret, Amy, Trina, and Paul. Yes, there are two Margarets.

These two pieces went to a happy new home. They are, left to right, Crossroad and Floating in a Deep, Dark Sea.

So, tomorrow, I hope to get some stuff back to normal, get a haircut, and do some errands. Thursday I plan to visit my parents and a friend. And, you know, I may do that weaving thing again. I’ve still got a fish on the loom.

We drove downtown this afternoon after the family festivities, to see exactly where we have to load in and sign in on Wednesday. Being prepared, right? Fort Worth has a new parking garage that is getting lots of buzz because it’s so colorful. While downtown, I realized that I’m going to have to take a walking tour of the whole area to take pictures. Many of the buildings have been refurbished and restored with all their neat architectural features. After reading Jeanne Williamson’s blog, I’m looking at buildings with fresh eyes. In college I took a photography class, one of those 3 week super-intensive classes. Our first  assignment was windows. No other information. I looked at reflections, unusual shapes, broken panes. I still look at windows with an eye for photography. Great assignment!

Tomorrow I will lash the last two rods for hanging. Then I will have to complete the To Do List: clips for blowing rugs, another light for the track, bungee cords, maybe a basket to hold the business cards. I finished the other portfolio book. My guild will need one for their sale on Saturday in another town. I included a couple of pages about process, one with pictures and the other with text only.

No matter who does the photography, the first thing I do is to save a copy in tiff, which goes in my Tiffs folder. That way I always have the originals. Then I save a jpeg for print (Print folder) and one for web (Web folder). That way I don’t have to hustle around looking around for photos for whatever project is coming up. Or here already!

Yesterday I used the photos I took for a couple of print items. I can’t tell any difference in using these and the professionally-made prints. I have to admit I don’t have the most discerning eye for this—color is what I concentrate on.

Sizes

In the previous posts I should have put sizes with each piece. So far, I am not happy with the way I’m putting titles with the pictures, much less attempting to get the sizes there also. I will work on that later…after the art festival.

• Layers-24 x 40.5 inches
• Yellow Mounds, Badlands-24.5 x 34.5 inches
• Blues Interrupted-34.5 x 71 inches
• Winter Stripes-36.5 x 65 inches

I now have 13 pieces completed for the show. I still need to lash rods on 3 pieces. I will take another piece to work on during the show, along with undyed and dyed yarns. I think people need to know how much work goes into weaving, don’t you?

This is the last of my Great Photo Experiments. I wove the one on the left with a bunch of yarns I had around during the winter, hence the title. I had previously woven a bright, cheerful little number that I called Summer Stripe. Not very creative with titles, but it serves the purpose.

Winter Stripe Summer Stripe

What I found today on my camera is a red-eye function that flashes then takes the picture. I think that may be the best option for me here at home without benefit of umbrella lights and the knowledge to use them. My photographer sometimes puts a white board at right angles to the piece to get reflective light. His name is David Wharton with a studio in Fort Worth, Texas. He has taken many pictures of work in the local museums. Here’s a link to one of his photos. Scroll down to the ladder picture. By the way, if you didn’t know it, we have great art museums here in Fort Worth. There’s the Kimbell, Amon Carter, and the Modern.