Art Archives - Page 16 of 27 - Sherri Woodard Coffey

Category Archives: Art

Rabbit holes again

The second of the two pieces being woven at the same time. I’m using metallics for the first time. Not so sure about that.

First, weaving news. The plan is to finish the two small pieces that I’m weaving at the same time. I’ve also sent out a newsletter for the first time since July. If you want to see it, subscribe here.

Lately I’ve been exploring a lot of rabbit holes, via the internet. Have you ever heard of the Martha Stewart Made in America awards? I hadn’t until I received an email, and off I went, limiting myself to only fiber-related businesses. Lo and behold! One of those businesses won! Explore Ricketts Indigo–I think you’ll find it interesting. Look at the pictures of Chinami’s kasuri process and Rowland’s sculptural pieces. Quoting from their website,

Rowland and Chinami Ricketts use natural materials and traditional processes to create contemporary textiles. Chinami hand-weaves narrow width yardage for kimono and obi. Rowland hand-dyes textiles that span art and design. Together we grow all the indigo that colors our cloth, investing ourselves and our time in our textiles because we believe this way of working to be an essential part of the material’s integrity and authenticity.

Here are other companies I liked

Blueprints on Fabric the magic of cyanotype
Silk and Willow plant-dyed silk ribbon
Lana Plantae alpaca farm, naturally dyed yarns

A short trip

Last week, after flying to Denver, I drove to Golden, Colorado, where I attended Art Biz Makeover by Alyson Stanfield. About 80 or so artists attended, so there was lots of creative energy. Plus, it was nice to see faces in person that I’ve only seen online and get to visit with new faces. I stayed at Table Mountain Inn, where the event was being held. I don’t know if Table Mountain is considered a boutique hotel because I’m not sure about the definition of a boutique hotel. Whatever category it is, it’s a nice hotel.

Table Mountain Inn

Unfortunately, I did not see much of Golden, but on my last morning I took a short walk before heading back to Denver. I’m sorry I didn’t get to drive into the mountains or walk along the stream because the pictures look beautiful.

Wait for seating on these benches outside pizza place.

Wait for seating on these ski benches outside pizza place.

Shop window. Love those fishes!

A single fish

Quilt museum

On to new things

Since I posted last week about the show I’m not going to in Atlanta, I feel better about my decision. It’s all about that trusting your gut thing. Several people have contacted me, some who have actually lived in Atlanta, and told me I made the right decision. So, on to new things!

After a few days of travel, I am going to come back home and do a couple of small weavings on the big loom. Although I am much happier weaving on the Mirrix, I still just enjoy the big loom better. I think it’s the rhythm I get into there, and that might come on a small loom too, given more practice.

So, what’s on tap next? I’m going to weave two-at-a-time faces. They may not be successful at the sett I use normally, but I can certainly stop and move on to something else. The other studio task ahead is how to mount a small piece more successfully, namely the weather pieces. I am definitely not happy with the presentation below.

Side view of gallery wrapped canvas with fabric stapled on to it. West Texas Snowfall sewn onto the fabric.

In Kirsten Glasbrook’s book, she shows how she finishes and mounts shaped pieces by sewing the piece onto a piece of linen, and then stretches the combined linen and tapestry over a piece of block board. I had never heard of blockboard, so had to look it up–here’s a page with pics and definitions. I think I’ll try a thin piece of plywood. Masonite might work, but it’s a dark color. Don’t know about that.

Decisions

Decisions! They always have to be made, no getting around it. We’ve all heard the saying that by not making a decision, we’re making a decision. I had to make a tough one this week. Not life or death, but hard for me to do. I was accepted into the American Craft Council show in Atlanta. What a debate I had with myself!

Cons

expensive
would have to buy walls
would have to rent a vehicle to transport said walls to Atlanta
it’s really hard work–REALLY

Pros

it’s a well-known show
there’s a bit of status involved

But what really made the final decision for me, after talking to a couple of artists from the 2014 show, I just didn’t think Atlanta was the best venue for my work. I could have swallowed all those cons if I thought the venue was a good one for my work. There’s still a smidgen of regret, but mostly I’m okay with the decision.

Another tapestry book

it’s is really embarrassing, but this book has been on my shelf for a while, and I haven’t looked at it. Actually probably not on the shelf for too long because I just organized my books. But still, it’s been in my house. It’s a beautiful book with some gorgeous pictures in it! There’s a bit of instruction, definitions of terms, etc, alternative materials, but one of the things I like is that the captions under the pictures give the epi of the piece. Why that matters to me I don’t know, but it does. Maybe because I weave at 4 epi, so it’s nice to see what other setts enable one to do. Anyway, check out Tapestry Weaving by Joanne Soroka. There’s a lot of eye candy!

By the way, when I went to Amazon to get a link for the book, they kindly told my that I “purchased this item on May 15, 2012.” So, yes, it has been in my house for a while.

Mirrix again

mirrix

Mirrix with warp

My Mirrix is out again, after a long hibernation. I have decided to conquer this. Others rave about their small Mirrix looms, so I know it’s just me. Practice, practice, practice! I have looked at various sources for information. Of course, Mirrix has a great little PDF booklet about warping your loom. They also have a really good video. But here’s the problem–even though I knew exactly where my loom was, some of it’s vital parts were missing, things like the warping bar and the spring that spaces the warp. Luckily, I had ordered a bottom spring set, so one of those went to the top. Then I looked at alternate ways to warp, something that did not require the warp bar. Kathe Todd-Hooker has written a blog post about warping the Mirrix her way–and that’s what I did. I also ordered the parts that I need for my loom.

Now, what to weave. I have lots of ideas for small pieces, at least I did before I warped up. I’m sure they will come to me. There may even be a list somewhere,

Books, again

book

Books! I love books! This past week I have been glancing through and reading a couple of new books—to me, at least. Since I love all Peruvian textiles, when I read a book review in the current issue of Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot, I had to have The Peruvian Four-Selvaged Cloth by Elena Phipps. Frankly, I was hoping to see some diagrams about how this cloth is made, but in glancing through the book, I did not see any. I have started reading it and am finding it very interesting, from the description of the weaving to the description of the dyeing. One of the things I found interesting is the use of looping within the weaving to produce texture in a piece. I had never heard of looping until I read Donna Kallner’s blog. She has classes, a book, and videos about this process. Maybe I’ll have to learn how in my spare time. Something else I like about this book is the section on modern weavers and their take on four-selvedge weaving. James Bassler and Sheila Hicks are two of the artists included in this section. If you do a search for Bassler, you’ll find many pages, but here’s a link to Craft in America page. The same could be said for Hicks, but here are a few sites: Pinterest, website, NY Times article. Disclaimer–I think the Pinterest site is a compilation from various pinners, but still interesting.

measuring

Now you might be wondering about the other picture on this page–More later…

October 6-12

ZigZag II, hand-dyed with natural dyes, wool yarns, tapestry, 33.5 x 58 inches, private collection. ©Sherri Coffey-ZigZagII

A lot of things need to be done this week. In fact, ever since I hurt my knee, my life has been a quagmire, at least after I could walk again. There were physical therapy appointments, appointments to get shots in the knee, and eye appointments. All but the eye appointments are over with. The last surgery on my eye is tomorrow, then two more follow-up appointments, and I’m done.

In honor of fall, here’s a snippet of a Color Thesaurus by Ingrid Sundbird. You can see the whole thing here. It goes from white to black and all the colors in between, really quite interesting.

The weather is getting nicer and I’m feeling more energetic, although we are expected to have more days in the 90s this week. So, in addition of doing my knee exercises and walking, goals for the coming week are:

Studio

Finish work on Rain
Warp baby loom
Clean studio

House

Organize carport
Make a donation run to Goodwill
New toilet installed

Tasks

Eye operation
Post op appt
Attend two events on Friday, one at 4:30, other at 6:30

It’s happened again

Weaving in progress

The ikat weaving is going amazingly fast, (maybe because I’m enjoying the trashy novel I’m listening to) although it may not be exactly as planned. The motifs are not always aligning in the expected places, but I just adjust and keep on weaving. The problem is my logic and math skills, or lack thereof.

I weave at 24 ppi, which means that there are 12 wraps around the selvedge threads.

Selvedge

Twelve wraps around a peg on the ikat board makes a really big bundle, and it’s hard to wrap that bundle to get a good, clean edge on the design motif. So I decided to wrap in 1/2 inch increments. For some reason, I had it in my head that my cartoon would need to be stretched by 2 in order to get the motifs the correct size in the weaving. So wrong! For the first time, I have been measuring the motif in the weaving and writing the size on the cartoon, along with measuring the design motif on the cartoon also. The most that those measurements have is a discrepancy of 1/2 inch–the weaving being larger. Keep in mind that this is a cartoon stretched two times its original size. Does this mean that if I had used the desired finished size in the cartoon and still wrapped the yarn for ikat in 1/2 groups, the weaving would be exactly that size? My head is spinning, and I guess the only solution is to try it. In the meantime, I have enough wrapped sections to weave another piece. Do I really want to weave the same thing again?

Cartoon

More squares

Here’s what I cut off from that horrible warp that I wrote about here. The warp doesn’t seem to affect the finished product, though.

I like the design except for one thing– the first group of diagonal squares on the right is the wrong color. That particular blue is too close in value to the background and becomes hidden. I’ve written about value before here. It’s often a problem of mine.

What could the title for this piece be? Hiding in Plain Sight? For now it’s just Squares.