Sherri Woodard Coffey

Just to prove that I am going nuts, I am now receiving the Wall Street Journal. This is a free subscription from using expiring airline miles—you know, those miles that have collected but there’s not enough to do anything with and then they expire. But back to the Wall Street Journal—if it wasn’t for the local news, I would read only the WSJ. Lots of good stuff in there from all over the country and world. Even art and books! And ridiculously ostentatious abodes, like this 48,000 square foot house in Texas. But aside from the time involved in reading another newspaper, think of the doubling of the mound of newspapers building up. Maybe I can get the recycling folks come to me.

I enjoyed reading the article Dealers Catch Up to a Texas Fisherman. It’s about Forrest Bess, who died in 1977. The piece below is titled “Red Rain.” Read the quote below about how the paintings came to be.

“The paintings came to him in a flash, in a half-sleeping state,” says sculptor and Bess enthusiast Robert Gober. “And from that, he would make an image. He never changed it or made it prettier. For him, it was just about getting it down on the page. He was puzzled himself about what these visions were and what they mean.”

Many of the paintings on his website are titled “Untitled.” My kind of guy!

Last year at this time I was barely holding things together. I wrote a brief post about grief here. The grief is not as intense, but I am still trying to find my new “normal.” Each day, week or month, a new obstacle appears. Actually, they’re probably not really obstacles, just new adjustments. During the last few months of weaving about five hours a day, I have found those hours very enjoyable. However, by the time Saturday gets here, I am ready to get out and go somewhere, anywhere! Even six months ago I was happy having my margarita (or two) every evening and watching mindless TV. I always knew that eventually the margaritas would no longer have the same appeal, but watching the mindless TV programs continued. Now, that mindless TV is not satisfying, so I have to find a new normal. What will it be? Each day is a new adventure—at least that’s what I tell myself—and part of me believes it! There have been accomplishments and failures, but that’s what life is, right? But I still miss being able to discuss all the ups and downs over dinner with him.

Above is one of the new/old weavings that has just been finished. I used the same idea as before, but changed the size. It is also different because of the amount of yarn in the various colors. I can’t decide which direction should be the top. Anyone?

One of the things I plan to teach myself soon is how to put a simple watermark on images, something like the one on the picture below. It comes from the blog below. Lots of beautiful pictures there!

Beautiful Flower Pictures Blog: Floral Photography by Patty Hankins

I’ve mentioned bridges before and I guess I’m still fascinated by them. Dallas has a new bridge, and it has been inaugurated with much hoopla. From what I hear, there was an expensive opening party last month and a street party on the bridge the next day—not that I will see this bridge any time soon. Driving to Dallas is like driving to another country, as far as I’m concerned. The picture above came from Dallas Arts Salon. It is a gorgeous bridge, isn’t it? In going through my sketchbook, I have found pictures of bridges cut out of newspapers and magazines. There is just something about the lines that are fascinating to me.

A couple of weeks ago on Facebook, I stated that I just didn’t get Pinterest. Janice Zindel of Shuttle Works Studio Lisa’s work is arranged by color, and maybe that is something that I would want to do also. In the back of my mind is the problem of my portfolio page on my website—it needs to be organized in some way. I have these internal conversations with myself about the best way to do this, but haven’t arrived at a solution yet. Ideas anyone?

Now, when I log on to Pinterest, a very colorful page awaits. I’m not sure if that’s what everyone gets, or just me. But each image is of multicolored objects, ranging from colored Rice Krispies bars to hair to crayons.

You can see how Weaving Southwest organized their boards here. I do have a presence there, although it’s very small.

A problem with Pinterest is that by agreeing to their terms during the registration process, you are giving them the following:

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

I don’t like this. It’s a huge hurdle to jump. Maybe my biggest obstacle is what I’ve heard from others about how they’re addicted to Pinterest. What do you think?

Indigo vats in garbage cans, kiddie pools ready for rinsing fabric.The organizing is continuing around here. It was pretty exciting last week, relatively speaking. Found in the mounds of stuff in a closet:

• Pictures of an indigo dyeing workshop with John Marshall—do you know how many times I’ve wondered where those were?
• Program from a classical guitar society concert (year unknown) complete with my notes on the weave structure of the jacket on the woman sitting in front of me.
• List of addresses of participants in the Rachel Brown dyeing workshop from around 1983.
• Boarding passes from the family vacation to London, also in the 80s. Boy, was flying a lot different then!

Dyed fabric ready to dry on the line or on the grass

• Booklet on infant care published by the government from 1926—maybe my grandmother’s?
• Boarding passes and hotel receipts (also around ‘84) from a trip to Oaxaca.

This is a Target ad with lots of color. Cute and cheerful.

Since my post on Wednesday, I have experimented with doing this weaving in a couple of ways. I wove with the weft coming from two different directions this time. I still had the issue of not having a “perfect” diagonal line between the two colors. Then I remembered Kathe Todd-Hooker saying that soumak could hide that uneveness. I pulled out my Tapestry 101 just to make sure that I knew what I was doing, and got started. I am still weaving one of the long triangles at a time, then a row of soumak with the the next triangle color. Pretty smooth! In the picture above, the soumak row is the first row of purple at the top of the weaving. Yes, the tapestry is going to have some texture now, but it’s not extremely noticeable. I will also have to decide how to handle the previously woven sections—see the close-up below. Maybe some pseudo soumak after the weaving is finished? Of course, other people outside of the weaving community don’t notice all those imperfections. But that’s a post for another day.

Here’s a tutorial on soumak.

The picture above is a scan of my drawing for what I’m weaving right now. As you can see, the angle for each section is very shallow—Is that an appropriate word to use when discussing angles? I’ve woven the first two sections with frequent taking out and starting all over. I finally decided to just weave one section at a time, which brings its own set of problems. Since the bottom triangle is already woven, one cannot beat in the second triangle with the overhead beater. It’s much slower to use a hand beater. I’m sure there’s a better way, and I will keep trying until I decide one way or another. In my experience, when a piece becomes a headache to weave, my satisfaction with the piece becomes less. By the way, this piece will have three colors, two shades of orange and purple. We’ll see where this goes…Suggestions welcome!

In my weaving world, the last piece has been cut off the loom, and I’m not sure it’s ever going to be my favorite. I was going to dye yarns for the next piece, but it turned cold, and I just couldn’t make myself dye when it’s 27 degrees with no protection from the north wind. And I know that for those who live farther north, 27 degrees is nothing. I’m a wuss! So, I came up with a couple of other projects, one of which does not mean I have to dye. My concern aabout that one is that it has a very small angle across 40 inches. I’m not sure I can stretch out an angle that long, but I guess I’ll find out! The picture above is my Matisse print and yarn colors based on the colors in the print. You can see a larger better image of L’Asie here.

Many of us own this book. For many of us, me included, it was the first weaving book we ever owned. I still pull this book out and look things up. I turned to this book the first time I wove a weft-faced anything, a saddle blanket for my father. I flipped through its pages, wanting to try everything, to know everything. 

Later I took my first dye class from Rachel Brown at what is now called Southwest School of Art. I knew nothing about dyeing, but that class sparked a desire to know more. Now that I actually do my own dyeing, I realize that Rachel taught us a rather unconventional method that she used to obtain her beautiful, multicolored skeins. We took a skein of yarn, twisted it up tight, tight, tight, and then stuck it back into itself like you always do with a skein. The tight twisting essentially caused an ikat effect. After the tightly twisted skein obtained the desired color, it was removed from the dyepot, untwisted, and twisted again to expose a different region. Then it was dyed in a second color, which was added to the same dyepot. This process was repeated until the skein suited your fancy.

In her book Rachel explains a very efficient method of dyeing that conserves water, starting with the lighter colors and moving towards the darker colors, all in the same water. It takes planning, but it’s well worth it.During Convergence a couple of years ago, I took this picture of Rachel and her granddaughter Teresa. Beside Teresa is the Rio Grande wheel, which Rachel is responsible for developing, along with the Rio Grande walking loom.

I didn’t really know Rachel, but from what I understand, Rachel was a huge advocate for fiber artists in New Mexico. I know of weavers who saw their first loom at Weaving Southwest, and knew they had to become weavers. It’s amazing how much influence this one woman has had in our weaving world. She will be missed.