Sherri Woodard Coffey

What a surprise! Tapestry in ArtDaily—again.

Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1974, mohair wool tapestry, 190 by 150 cm. Commissioned in 1974 in an edition of 50 by the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation, produced in collaboration with Royal Lesotho Tapestry Weavers. Estimate €2.000-3.000. Photo: Sotheby’s.

It says that they were woven by the Lesotho Tapestry Weavers. After a brief search, I found the information below. Here’s the link for it. I really like that they wove with mohair, one of my favorite fibers. You can also read about Lesotho here. Unfortunately, I also found more than one pronunciation of Lesotho.

Craft Centers of Lesotho

As stated under the description of the mohair weaving tradition, Teyateyaneng (T.Y.) has become known as the “craft center” of the country. The town, however, only has four weaving businesses within. But, when compared to other regions of the country, four craft businesses in one town do legitimize it as a craft center. Other craft businesses are based in Leribe, Maseru, Thaba Bosiu or rural mountain villages. The work is scattered throughout the country and there are few venues for display—one of the many reasons that visitors often fail to discover it!

In the latest ArtDaily that found its way to my inbox, there are tapestries! I am always amazed that something this old could still be around after all these years. They were woven in the 1400s, after all. I also must confess, that this is not my favorite kind of art work, although I really admire the skill and talent to create a tapestry of this size and the detailed story they tell. Then, think of how the colors were obtained. A couple of years ago, we were in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where old tapestries completely surround a huge open space. It was so interesting to speculate on how the work was done, and the scenes themselves.

Probably produced under the direction of Passchier Grenier, tapestry merchant, The Conquest of Tangier, (detail) c. 1471-1475, wool and silk tapestry, overall: 400 x 1082 cm (157 1/2 x 426 in.), Collegiate Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Pastrana (Guadalajara). ©Fundación Carlos de Amberes. Photographs by Paul M.R. Maeyaert.

Jan Austin, on her blog Tangled Web, has recently written about seeing the Unicorn Tapestries. Looking at the pictures there, one can hardly help being amazed at the detail. I am especially enamored of the clothing and the designs on the fabric itself. And to think, it’s all tapestry! Wow! Double wow!

After my evening pistol league, later in the week I joined an art class. Creative Drawing may be way over my head, both in actual capabilities and understanding. Our instructor is DeBob Jacobs, who is very good. You can see her work here and here.

Most of us have heard about composition using the golden mean, or doing something that is asymmetrical. I knew about things like the light source, but my education is sadly lacking in other areas, like there are 15 composition types and that clothing can only fold in 7 ways when it’s on the body. That bit about clothing is found in an anatomy book, but the composition is explained in a book called Composition of Outdoor Painting by Edgar Payne. This is a small book with a big price, so I won’t be getting it anytime soon.

Other things that we practiced are finding the light source, and different ways of making shadow with our pencils. Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks we practiced is to NOT make a line, but to let the shadows created with the pencil make that line instead.  The purpose of the class is to learn about and to improve drawing skills in order to translate that to a canvas for painting or other medium.

I’ve been told that the types of composition are even present in abstract works, so I will be examining some art in the coming days. Actually, it’s already hard to not look for those composition types when I look at any painting.

One type of composition is the pyramid, for which Howard Terpning is known to use in his paintings. Here is a page with complete works. Find the pyramid! The one at the top of the page is one of his and came from the website linked here.

After the class, a trip to our local art store, Asel’s was required desired—always a fun stop.

The local CBS TV station filmed the FWWG show “Rhythm and Blues: The Music of the Loom.” The video can be seen here. There is no direct link, but if you look below the main area in the center, you will find this:

That link will take you to the video for FWWG. There are some very talented weavers in the guild.

Last night was was the first meeting of the fall pistol league of Diva WOW, and my second time to ever shoot a pistol. And I can’t believe I’m even saying those words. The above is my practice target of 10 rounds. Not bad for a second time of ever holding a pistol! The league is comprised of 30 women, and they all seem to be a fun bunch,helpful, and very nice. Now, I do not plan to hunt, as some of these women do, but I do plan to try some of the other activities offered by the organization, like archery. From listening to the women last night, the main goal seems to be sisterhood and friendship.

The next adventure—Creative Drawing. What a juxtaposition!

In the weaving world of my life…the studio got swept, yarns got stashed (finally!), and decisions got made about what the next project is. In the meantime, I will be dyeing bunches of black yarns. I always like to have a stash of black on hand. Why? I don’t know, but it has come in handy a few times. However, I do have two projects in mind that will require those yarns.

Kilim, 18th–19th century. Turkey, Anatolia. Wool; slit tapestry weave, 335.3 x 180.3 cm (132 x 71 in.). The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection. Gift of Caroline McCoy-Jones.

The above picture came from ArtDaily. I love the colors. It’s too late in my life to achieve the expertise to analyze something like this, but wouldn’t it be fun to examine the weave structure, the yarns used, even the dyes? If you follow the link, there is another picture of a kilim. I also found this information:

The term kilim is not a technical term in that it defines a particular woven structure. It appears to have originated in the Near East as a general designation for flat-weaves—textiles without pile. In the past decade the term kilims has been used almost exclusively to denote textiles in slit-tapestry weave.

For the next couple of days, I’m going to be knocking some things off my to-do list. That, and building a new social life are time-consuming. One of the items on the list is getting pictures of the guild show posted. Here’s a little sample of one piece done by Ann Schrader, woven using the Theo Morman technique. I hope to have all the photos up on our Facebook page and our website soon.

One of the items on the to-do list is a new computer, but I am having a tough time making a decision about which one. In fact, all decisions are tough for me right now. That includes things like painting the living room, etc. And when one is incapable of making a decision, well, nothing gets done! If anyone has a recommendation on computers, I’m all ears! My current one is a Dell, and I’ve been happy with it, although others have been really dissatisfied with Dell.

First—the good news: I am taking a couple of art workshops. One of them is called Creative Drawing and the other is Experimental Water. I think that means water media. We’ll see. But…

For the first time in my life there is nothing imposing any kind of constraint on my life. Yes, there are responsibilities, but there is no school, “real” job, spouse, young children, etc. I am in charge of designing a new life for myself, a really scary thought. Part of this new design is to expand my social sphere by joining a couple of groups and taking some short workshops. The new women that I am meeting are very welcoming, interesting and nice, but, I found myself feeling angry when I got home. To the best of my ability to analyze this phenomenon, I think I am angry that I am even having to do this in the first place. Since I’m not much of a joiner, I would probably be much happier at home, but I’ve got an instinctive feeling that cocooning would be the wrong thing for me to do. So, I am taking an art class with what seems to be a good group of women. Then I am also joining with a group of women who do outdoorsy kinds of things. Putting my toes in the water. Maybe I’ll take an archery class or join a pistol shooting league. That last would be REALLY expanding my sphere. But I’m still angry. I would much rather stay in my comfortable cocoon with my wool yarns, dyeing and weaving. So, my new design is not the picture above, but life. But since the title of that piece is Layers, maybe it applies…

On top of everything else, it doesn’t help that half the state of Texas is on fire. Yes, we’ve got cooler temperatures (they will be rising again by the weekend), but still no rain. I read in the paper this morning that La Niña is back, the cause of all our drought problems. All of this while others suffer from floods!

Think I’ll go clean up the studio and round up all those yarns. I need to dye some other colors, but I’m debating that because it requires a flame. I know, obsessively worrying.

As I write this, I am eagerly awaiting the promised cooler weather. Just look at those temperatures for the coming week. It has been so long since I have felt anything below 80 in the morning—well, gee, I just may have to kick up my heels! That is one reason we have a brand, spanking new record for heat this year. Our nighttime temperatures are just way too high.

In other news: The biennial Fort Worth Weavers Guild show and sale is coming up. I am not actually taking anything to sell as it is just to much trouble to figure out how to display in that setting. I do have a couple of pieces hanging on the wall for the show, though. The show reception and sale coincides with Fall Gallery Night, so there is always a good crowd.

Weaving right along on the piece on the loom. At this point, there are about nine inches left of the design to weave. This is when I start really putting in the time to get finished—headin’ for the barn, you know. However, since I am weaving with colors that are not part of my usual palette, I’ve also got some doubts. Sometimes I take something off the loom and love it immediately. Other times I am totally ambivalent, and other time I totally dislike it. Some of those dislike times end up getting a more favorable review from me later. Those that don’t never see the light of day!

As I write this for posting in the morning, a raging fire is burning, again, in the area of Possum Kingdom Lake, a beautiful lake, amidst what we in Texas call mountains. This lake was a WPA project back in the Depression. 3,000 acres have already burned. It can’t be fought on the ground because it’s so fast-moving. They are using planes with buckets to get water from the lake to drop on it. Our trees look like it’s fall, which certainly doesn’t help, and the wind is blowing. Folks are being evacuated in boats because the roads are blocked. At least 25 houses have been burned. The good news? Our temps are supposed to be normal by the weekend. That means 95 or so. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the flooding and drought areas could be evened out?

The yarns above are familiar—maybe, as I’ve used this picture before. It may not look like it from the picture, but these yarns have a fairly good contrast from one color to the other. The story changes, though, in the weaving. Some colors have a lot of contrast, others run together.

When I weave, I have what I call my plan sheet. I try to actually put yarn samples and formulas. When the weaving is finished, I also try to remember to put the sheet in a plastic sleeve, along with a picture of the finished product. My plan sheet quite frequently has estimates for the amount of yarn needed for each color section—is there anything worse than running out of a color? If it’s a gradations piece, I actually write down the yarn groupings based on the number of colors I have. Then I know how many inches to weave of each color group. The plan sheet below has the yarns numbered and the diagram of the weaving is also numbered, so that I can keep up with which yarns go where, a problem with this design, especially in the center part. The colors meet themselves eventually, so it would be a small disaster if the wrong colors are used. That’s not the problem I’m having though. Since some of the colors are so similar, I can weave a half inch or so before I realize that, Whoops! Wrong color. So, today I have been thinking about how to avoid that in the future. Maybe plastic bags?