travel

It’s that time of year again, and I don’t mean the holidays.  It’s the time of year when I have to shut down my house, walk away from my looms and leave behind my wonderful weaving friends,   I am about to get onboard our boat, as we do every winter, with only the most rudimentary equipment for weaving.  But since it is also the holidays, I will start with a few photos of what I love best about the holidays in New England!

Houses decorated for Christmas in Essex.

The Connecticut River waterfront on a chilly December morning.

A sycamore tree against the winter sky.

St. Anne’s Church in Old Lyme, where we went to hear Elisabeth Von Trapp sing a holiday concert with my good weaving friend Susan.

This winter we have a new sailboat that we bought last spring as we finished our 3rd winter sailing aboard our Saga 43′ Pandora.  Our new boat is bigger (an Aerodyne 47′), which means I can bring more stuff onboard!–and it is smoother sailing so that I should be more comfortable when we are underway.  I had to get all my ‘gear’ onboard in early October, and I put two copper pipe looms down below.  One is rather large and will be used to weave a stanza from a Robert Frost poem in a font chosen by our younger son.  The other loom has the still-unfinished small Portuguese Man of War.  I sure hope I finish it this winter.  I also have my bolster lace pillow in a cabinet that would normally store clothing.  There is so much storage on this boat that I hope I never fill it up with clothes.

We had planned to sail to the Caribbean so I had to get everything onboard in early October when Bob set off Hampton, Virginia, which is where one departs  in early November to sail non-stop for 1500 miles to reach the British Virgin Islands.  Bob would return before Thanksgiving so that we could have the holidays here and then we would fly to Tortolla in late December.  Well, that did not work out….. Since this is not a sailing blog I won’t go into the details, but it was a suprise to both of us and a difficult decision to give up our plans for the Caribbean.  Bob tells the whole story on his blog.

Now we will be getting onboard our new Pandora in Florida in late December.  Our revised plan is to sail to the Bahamas yet again, but to then head to Cuba if we can get permission from the State Department.  Bob has been working on this for the past several weeks, and we shoujld have an answer soon.  I am NOT looking forward to the long crossing — 350 miles — from either the far Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos to Cuba.  I’ve never done more than one overnight at a time.   Sailing westward from the far Bahamas will allow us to visit the southern coast of Cuba (about 600 miles long).  The prevailing winds and currents make it imperative to sail westward along that coast.  We will finish up in Havana in late spring with the short, 90-mile sail back to Florida.  So that’s the plan, but we don’t yet know if we’ll be allowed to do it.

If we do go there I’ll be looking for weavers!  I am always looking for weavers, bobbin lace makers, and any other textile makers.  While I have stumbled on a few sites that describe commercial cotton mills back in the early 20th c., I have found no evidence of current handweavers.  I have found several references to bobbin lace making, and I am quite encouraged by this.  In fact one story hits so close to home I am in shock!  A few decades ago a woman from the Westchester, New York, weaving guild traveled to Cuba and wrote about meeting a bobbin lace maker.  I was a member of the Westchester guild for several years in the 1990s, and I have friends who’ve been members of this guild for many years.  I’m certain that several of my friends must know the woman who wrote this article!  At the moment I cannot get back to the website where I read this.  It’s got to be there, and I hope I find it again soon.

Meanwhile, here are two other interesting stories about bobbin lace in Cuba.  In 2013, a group of photographers associated with Foothills College in northern California had an exhibition of photographs depicting modern Cuban culture.  There is a photograph of a Cuban woman, Adriana Martinez, doing bobbin lace taken by Joan Sperans. This what Sperans wrote about this woman making lace on a traditional bolster pillow: Adriana Martinez set up her Belgian lace exhibit on the Prado at the Sunday art fair. I stopped to admire her beautiful work and we started talking. She told me she was a professor of tatting and bobbin lace. Within an hour, several women who came to the art fair to learn how to make lace surrounded Adriana.

Adriana teaches lacemaking at a nearby school. These lace artists are in desperate need of thread for their art and trade. They often use string as a substitute. Despite the use of string, their work is still beautiful and of excellent quality. We talked and made tentative arrangements for a textile-based exchange when I go back to Cuba. I am hoping to encourage some textile artists to go on Ron Herman’s next trip. Before departing Havana, I received a surprise call from Adriana wishing me a safe journey. Adriana and the other women are so sweet.

I plan to bring a few spools of laceweight linen with me, and I will be thrilled beyond description if I can meet Ms. Martinez….or any of her students.  At least I know where to look, presuming there are still art fairs on the Prado. (And I know that “bolillo” is Spanish for bobbin lace.  Knowing the words “rendas de bilros” in Portuguese certainly helped me find the lace museum in Vila de Conde. ) I also found an article about a lace maker named Ana Blanco who left Cuba in 1962.  Since she was an adult at this point she may no longer be living.  She taught bobbin lace in the Jacksonville area of Florida for many years, and won the 1990 Florida Folk Heritage Award.

A quick look at Cuba.

In preparation for leaving, I am also putting a warp on my AVL mechanical dobby.  At the last meeting of the Connecticut weavers’ guild, the Just Our Yarn women gave a presentation on using their handpainted yarns in both warp and weft.  I was quite intrigued by the effect of using entirely different colorways together in both warp and weft and quickly worked up the yardage I’d need to make fabric for a lightweight jacket.

Their 10/2 tencel yarn, called Almaza, comes in 1000 yd hanks, and I bought three for my warp that will be 6 yards long, sett at 36 epi, and about 16″ in width on the loom.  I did not want to work from balls of yarn so I decided to wind each hank of Almaza onto a spool that could be used from my LeClerc spool holder.  Each spool just happens to hold the Almaza hank with very little room to spare.  How lucky is that?

I am holding one end from each of the three spools to wind the warp on my AVL warping wheel.  I hope to finish winding on the warp today.

I doubt I’ll get through threading the heddles before we leave, but at least I’ll have a warp waiting for me all ready to thread when I return in May.

A month or so ago I read this description on the website for the New Hampshire Weavers’ Guild:

The Telling Detail: Special Effects in Tapestry Lys Weiss & Jeffrey K. Weiss Museum exhibitions of historical tapestries can overwhelm us. Their huge size and display of magnificence can make it hard to focus on specific details. The overall effect is tremendous–but how exactly was that effect achieved? This presentation will use examples from historical tapestries to train our eyes to see how those long-ago weavers created the remarkable special effects we marvel at today. We will examine striking details: plants and animals, flowing water, majestic buildings, and lively people with expressive faces, costumes of elaborate fabrics, sparkling jewelry, and all the material goods of daily life. I’ve seen every blockbuster tapestry exhibition at the Met since 2002, and once I went to one of these huge exhibitions five times.  And even after viewing the same tapestries five times, I felt completely overwhelmed and lost in every single one. I know I’m not the only one!  Imagine this scenario: Who wouldn’t be ovewhelmed at all the visual stimuli in these large pieces.  So, let me tell you–I want to meet this couple who can talk you through these mammouth works and break down the images into bite size pieces. Their presentation is going on right now as I write this.  When push came to shove, I could not manage driving 3 hours each way to see their program.  And boy, am I disappointed.  Yesterday, when I faced the fact that I would not be going, I wrote to them to ask if they would consider giving the same program to my guild in Connecticut.  Fingers crossed…. Instead of driving to Concord, New Hampshire today, I drove to the border of Haddam and Killingworth, somewhat north of where I live on the Connecticut River.  The woman who runs our  guild’s “Weftovers” tables was given a large quantity of Paternayan Persian wool.  It’s about 12 lbs. worth of the large 4 oz. skeins and the smaller 8 yard skeins.  I don’t even use Paternayan for tapestry anymore, but I could not let it get thrown out.  I am hoping to pass it along to beginning tapestry weavers, for which it is a great yarn….easily unplied and re-plied to create endless color possibilities.  And at 8 epi it is perfect as one strand of weft. Here it is in its new home–the storage room off my studio. According to KC, the guild member in charge of the “weftovers tables” at our guild, this yarn came from a church that had commissioned the recovering of its pews with needlepointed cushions. So although it wasn’t a drive to New Hampshire, it was a lovely drive north along the river to a fairly rural area with a few farms.  The almost-winter sky was beautiful and the cows were out in the pasture today. After loading the boxes of yarns into my car KC took me for a walk in the woods behind her house. We crossed over the stream on this pretty bridge that she and her husband built, and walked toward the pond. It has been a lovely day in its own right, and I hope the Weisses will agree to give their presentation down here in Connecticut.  If they do, I’ll let you know!

The first thing on my mind for the past week is the lovely tapestry exhibit at LaGrua Gallery in Stonington, CT.  Dash over there if you can!  How many opportunities are there to see tapestry as the focus of a gallery exhibit?  And Mary Merrill’s tapestries are beautifully displayed in this space with it’s wonderful light.  Mary’s works have a lot to do with light since her works are all landscapes.

I was surprised and disappointed to find that no one from my Connecticut guild of weavers was present at the opening.  Mary Merrill’s daugher and son were there to speak about their mother and comment on the works chosen for this exhibit.  It was delightful to meet them and to learn some personal facts about the woman who wove these tapestries.

Mary Merrill  lived her life within the confines of most women of her generation, supporting her husband’s career and raising five children.  At the same time she pursued various weaving techniques and volunteered in several areas related to weaving.  She held numerous positions in the Weavers’ Guild of Boston, including president, and she volunteered and did research for Plimouth Plantation.  Later in life her tapestry work depicted her experiences traveling the world.  Her daugher Amy described their summer vacations at a cottage in New England.  Her mother would be make the meals and participate in some of the family outings, but a significant part of each day was spent at her large tapestry loom.

Here is Mary in front of her tapestry, “Kilauea.”

Mary Merrill seems just the kind of woman I would have enjoyed knowing–someone I probably would have emulated.  I only became introduced to her work this summer when I saw a display of her tapestries at NEWS (New England Weavers’ Seminar) in Northampton, Massachusetts. The works chosen for that exhibit were mostly tropical landscapes with the vibrant colors of a hot, sunny location.  There was one tapestry in the show that stood out for me with its intense colors of a sunet in a high latitude location.  It is a scene of from a Norwegian village.  Here are Amy and Paul posing for me in front of  “Primary North,” 1998 (copletted just a hear before her death).

In the 15 years since her death, her family has taken care to have her work stored in places for safe keeping: first at the Fiber Arts Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, and now at Harrisville Designs in New Hampshire.  If you ask me, this has got to be the most endearing display of love I have encountered.  Hearing about her life through the eyes of two of her children added such depth to the woman I only know as a power house of hard work in the preservation of textile history.  Since not a single person from my guild came to the opening, I can truly say they all missed a wonderful evening.  However, you can still see the exhibit!–through early December.

And you’ll be able to see more of Mary Merrill’s work in March and April when she will have a retrospective at the Fuller Craft Museum.

The following day I attended one of my lace group’s monthly meetings, a somewhat rare treat for me since I am out of the area for a good part of the year.  This year while I’ve been home I’ve had some unfortunate conflicts with the dates for our lace meetings.  When I get to one of these meetings I am always stunned by the complex work the members do, and by how tolerant they are of my slow progress as a beginner.  Last month I admired a minature bolster pillow at Mary’s house.  It was a traditional pillow, only tiny!–in the style of the pillows from Slovenia, sitting in its tiny woven basket with an intricate piece of real Idrija lace displayed in miniature, including some miniature bobbins hanging from the lace!  It was a gem!  It was a gift to Mary from another member named Linda.

This month’s meeting happened to be at Linda’s house.  Linda and her husband made us a feast that was like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one huge festive meal.  Shortly after I arrived and was returning to my lace after getting some morning coffee, I found this little gem sitting next to my lace pillow.  What a gift!

Now if only my own attempts at Idrija lace looked as beautiful as this does.  Sigh….

For the final event of this special weekend I met my oldest friend at an opening in Windsor, Connecticut.  I was not particularly moved by the works in that exhibit, but we had a nice evening together.  She has been telling me about the wonderful scent from a Brugmansia Angel Trumpet that she is ‘plant sitting’ in her studio.  The fragrance was heavenly, and the plant is truly impressive.

I’m about a week late posting this.  Life does get in the way sometimes….but sometimes it’s all really good stuff.  I’ve made some progress on the book about Archie Brennan.  (I hope whoever reads this jumps out of their seat and gives a cheer!)  And my sister and I have had some precious time together, although not under the best of circumstances.  She agreed to let me care for her after some rather scary surgery.  All went well, but her recuperation will be slower than we imagined.  I have enjoyed having here with me.  We’ve been two women alone together, watching movies, eating good food (I have to take good care of her, don’t I?–alone I would have been eating junk food!), and talking about everything under the sun.  Bob has been away sailing for almost 3 weeks so it’s been special to have this time with my sister.

And fall is quickly turning to winter.   Here is a beautiful photo taken near the Connecticut River by my friend Jody.

And the view out my kitchen window, just a day or two before the beeches turned brown and began dropping leaves.

Over this summer I have stumbled on some wonderful weaving videos, everything from an historic reenactment of working with flax and wool in the Bronze Age to a number of videos showing tapestries in progress, to a Google video about high tech weaving with threads that have conductivity and can be attached to a very small computer chip imbedded in the cloth.  Huge thanks to everyone who makes these terrific videos–sharing their knowledge and their weaving talents and information on such fascintating endeavors with the rest of us.

Here’s the video about conductive threads that have been designed for use in weaving fabrics for clothing, upholstery, and other applications where the cloth will then be compatible with any computer device.

So now it might be fun to see the other end of the weaving spectrum:  Bronze age flax and wool processing and weaving in northern Europe during this time period.  The Center for Textile Research, which I believe is associated with a university in Denmark,  has documented this period of history so beautifully!

Here is a great stop action video of weaving one of  the “Hunt for the Unicorn” tapestries that were re-interpreted and woven by weavers from West Dean College in Sussex for Stirling Castle in Scotland. The original tapestries (from around 1500 which were woven in Flanders)  are hanging in the Cloisters in New York.  This project of recreating the seven tapestries in the series began in 2001, and was not finished until 2014.  The last tapestry in the set was hung at Stirling Castle this summer, 2015.  The weavers made a number of trips to the Cloisters to study the originals.  I met a few of them on one of their trips, and it is something I’ll never forget!

Isn’t it wonderful to watch the unicorn’s horn get woven?  On that note, I’d better get back to weaving myself!

On the right hand side of this blog page I keep a list of the exhibitions where my tapestries have been shown.  Yesterday was the opening of a show in a venue I’ve never participated in before.  The focus was all kinds of fiber work, and when I dropped my pieces off for the jurying I was quite intrigued with a number of pieces already there.  There were quilts of course, and different kinds of felting from felted landscapes to nuno felted vests and jackets.  There was a beautiful double weave scarf displayed on an acrylic rod in a deep black frame that enhanced the glowing colors of the fabric.  There were a set of free form coiled baskets made from linen and coiled with waxed linen.  There was a bit of knitting and a bit of handmade paper forms.  It was the most diverse exhibition I’ve ever been part of, and I was looking forward to meeting some of the artists who made these works at the opening.

I do not have any photos from the opening because I was too shocked to actually think of taking any.  Perhaps they just accepted too many items into this show…. some walls were beautifully displayed and others had too many things jammed together.  So the crowded walls had things displayed salon style, and the sense of the whole was just a mish-mash because the pieces had nothing to tie them together…..in fairness maybe color, not technique, and not with a sense of cohesion.  It was just painful to look at.  I couldn’t help thinking that the pieces that were well displayed were the pieces that were valued by the judges–the award winning pieces.  But this was not the case.  Some of the beautifully arranged walls had no awarded pieces on them at all.

Bob took two photos of my works at the opening.  “Hudson River Idyll” got an honorable mention.  It was hung quite high above a quilted piece , and our two pieces are quite jarring together.  I’m trying to put a happy face on it!

And “Sunset on Wilson Cove” was hung in a place that was not even part of the show.  There were three gallery rooms and a long hallway that had works on display.  Then the very back of the long hallway was separated with some architectural molding and this is where  there was the coat room, the bathrooms, and an exit to the stairway that leads to the lower level.  THAT is where “Sunset on Wilson Cover” was hanging–the only piece that is not in the actually gallery area.  Frankly, I think it should have been rejected from the show entirely rather than put it in such a disrespected location.  I was quite embarrassed by this….  and I don’t understand it.

The walls that were carefully chosen were stunning.  The walls that were over-filled just made everyone’s work look bad…..even cheap.  And having one piece of work off in a different place entirely was just mind boggling to me.  There comes a point when accepting more pieces into a show than the space can handle just deters from seeing anything well.  The other shocking thing is that some pieces still had stickers on them–stuck right to works themselves, not on the sides or backs–with the entry numbers written on them.  Luckily I can say the volunteers who checked me in at the drop off put stickers on the stretched fabric of my frames, not directly on my tapestries.  But the pieces hanging on the walls for the opening had stickers stuck right to the pieces themselves.

On the other hand, I did meet some of the very interesting artists!  I was happy to see that some works were made by men.  The most interesting person at the opening –to me– was a felt artist.  She had done a wonderful nuno felted jacket as well as a hand felted mandala (for which she also got an honorable mention–and I have to say it–there was a sticker on this piece) and she had made a large quilted wall hanging.  She happened to be wearing the most interesting top of all the interesting garments that fiber artists can dream up to wear to openings, and by the end of the opening I just had to approach her and ask about her garment.  She had made it herself, from a commercial pattern to which she added some handpainted designs and a very funky set of closures to the assymetrical line of the front opening.  I wish I had asked to photograph her…..but the upside is that I have her contact information and she has offered to help me learn fitting techniques so I can possibly have better success at sewing!  So, all in all I enjoyed meeting the other artists as the highlight of the event.

There is one other positive feature about this gallery that I should mention.  The windows are very tall and they have been covered with balck venetian blinds.  For this exhibit the blinds are closed, keeping the textiles from too much UV exposure over the next few weeks.  Of course the halogen spotlights are screamers, but the the gallery is only open from Thursdays to Sundays in the afternoons each week, so not full time.

Looking back at my admittedly narrow experience in showing fiber works in public spaces, I’ve been quite fortunate to be part of exhibitions in large spaces that allowed such very different techniques to be seen to good advantage.  I guess it takes a bad experience to better appreciate the good ones.  Meanwhile, for the next month my tapestry of the sunset on my son’s face can greet people as they retrieve their coats and visit the ladies’ or the men’s….. (snark)…