tapestry – Page 10

Helena Hernmarck

February 18, 2012 | 1 Comment

A friend of mine invited me to visit Helena Hernmarck’s tapestry studio yesterday. She had been introduced to Helena through her current tapestry mentor in the mentoring program of ATA (American Tapestry Alliance), and she invited me to join her! Meeting Helena Hernmarck has been on my ‘list’ for at least a decade. I have a few acquaintances in common with Helena, and I even used to live in the same town. But none of these connections had panned out or paid off as the years went by. Yesterday was pay dirt!

My first exposure to Helena’s work was seeing a photograph of her from what I think was the 19060s, standing in front of her large tapestry of Little Richard. I was so impressed, but that quickly took a back seat to the tapestries that came off her looms in later years. When I bought her book a few years back I saw photographs of her recently completed studio in Ridgefield, CT. I even knew the man who helped design it, and he promised to make an introduction for me…. Well, everything comes in its own time, doesn’t it?

Helena Hernmarck studio upside down — Helena Hermarck's wall of tapestry wool

What a thrill to see this wall of color in person…. I was mermerized by it almost as much as by some of the tapestries hanging in Helena’s studio. She has two upcoming exhibitions, one at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, and one at the the textile museum in Minneapolis.

I have always been fascinated by the weft floats in her tapestries, due to the use of weave structures other than plain weave. The floats not only give a texture to her work, but also such a saturation of color, making strong highlights and deep shadows. So effective! I struggle to convey light and shadow within plain weave…. it boggles my mind to think of also trying to place color with floats as well. Ever since I’ve seen Helena’s work I have wanted to try this technique of weaving tapestry with structures other than plain weave.

In her current work she is using a double cloth structure that allows her to continue to have floats on the surface of the tapestry, so integral to her way of conveying imagery, along with with the ability to add some structural integrity to the back of her pieces by having a second layer with a weft that can add structural rigidity to the fabric. By doing this her finished works hang flat against the wall! Brilliant!

Helena Hernmarck studio feb 2012 8-1 — front of back of recent tapestry by Helena Hernmarck

I enjoyed her enthusiasm in telling us about her work, about the connections she’s made over the years. She is on my very short list of weavers I’d love to study with! There is a glimmer of hope that this could happen! She hinted that she might need help winding on a large warp….. I’m there!

Reconnecting….weaving memories

October 11, 2011 | 1 Comment

This was a week when my dance card was over full, but how could I say no to so many wonderful opportunities?

My adult ed bobbin lace class has started again! I am on the last third of the edging for some hand towels, so I guess I’d better get busy weaving the towels! It’s wonderful to be back with these women again, who are very nurturing to me as a slow-learning beginner!

On Wednesday I rode with a friend up the Hudson River to Ghent, where she had arranged for us to have a one night farm stay at Kinderhook Farm, which is owned by old family friends and managed by two other friends. I had no idea what a treat we were in for. There are chickens with a delightful roosting house. (I did not know chickens roosted up in rafters and on high perches). There were lots of cows….I forgot to ask how many. And there were over 200 sheep!

This is the renovated barn you stay in for the ‘farm stay.’ It has two generous bedrooms with sitting areas that look out the large barn doors at the fields of cows and sheep, and a large kitchen in the center that separates the two bedroom/sitting rooms.

When we arrived the wind was howling and we had to close the large folding barn doors and insert beams to hold them closed!

Kinderhook farm 3 — View from the farm stay barn

This is the view of the sheep grazing from the the barn where we planned to stay!

Shortly afterward Lee came to suggest that we stay in the guest room of the main house since the night temperature was expected to be in the low 30s. We were disappointed to miss staying in this bucolic spot with its view of all the sheep grazing in the nearby fields….but in the middle of the night we were both very happy to be warm in the heated guest room!

Before going out to dinner we watched the managers and two helpers bring the sheep into the barn. In fact, we helped herd the sheep toward the barn. They have two guard dogs and a donkey, but no herding dogs.

Lee caught the two new babies for us to hold. He wants them to get used to being handled, but they were definitely not used to it yet! And the mother of the lamb I’m holding was not happy about it either!

The next day was my first Wednesday Group class in the new location right on the river in New Baltimore! Archie and Susan have a beautiful, renovated historic house overlooking the river. The enclosed porch which is now their studio is 40 feet long and has spectacular river views! The Clearwater motored down river, right in front of us, in the afternoon! Susan has filled their new house with many of her antiques, there is a 2nd floor wrap around porch for sitting outside, and the grounds go right down to the river. She will have a garden next year!

We drove home after my class on Thursday evening, and early Friday morning I headed out to Mendham for my 2-day workshop with Daryl Lancaster called “Weaving a Memory.” It’s been a fun two days, using the Theo Moorman technique to inlay silk habotai strips that were first ink jet printed with our personal photos. Daryl covered the Theo Moorman technique as well as photoshop manipulation of our images. You always get more than you can conceive of in a workshop with Daryl! I will write more on that next time! Meanwhile, check out what she has to say…

Impressions

August 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Greenhouse Tank finished!

Fodder for tapestry

July 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment

: Blue Heron at Seal Cove

: Taking flight (startled by our approach)

In this cove the shallows are full of the shells of sea life eaten by the various birds fishing these waters. We found a huge scallop shell, several large quohog shells and a razor clam shell, and endless mussel shells. Mussel shells are so beautiful with their range of iridescent blues and purples! Looking through the water at the shells made me think this would be a wonderful tapestry, having some of the shells in sharp focus as seen through clear water, and others obscured by light reflected on water. Now, how to actually depict that! I took several photos with a polaroid filter, but they all came out perfectly clear, as if there were no water at all!….

Then I happened to read Kathy Spoering’s post about taking the time to osbserve the natural world, to really look….through an artist’s eyes. I definitely need more looking…

Coastal Living

July 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

I’ve been living on the water for one week now. The weather has been beautiful, the coastline of Maine stunning! On the trip up Bob saw a whale and a big basking shark. Together we’ve seen seals, and lots of shore birds: egrets, herons, ospreys, storm petrels. Yesterday I saw eider ducks for the first time!

During the first few days on board I finished this sweater which is a monstrous failure!

Pandora 2011knitting 003 — Plymouth yarn "Kudo" knitted into Plymouth's pattern 1977

So, what went wrong? Well, maybe the yarn is just too bright for horizontal stripes? …especially in larger sizes! Although it was a very quick project to knit, no knitting project goes quickly enough not to feel a sharp pang of anxiety when it proves to be a failure!

Also, here is the photo on the pattern:

Pandora 2011knitting 006 — Plymouth Yarns #1977 for Kudo yarn

My biggest gripe is the look of the sleeves in the cover photo. They are clearly 3/4 sleeves. The pattern knits up as short sleeves. The pattern does say that if you want shorter or longer sleeves you must adjust your stitch number to achieve this. The pattern says that the stitches called for in the instructions will result in elbow length sleeves, but it does not say whether that includes the seed stitch border. To me the sleeves in the cover are elbow length before the seed stitch border was added, so I presumed that the pattern photo showed the sweater knitted to the specifications in the basic pattern. Wrong. The finsihed sweater looks decidedly dumpy with the short sleeves. I tried the seed stitch border and didn’t like it. So I ripped it out and tried a crocheted scallop, also dumpy, as the photo shows! I cannot just do the sleeves over, making them longer, since the entire sweater is knit in one piece, from the bottom of the front all the way to the bottom of the back, increasing for the sleeves and working the neck as you go. This would basically mean knitting the sweater again from almost the beginning. A little note in the instructions saying that the sleeves in the photo had been lengthened would have helped immensely! But still, I don’t know if I could carry off those bright horizontal stripes, so I’m not too enthusiastic about doing this sweater again anyway!

Bailey's island me 002 — Paul's awesom mud oven in the shape of fish!

On a more positive note…. we went to a party on Bailey’s Island, as guests of guests. Our host Paul built a mud oven shaped like a fish with its mouth wide open to accept his culinary creations. He made 32 pizzas that day! Delightful combinations like pear and gorgonzola, eggplant and green salsa….even a couple of dessert pizzas with chocolate chunks, marmallows and strawberries! I think there will be a mud oven in our future at home!

This bridge is built Lincoln Log style out of granite pieces that are resting on each other, no pins or cement of any kind. Amazing! It was originally in 1927-28 and a recent rebuild was just finished this year. According to local knowledge, there was only one other bridge like it in existence in the 20th century, and that was in Scotland. That bridge was dismantled during WWII so currently the only cribstone bridge is this one on Bailey’s Island. We were anchored right on the East side of it!

: “Pandora” from our host’s gardens on Bailey’s Island

: Lunch is ready!

As I write this we are leaving Cundy’s Harbor where we visited good friends with a lovely house and garden right on the harbor. Their neighbor, a seasoned lobsterman, motored over to us in his boat Life After... while we were headed to the well known “Basin,” and he passed us four lobsters in a bucket! We will feast tonight!