Bayeux Tapestry Fever

 

The buzz surrounding the Bayeux Tapestry and its temporary stay at the British Museum is all over the place these days! And rightfully so. After all, anything lasting for almost 1,000 years is amazing. And that the thing happens to be a textile is even more so. Time usually doesn't treat fabric particularly well. But this extraordinary art work has survived the centuries.

The Bayeux Tapestry wasn't made by the hand woven tapestry process (where the cloth is created the same time as the image being woven); instead, it was an embroidery stitched onto an existing fabric. Of course, in the 11th century when it was made the cloth for the stitching would have been woven by hand. And then used for the embroidery.

My recent interest in the the Bayeux Tapestry came about not from temporary move of the piece from its home at the Bayeux Museum in Normandy but because I was asked if I would demonstrate tapestry weaving at a showing of the painted replica of the piece that the university owns. The story of how this painted version was done and how it came to the university is given at this link from the university's website. It seems interest in the replica at UNG has gotten some national press in the past week or so, including mention in a New York Times article and also ABC News. That attention brought a few visitors last weekend to Dahlonega to see the piece!

Although the UNG display was only open for three days this year, the work that went into preparation by Dr. Ana Pozzi Harris and her art history students was amazing. Students spent months in study of the history of the tapestry and learned to be docents for the tours.  

My demonstration was on Saturday from 9 am to 4 pm. I worked for almost a month to prepare by getting a couple of small looms ready but mostly learning how the stitching was done. I haven't done much embroidery through the years so it was an intense learning time for me. As I searched for information about the stitches used I came across the Facebook page of Mia Hansson. Through her page I discovered she's been stitching a full-scale replica of the Bayeux Tapestry—and has been working on it for ten years now! She anticipates finishing it next year. What an labor of love! 

 She's written a book that contains examples of various scenes and creatures from the Bayeux Tapestry and includes an assortment of iron-on transfers so that one can do their own. Mia gives helpful information about the materials and also the stitches used. Her book is published by Search Press. 

Mia has been interviewed several times in the past few months relating to her ongoing stitching. Her commentary at her Facebook group is always interesting. This morning she mentioned an interview by a blog writer and gave the link to it. You can find it at this link: https://eaubrinkstudio.co.uk/blogs/news/the-bayeux-tapestry-embroidery-art-or-70-metres-of-propaganda

My stitching experiments weren't finished, were and still are all in process. My small woven examples using two of the images from the original also aren't done but will be eventually. It's been a month of learning something new and I'm glad I had a chance to do it. I won't be going to London to see the Bayeux Tapestry but instead I've been vicariously experiencing the excitement it's causing in my own small way.

 

Photo by Marcia Cohen

Here's hoping the another 1,000 years for the tapestry! Live long and prosper. 

 

 

Tapestry completed!

 

The black eyed Susan tapestry I was working on last month got its last strands of weft woven in last week.

 

 I've now gotten of the finishing details out of the way and it's ready to go to the frame shop. Here's a photo I took of it yesterday after I hung it in the studio to take a look.

 

I'll have a better photograph done after it comes back from the framer. In fact, I hope Chris Dant will be available to do the photography. Here's Chris when he was working on recording the previous tapestry:

And the results:

 

I'm hoping to get a new warp on the loom in the next few days but I'll have to order warp before I can do that. It's sort of nice to be running out of warp thread because I've used so much of it in the last six months! 

I've had a couple of acceptances to exhibits and publication in the last month or so. And also a rejection for an exhibit. That's the way it goes and I'm pretty much used to it now after entering juried exhibits for many years. The most recent acceptance is for the LaGrange Southeast Regional exhibit, LaGrange, Georgia. My tapestry Climate Change will be exhibited at the Lamar Dodd Art Center at LaGrange College later this fall.

 

So far, this is the only piece (other than a few samples) that includes Morse Code. I hope to be planning more tapestry designs to incorporate code in some ways. 

One other thing that I will probably be posting about soon is the upcoming book fair that's going to be held at UNG on September 12. In conjunction with the book fair, the Bayeux Tapestry painted replica will again be on exhibit at UNG. I'll be there to show the difference between the type of embroidery that was used on the historic "tapestry" and handwoven tapestry. As I've been learning about the stitches used, I came across Mia Hansson's work. She's replicating the piece to scale and has spent around a decade so far on the task! She has a beautiful book showing her process and also posts to her Facebook page about it frequently.  

A New Tapestry's Progress

A quick post to record the beginnings of the next tapestry. This is the third I've worked on since November. I began it on the remains of the warp from the piece I finished in June. I thought there was enough warpn left to do a small piece. I wanted to design something to celebrate summer since the last one was all about the spring emergence of color. What better way than to do black eyed susans? Their bright, bold colors seem to epotimize the hot summer months to me. 

 

 

So here's where the tapestry stands today. I'm working from a photo I took of flowers at the square in Dahlonega. I cropped the image and manipulated with Photoshop a bit to simplify. The background is being done with a pattern of triangles and diamonds in a variety of greens. Maybe I'll finish this soon!

 

Mid-year Catching Up!

Oops! It's been half a year since I posted. I used to write in my blog almost weekly (and daily sometimes, espeically when I was at a retreat or teaching a workshop). These days I mostly post to Instagram about the tapestry work (and a few other studio things going on). So I'm going to do a quick summary of the year 2026 so far. I spent a wonderful week with my friends Beth & Fran in February. They came from Texas (Beth) and Florida (Fran) to spend the days with me at the studio here in Dahlonega. We first met in the fall of 1965 when we three entered North Georgia College as freshmen. We've stayed in touch over these decades and gotten together whenever we could—sometimes years apart. It was a great few days. We always do "studio time" and this year I introduced them to tapestry weaving! Each designed and wove a small tapestry in the evenings. During the days we had adventures out and about. We've already gotten plans for next year's adventures and I hope we can continue to do these times together for many more years to come.

In early March I taught for a week at John C. Campbell Folk School. The class was based on the tapestries of one of the early weavers at the Folk School, Alice Tipton. She wove lyrical landscapes and we were able to see several of her tapestries that are in the Folk School's collection during the week. Very inspirational to have those tapestries in hand to get a real feeling for her process. 

Later in March tapestries were delivered to the Roy C. Moore Gallery of UNG Gainesville for a solo exhibit. That show was up until June. There was a reception and artist talk on April 1 and a few weeks later I met with one of the faculty members and her students to talk abbout my work in the gallery. 

 

 In April I was in Asheville, NC to do a book talk and workshop at Local Cloth. I had a full class and there were lots of interesting approaches to "marking time" with tapestry (the topic of the workshop). It was the first time I've been to the River Arts District in Asheville after the devestation of Hurricane Helene in 2024. The recovery efforts made by the Local Cloth volunteers was amazing! I saw photos of the interior flooding earlier and to see what they've been able to do to reclaim their building is amazing! 

 

On May 12th I arrived for a week's stay at the Hambidge Center—and that afternoon as I was moving in I hit my tibia HARD on the edge of the bed frame and caused a massive contusion. It was quite painful and I decided to leave after a couple of days; came back home to see my orthopedic doctor for x-rays and treatment. Luckily there were no fractures but there's still a lump eight weeks later, even after several weeks of physical therapy. Even though I left too early, the couple of days at Hambidge gave me a chance to try a few things.

 

May 16th the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild held a reception for their members' exhibit that was being held in the Atrium Gallery at the UNG Gainesville campus. After the awards ceremony there we went across campus to see my exhibit. 

 

In late June I cut off the tapestry I'd been working on since finishing the ginkgo piece in January. It's the second one done on the Glimakra tapestry loom. There's enough warp remaining to do a smaller piece on it before re-warping and I'm working on design ideas for that now. 

I haven't gotten a good photo of the tapestry; below is the tapestry on the right and the painting I based the design on at the left. 

 Maybe it won't be another six months before I post again? Time will tell!