ok, tapestry isn't complete and I'm distracted by...

preparations for a workshop that I'm going to present in early December at ECHO School in Tiger, GA.  Peggy McBride, owner of Globe Gallery in Clayton, has opened a new arts school nearby.  She's been conducting classes at the gallery and the demand for space has grown to the point that she's making a leap into another location in which she'll be offering workshops, short classes and mini-artist residencies.

I'll be one of the first instructors as she launches the venture and I'm very happy about that.  Peggy has been a friend for many years; we've been involved in lots of creative adventures together including exhibits, workshops, informal critique sessions and other exciting things.  Her art work is just amazing--she moves among media with the ease of a shape shifter.   It's a pleasure to just see her once in awhile to vicariously share in her energy.

This is a pile of stuff on my worktable today.  Tomorrow I'll dig out older paper weavings, get them scanned so I can begin manipulating with filters in Photoshop Elements.  Here are a few things I did with that yesterday and today... taking the paper woven piece, scanning and then working with them further.

          

The workshop that's in the planning stages is for three sessions about paper weaving, held on consecutive days.  My intention is to have a different approach for each day, starting with plain weave and moving on from there.  I've used paper weaving for many years in my teaching after I discovered the book Weaving Without a Loom by Sarita Rainey back in the early 1970s.  My copy is from 1969, in fact.  I did a web search for the book this morning and found that it's in a second edition--hooray!  More folks will find it and become inspired, I hope.

Classes in which I've used paper weaving have been art education, color theory and--of course--weaving.  I've also taught the method to children and have presented it when I've done short design workshops.  I've used paper weaving myself many times and sometimes the resulting images have become the source of tapestry pieces.  I wrote an article for Handwoven magazine in 1986 about paper weaving, in fact.  The tapestry below is called "Tree Fragments" and was based on a section of a paper weaving I did combining two different photographs I'd taken of trees.  Size of the tapestry is about 16" wide x 42" long.

My work with this technique is certainly not unique.  Other artists have created wonderful pieces with paper weaving, Suzanne Pretty for one--check out her images created in the medium in her ATA Web Exhibition curated by Janet Austin at this link.

José Fumero is also known for his elaborately cut and woven images.








And--I really have made quite a bit of progress of the tapestry after all.  Here it is as I begin working on it for an hour or so this afternoon: