Stay at home, shelter in place, hunker down...

...or whatever you choose to call this time of being dormant. Suggested and/or forced, yes. But necessary. It's almost impossible to comprehend what's going on. How could we have been participating in our daily "normal" lives as the new year began ... and three months later be in this situation?

I don't have an answer to that and neither does anyone else, no matter how loudly one says it.

So we get on with our lives as best we can, knowing that many are much worse off and others are in different, more fortunate circumstances.

My daily routine is much the same as always up to a point: get up; write morning pages and have coffee; walk a mile or two around town; weave my daily bit on the tapestry diary; get ready for the rest of the day. By then it's about 11 or noon... if noon, I have lunch and then go to the studio. If 11, I pack lunch and then go to the studio. Once there, that's when the routine changes.

Here's the April tapestry diary feather of hope, a guinea feather.

Since early March it's been quite difficult for me to concentrate on anything at the studio. I have three tapestries underway but all have come to a standstill in the last two weeks. I've been making cloth masks to give to family and friends. I've used several online examples to work from, with the best tutorial for my reference being the one shown through the Northeast Georgia Medical Center site here.

This is one hand-off of masks for a friend: tied to the kitchen door, sealed in a ziplock bag, inside another plastic bag. Text friend to say it's there, ready for pickup.

Although most of my stash is yarn, I had a small amount of fabrics and even some elastic to work with. At first, I fought with my old Singer sewing machine through the construction of about five masks. The machine's foot feed doesn't work consistently and that's a PIA, big time. The back stitch also doesn't work so I had to turn the work around to sew in reverse in some places for seam security. I did a lot of cussing and shouting for a few days while doing those.

Then I remembered an impulse purchase I'd made at a fabric store about a decade ago... a little sewing machine called a "Sew Mini" by Janome. It was less than $100 when I bought it and I tried it out a few times at home, then put it away thinking I'd use it for stitching on paper (I was doing some bookmaking at the time), but never did. Once I remembered I had it, thought I'd give it a try. And, it works the way I need it to!

So, even though there is only one speed (no fast stitching along straight lines here), it has been able to handle the several layers of fabric, plus the pleating of the masks. And it goes in reverse! Thank you, little Mini, for your hard work in the past week. I can truly say that was one impulse buy that I (now) don't regret!

 I even resorted to sewing my own bias tapes once I ran out of those in my stash.

I'm off to the studio to make a few more masks today and these will probably be the last ones I sew since I'm running out of supplies. I will be back to the tapestry looms after that.

May your lives be healthy and safe.

May we all come out of this awful time as better people, if that's possible.

Troubled Times

It's hard to write about anything now. Difficult to move from moment to moment in the uncertainty that surrounds us. It would seem as a tapestry weaver who's used to spending long hours alone, and also as an introvert who prefers to have little interaction with people, this time would be ideal to be in the studio working. But anxiety is a constant companion and keeps me from staying on task with much of anything. I jump from project to project and don't really complete much of anything.

One of the plans I had for the spring was a one-person exhibit at Sarratt Gallery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. And a workshop during that time to be held there. Well, I shipped my tapestries to the gallery on March 2. It was installed just a day or so before the university there went to online for the rest of the semester. Hadley, the director's companion dog, was with him when he sent this photo of one wall of the installation. Remember seeing sweet Hadley from a post last year when she was with him at Aya Studio in Florida? Scroll down at the post and you'll find her several times.

Photos of Sarratt Gallery installation by David Heustess

The gallery director is showing my work periodically on social media and I appreciate that effort to share my work through that means. But the tapestries won't be viewed on site in the gallery; that's one of the best things about having an exhibit--getting to see one's artwork in a gallery space.

Another plan was to submit a small tapestry for the American Tapestry Alliance small format, non-unjuried exhibit to be held in Knoxville, Tennessee this July in conjunction with Convergence. Over the past two weeks, the ATA Board had to assess the impact of the pandemic and, after much discussion, made the very difficult decision not to hold the actual exhibit, but rather to create an online exhibition of the tapestry entries. I had shipped my tapestry earlier in the month and it joined the over one hundred that had already been received by the volunteer working with the exhibit. The Board asked that other shipments be suspended (the deadline had been March 31). This was an extremely hard decision to arrive at--and I know first hand because I'm a member of the ATA Board. Many people have been disappointed by this turn of events and some are even angry. We certainly don't have a crystal ball to see what's to come but the likelihood of plans for the summer event being in jeopardy is distinct.

Here's my small tapestry, 10" x 10", called Springtime in North Georgia.
 
I've had to empty the studio freezer of the dye materials I'd been storing: zinnas, marigolds, black walnuts.  Making room for extra frozen food items seemed like a better use of the space right now. I've dyed several skeins of yarn so far and plan to do more today.

These are minor, unfortunate disruptions to life. Nothing comparing to the illness and death of thousands. And the fear that has swept the world since the beginning of 2020.

Springtime has arrived in north Georgia. I am still able to get out in my neighborhood to walk each day. And in the woods at our creek house nearby. In the past weeks I've watched the bloodroot and the fiddleheads return once more and that is a solace. It helps me think that things will recover... maybe not ever be the way it was before this novel coronavirus entered the world. But a new normal. Until the next crisis.

My husband and I are self-isolating and plan to for some time to come. How long? Who knows but hope is still with us for health and safety in these trying times. I wish the same for each of you.

YouTube conversation about "Streams and Strands"

In the last post I mentioned the two-person exhibit that Dianne Mize and I are having at the Sautee Nacoochee Cultural Center right now. The show, called "Streams and Strands," is there until March 1.

Dianne is a painter and teaches primarily through her online courses. She also has free "Quick Tips" online about many different facets of art making. Check out her website for links to her Quick Tips and other information about her courses. Her book, Finding Freedom to Create: A Painter's Roadmap, is one that I've recommended to students and that I often refer to for ideas about design and creativity.

Last Sunday, Dianne and I met with Roger Williams of SauteeLive, a video production company. Roger filmed our rambling conversation about our art making practices. Here's the YouTube link to that conversation. In the video each of us talk about a few of our works that are hanging in the show.

January is ending ...

... and my tapestry diary for 2020 is progressing. I'm weaving my way through the eleventh year of this perhaps obsessive daily practice. And I still find that weaving every darn day on a tapestry diary is something that I need to do. Even a few minutes spent putting a little weft into a warp that I know will be on the loom for twelve months is rewarding. It's also rewarding to not have a lot of planning in the weaving other than the image chosen to accomplish within the span of each month's time.

This year the month's images are to be of feathers. The Emily Dickinson quote: "'Hope' is the thing with feathers--/That perches in the soul--/And sings the tune without the words--/And never stops--at all--" is one that's often with me in troubling times. It's one that I'm using a lot right now.

Here's January's hope:

The feather is from my friends' turkeys, dropped in the yard--not plucked!

Each day I'm weaving a rectangle of color selected from the natural dyed yarns. I have several values of brown and tans from the black walnut and the henna dyes. Those are being alternated with other hues. I'm throwing a die again this year to select the color.

One of the things that always amazes me is how much compression there is in tapestry weft as the passes above an area are woven. This morning I took a photo of the very obvious difference. You can see on the left the woven area and on the right how the white weft is higher, so far. When I weave in tomorrow's area on top of that it will press down to be level with what's at the left.

I've used wool for the background and thin linen for the feather, giving a contrast of color and texture. I've also used thin lines of wool as linear details in some part of the feather, and slits that are pulled open a little so that the shadow becomes the line.

Other things going on are a couple of tapestries that are in progress. This one is on my Fireside Cantilever loom. The warp is sett at 8 epi and is wool. The weft is from Weavers Bazaar, the fine size and I'm using it seven strands per weft bundle. The width is about 22" and it's being woven turned 90˚ to the image when completed.

 I have another warp on the Ashford tapestry loom. I haven't worked too much on it lately but I hope to complete it before too many more months pass.

This loom is at home in the room I've claimed as my studio. The other loom is in the "real" studio nearby.

Other things happening include weaving a small heart to be used (perhaps) in something online very soon. I put the warp on a pipe loom and a piece of paper behind it so I could photograph the steps of the weaving process. It remains to be seen if this will be effective in the way it's going to be used but it was interesting to photograph it in stages.

Dianne Mize and I have paintings and tapestries being exhibited currently in "Streams and Strands" at the Sautee Nacoochee Cultural Center near Helen, Georgia. The show is up until March 1. For March through April tapestries will go to the Sarratt Gallery at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Later in the summer there will be other exhibits in which I'll have tapestries, as well. I'll post more about those later. Here are a couple of photos from my end of the hall; Dianne's paintings are at the opposite end. She and I were interviewed and filmed recently. I'll post a link to the video when it's available.

I was excited to recently learn that one of my tapestries has been accepted into the American Tapestry Alliance Biennial exhibit, ATB13. That exhibit, sponsored by the ATA, is one that features a variety of tapestries currently being done by tapestry artists from around the world. Each time the works are selected by a different curator; having different eyes and aesthetic sense for selections sometimes gives thought-provoking results. It will be interesting to see what this year's curator, Nick DeFord, has chosen.  I've entered almost every one of these shows and have gotten into some and not others. I don't think I'll be able to see the exhibit in person this year because of the distance of the venues for me. But there will be a catalog that I'll be eager to see.

Last year I decided to order a sketchbook from the Sketchbook Project of the Brooklyn Art Library. I kept the sketchbook on the kitchen table at the studio and often made simple line drawings when I sat down for an afternoon break and snack. Here's a page from the book. I mailed it back recently and it will be among the thousands of others at the library. I've ordered a new one and am eager to start drawing it it. My first one will be digitized and be available for online viewing. I don't have the link for that yet, however. This is quite an intriguing effort. I learned more about it at this episode of the Ephemeral podcast in the interview with the founder of the Sketchbook Project, Steven Peterman.

And finally, here's a selfie with my fragmented landscape. I needed a headshot for the ATB13 catalog and so this is what I sent.