June 2009 – Page 2 – Daryl's Blog

I Made It!

I’m sure you are all sitting on pins and needles (pun intended), wondering if I made it yesterday to the gallery talk. In all my years of airplane travel, I was truly surprised at how uneventful the flight was, easily moving in and out of Newark, Houston, and then the tiny Des Moines airport. I landed at 4:15, grabbed all my bags, and was on the road by 4:30, which by New Jersey standards is the beginning of rush hour. We hit the interstate, and sailed along with what I thought was no traffic at all, and pulled onto the campus of Grinnell College at 5:30. A quick dump of the bags, and I was off to the restaurant, where I had a lovely dinner with tapestry artist Kathe Todd-Hooker, who weaves tapestries from sewing thread) and Pat Spark, who is well known for her watercolor felt tapestries. Kathe and Pat have a joint business selling books and materials, called Fine Fiber Press. The Faulconer Gallery director and curator treated us to a lovely dinner, and we all had a fine relaxing time. We made the quick dash to the gallery around 7pm, where a very large assembled crowd had gathered, and I rode in quite the style, the curator’s truck had been glitterized by a group of young people involved in, well, I can only call it something of a performance piece? I give you the “Sparkle Truck”.

The truck was completely covered with glitter. It was very cool.

The gallery talk went smoothly, the equipment all worked, I had some wonderful responses after my presentation, and I have some time today to go back and really look at the show, Small Expressions 2009.

Stay tuned…

Down to the Wire!

Ah, packing day. I leave tomorrow morning for Grinnell, Iowa, and the Midwest Weavers Conference. The day before I leave on a trip is always a little frenetic, getting everything finished I put on my list, things like watering the plants, finishing the laundry, organizing bills so I can pay them the day I return, and filling up the suitcases with everything I need to bring for the trip. And because this is a weaving conference, it means pouring over the notes in my files, what I promised for the faculty exhibit, what I promised for the fashion show, what I need for each of the classes, and any supplies I need to bring for any seminar I am actually taking.

This conference has been a little nerve wracking, for a number of odd reasons. First, this will be the first time in years I’ve traveled without my own LCD projector. I know I longed for the day when I could fly someplace, armed with only a stick drive or CD, pop it in, and start the presentation. I have been assured, at great length, that the different facilities I am lecturing in, all have projectors and equipment for both PowerPoint, and PDF presentations. So, this means back ups of everything. I have a CD copy in one suitcase, my laptop in another, my stick drive in my purse, and another hard drive in another suitcase. One can never have enough back ups, and one has to remember to update all of the back ups when one changes anything on a presentation…

This has been another nerve wracking down to the wire experience because of the proverbial overlap of work, coming from one exhibit, hopefully in time to take to the next. When an artwork finishes up at an exhibit, there is always a lag, as the volunteers or committee get to the packing and shipping of each work. It is an overwhelming job, and I’m not really complaining, but I asked when I shipped the piece to the last exhibit if they could make an exception and get mine back to me sooner than the contract stated. That’s always a crap shoot, and I was really lucky, the Frosted Florals Dress made it back to me from the Surface Design Fashion Show in Kansas City with 6 hours to spare, in time to pack it for the conference.

And then there was the 37 pound box I shipped last week, to someone in Grinnell Iowa. I got an email notification it was delivered, but what I didn’t know, was that the address I had been given was wrong, and someone called today from the conference to say they retrieved the package from a vacant house. I’m really glad I didn’t know this until after the fact. It would have been hard to teach the class without the handouts and the pattern paper, which were in the box, along with hundreds of dollars of Monographs.

The most stressful of all, that I absolutely have no control over whatsoever, is the flight. So, here is the itinerary, I fly out of Newark around 9am tomorrow to the hot spot of air travel, Houston. Home of the summer thunderstorm. I have a couple hour layover in Houston, and then on to Des Moines, Iowa. Thunderstorms are forecast for tomorrow in Newark, in Des Moines, and I’m sure Houston. I arrive in Iowa at 4:17, and have a dinner engagement at 5:15 (it takes more than an hour from the airport to the conference), and then I have to give a lecture at the Faulconer Gallery for the Small Expressions Exhibit reception at 7pm. So you do the math… The chances of me actually making it for dinner are pretty slim. The chances of making it in time for the reception/gallery talk are only slightly better. I’m pretty good at just letting go of that with I can’t control, but I went ahead and followed up with a plan B, I wrote out the whole talk and plugged it into a PowerPoint presentation along with the accompanying images, and emailed it to the gallery. So if I don’t make it in time, my words of wisdom will be projected on a screen for all to read instead of listening to my lovely voice with a wicked NJ accent. It is about the best I could come up with.

I am all packed, except for my personal clothing, and files are all copied and backed up. My daughter has a trombone recital tonight, I look forward to it every year. The sound of brass instruments including the Baroque Sackbut (early trombone) in a vaulted ceiling church is just gorgeous. The kids are wickedly talented, and the music teacher, Bob Ferrel, is one of the best trombone players in the state. Here is a video clip of a performance he did at the middle school jazz festival in our town last year. Skip past the talking part in the beginning.

So, once again, I’m on the road, I’ll be home late Sunday night, I am assured they have wireless in the dorms, oh goody, I get to sleep on a plastic dorm mattress… But the good news is, I’ll be seeing my friend Robyn Spady again, and my oldest and dearest friend, weaver/designer Candiss Cole, will be only an hour away in Des Moines at a craft festival. I’m hoping we can connect while I’m there.

Will Daryl make it tomorrow night, or won’t she, that is the question… Stay tuned…

Photographs

I converted my weaving studio into a photo studio for the afternoon yesterday. That means I have to move all the looms into the spare room/hallway, except the big one, which won’t really fit through the door. That one gets pushed as far away as possible. The background paper goes up against the wall, hanging with skirt clips from a shelf above (how convenient is that, not really, I planned it that way!)

I set up my umbrellas, the strobe lights, and covered my dressform with a matte jersey fabric, that is a pretty neutral gray. And then the fun began….

First I shot an older piece, from around 2002, that had originally been shot in slide form, and I was never happy with the results. This piece is called Evolution. It is an 8 shaft shadow weave, with bands woven separately on an inkle loom. The vest is a variation on the jacket pattern I use for my classes. I like the square armhole, it is easy to alter.

Then I photographed the Arctic Sky Jacket. This is a twill weave structure, on eight shafts, in wool, cotton, synthetic, just about anything I had on the shelf that would work for the color palette I was trying to create. The bright lime green piping, in case you weren’t following my blog a couple of months ago, is the natural felt edge cut of off a nuno felted belt I made with Loretta Phipps while we connected for the Design Challenge for Convergence 2008. The pattern for the jacket is from Burda Magazine. The bound buttonholes and pocket welts are Ultrasuede, and the top stitching is actually couching with a lime green embroidery floss. I backed the entire jacket with a fusible weft interfacing.

Next I photographed the Splash Dress, and as you can see, I had a lot of fun with the detail shots on this one.

This dress, a modified Vogue pattern, was made from the two remaining hunks of fabric from the Designers’ Challenge for Convergence 2008 in Tampa Bay. I blogged about this project considerably, so if you want to see the original garments from this handwoven collaboration between me and Loretta Dian Phipps of Texas, click here. This was another combination twill weave, 8 shafts, in silk, cotton, rayon, and some knitting novelty, all of which were given to us by the HGA. The challenge was to come up with a runway ensemble. I love the simplicity of this dress with the wonderful splash of summer colors.

I’m really happy with the way this jacket photographed. The colors are rich, and the angles of the jacket played well against the background.

This is yet another combination twill weave structure on 8 shafts, I dyed the warps to coordinate with a palette I did called Sandstone Layers when I was writing the color forecast column for Handwoven Magazine. The pattern is from Burda Magazine, and the topstitching is couched with a rayon novelty weaving yarn. The buttonholes are handworked from a 6-ply rayon weaving yarn, and the jacket is unlined. The seams are all finished with a hong kong seam finish. The belt and skirt are purchased. (The belt was a gift from my dearest friend in the whole world, you know who you are, and I have cherished it and worn it to death for many years. It remains timeless and coordinates with just about everything in my wardrobe. The signature on the back of the belt is fading, so I can’t read the artist’s name.)

So, now I have to put together a gallery talk for Wednesday and pray my plane via Houston to Des Moines isn’t delayed. That would be really unfortunate.

Cruise around Manhattan

I’m a bit bleary eyed, but no worse for the wear, and what an amazing cruise. I chaperoned a mid-night cruise around Manhattan for the graduating students from our High School. Fortunately the boat had two levels, the upper level was the dance floor, and the VERY LOUD MUSIC, and I could hide on the lower level. I cruised around the perimeter deck most of the night, checking for smoking violations, of which there were many, and I was told by so many kids, in no uncertain terms, “My mom lets me smoke, I’ve been smoking since I was 13, and I’m over 18 and an adult and a High School Graduate, what’s the problem?” Oy……… I hated being the cigarette patrol, and some of the kids downright refused to toss the butt, I kept thinking back when I was 18, first of all, there was no such thing after graduation as a cruise around Manhattan, I had to wait until I turned 50 to do that, but more importantly it would never have occurred to me to question or refuse an adult’s request, even if I didn’t agree.

Well this is a lot of years later, and my own kid smokes, so I can’t pass judgment here, I did my best, tried to keep a sense of humor, and tried to keep my hands to myself, and curb my huge desire to smack them all upside the head, I’ve buried too many great friends who died before they reached 50, some 40, from smoking related illnesses.

The cigarette patrol around the deck was at least gorgeous. Truely, there is nothing like the NYC skyline, viewed from the water, late at night. The Hudson River and East River were deserted, a real sign of the times. And though I still get a sinking gut feeling everytime I look at the lower Manhattan skyline without it’s beautiful tall towers, I still think, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And the weather couldn’t have been anymore spectacular. For one brief day, the sun shone, and the stars came out. It is of course raining this morning. How original…

At the end of a cruise, boats typically float by the statue of Liberty. For those who have never done this, if you do nothing else in Manhattan, should you be visiting, take an evening cruise around the tip, make sure they get up close to the Statue of Liberty, late at night, it will take your breath away. The restoration is amazing, and what a gift it is to the United States, and all it symbolizes.

Off to another graduation party in the rain…

Sandstone Layers Jacket Finished!

Just a quick post before I get on a bus to circle Manhattan chaperoning a group of new High School Graduates,

When last we left off, I still had to finish the buttonholes, I had done a test, but I still had to do the three on the jacket. I slipped a piece of tissue paper under the fabric, the bouclé slub of the fabric kept getting hung up on the feed dogs. The tissue paper allowed the fabric to slide easily over the feed dogs, and the buttonholes went in without a hitch.

I used a buttonhole cutter which cuts the fabric between the stitching much more clean than scissors. This would be a good time to check to see if the button fits the buttonhole, before I do all the hand work.

So now I finish all the handwork, and do a buttonhole stitch all around the cut edges of the buttonhole, using the yarn I wove with in the weft when I made the fabric.

The stitch is tedious, but then again, that shouldn’t bother me, for goodness sake, I hand wove the fabric that went into this jacket. I found the process difficult though, I kept breaking tapestry needles, and the rayon yarn kept splitting. And it is actually hot in my studio, so my hands were sweating. I know, I have no business complaining about the heat, the sun finally came out for good today, it shown bright, which will make the cruise lovely this evening, and it got up to 80 degrees. We still haven’t put on the air conditioning yet for the season, there hasn’t been any need.

I also did a hem on an commercial skirt I had, that was pretty dated, I chopped off 13 inches, and did a preliminary shot with the skirt. I’ll do a final shoot on Sunday I hope!

I’m happy with the jacket overall. There are a few things with the fit I would tweak if I had it to do over, and the fabric acts like linen, one false move and it wrinkles all over the place, I wanted that kind of casual look, and I got it.

It has been a productive few months, I’ll really feel it when I see all the new work photographed.

Meanwhile, I have a bunch of 18 year olds to chaperone, stay tuned…