New Directions in Fiber Art

Its Ironical…

My late husband would always get embarrassed and annoyed when he thought I used a word incorrectly or when he thought a word I used didn’t actually exist. In my field we make up a lot of words, because there just isn’t the vocabulary in the English language. And when I use a made up word in one of my lectures, somehow the participants know exactly what I mean. Anyway, early on before Google and smart phones, when we relied on a dictionary for assistance, I used the word ‘ironical’ occasionally. My husband would get annoyed with me, because he said it wasn’t a word and the word was ironic and I needed to learn that. Of course when someone corrects you it is easy to shut down and be humiliated, especially in front of others. I had often thought I had a decent command of the English language, went to Catholic school for 8 years, knew how to diagram sentences, was an excellent speller, and had a college degree. It wasn’t until I started writing for Handwoven Magazine that I found out I could really write, and my confidence soared.

Of course I stopped using the word ‘ironical’, and it wasn’t until just recently that the word popped back into my head and I just grabbed my little smart phone, went into Google and Ha! Not only is it a word, it is a great word, used more in Britain than the US, but according to vocabulary.com, something that is ironical is wryly funny, especially because it doesn’t match up with your expectations.

And that is the whole basis for this blog post. Its ironical…

Back in October I recorded a podcast with the staff of Threads Magazine, episode 13, you can listen/watch it here, and the theme of the podcast among other topics is “Sewing for Competition”. I said a lot of things in the podcast, especially about getting into exhibitions, and all that entails, and one of the things I wanted to really stress was how arbitrary judging can be, having judged many many competitions, and that not getting into a competition doesn’t really mean that your work isn’t worthy. I gave lots of tips and suggestions, but I did say at one point that I could wall paper my living room with all the rejections I’ve received over the years, and that my acceptance to rejection ration is about 1:6. My handwoven clothing over the years has become more predictable getting into shows, though it isn’t always a guarantee, but my fiber art work has an abysmal track record.

There was an unusually large amount of opportunities this past few months for participation in fiber art exhibitions, and a number of platforms that got the word out. Social media really helps. So I dutifully sent in my money, and the requisite images and waited. And sometimes even forgot I applied.

And then suddenly, to my complete surprise, I got in. To all of them. Its ironical! And the success certainly didn’t match up with my expectations. So now, this week I’m scrambling to prep and ship out all sorts of work including three pieces for photography for my next article for Threads Magazine, they went out this morning.

Peters Valley Craft Center is sponsoring this show, bridging craftsmanship and technology. I applied at the last minute, partly because they didn’t mind older work. One of the things I talked about in the podcast was the timeliness of the work. Most exhibits require work that is less than two years old. And you can’t apply to two different shows with the same work if they overlap. It is professional suicide to get into a show and then decline because the piece got into another show that occurs at the same time.

“Nuance: Craftsmanship, Imagination and Innovation” 2019 Peters Valley School of Craft, The Sally D. Francisco Gallery, Layton, NJ Jurors: Maegen Black, Director Canadian Crafts Federation and Sin-ying Ho, Ceramist, Assistant Professor, Queens College, City University of NY. This show runs April 13th to May 19th.

The work that was accepted was an older piece that fit the theme of the exhibition, called Margaret. The images of my mother in law at 20 juxtaposed to her at 90 are printed on silk and then cut into strips and rewoven into a diptych.

“Fantastic Fibers 2019” Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, KY Juror: Pauline Verbeek-Cowart, chair of the Fiber Department Kansas City Art Institute

This show runs from April 20th – June 8th. The work that was accepted is one of my most favorite pieces of artwork I’ve done in the last few years, and no one has seen it because it has not gotten into any of the exhibits I entered with it, and it is nearing the end of its two year shelf life. The piece is layers of hand dyed wool, wet felted, sliced and needle felted onto a felt backing, and then stitched on the machine. It is called e·vis·cer·ate: verb, deprive of vital or essential content.

“Color: Classic to Contemporary” 2019 The Hudgens Center for Art and Learning, Duluth, GA sponsored by the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild Juror: Kathrin Weber

I found out about this exhibit through social media, and sent my regular garments/yardage images. These two works both got accepted and the show runs from May 11 – July 27th The duster coat is called Autumn Patchwork, and the yardage is called Chaos.

“Transformation: Fiber as Medium on The Common Thread Gallery” 2019 online exhibit Common Thread Gallery https://thecommonthreadgallery.com/2019/04/05/this-is-art/ Juror: Penny Griffin Lutz is the Director of The Gallery at Penn College Williamsport, Pennsylvania

This exhibit is a digital online exhibition. The exhibition runs April 5th – August 15th. Click on the link above to view.

e·vis·cer·ate: verb, deprive of vital or essential content.

“Excellence in Fibers IV juried exhibition in print” 2018-19 sponsored by The Fiber Art Network Jurors: Beth Mclaughlin, Head Curator Fuller Craft Museum; Perry Price, Executive Director Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; Carol Sauvion, Creator, Exec Producer and Director of Craft in America

This exhibit is currently in print, and it was really wonderful seeing my work among some pretty outstanding works in fiber.

“New Directions in Fiber Art” 2019 New Jersey Arts Annual-Crafts, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ Jurors: Carol K. Russell and Judy Wukitsch

I talked about this exhibit already because I wasn’t able to attend the opening, I was teaching in southern California. I finally got to actually see the exhibit a couple of weeks ago, and took a couple photos of the installation of my work. The work they accepted out of the 8 submitted was not one of my favorites of the group, but the judge obviously saw something else and I was thrilled. The piece is part of my Chromosome series, and it is called 44+XY. The show runs from February 9-June 16.

Meanwhile…

I have been to the land where it is sunny and warm, if only for a long weekend, I flew down to Orlando about 10 days ago, and absorbed the sun, what there was of it, it mostly rained, and saw some pretty azaleas and tropical plants, some gorgeous views of Lake Yale, and taught a wonderful pre conference four hour class in Turned Krokbragd on the Inkle Loom. I had 16 eager students and they all produced this wonderful little sample.

One of my most favorite students was standing in front of me in the lunch line. I remember her making this the last time I taught in Florida, but I never got to see it finished. Wow, just wow.

And then I taught my weekend class, Fabulous Fit, where students tried on my samples and had a tracing marathon. They learned so much about fit and how handwoven fabric works, and I got lots of emails and thanks after I got home for opening their eyes to the possibilities. I did my job! Of course, I didn’t take a single photo because I was too busy helping participants! Picture the image above, but instead of looms, there were patterns and pattern tracing paper everywhere!

Back to prepping and shipping artwork, taxes on Thursday, bills due Friday, and I have to clear one of my looms by April 1 so I can photograph the yardage for the next exhibit at Peters Valley which is the faculty show. Since I’m on the faculty there this summer, well, of course I have to put something in. I’ve run out of yardage to display there, and so I wove something new. Meanwhile, the big news in this house is that Brianna, my lovely creative daughter, whom I talked about in the last blog post, was accepted as the Fiber Assistant for the summer at Peters Valley, from May through October. She will live out there and assist with all the fiber classes. And I’ll be teaching a yardage class this summer, and I just adore when I open a magazine and there in full color and all its glory is a photo of me and my illustrious students!

Stay tuned…

When it rains it snows…

Just once I’d like to go to bed at night and think, “What a boring uneventful day. Nothing happened, no major weather issue, no major political headlines, no one in my family had any drama, nothing went wrong with the house, or the dogs or the people I love. Nothing.” Hahahahahahahahah…

So it is supposed to be -20 tonight with wind gusts of 45 mph. Everything has a coating of ice from all the rain yesterday. Hahahahahahahahah…..

For now, I have power, and internet, and I’m going to try to post this way overdue blog, because, it isn’t like anything important happened this month… I read a lovely funny meme on Facebook, 30 days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have 31 save January which has 374… I use to love January, it was dark and cold and there was no travel, and no drama, and I got to hunker down in my studio and just make stuff. It has been that way since I started doing craft fairs in 1979. I loved January because it was so dark and uneventful. I didn’t want it to end, because that meant February and craft fairs started with the ACC show in Baltimore. This is 40 years later, and nothing has changed, I get on a plane next week for the first trip of the season, to Southern California for a five day garment construction class.

This January was an anomaly. Just like everything else in life. It goes from 40 degrees and raining to -20 overnight. The world is an anomaly. My family is an anomaly. My life is an anomaly. But I finally broke through all the things that were pulling at me preventing me from doing what I love and buckle your seatbelts, its going to be a wild ride…

I finished the first draft of my article for Heddlecraft. 16 pages. Toughest article I have ever written. Meanwhile, I had applied to a number of exhibitions last fall, and not only was I accepted, I received the print copies and found out I had won an award. At the Blue Ridge Fiber Show, when the work was returned to me, there, attached to my yardage, was a third place ribbon. This was the yardage, Chaos, the draft is available as a download from my eShop.

And of course I already knew that my other entry, the duster, won the HGA award. The draft for that is available as well.

And the latest Fiber Art Now magazine arrived within days, featuring the Annual Excellence in Fibers Catalog, an annual print exhibition. There I am on page 63.

And then a few days later, when I dropped my artwork off at the Montclair Art Museum, they handed me the catalog for the exhibit, New Directions in Fiber Art, 2019 NJ Arts Annual – Crafts. The exhibit runs through June 16, 2019, unfortunately I’ll miss the opening Friday night February 8th, because, well I’ll be teaching in Southern California. I hope it is warmer than 20 below.

I loaded the car with my 16 Structo looms and set off to teach a one day Learn To Weave class for my guild. It was a nail biter, the weather was iffy right up to the day of the class, with a major storm due in late in the afternoon. The governor had already called a State of Emergency. I’m happy to say, there ended up not being a major weather event, you might say the afternoon was uneventful, except that there were more than a dozen new weavers and some very happy people.

I said goodbye to my son, he is off to war, first to Texas and then onto a location in the middle east, which I can’t name for safety reasons. I’m very very proud of him, I wish his father could have been there. Meanwhile I put all his stuff in storage, vacating the basement apartment he has inhabited for the last 14 years.

I had my handyman come in and paint and fix up the basement space. My daughter is slowly moving in down there. She has stuff all over the house. Way too much stuff for a 26 year old. But she is the creative sort and so everything has potential use in some grand piece of artwork. I totally get this. Which is why I’m working with stuff from my stash for my current project that dates back to 1981…

Meanwhile, the last big project I wanted to do on the house was to have the wood stove removed and replaced with a similar stove except gas fired. No mess, no chimney cleaning, no wood to haul, no ashes to clean up. The installation was completed last week, and I’m just waiting for the rest of the inspections before the final hook up. I want to curl up in the living room with my dogs and my knitting, flip on the fire, and then when it is time to go to bed, flip it off.

Meanwhile, once I finished the first draft on my 16 page article I promised my fiber friend Linda, who sponsors my wonderful five day retreat in the Outer Banks the end of October, that I would make her vest for her, that she wove out of Kathrin Weber Blazing Shuttles warps, in exchange for a pair of clogs from Chameleon Clogs, using a gorgeous hand dyed Tencel scrap from one of my students, Victoria Taub. I love my clogs and Linda loves her vest. Done and done… (There might still be a spot or two left for next year’s retreat, leave a comment if you are interested…The vest is one of the options to make in my workshop)

I will say that one of the major obstacles in my life right now is the inability to function in my studio. When my daughter moved back home to take a job closer to me, she brought four looms with her (leaving one with a friend), more yarn than any 26 year old should have, and a cat. The two 8 shaft 45″ looms had no where to go but into my already too small studio, the one I just had renovated. I struggled for a few months, falling over equipment, barely able to lay out a piece of fabric and the plan to move one of them to the basement once she settles down there, is still probably a couple months away, because there is a huge warp on it that has to be woven off first. I’ll keep my original 8 shaft, the first one I bought in 1978, and work around that in the studio, but the second one is making me nuts. I got a brain storm yesterday, since we hadn’t moved the second bed down from the attic to the guest room she just vacated, and in a fit of shear craziness, with help from my willing studio assistant Cynthia, we folded that baby up and pushed it right across the hall into the guest room. Done and done…

Now I can actually move in my studio. It isn’t great, but I can function in it.

So with my new found freedom of space and major projects crossed off my to do list, I dove in head first. My looms are screaming at me to put warps on them. They have been naked for months. I have requests to exhibit work this summer and I have no new work. I bought some new fiber reactive dyes from Dharma a couple months ago and want to see what’s inside. So I started up the dyepot again. First batch is something called Mars Dust. Gotta love the name.

Second batch is drying, called Muir Glen. I misread the calculations and put 3 Tablespoons instead of 3 teaspoons. Hahahahahaha…. I’ve never gotten such a gorgeous deep gray before.

Third batch is in the pot, called Kingfisher Blue. Meanwhile, I started winding a warp. Way back, a couple of years ago, I bought some Noro Taiyo Lace on sale at a knitting shop somewhere in the Pacific northwest. I made this jacket from the cloth I wove using one of the colorways.

I still had four balls of a different color way, and I’ve been dying to weave that off into a similar kind of fabric.

So I looked at my stash, and I had about 21 ounces of Harrisville Shetland Singles from my early craft fair days, circa 1981 or 2. They don’t even spin singles anymore, well actually they do, but they ply the yarn and don’t sell it as singles. I wound a seven yard warp until I ran out.

Then I looked around for something else since I wanted the fabric wider than the 14 inches I would get from the Harrisville. I found four 2 oz tubes of Maypole Nehalem, a 3 ply worsted very close in grist to the Harrisville, and in a close enough color to blend. So not ask me how long they have been in the stash. I think I inherited them.

I got about 6″ worth of warp out of those babies, and then sat down at the computer with my trusty Davison and picked out a draft where I could use the two warps most effectively. I chose a Finnish Twill, page 37 if you have the book, and figured out exactly how to use what I wound. I love to wind first and then decide what to make later.

Meanwhile, my studio assistant sat all day perched on a stool winding 2 yard skeins of some of my vast stash of dyeable cellulose yarns. She wound a lot but didn’t make a dent. I have hundreds of pounds of natural yarn. Don’t ask…

And between us we cleared a lot of cones. Unless you are a weaver, you don’t understand the importance of a trash can that looks like this…

Because I was running around like a distracted crazy person, enjoying the space in the studio and finally getting to do something fun, and running back and forth to the dyepot and the washing machine which I use for rinsing skeins, I did the most stupid thing a weaver can do, I don’t think I’ve made this mistake in 40 years if ever, I forgot to tie off the cross of the first bout of warp. If you aren’t a weaver the magnitude of this mistake will be lost on you, trust me, it is a big deal. Fortunately it was only the first 6″ bout, and each 1/2″ was carefully marked, so the warps won’t be too out of order. But this is a sticky singles warp, of all warps to screw up… Sigh…

I am going to curl up now and watch the next episode of Project Runway All Stars. And hope that the rest of my life will be uneventful. Or maybe just tomorrow. Or maybe just get through tonight and hope the pipes don’t freeze or my trash cans don’t blow down the street…

Stay tuned…