New Work: Relic I

I began Relic I in January 2020.  This was going to be a strong year, and I was going big to celebrate it and I was going to push my art forward.  I spent Sunday afternoons sitting in my sunny studio working on this beast of a weaving. 

But before I talk too much about this, I must tell you about the afghan.  I come from a long line of women and yarn. My grandmother crocheted, and I vaguely remember that maybe her mother did? My mother did.  I tried when I was twelve, but I didn’t have the patience. I certainly couldn’t make one of these throws, but oh my grandmother and mom did.  As a small child, I would hide under these things and watch Scooby Doo.  The holes allowed viewing with just the right amount of protection.    Upon my grandmother’s death I was given an acrylic beige crocheted throw that had been made by my mother as a gift for her mother.  My mother had passed years before, and the aunts thought I would like to have it.  Ok, so here I admit….I don’t really like crochet. I especially don’t like acrylic yarn.  But there I was, given yet another afghan.  (I am pretty sure the one that she had made me ended up at Goodwill).  It sat in a trunk for a few years until I decided to shred it. 

Yes. I did.  I had an idea to take this thing that had only sentimental value and turn it into art that I would appreciate more.  

Relic I was my first piece on my big loom.  As I moved up the loom, I thought about how things get passed down through generations. The material things AND the intangible things like strength and resilience. Three generations of strong women. I can’t help but wonder how my mother and her mother would have handled this year.  I started to envision my piece being a ship that was built to stand up against big storms. 

Towards the beginning of April we went on lockdown because of the pandemic.  I wanted my large loom home with me but I couldn’t transport it with the weaving still on it.  I ended it as I had left it last.  Because of that the shape became more ship-like.  

I will always remember that night.  I hadn’t been out in several weeks.  I can’t really describe my thoughts at the time, but I know you can relate.  We can weather these storms and press forward into the unknown.   

Forty Days

The word “quarantine” comes from an old Venetian language and means “forty days.”  The text below is taken from Facebook in April of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.  I hope you will read through it. In April of 2020 it spoke volumes to me, as I had just taken a two month furlough.  

Grandma, how can I live this quarantine?

"My daughter, quarantine is a special, mysterious and sacred period. In my days, newborn children could only leave the house for the first time after their 40th day of life. It is a period of waiting and preparing for a new life. It is the period that produces a great change."

And how do you prepare for this change?

"With simple, genuine and loving actions. Every morning comb your long hair with dedication and untie all the knots, even the most hidden ones that you have always neglected. It is time to put all the knots in the comb. Then dedicate yourself to untangling even your beloved ones skeins. With patience and you will try to find the end of the skein, the exact starting point of the thread. Already with these simple but powerful actions you will create order outside and inside of you. Undoing physical knots with your hands you will begin to touch your internal knots."

And after undoing the knots, what can I do, grandma?

Remove all parts of you that are no longer fertile. In many funeral rites of ancient peoples it is believed that the deceased leaves the body entirely on the 40th day after his death. In these 40 days, my daughter, cut your hair, eliminate clothes that you have not worn for a long time or that you no longer want use, open the windows of your home well to let the stale air out, cultivate new thoughts by abandoning the old, dedicated to creating new habits, new customs, new traditions."

Grandmother, I'm afraid that after this isolation nothing will change. Man quickly forgets...

"How others will react to this quarantine is none of your business. Make a commitment to change and not forget. Make sure this storm shakes you up so much that it completely revolutionizes your life."

―Elena Bernabé, Indigenous Peoples Cultures. April, 2020

I began this piece in mid-May after I had moved my studio home and had settled in. The idea I had was to do a piece of various colors and techniques without much planning.  I planned to spend my days just weaving and passing the time. Two months turned into three.  I finished in mid-July.  Has the pandemic changed you in any ways? I wonder because  for myself it is obvious in this piece that the person that started this weaving is not completely the same one that finished.   The beginning started as an exercise of rest and meditation. It felt hopeful and like a new start. Grateful for a break from the rat race and feeling fortunate to be able to survive and possibly thrive.   At the point that I moved from beige to golds and pinks,it was the day that I made what I call the sunrise in this weaving,  I found out a friend from my twenties was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.  The deep pink striae marks May 27th when I heard what had happened to George Floyd.  I cried a lot while making this. I allowed myself to be with the emotion with each row of weft. 

I grew exhausted from the vibrant color and shifted back to softness.  

I do believe a lot can happen in forty days.  The top of this piece feels more alive in comparison to the bottom, even as I sit here utterly exhausted.

This piece will be on display at the Creative Arts Guild in Dalton Ga Sept 18- mid-October.

New Work for Fall: Relic II

Relic II

50” x 28” (60” wood rod)

Handwoven mixed fibers, fabric, leather, and upcycled cables

It started with a bag that I fondly called my Mad Max Stash which was a collection of old black clothes and wires. I had in my mind the idea of making an apocalyptic piece of all the things we discard. Mind you, this was way before 2020 happened. The original vision was also to put it on the big loom, but at that time Relic I was on that loom and across town.  It was right after things started to close, and I wanted to get it started while I had time at home. I decided to do it in two pieces with the hopes of figuring out how to connect the pieces later.  It started to become more refined than what I had first intended so I went with it.  I cut the clothes into strips and made “yarn” of them.   I added some dark brown wool roving, as that is what I had at the time.  At one point the source for my thinner black wool had shut down because of the pandemic, and I had to stop working to wait for them to start shipping again.  While the initial idea was to make it from scraps and discards, I found that I had to do so out of necessity for a while.  

After the first bit of phone wire went in, I thought about connections.This period of time staying away from each other is strange, and we are connected via wires, waves, and cables. 

The clothes I shredded reminded me of times with friends:  the leggings I wore while painting the halls of the studio with a friend that has since passed, a thrift store shirt that had just enough of an 80s vibe to wear to my friend’s 80s Prom themed 50th birthday, a favorite sweater that I had worn in the office at my job in Ringgold, and my leather boots that I’ve had for years that took me to many parties and events. Man did those boots have some fun, but they had been re-soled and worn out again. 

The second piece came together and it was time to figure out how to join them. What had started as just a way to weave on a smaller loom became part of  this theme of connections, whether it is to each other or to the past through objects.  

A little story. The piece of wood that Relic II hangs from came from a hammock that I had on the rooftop balcony of my old apartment in downtown Chattanooga.  Someone once referred to it as the Friends apartment, because you had to step out the window to get to it.  I had that hammock out there, and spent countless Sunday afternoons and Saturday nights either alone with a glass of wine or a group of friends.

Relic II is available at Area 61 Gallery in downtown Chattanooga and would look wonderful over a bed or sofa adding interest and drama to that space.

Workshops in the time of Corona

So times have been strange. My last in-person workshop was way back in early March right before the shutdown. I donated my time for that workshop to help out The Chattery pay the bills. Their business is built on people coming together, and right now, we can’t be together.

Since then, they’ve shifted classes to be online and I taught a couple of online fiber workshops in April. We are repeating them in May. You can check them out on my class page if you are interested.

I definitely created some weave-monsters. That’s part of the joy of teaching though. I love seeing others get inspired.

I miss your faces.