Welcome to Musings - The Loom Room Blog

Like many other weavers, my blog this week is about old friends and new friends.  After visiting New Mexico for the Complex Weavers Seminars and HGA’s Convergence 2010, in Albequerque, many of us are buzzing with new techniques and information that we’ve learnt, and ideas from seeing others’ work and the surrounding areas in New Mexico.  The art galleries that have been visited, the different approach in cultural terms that we have absorbed, and the camaraderie that we’ve shared are all food for our brains, our eyes and our souls.

On stepping out of my taxi at 11pm after a very long day travelling the first person I saw was my room-mate for 3 weeks, Agnes Hauptli from New Zealand.  Agnes and I first met at the last Convergence in Ruby Leslie’s workshop, the 3Ds of 3D.  Then last year, Agnes came to me on a bursary to study jacquard weaving on my old card-driven jacquard sample looms, and then we met up a week or so later for the European Textile Network’s conference which was held in Haslach, Austria with the theme of jacquard weaving.  On the strength of getting on well together, we decided to be room-mates at the two Albuquerque conferences and then to go on a road trip together (more of that another time). 

The next day it was wonderful to meet up with lots of Complex Weavers I’d met before, and lots of laughter and hugs abounded!  The fashion show was good fun, although I didn’t really get to take a close look at the wonderful garments and scarves that were paraded round as I had to read out all the technical information on each item, but this has to be one of the great parts of the Seminars.  The work is outstanding and the reception of each item was warm and admiring.  The weavers’ handshake (going up and feeling someone’s handwoven item) was very evident and this is one of the few occasions when you know you aren’t going to get funny looks at the mildest, and a slap on the face as the most extreme reaction! 

At each meal-time, we try to sit at a table which has people we’ve never met before and have a chat, and the atmosphere is so congenial.  Every meal is a time to enlarge our friendship pool and find more soul-sisters (and brothers!!) 

The seminars are all given by the knowledgeable CW members and what a variety!  From historical techniques to cutting edge techniques, from kumihimo to shibori, and everything in between, it is a feast of knowledge, experience and enthusiasm!  Also I just have to mention the Lillian Whipple Retrospective and the wonderful surprise event of an animated weaving movie created by Alice Schlein with the woven help of many of our most respected weavers!  It was awesome!! 

There’s loads more I could say but I’ll run out of room to talk about Convergence if I don’t move on now.  Convergence had a wide range of classes of various lengths, from 1 1/2 hours to 3 days, some practical hands-on, some lectures.  The vendors hall was busy and there seemed to be more booths there this year than on the previous occasion, at least to my eyes.  There were so many wonderful, delicious yarns and gadgets to drool over, and looms to try out and covet!!  There were lots of events going on in several places and it is my one regret that I didn’t have the time or the energy to go to them! 

My heartfelt thanks and congratulations go out to both the organising teams for their wonderful skills in pulling off two excellent conferences.  Meg Wilson and her team at Complex Weavers broke new ground in setting up this Seminar, and Candy Burbag and her team had a huge task (usually thankless!) in putting on Convergence.  Thanks guys for a wonderful, inspirational, heart-warming, friendship-enhancing time in Albuquerque!

In some of my posts, I have lightly touched on some of the weaving research into texture that I have been focussing on in the past 2 years, and which are the subject of some of the lectures that I am giving at the Complex Weavers’ Seminars and also at HGA’s Convergence 2010 in Albuquerque in July this year (HGA - Handweavers’ Guild of America).  That has piqued the curiosity of some of my blog readers, and also my recent students, who have seen texture samples strewn all over the studio as I put together my presentations.  So firstly, thank you so much for your input and questions.

In response to these requests, I have decided to put together a regular blog, published every Wednesday or as near to a Wednesday as I can get it.  I don’t have updates automated yet, so I write them in real time.  Life sometimes gets in the way and delays publication, but that is something I am going to look at in the autumn.

In the meantime, I thought I would start with some practical steps for beginners to introduce texture into their work. 

But before I do that, if you don’t know what I do and why (and why should you?!), here’s a quick bit of background.  I’ve been weaving since 1991, and got obsessed almost immediately.  That’s one of the amazing things about weaving - it’s something that can really grab you and engage your mind and body fully.  Right from the start, I always loved creating images or abstracting design ideas from a picture that I could translate into weaving and this was magnified when a huge industrial jacquard loom came into my life in 2002 (see my website for further details!).  After she arrived, and I had learnt how to use her, I acquired 4 other baby jacquard looms that I use for teaching looms.  Then I was given a book on aerial and satellite images of the earth, and that was it.  I knew what it was I wanted to do with my weaving and my life - translate the textures of nature into works of woven art - artwork that would rise up from the flat surface of the fabric to depict the physical aspects of nature.  I call it weaving in 2 1/2 dimensions as opposed to 3-dimensional work which brings to mind 3-dimensional sculptures. 

To that end, I have been delving into old weaving treatises, visiting archive collections, scouring new publications, badgering fellow weavers, learning all I can about how to create these wonderful natural textures in weaving.  And I am getting some effective and great results!  It is an exciting exploration which has me getting up in the morning eager to get to the loom, or the computer, or visit a museum to find out more.  And more than that, I want to share what I find so that other people can start from further along the research path and have great fun creating their own textural weaving.  I belong to the Complex Weavers study group in Collapse, Pleat and Bump, in which individual members research something that interests them, weaves some samples and shares the information with the group, and that has led to some ideas which I have taken further, which can then feed back into the group for someone else to take and develop some more.

So this blog is extending that process of exploration and sharing to a wider group.  I hope you enjoy the content.  Next week I shall, as promised, begin with some simple steps to creating texture in your weaving whatever sort of loom you have.  In the meantime, please do let me know your thoughts, and what sort of information you would like to see included in these blog posts. 

E: stacey@theloomroom.co.uk

I was threading up my loom this morning, getting ready to weave my Complex Weavers Collapse, Pleat and Bump Study Group samples for our annual sample exchange, and I was listening to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 5 performed by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit.  I was enjoying the performance of a piece which I have played many times as oboeist in several different orchestras over the years, and noticing the differences between this particular recording and some of the live performances I’ve played in.  Then it suddenly struck me….

Music and dance can be performed many times by many different artists.  Many conductors, orchestras, soloists, dance troupes, and choreographers use work composed by someone else but interpret it in a personal way. That is an accepted part of the music and the dance world.  And it happens with classic works and with contemporary works.  We get cover versions - other artists covering a song written by someone else, and often performed originally by someone other than the creator. 

However, in the visual and written arts, that rarely happens, and when it does, it is regarded as plagiarism and a bad thing.  This dichotomy interests me!  Why is it that such different methodologies appear so polarised depending on what art form you are engaging with?  There are exceptions of course.  If someone in the visual arts already famous in their own right does something reminiscent, say, of Bridget Riley, then that will usually be accepted as ok because they are already established in their own oeuvre.  However, if I was to re-interpret a Bridget Riley piece, then I would be copying or not showing originality.  Isn’t it curious? 

And as a writer, if I was to write a story based on a writing style of someone famous, then that would probably be ok.  But having just recently read Swiss Family Robinson, and currently reading Robinson Crusoe, it strikes me that the two books are more than just superficially alike!  Daniel Defoe got there first, a couple of centuries earlier!! 

As I straddle both camps - that of a musician and that of a visual artist through my weaving - it is interesting to note what I can and can’t do, ethically speaking.  It is not expected of me as a musician that I should compose my own work.  It is expected that I can play my instrument to a high standard and perform and re-interpret other people’s compositions.  As an artist, it is not expected that I re-interpret someone else’s compositions.  It is expected that I create my own visual language and have the skills to interpret my thoughts in the way that I chose to express myself.  As a conceptual artist, it is enough to have the thoughts and have followed them through to a conclusion.  It is not even expected that I have the skills to realise them - it is the thought process, not the physical manifestation which is the important element.  Hmmmmm.

What do you think?