retreat ahead

Spring is in full bloom & I am in the midst of preparations to once again journey to Janie Hoffman’s place on the Blue River in the White Mountains of AZ. Janie & I have organized a tapestry weaving retreat… there will be 7 of us attending, hanging out together in the mountain spring weather, weaving, soaking in the sights & sounds of nature, & talking about all things under the sun that could possibly interest any fiber artist!

I finally completed canyon night. It was difficult to finish, it felt as if all motivation I had to weave suddenly dried up and blew away. The lack of fanfare with its completion is a direct reflection of the ambivalence & dissatisfaction I have been feeling about my design process. I did submit it & painted hills for IWC’s Fiber Celebrated, but I am not sure they will be accepted, especially with my poor batting average as of late. Yet another rejection notice today, received from the Tucson Museum of Art for their Biennial exhibit.

I am not upset in the least by these rejections, they are just confirming what I’ve been feeling… my artistic soul is experiencing a period of fallowness. With the exception of IWC & the upcoming Tohono Chul fiber art postcard exhibit, I have decided to stop trying to exhibit right now. Sometimes we need that thwack on the head to wake up & say, “Yeah, I knew that.”

Time to renew, regroup, reinvent, rethink. I have begun that process, it is in the rumination stages. I am researching new design methods, I hope to greatly improve upon my weaving skills by taking Kathe Todd-Hooker’s tapestry workshop at IWC this summer, & I have registered for a couple of other non-tapestry workshops that I hope will allow for deeper design & creativity explorations. I plan to make major changes to my blog & website. I am ready to dig deep to find my true artistic vision… it’s in there & just needs encouragement to rise to the surface.

I am viewing this upcoming retreat as a door opening to a new & exciting place. While I am there I will be reading about design methods used by collage & journal artists, & I have a new camera, a Nikon P80, that I have started experimenting with & I will take it with me… some of the first images I have taken with it are below. I am preparing a cartoon so I can work on a very small piece while I am there, it will be a postcard for the Tohono Chul exhibit, & it is a depiction of one of our bobcat kittens from a previous year. This particular bobcat mama would leave her kitten in our courtyard lemon tree while she went about her business for the day. We discovered this when one day, as Dennis went out to water, he looked up & was startled by this tiny bit of fluff staring at him with amber eyes through the bright green leaves. Below is my design sketch, just started, using watercolor crayons & pencils. I am working from a cropped version of the photo Dennis managed to take & also getting inspiration for stylized versions of lemon leaves from a Frida Kahlo painting I admire.

Now I am off to continue preparing for the retreat… I will keep a diary of my time there & will look forward to posting about it all upon my return!

early spring

I had a thought the other day when we started getting these warm temps that spring isn't green in the desert, it's yellow. Our desert is green all year... not that Kelly green crayon box green, but chartreuse, sage, silver, avocado, & army greens. Spring in the desert, I thought to myself, is really yellow. Yellow prickly pear blooms, yellow palo verde blooms, yellow creosote blooms, yellow cassia blooms, yellow fiddleneck blooms, yellow desert marigold blooms, yellow brittlebush blooms, & even more plants with yellow blooms that I cannot think of just now, none of which are really blooming just yet, but which will soon if the warm weather continues.

It is early spring.

It feels like early summer with the 80 degree temps we've been having. This is the desert, but even that is unseasonably warm for this time of year. I am not complaining in the least, it feels fabulous compared to the highs in the 30s we experienced while visiting my parents in Illinois during the family reunion to celebrate their 50th anniversary. It is quite cruel to force desert dwellers to visit locations with those kinds of conditions!

Here's a photo of all of us gathered together after a wonderful anniversary meal at one of my parents' favorite restaurants, Zapatas. I am usually skeptical of Mexican food outside of the Southwest (it tends to be what I think of as Amerxican). Not bad for Illinois, not bad at all. There are 6 of us offspring (I am the oldest, there is a 12 year span between myself & my youngest brother) & we all attended along with most of our respective spouses/children. Two old & dear friends of my parents, whom they met when they were stationed in Cheyenne, WY together, were also able to join us. This is the only family photo from that experience I will subject you to & I'm not even going to say who's who in it. If you are dying to see more, which unfortunately includes the strange gringo habit of drinking margaritas & donning sombreros, visit this set on Flickr.

Today, however, as I meandered about outside enjoying the sun, I started really noticing things, like waking up from a fog. And I noticed more than yellow, although yellow was first-- the photo at the beginning of this post is of the eensy-tineensy electric chartreuse flowers on a zig-zag cactus.

Here are others...

A diaphanous purple vinca bloom

Pink tinged newly unfurled pomegranate leaves, sunlit & glowing against a blue blue sky

Chinese star jasmine buds; slender, rosy, & soon to burst into little twinkles of white that will fill the air with their divinely sweet, heavy scent

My hot orange kalanchoe kettle

The always sudden & astonishing beauty of fuchsia pincushion buds... one day it's just a little cactus, the next, a tiny jewel box

Plump indigo purple velvety Texas Laurel blooms that smell exactly like sweet sweet grape Koolaid & make me think of hot sticky summer days of childhood

And Roger & Mo on lizard watch & wondering why I am crawling around on the ground with that little metal square box pointing it at things.











canyon night is still underway, you can actually start seeing the forest for the trees. If my cartoon looks odd, in case you missed an earlier post-- I decided to create & use what I've dubbed an "X-ray cartoon", a black & white color inverted version of the original that allows me to see the detail in the trees much easier than tracing them onto vellum would ever have done. The IWC Fiber Celebrated deadline is a little over two weeks away... will I make it? Weave, weave, weave...

a touchable tapestry

sensia...

smooth, silken, soft

rough, ribbed, ridged

thick, thin, thirled

desert life fragments

human made trinkets

tangible & visible feast

busier than a one-legged woman in a butt kickin' contest!

If you didn't know that I pretty much grew up in the South, the above phrase should be a good clue, although I have "genderized" it & cleaned it up for public consumption... I have other phrases that aren't really printable here. Let's just say I have to assess who is within earshot before those phrases are uttered.

So, what have I been doing???....

Getting the latest Desert Tapestry Weavers newsletter & announcements out.

Doing my volunteer bit for ATA (I help do the excerpts for the online version of Tapestry Topics).

Gave a fabulous presentation to my guild, Sources of Inspiration, to share the experience & how I benefitted from attending a Sources of Inspiration workshop at the Desert Weaving Workshop back in January taught by DY Begay, Madeleine Darling-Tung, & Barabara Heller. The guild awarded me some CE funding to help with tuition & the presentation was how I was to "pay them back". I say it was fabulous because I learned to use Power Point for the first time & because everyone seemed to love the presentation... at least I didn't see anyone "pecking corn" (the jerking movement one's head does when one is nodding off while sitting upright). Thank yous to DY, Madeleine, & Barbara for sending me images to use!

Volunteered for an entire day at the Tucson Museum of Art Holiday Market in our guild's booth. The first half of the day I was a sales person & the second half I demonstrated tapestry weaving on my little Mirrix. So much fun to be around people ALL day & I picked up a few trinkets as well while Dennis stayed home to tend Roux.

Had a peaceful, happy, Thanksgiving with just myself, man, & dog. We thought we would be euthanizing our little old Roux instead of enjoying turkey... it has been 16 months since she was diagnosed with bladder cancer & now according to her recent bloodwork she is going into kidney failure. She is 14... we decided to fore go the horrible treatments, which would be torture for her, just to eke out a few more weeks of life & instead we are letting her enjoy a normal dog life for whatever time she has left. We thought she was headed downhill after the lab reports, so I made a call to the vet to discuss options for at home euthanasia... that evening we walked into the bedroom to discover her "paddles up", rolling around, wrestling with toys & pillow, just having a merry old time. Entirely living up to Dennis' description of her as a "tough old bird". I think she knew there was a big, juicy bird awaiting roasting in the fridge! As of now, she is still hanging in there & enjoying life.

Went to Vail to visit my friend Bengt Erikson & help him out by taking some digital images of a couple tapestries he didn't have images for. He & Bill will be moving away soon, to Santa Fe, since they discovered they are not happy here in the heat & in the isolated area in which they live after relocating from the Pacific Northwest. And, I bought his 2 ft. Shannock collapsible frame loom from him when I discovered he was interested in selling it! He primarily weaves on his 6ft. Shannock now. To see more of his work, visit the online ATA exhibit, Tapestry On The Edge.

Above, a detail of Bengt's Rincons.

Made the decision NOT to torture myself trying to crank out opuntia for submission to ATB 7. I decided instead to torture myself by cranking out a small tapestry for another upcoming Tohono Chul exhibit, Earth, Air, Fire, Water. This newest tapestry, earth & sky, is from a digital image I took when Dennis, Roux, & I were hiking along the base of the Vermillion cliffs during a trip there in '06. Bengt is also submitting his Rincons for this exhibit, so I am hoping to have his tapestry there to keep mine company! For more on tapestry & torture, please visit Kathy Spoering's blog to learn more about this fiber-related affliction. Remember, Kathy, we love to weave!!!

Was offered & accepted my first teaching job by the Bisbee Fiber Arts Guild! I will teach beginning tapestry weaving, & my first workshop will be in March of '08. I am in the planning stages now...

And, finally, I have started a new tapestry for yet another Tohono Chul exhibit with yet another looming deadline, one I just couldn't pass up, Turquoise. I will be weaving it on Bengt's old Shannock, since opuntia is languishing away on the Tissart. The header is started & my palette & design are ready. It is a geometric design, inlay 9, rectangular in shape & composed of 9 geometrically dynamic squares & rectangles based on a 9 inch square in 9 different shades of turquoise . I love turquoise jewelry of all kinds & this design makes me think of inlaid rings & bracelets. The "9" denotes the number of letters in the word "turquoise" & I chose the shades based on pieces of turquoise I own. I will post images of it once I have woven more!

The desert has finally settled into winter... after weeks of temps near 90, just at Thanksgiving the weather turned & since then it has been very pleasant 60s & 70s during the days & 40s at night. We had a giant storm roll through a few days ago, rain all day & all night, the most we've received in over a year and hopefully more on the way with the upcoming front on its way here from Alaska!

After this flurry of activity frenzy passes, I hope to be able to return to work on opuntia in a more leisurely manner, since it is the biggest tapestry I've woven so far. I plan to submit it in the Juror's Choice exhibit that accompanies Arizona Federation of Weavers & Spinners Fibers Through Time conference being held in Tucson this coming April. I should have plenty of time, right, Kathy?

dyeing, weaving, and peace

So, what did I really do first thing after we returned from our mountain trip? Even before blogging about it? Of course, what any sane weaver would do, I did a little bit of dyeing because I couldn't let my fresh dyestuffs ruin! Even though it was a small dye run, nonetheless, it was the first for the new studio. And I could further rationalize dyeing instead of cleaning up & putting away things from the trip because I pulled out several bags of sunflower heads that had been in my freezer, so it created more space in there for actual food. (We won't mention the fact that other frozen dyestuffs are currently still occupying 9o% of the bottom shelf space, & we also won't mention that there are only two shelves in my freezer.)

I used the mullein, dock, & sunflowers, obtaining a very muted but beautiful palette. As luck would have it, the dock provided the exact shades that were missing from my opuntia palette, which are the two skeins already wound into balls. Most of the colors for opuntia will be from my natural dyed wools-- pomegranate, ponderosa pine, chaparral sage, peach, marigold-madder. As I weave, I will remember where & when each of those dyestuffs were gathered: the pomegranate & sage from our property here in Tucson; the ponderosa pine during a stop outside Show Low during our Marble Canyon trip; the peach leaves & tender branches from our NM neighbor's orchard; the marigold-madder from a post dye workshop mini dye session when I was assisting Janie Hoffman.

Opuntia has been started, & it is already glowing. It is being woven on its side; when it is finished & displayed, the pollen head area will be in the lower right hand corner. I have spent the last couple of days not really weaving, but mostly weaving & reweaving the first pollen head because I wasn't getting the effect I was seeking & I wasn't feeling very well. Today, as I have started feeling better, I have also figured out how to weave the pollen heads. I wanted a raised texture, but didn't want to use a technique that would take eons to weave. So what I have come up with is to intersperse single picks of basket weave within passes of regular weave, using a double strand weft of two different, but similar colors. Now, with two pollen heads woven, I like the effect I see, & I have also decided that the pollen heads that are deeper within the flower will be woven as the rest of the tapestry, with a 1 strand weft to help them appear deeper than the textured heads.

Over the last few weeks, some wonderful things have been happening, like little unexpected gifts out of the blue...

I've been visited in my studio by two good weaver friends-- DY Begay, a Navajo weaver who lives in nearby Mesa, & Olga Neuts, another tapestry weaver here in Tucson. What wonderful visits we had! It is like a good cool drink of water that quenches your thirst when you are able to spend time visiting & talking with other weavers who share your passion!

While a friend & I were attending the Bisbee Fiber Festival, I was approached by members of their guild to come teach a beginning tapestry class next year. Of course, I said yes... what a great opportunity! One of my favorite things I did as a nurse was teaching my patients. Since I retired to pursue my weaving I always hoped that some day I would be able to teach others again. It has come much sooner that I dreamt it would!

I have solved a dilemma that had been pestering me since the last time we had cool weather. I like to weave barefoot, & when it's cold, my feet get cold. I just cannot weave with shoes on & socks slide around on the treadles. So what's a poor, barefoot weaver girl going to do? Get some toe socks! And not just any toe socks, yoga toe socks with tread! They are very sticky, & yes, they obviously pick up dog hair, but my feet will be warm when I am weaving this winter-- heaven! Feets don't fail me now....

And, like an extra dollop of hot fudge on the sundae (forget the cherry-- give me more chocolate!), I just found out this week that the Countdown to Peace Project is planning on using my peace dove on the postcard announcing their first exhibit. They now have a website & some of the artists' work has already been posted. My piece was assigned the date of 3-30-03, kind of cool! They are still accepting submissions, so if you are reading this & you are an artist, think about creating a 4" x 4" work to send!

weaving madness & monsoon weather

The heat has hammered us (we have had temps of around 112 for the last few weeks), but monsoons started unofficially over the weekend (with thunderstorms) & were officially declared as upon us this week after we had three consecutive days with a dew point over 54. This usually means cooler temps, below 110, & rain! We have had quite a bit of plant & animal activity in anticipation of this long awaited event, including the discovery that we have 2 bobcat families sharing our property (1 mama has two kittens, the other has one).

I have just completed my latest work & have submitted it to Tohono Chul park's museum for consideration to be included in the upcoming exhibit Día de los Muertos: The Gift of Remembrance. This Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead, is celebrated on November 1st; its purpose is to remember and honor ancestors & deceased relatives. Many festivities surround the day-- cemeteries are visited & grave sites are tidied up; special foods are cooked & left out for the ancestors; shrines are created with mementos, candles, religious artifacts, flowers, and family pictures.

For this exhibit, I chose to create a mixed fiber media piece, using a tapestry as its base. It is a shrine commemorating Georgia O'Keeffe. Having just finished reading a second biography about her life when I heard about the exhibit, I immediately knew I wanted to design and create this work. Like many people & artists, I admire & am inspired by O'Keeffe, but more so by who she was as a woman and how she embraced her creativity than by her artwork. There are many things about her personality and some aspects of her life that really resonate with me (we even had the same address number). Her accomplishments as a woman during the time period that she lived her life are remarkable.

recuerdos de georgia
10" x 13"
techniques: tapestry, appliqué, paper folding
materials: natural & synthetic dyed wools, linen, bamboo, photographic image on cotton twill, silk paper

Now that recuerdos has been completed & submitted (I should hear next week if it is accepted), I can get back to the job of moving into the new studio space. We have sealed the floor, painted, finished the window's wood trim, & laid tile. I had to stop at that point to weave or I would have become too distracted with moving & cleaning. Along with the move will come a major house cleaning to resurrect our home from the pit it has become during construction back to its former glory as cozy abode (yes, I neglected household chores to weave... it's a rare disease known as fiber fever).

And, like Kathy Spoering, I also had to prepare & ship my agave tapestry to Durango for inclusion in the Intermountain Weavers Conference Fiber Celebrated 2007 exhibit being held at Durango Arts Center in Durango, Colorado.

So, until I can take some photos of the newly inhabited studio (complete with looms!), I will be enjoying both the nesting process and the monsoon storms. Our desert lies in anticipation of that long awaited cool drink.... bring it on!