desertsong studio

stitch, photo, & roll

Equinox.

Spring is “officially” here & the days will now steadily become longer & warmer. Where did the beginning of 2013 go? In fact, where did the last two years go? I feel like I have opened a door & walked in from a long dream. It will take time to readjust.

Trimming warp & weft ends, tying off & sewing warp ends, sewing slits…

(my finches accept all donations of weaving trimmings for some intense nest building activity… linen is a favorite).

Next came surviving a period of intense anger at my sewing machine when—even after taking it in for service twice earlier this year to make sure it was running well for this day—it died as I was preparing to sew the Velcro onto the cotton twill tape. I am so proud of myself for not running outside with it & pitching it into the wash. But I still had to sew the Velcro on completely by hand. Followed by sewing it to the top header. Don’t forget to add in all the previous sewing of warp ends & slits. And the title tag. And putting a twin warp on the Shannock for the Glen Canyon tapestries. My fingers have finally stopped peeling from the friction blisters healing.

The most amazing thing that happened during all of the finishing drama & trauma were the snowstorms that dusted the desert… yes, that was plural, as in two. In ONE day. Not normal desert weather & something I’ve never seen in 16 years of living here. But quite beautiful.

And at last, after a thorough vacuuming, & a lovely open studio (thank you again, to all who attended!), my condor finally got to shake her tail feathers for the camera at Photographic Works. She is so big that she had to be photographed in thirds, not only because there wasn’t wall or table space large enough, but because of the image distortion that would occur. The crew at PW is the bomb! A big thank you to owner Mary Findysz, & also to Mitch, Steve (left, in the photo below), Carol, & Shelley. A special thank you to J.P. (right, in photo below) for his photographic skills, & to Susan for her Photoshop magic, which was crucial for seamlessly stitching the three images together to make one whole condor. It was amazing & exciting to see her hanging vertically as she is meant to, even if she wasn’t entirely visible. I’ll be publishing the final image here on my blog, soon.

Quite the social butterfly, it was then time for her to head to the WACC (Western Archeological and Conservation Center) headquarters, which is an entity of our National Park Service, for storage prep. My sincere & heartfelt thanks to Kim Beckwith, Registrar, who arranged the rolling by obtaining permission from Grand Canyon National Park, & also to Dana Senge, Objects Conservator (far right, in last photo), & the crew of WACC women who helped me get her rolled up properly.

Now she is all tucked in—safe, sound, & insect proof until she flies to the North Rim later this year. She’ll be nesting here in the studio, keeping an eye on the current weaving activities.

Next in line, please!

change

It comes, bidden or not, subtle or with a sudden jolt. The choices one can make to cope with it are to resist mightily, passively let it carry you along, or try to find the sparkle within the catalyst.

My sudden jolt arrived last week when I discovered that the Park, after years of trying to get a budget approval to remodel the interior of their Visitor Center has suddenly had it granted. Because of this, they have requested that I wait until next year to deliver the tapestry, which will most likely be end of summer or early autumn.

Here’s why:

Because Grand National Park is a government entity, any project that would change their budget needs must be approved. The government fiscal year ends at the end of September, so new budgets go into effect at the beginning of October. Since the Park on the North Rim closes in late October (heavy winter snows make it inaccessible), work on the Visitor Center cannot begin until the Park reopens in mid-May 2013. Which means that the Visitor Center will be no place for a textile until the remodeling dust settles, hence the rescheduled delivery date. Sigh.

Shock & dismay was quickly followed by optimism. One of my personal mantras has always been “everything happens for a reason”, so even when I am disappointed by an unexpected turn of events, I try to look for the sparkle.

I have come to feel this change is for the best, especially since the Park is trying to make sure the redo incorporates an optimal display setting for my condor. The original goal for the remodel was to showcase other residency artists' work, long stored away in the recesses of the Park’s museum, so my condor will also be in some pretty fancy company, as any diva would desire.

As of this writing, the woven height is between 8 to 8.5 feet. All that remains is nearly 2 feet of feathers & sky. For the sky, I have chosen the unfathomable blue that makes its appearance here in the desert during spring & autumn…crisp, fresh & vivid, hard to describe with a color name, but those of you who live in the desert or have visited during those times know it. The background cliffs, which are the very last landforms, were rendered in a brighter value than the buttes, & the weft bundles manipulated to allow the darkest strands of wool to appear as subtle lines in the weave. Although it may seem that cliffs so very far away would have no features & be quite drab in color, because of their sheer verticalness some lithic features are usually still discernible. When the desert sun reaches a certain afternoon slant, it mellows the Canyon’s gorges & recesses, but the distant cliffs will suddenly incandesce as if on fire for a brief time. Canyonglow.

So while the feverish pitch of weaving has been tempered a bit, I am determined to finish her this fall. It's time for us both to be set free.

north rim redux

Dennis & I took a lovely trip to the Grand Canyon near the end of August; I had good intentions of posting before now, but the two weeks since we’ve been back were filled with numerous appointments & engagements for car, canines, & self… twelve to be exact. Add in the final proofing of the review I wrote about Silvia Heyden’s soon to be released documentary, & another birthday (51!)… poof! Like magic, time has just evaporated. Needless to say, not a ton of weaving has occurred during this time, but I am anticipating settling back into more productive loom time after I return from another trip I am heading out on tomorrow to visit Silvia Heyden for several days at her home in North Carolina.  Even though this last couple of weeks have been frustrating, some very important issues were resolved during our time at the Canyon & it has given me a renewed sense of the importance of this tapestry, & for that I am grateful. I know that my time with Silvia will allow me to return home fresh for the loom.

 

Our visit to the North Rim was wonderful, allowing us a chance to escape the heat of Tucson, celebrate a birthday for Dennis & get in some good hiking time. I have come to realize that my creativity is so locked up in this tapestry that I am unable to dabble in any other artistic pursuits, with the exception of shooting photos, which always seems to be effortless. And I have realized that is ok. Even though I carted along a bunch of drawing & painting supplies on the trip, I didn’t lift a brush or a pencil. Dennis was the artist on this trip! The only things I lifted were my pack, camera, wine glass, fork, & my own two feet on our many hikes…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dennis & I also had the opportunity to listen to very interesting Ranger talks & programs, like the sobering “Death in the Grand Canyon” & the informative “Condor Talk”, which was given the night we attended by Ranger Jeremy… have a look at this incredible condor flight feather!

 

I was able to spend some very important time with two of the Rangers I met during my residency last year— Gaelyn, also known as the “Condor Ranger” & now also involved in the AiR program (the photo below is of she & I in the Visitor Center)…

 

& with Robin, the Ranger who oversees the AiR program (& the other interpretive rangers). Robin & I had quite a discussion regarding the placement of the tapestry in the Visitor Center.

 

The tapestry will be hung suspended from the rafters, in a similar location as the currently displayed life-sized plywood condor (which the tapestry will replace), but the tapestry will hang closer to the wall; the top edge of the tapestry will be angled slightly down towards viewers. In the second photo below, you can just barely see the end of the plywood condor’s tail feathers at the top left of the photo, just to give you an idea of the height of the rafters.

 

We want it to be visible & make an impact when people walk in, yet not be accessible to the hundreds of thousands of hands that will be tempted to touch it. The North Rim gets close to 800,000 visitors a year, so things on display have to be bomb-proof, covered, or out of reach because no matter in how many languages a sign proclaims “Do Not Touch”, everyone thinks just one little touch won’t hurt, will it? A special frame will be constructed to attach the tapestry to. The Park has an employee who is a woodworker artist & can build it to my specs. Thanks to the loan of old ITNET tapestry journals from Janie Hoffman earlier this year, I was able to research the conservation articles on how best to prepare large tapestries for display to prevent distortion. During discussions about this topic that Janie & I had when Dennis & I were visiting her Blue River Retreat in May, she & I also devised a design for a frame to hang the tapestry from. Thanks, Janie!

 

Most importantly, I now have a “due date” for my beautiful diva… she is to fly to her home at the North Rim Visitor Center around the last of September or beginning of October in 2012. I had thought that the Park would want her to arrive at the beginning of their season, but Robin told me that time is too frantic & crazy… near the end of the season, everyone is in their groove & used to the routine of NPS life which will make for a more enjoyable experience of hanging the tapestry. I will bring the tapestry there myself & I am planning to spend as many days there as needed to help them in any way I can.

 

As we drove down off the Rim to head for home, I found myself daydreaming about what it will be like to bring the tapestry back next year & what it will be like to see it hanging there. I can hardly imagine it. As I stared out across the desert that stretches from the Vermilion Cliffs to the Echo Cliffs like a red sea studded with silver green sage, I drifted back in my mind, remembering how it felt when I first found out I had been selected as a North Rim Artist in Residence. All of a sudden, through my open window I noticed a lone bird, flying low enough to suddenly make me snap out of my reverie, yet just high enough to not be quite sure what I was seeing… too big for a raven… um… the flight is too solid & steady to be a turkey vulture… OMG! “A CONDOR!!! Stop the truck NOW!!!”. Thanks to Dennis not having a heart attack & instead quickly following my “suggestion”, we piled out of the truck with just enough time to get a decent look through binoculars as the lone condor circled ever higher in the sky. A sign.

turbulence

Spring, after a progression of sights, sounds, & smells heralding its arrival, is fully ensconced here in the desert & hovering on the edge of summer. The procession began with the sudden verbosity of the house finches; after getting gussied up in their brightest plum plumage, they began warbling their heads off from every available perch & even while on the wing. Prickly pear cactus began sprouting new pads & flower buds which are now blooming— a feat that never ceases to amaze me when we are still behind in our normal rain amounts. Gambels quail began pairing off, stepping daintily through the desert together, their top knots bobbing jauntily. The male quail drove themselves hoarse shouting out “chi-CA-go, chi-CA-go”, “los PA-pa-gos”, “los PA-pa-gos”, & climbing high into the mesquite trees to yell “HEY” repeatedly all day. As soon as the temperatures were consistently in the upper 80s, palo verde trees became enflamed in yellow blossoms & the white winged doves arrived, strutting about, boxing each other with their wings, & building flimsy nests of a scattering of twigs. Mornings now begin with their chorus rounds of “who cooks for you”. We waited & watched to see which plants & trees had survived the unprecedented freeze we had during the winter. Amazingly, it appears that most have, although the fragrance of citrus blossoms is noticeably absent. Even though our citrus have been putting on  a proliferous growth of new branches after being pruned back to mere nubs of their former selves, it was too much to ask of them to also produce their heavenly blooms. Our Chinese jasmine has rallied to fill our courtyard with its delicious musk; if the breeze is just right, it can be inhaled across our whole five acres. Saguaros are covered with clumps of large flower buds, that are just now beginning to open & beckon.

Our largest blue agave sent up a giant green phallic spear almost overnight; it has continued to grow at least six inches a day & is now over 15 feet tall. The spear is the agave’s flower stalk & it is now growing little side arms whose ends will be covered with blooms held high in the sky for moths & bats to visit. It is the agave’s last stupendous act of life… the spear & flowers will drain the agave, killing it to produce a giant crescendo of juvenile plants that will establish themselves after the spear crashes to the ground with the weight of them all.

Spring is a turbulent time in the desert, when every plant & animal rushes to procreate before the searing heat of summer brings everything to a slow, melted crawl. Turbulence has also been a continued distracting presence in the studio since I last posted. I had hoped to have woven up to the three foot mark before leaving tomorrow for a retreat with DY Begay, Janie Hoffman, & Rebecca Mezoff at DY’s studio hogan way up in the northeast corner of Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. We’ll be together for close to a week of creative focus time & even though I am disappointed to only be nearing the two foot mark across the weaving, it is what it is. Sometimes life has its own ideas about what happens to your plans. A cold that lasted almost three weeks, pteronophobia (fear of feathers) procrastination, & a dog bite, courtesy of Roger displaying his displeasure at being yanked away from a tasty bobcat poop snack. He snapped, & my arm was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Luckily, even though it hurt like hell & shocked both me & Roger, it was very minor, is healing well, & did not affect my ability to weave. Roger was beside himself with biter’s remorse & I have forgiven him.

However, while uploading a progression of photos to the “on the loom now” album here on the blog (look in upper right hand corner of the blog) prior to writing this post, I began to feel much better about how much I’ve actually accomplished since starting the tapestry. I was reminded that the beginning stages are often the most difficult as the weaver figures things out (color, fiber, technique) & in reality the weaving actually alternates between moving along at steady flow & suddenly stuttering as new puzzles to be solved arise. I also have to realize that even though I physically cannot weave eight hours a day, I need to work on getting more loom time in. I will continue to add more photos to the album & it will function as a “quick review” diary of my progress.

Pteronophobia caused a great deal of discomfort as I began weaving the first wingtips. After a bit of a struggle trying to decide on what fibers & colors to use, the first feathers were finally underway. The weft bundles are a mix of slub rayon, two kinds of wool, perle cotton, & sea silk. When a weaver uses the word "struggle", it usually means several rounds of weaving & unweaving were involved, in this case over the course of more than an entire week.

Yet another area of "struggle" then surfaced in figuring out how to represent in a natural, yet distinct way the differentiation between the the primary flight feathers where they begin to overlap one another. These feathers, on average two feet long, are the quintessence of condor flight. I felt a very driving need to portray them in a very specific way. With the introduction of this new area of shading, I am now using three different weft bundle blends for the primaries. The breaks in the feathers occur naturally as the feathers age... flying an average of 100 miles a day cruising for food creates a good deal of wear & tear!

At about 1.5 feet, the buttes were taking shape visually, & the condor's two foot long primary feathers of her lower wing are beginning to create an impact. The far right dark purple area is the shadow of the Canyon's inner gorge. The gorge shadow was another difficult area to get underway as I worked to attain a very subtle shift from darker to lighter values, not only as the weaving moves up the warp to give the feeling of the Canyon's depth, but also from left to right to represent the deeper shadow cast by the preceding butte on the left.

 

 

 

I am looking forward to returning from my time with DY, Janie, & Rebecca,  refreshed & ready to tackle the next 8 feet.

¡Hasta luego y Hágoónee'!

spreading my wings

Just like that, one year that seems just begun has ended, & a new year is upon us; 2010 left in a huffing swirl of rain & snow, 2011 greeted us with a cold shoulder. Hard to believe that my father has been gone for over a year now, my sorrow experienced in different ways with the passing of the seasons, but no longer raw. Hard to believe that the condor tapestry for Grand Canyon National Park is now finally, really, under way after a slew of delays, distractions, & procrastinations.

Delays came in the form of a total lack of energy, the result of what I thought was the same cold/sinus infection that was cycling itself over & over for a solid two months, but which finally was diagnosed as allergies & fixed right up just before Thanksgiving with allergy medication (thank goodness!). Most likely, as I have never had allergies before, it was brought about by all of the blowing dust I was exposed to during my Canyon stay (so Dennis was right, it was “canyon fever”!).

Distractions were provided by the Words & Images art class I took (interesting, but not exactly what I thought it would be & not sure how it will affect my creative process at this point), & a fantastic 3 day Charcoal class that will definitely enhance my creative process. A neat & particular person used to working in a medium that doesn’t create much mess, I wasn’t sure how I would handle becoming covered in black stuff, but it was very addictive, fun, & loose. Just don’t scratch your face while drawing with this stuff. I found I don’t enjoy drawing staged still life, but understood that doing so was an important tool for understanding how to work with charcoal; since class ended I’ve done a couple small spontaneous drawings that I enjoyed very much. Later this month I will start an abstract painting class that meets once a week for 8 weeks. Amazing, a year ago I never would have thought to either work with charcoal or learn to paint abstractly.

 

These explorations, including my work with Silvia Heyden last year, are all part of my quest to let go of rigid realism & to begin trying to achieve an abstracted realism in my work. In working with Silvia I realized that if I wanted to change how I weave, then I need to change how I approach my design… or as she so succinctly put it “Don’t weave like you draw, draw like you weave!”

Procrastination, was, obviously, fear of flying! The thought of how large this tapestry will be, how long it will take, & how public the finished results will be, even though very thrilling, was also very daunting. I also had warp-a-phobia. Although I enjoy putting a warp on the loom--it is very meditative & helps me to start the process of entering into the creative energy of work --I have an issue with numbers that at times results in miscalculations & mistakes in figuring length, appropriate epi, getting the tension right when first tying on, & [insert any other warping worry here]. Thank you to Tommye Scanlin & Barbara Heller who answered my warp-related-to-size-of-tapestry questions! Add in the plaguing feeling that just as I had begun my journey to explore more abstraction in my weaving I was now going to be locked into producing this realistic work that will take so much time to complete. Finally, appreciating that any depiction of the Grand Canyon is at its best an approximation & therefore an abstraction of sorts, I realized that most of what I learned from Silvia could be used in representing the Canyon itself & I can rely on my ability with realism for the condor. In many ways, this experience will be transitional.

And now for the details…

The tapestry will be about 6 feet wide by 9.5 to 10 feet high.

I first designed my cartoon in a very small format, 6” x 9”, hand drawing the Canyon scene in outline & using Photoshop Elements to erase the background from around the condor so I could print her on a transparency. This allowed me to position her repeatedly over the background until I could decide what position was best.

The condor photo was enlarged to life size at FedEx Office in black & white, which was very cost effective. I will use color photos of her features enlarged on a much smaller scale for color reference.

I did several 6” x 9” watercolor crayon studies of the Canyon background to try to get a feel for the color & value scheme. This informed me that the colors should be somewhat muted… the condor is to be the main focus in this work, not the Canyon.

                                     

The background was enlarged to 12” x 18” for one last study. I tried using strokes in my drawing that loosely mimicked the weaving techniques I plan to use—eccentric & pick and pick.

This enlargement process also gave me the idea of how to create a BIG cartoon without having an expensive print made. First, I taped 24” wide sections of white craft paper together to create the size needed for the cartoon. Then I drew a grid of 1 foot squares to equal 6’ x 9’. Using the original cartoon with its 6” x 9” grid as reference, the background was drawn to the enlarged size one square at a time, at the scale of 1 inch = 1 foot. Because the Canyon shapes are so simplified, this process was quite easy.

This background was then transferred to heavy vellum, a translucent paper I use for my cartoons. Two 36” wide sections of vellum were taped together onto which I traced the Canyon background from the plain paper. Although it seems like doing twice the work, I like my cartoons to be very clean & as free of extraneous marks as possible. Graphite smears on vellum & doesn’t erase completely. I also needed to be able to trace the condor on top of the background. I like using vellum because it isn’t shiny like Mylar & it isn’t made of plastic.

Upon beginning to trace the condor, I realized I had made a big error in not having the condor enlarged with the background sky removed, which represented as a grainy grey in the enlargement (see the first photo in this post) & made tracing the condor’s outline onto the vellum almost impossible. After removing the sky, I had the condor enlarged again, enabling me to more easily trace her outlines.

But, the enlarged size still did not represent the details of her head, feet, wing & tail feathers very well, so those had to be hand drawn in using smaller photos & an ornithology anatomy manual (it is really helpful being married to an ornithologist!). Her wingspan is 9.5 feet, which caused her top wing to extend just beyond the original 9 foot height I had planned for the tapestry. This wing tip will be in the sky, so I’ve allowed myself enough warp to decide what the final tapestry height will be, with a maximum possibility of 10 feet.

The warp is Bockens 8/5 linen sett at 6 epi & 5 yards in length (epi is ends per inch if you are a non-weaver… it means how many warp threads {the vertical ones} are in one inch). It took nearly four 500 meter spools of linen for this warp, (or 2150 yards-- just a little over a mile!) which I wound using a warping mill. The whole warping process, from winding warp to dressing the loom, which included putting on the heddles (& put blisters on my fingers!), took about 10 days, working a few hours each day. Dennis helped me wind the warp onto the top beam, using 3/4” x 1/4” pine screen molding in the warp to stabilize its tension on the beam.

As for the heddles, during my time at the Canyon in September I seemed to discover the final (so far!) configuration for the redesigned Shannock heddle bars that I have been puzzling over. It turns out that as Mies Van der Rohe believed, “less is more”. I am using Mirrix Texsolv heddles on 25” plain steel 1/4” diameter rods attached to the pulley assembly S hooks. On the ends of the rods are #90 rubber O-rings to keep the heddles from sliding off. 

The Canyon & sky background will be woven in mixed weft bundles of wool, the condor’s weft bundles will be of linens, perle cottons, sea silks, & wools which will give her feathers & skin sheen. The combinations will be decided as I weave, & I am delving into this process now as I weave the bottom header. I am also starting to compose a list of possible titles for this tapestry; many times before I’m even into the weaving of a piece I’ll know what it is supposed to be called, yet this one seems to be taking its time in revealing itself to me…