desertsong studio

finding my drishti

Drishti -- Sanskrit for “vision or insight”. I have heard it used in yoga class during difficult balance poses when the teacher urges the class to “find your drishti”. Insight, balance, & focus are exactly what my mind has been contemplating & exploring quite seriously over the last several months. Our brief Grand Canyon trip in January, prophetically marked by a condor flying directly over our vehicle as we climbed up the Coconino Rim on the road leading up from the Painted Desert & Coconino Plateau, has deepened this reflection… I have realized that the upcoming months will effervesce quickly to bring September & my Canyon residency. The time to make ready is now. Although I have for some time held an awareness of life’s transience, my father’s recent death has metamorphosed that awareness into a quicksilver flash. Insight, balance, focus. What is necessary to make my personal & artistic life abounding & productive?  What needs to be pared away?

Perhaps this introspection & self-examination also stems from the fact that I turn 50 this year, an event I am actually looking forward to. I have decided that there are many things on the internet that I do not need, that do not enrich my experience of life or my artistic self, that suck my precious time & energy away, so I have hit the delete key on: Facebook; having e-list discussion posts sent to my inbox; going online & checking emails every day. I refuse to get into texting, twittering, or talking on my cell phone in public places or moving vehicles. Everyone & everything who is important, inspiring, & essential to me can be easily accessed via emails, blogs, websites, & actual conversations. Learning to play the cello is challenging & rewarding; it complements creativity & weaving. I want to endeavor to keep my mind focused on what is essential, & keep my physical self strong for weaving through dog walking, yoga, & pumping iron at the gym.

Dissatisfaction & unhappiness with some of my affiliations & subscriptions, I now have realized, have occurred because they have either taken a direction that is not the one I find myself headed in or because I have outgrown them. I will most likely be letting some things go, such as my Fiberarts subscription (& several others) & quite possibly my HGA membership. Thanks to recommendations from Janie Hoffman & Tommye Scanlin, I plan to join the Textile Society of America & the Surface Design Association. ATA continues to be very important to me; I will continue my volunteer duties as digest editor for the online newsletter, writing promotional text for educational events, writing articles, & will be enjoying my current task as a “think tank” member to help keep ATA dynamic & vital.

Inspiration is something I am always trying to feed & I have found two new sources that I want to share-- HAND/EYE, “an independent, international publication which explores the nexus between design and development, culture and commerce, art and craft, and environment and ethics”, which is all that & more, & a new book by a local Tucson artist, weaver, teacher, & friend, Claire Park-- Creating with Reverence: Art, Diversity, Culture and Soul, which I am eagerly anticipating in my mailbox any day now.

As my brain was busily involved in these cogitations, my hands were busily working on the latest assignment from Silvia Heyden… now delving into color with composition, but with limitations on number of colors that can be used & using specific design motifs. The structure of study again consists of value studies, sketching, & weaving; here are the results of my initial efforts…

My subject is a representation of Santa Rita prickly pear cactus, which grow & glow in decidedly un-cactus-like hues of luscious red-violet, blue-violet, & bluish-green. I worked my sketch in watercolor crayons, which allow for quick, loose sketching & help me avoid becoming engulfed in over-precision. My need for perfection is met by keeping my wet brushwork over the crayon from bleeding colors where I don’t want them to go. My first drawing started out like this…

…but I realized it just seemed to be an unorganized jumble of colors; perhaps, I realized, I could use this as an opportunity to explore color theory & relationships in my design. I have had several classes over the decades that covered these subjects, but the end result in each of those were neat little color squares & color wheels that did not continue to register principles later on when I needed them to. Here was my chance for actual application of theory, so I rummaged through my two most useful books-- Color and Fiber, & Basic Visual Concepts and Principles for Artists, Architects, and Designers (which I was fortunate enough to find used for much, much less than what Amazon has it listed for) --exploring analogous color systems, contrast of proportion, & spatial effects, resulting in much scribbling of notes to myself on my preliminary pencil sketch & finally in a rematerialized crayon sketch that will serve as my visual resource while I weave… 

Before I could weave, I had to modify the shedding system on my big Shannock. After completing the modifications, I discovered a few design flaws which have so far been easily fixed with a couple of adjustments. I based the length of the new dowel heddle bars on the length of the original wooden slat ones, knowing that they needed to be this length in order for all of them to fit side by side when the loom was warped to its width capacity. But, the original slats had the heddles glued in place clear out to the ends & my system requires screw eyes, so I had to place the screw eyes closer to the ends of the dowels than I originally planned, creating the possibility that the steel rods holding the Texsolv heddles could slip out of the end screw eyes because they only extended a mere 1/4 inch beyond the end screw eyes instead of the 1 & 3/4 inches I had originally planned. To prevent slippage, I found some small rubber washers that fit snugly over the end of the rods. Below is a list of the parts & pieces (all found at Home Depot) I used for my modifications, along with a picture of the assembly in place with warp & heddles. I have begun weaving & so far all systems are go! If you decide to try doing this for your own Shannock & have questions you think I could help you with, contact me.

1” wooden dowels, cut to same length as original heddle bars

#201 screw eyes (4 for each dowel; use a drill to make the hole & put wood glue on each screw before inserting into dowel)

3/16” round steel rods cut to same length as dowels

3/4” steel D-rings (one for each dowel)

Velcro wire wraps (the heavy ones in bright colors that come in packs of 5)

size 00 flat rubber washers to put on ends of steel rods (find them in the plumbing section)

Mirrix Texsolv heddles

And though the weaving has begun, it has been slow. I warped with 8/3 linen at 8 epi, now wishing the epi was more like 7 epi because I am using mixed weft bundles again, just as I did for the first assignment. I am still stuck on the first cactus pad, have unwoven it a couple of times now because I was unhappy first with its shape (I am not using a cartoon) & then its color. I do have a small selection of red violet & blue violet yarns on hand which I have realized needs to be supplemented, so now I have more on the way from ymm which are small enough to add in & avoid overly bulky bundles. I am now dawdling a bit hoping for them to arrive soon so I can use them.

I plan to post more often as this new tapestry, nopalita violeta, gets underway in earnest. The tapestry spawned by the first assignment, saguaro oscuro, generated high approval from Silvia & we enjoyed writing several letters to one another discussing its structure & her more obscure observations regarding tapestry design & composition in general. I feel I have set the bar quite high for myself; now I must measure up on a Grand scale with this new effort!

“…young girls are coming to the canyon…

and in the morning I can see them walking…” Twelve Thirty, The Mamas & The Papas

Well, I am not that young anymore, but I am a girl & I am going to the canyon, the Grand Canyon. Dennis & I are headed to the South Rim for a quick getaway for a couple of days, just enough to imbue ourselves with a bit of Canyon energy to set the tone for the year ahead. The photo above is of the Echo cliffs, which are just north of the turn off to the Canyon’s South Rim, but they are typical of the cliff faces of the mesas, terraces, & plateaus that define canyon country along Highway 89 & will give you just an inkling of what awaits to enrapture your mind as you peer into the astonishing depths of the grandest canyon of them all. The Canyon is magic & it has been far too long since I last experienced it. I need to gaze upon its opulence, its colors, its vistas… I need to feel alive.

I’ve received my next “assignment” from Silvia Heyden; we will be delving into explorations of color with composition while still being limited to weaving only with her “weaverly motifs”. By now, my first assignment, which included sketches, value studies, & saguaro oscuro, should be enjoying her scrutiny. I cannot wait to receive her comments on my first efforts under her tutelage!

When I first started weaving saguaro oscuro I had decided to use an 8/3 linen warp, instead of my normal cotton seine to see how I felt about it… as I said then I had decided to do “experiments” like that to help me think about materials that might be the most suitable for when I begin weaving the condor tapestry for the Grand Canyon residency. At first I found it a bit rough & hairy, but then I grew to really enjoy its texture, which seemed for some reason to feel more natural than the seine. Once the tapestry was cut off, I was quite amazed to discover that the actual “body” of the tapestry felt completely different with the linen warp… it was heavier, less pliable, more substantial. It had presence. Sewing the hems was much easier, they turned under & remained in place much better while I was finishing them as opposed to the hems of my cotton seine warp tapestries which needed to be steam pressed into place. I had lately been thinking that I no longer wanted to steam & block my tapestries as it seemed to take the “life” out of them in some way. I think I may be on the verge of a love affair with linen…

In light of these discoveries, I’ve decided to again warp with 8/3 linen at 8 epi for my next Heyden assignment, & I am in the process of warping my new-to-me big Shannock for the first time. It is time to get to know one another & find out about its quirks. I won’t be maxing out its entire 6 foot width, only about 2 feet for this maiden voyage. I am winding the warp on my warping board & tying them on in groups with lark’s head knots on the top beam. To keep the warp from becoming a tangled mess, I’ve wound the ends into butterflies until I’m ready to tie onto the bottom beam.

I will also be modifying the shedding system, something I experimented successfully with on my 2 foot Shannock. While I love the Shannock looms, I have always felt that the shedding system did not live up to the looms’ highly engineered design & construction; instead, to me it seemed a bit crude. I found it very irritating to have to stop to thread each warp through the fixed heddles as I was warping, it seemed to interrupt the flow of the process.

After much consideration regarding this dilemma, I came up with a shedding system that was inspired by the one on my Mirrix loom. The test drive was during the weaving of my first assignment from Silvia & it passed with flying colors.

I attached 4 screw eyes to two wooden dowels that were cut to the same length as the original wooden heddle bars, & inserted metal rods through the screw eyes to make the shed bar assemblies.

I then used sturdy Velcro wire wraps to attach steel D-rings to the center of the wooden dowels. The D-rings hook on to the S-hooks that are fixed to the rope attached to the  treadles after it threads through the pulley mechanism.

I was able to warp freely without having to stop. I then used Mirrix Texsolv heddles to attach the warps to the metal rods-- alternating attaching every other warp end to top & bottom dowels.

My two main concerns were that either the Texsolv heddles would break or the Velcro wire wrap would come undone, but neither of those things happened even though I like to weave with pretty high tension. Since the heddle bars on the 6 foot Shannock are just about the same length as what was on the 2 foot Shannock, I believe this system will work for it as well!

Now, I’ve got a suitcase to pack…

reentry

Back into my life.

 

Where was I? Where am I? After spending 3 weeks with my mother after my father’s death, I came home trying to get back to reality, highly aware that reality now means my father is gone. I felt like a stranger in my own house, a house that I was irritated to find smelled like old stinky socks even though Dennis swore he had cleaned several times while I was gone. My looms looked like foreign objects & the studio seemed a lifeless pit of non-creativity. I stared at the weaving in progress, the saguaro value study I had started & almost completed for the Heyden distance mentoring program & couldn’t even remember weaving it. I even had trouble remembering where to find the notes on the fingerboard when I began playing my cello again. Everything seemed to irritate me, I felt like I was completely uncomfortable in my own skin, like someone had slipped up & poured gritty sand underneath it while I wasn’t looking. Poor Dennis & the dogs have somehow managed to ride the storm of my emotional ups & downs that has been spewed their way during the last three weeks since I returned home.

Now I feel like I am surfacing to drink in light after swimming in murky darkness. I have had time to examine & sort out my feelings about-- the last years of my father’s life, his attitude & approach regarding life in general, & the days preceding his death --which I realize that the busy state I maintained at my mother’s (there wasn’t a day that passed where I wasn’t washing, sorting, scrubbing or organizing something) did not really allow me to do. My days are feeling happier, I feel like I belong here, the house is cleaner, & I have been slowly getting back into weaving as my focus returns. Um, by the way… I do owe it to Dennis to mention that while there was some errant dog hair tumbling about on the floors, the old stinky sock smell came from the odiferous pot of indigo dye that I had placed on top of the fridge in the hopes of resurrecting what I know now was my doomed first attempt at making an indigo dye bath. When I realized it was there, I suddenly knew what the source of the stink might be actually was. After brewing for 3+ weeks up there during my absence, yes, it was bad, very bad. And, yes, I did tell Dennis & I did apologize for my criticisms.

A good start to the new year, I have today finished weaving the saguaro study & have decided to name it saguaro oscuro. Tomorrow I will be able to finish the back & hems once it has a chance to rest over night since cutting it off this afternoon. Then I must package it up, along with the sketches I did for the assignment to send off to Silvia for her consideration & critique. Here’s a slide show of the progress while it was being woven:

 

While I was at my mother’s, I passed through her front room one bitter cold morning & was surprised by the sight of 5 or 6 large, gleaming black crows strutting about in her driveway. As long as I can remember, during times of worry or anticipation I have always been open to seeing & receiving a sign that things would turn out fine; I have always felt this to be a link to my Native heritage because the sign comes in the form of a beautifully unexpected encounter with some form of nature or environment. I have a website bookmarked that has “dictionaries” which define the meanings associated with different animals. This is what it had to tell me regarding the Crow:

Crow is a harbinger of change; spiritual, mental, and emotional. Life, death, rebirth, transition, magic, watchfulness, look for opportunities coming up, aids in ability to move spiritually and physically. Crow teaches to create and manifest things in our lives, all of life is waiting. He announces a newness on the horizon. Are you aware of the nuances in life? Are you listening to signs around you? Crow can give strength and show you how to maneuver in intuitions and insights. 

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who sent me cards, left comments on my last post, & sent me emails with kind thoughts, words, & poems. It is really hard for me to convey how much all of that meant to me.

I hope magical opportunities find each & every one of you as we start this new decade.

Happy New Year

moving on & looming large

Fall has come to the desert, the signs are unmistakable… The white wing doves vanished seemingly overnight after a rain storm blew through a few weeks ago. Turpentine bush which looked like nothing more than a long dead bunch of sticks during the blasting summer heat now punctuate the desert with their sunny yellow blooms & sticky, narrow green leaves. Our A/C is off, our windows are open, & I don’t turn on music very often now, preferring instead to hear the birds joyful chatter as they sing their little gizzards out. The sun is lazy climbing out of his bed behind the Catalinas & no longer greets me when I sit outside with my coffee. Instead, the shimmer of stars & the moon’s glow gently illuminate the still desert & beam between the slats in the ramada roof under which I sit while the hooting of owls, the conversations of coyotes & the occasional rustle of a mouse keep me company. The days’ light has changed from the blue white tip of a hot flame to something golden & living… now when I walk outside, I don’t squint & hurry about my business in order to get back inside to escape the blistering scald of heat; instead the light makes me linger, immediately makes me alert & curious to look about, the sky is the color of soft cornflowers, & everything seems clear & magnified-- alive. 

They say all good things will come to an end, so that must apply to bad things as well. After spending a solid week of researching & educating myself about the legalities of roads & their use in the NM county where our land is located, it has basically come down to wait & see what happens next. Waiting sometimes has a way of evolving into forgetting, which is what I am allowing myself to do, forget the trauma of the day & move on to happier & more interesting things in life.

Like learning to live in a new way… I recently made the decision to adhere to a gluten free diet. A couple months ago I visited a physician that practices nutritional medicine to find an alternative treatment for the muscular & joint pain I suffer related to a condition I have called fibromyalgia. Most “regular” docs don’t really know what to do with fibro patients except offer narcotics, something I have been trying very hard to avoid. To make a long story short, this new doc put me on a special detoxification/elimination diet that lasted 28 days-- the diet excluded a plethora of foods, most of which are known allergens. After the 28 days I was allowed to reintroduce the foods that had been excluded. While I was on the diet, I started feeling extremely wonderful & was able to forego taking any kind of pain reliever. I was also pretty amazed to find that my belly stopped torturing me after meals… I had no idea that might be related to something other than my own physical peculiarity. I started researching gluten sensitivity during that time & was very surprised to find that the symptoms were extremely similar to those of fibromyalgia, so I decided not to add gluten back in, which had been pretty prevalent in my diet. I am still feeling great, better than I have in the last few years actually, & I’d have to say that my pain symptoms are at least 90% better & my belly is very happy. Now, I have been learning how to prepare some of my favorite things gluten free, or “GF”. The biggest epiphany was discovering a baking mix that makes great bread… PB&J sandwiches forever! And I found GF beer! So far my favorite is New Grist. Now, I just have to figure out pizza crusts & tortillas-- Dennis bravely consumed the “test cases” with me, but they weren’t quite up to my expectations… back to the mixing bowl!

Good things come in large trucks… since I last posted, my new Shannock loom arrived! I consider this to be the first stage in preparing for the Grand Canyon Condor Tapestry project & I am so very excited! Here is the moment of delivery, the truck arriving & the friendly delivery guy very carefully unloading the heavy crate:

 

Dennis carted the pieces in one by one & the next day we had it put together in about an hour, except for the heddle bars which I’ll connect the first time I warp it. Then he very patiently helped me move it around several times as I re-organized the studio. We used nifty little coaster pads under the feet that allowed us to slide it around to avoid developing hernias. As we put it together, Dennis, himself an engineer, was really impressed with Shannock’s ingenious design. Even though the loom is much bigger than the Tissart, its spare design makes the studio look less cluttered.

If you noticed in above photo that there is a warp on the student Shannock, you are right, I am weaving again! I have been spending time the last couple of weeks working on the first round of exercises I received from Silvia Heyden for her distance mentoring program I am participating in. We have three months to complete this assignment; it is due the beginning of December. It is a compilation of exercises in value that utilize sketching & weaving. I’ve completed the sketching & I’ve just started the weaving portion on my student Shannock.

 

A little hard to discriminate the design at this point in the weaving, but it is a value study of the fleshy ribs of a saguaro cactus being woven on its side in the required grey scale. I set the warp up at ~7-8 epi so I could weave with weft bundles & decided to use a linen warp, a Bockens 8/3. Another aspect of preparing for the Condor tapestry, I am beginning to think about what materials would be best to use, so I’ve decided to incorporate “experiments” like this into the Heyden exercises. Not sure I like the linen as much as the cotton seine twine I prefer, I love its smooth feel… the linen seems to get quite hairy & feels very rough on the hands & it is also more expensive that the cotton. For weft, I’m using combos of my own natural dyed Burnham’s Trading Post wools & alpaca, YMM wools, Norsk Fjord wools, & Bockens linen.

  

I have been thinking about weaving cactus for a very long time, but trying to figure out how I would represent the spines has had me baffled until I discovered this very interesting “yarn” sold by Habu textiles. It is fishnet made of linen & coated with persimmon for waterproofing that has been cut into lengths. In the area of weaving that represents the highlighted edge of the saguaro’s rib, I laid it in on top of the last pick of weft in the same shed. I like the effect of this one I’ve done so far. As I get more ribs woven, I think the form of the saguaro will become more easily discernible.

 

Dennis & I are off in a couple days for a trip to the Florida panhandle, back to the area we left when we moved to Tucson 12 years ago. I have not been back since we left, although Dennis has traveled there for work & one year went back to help his mother after a hurricane. We are going to visit her & we will also see Dennis’s two sisters, but we are staying on the beach nearby. I am not sure how to feel about going back, I know there will be changes, but the beaches of the Gulf are so very beautiful as are the environments of the long leaf pine flats, swamps, bays & bayous that I used to love so much; I will really enjoy seeing all of those things again. I moved there at the age of 14 with my parents when my father was stationed at the Air Force base & left when I was 37, living there for 23 years through the wild & quite lawless “activities” of my late teens, through the hard years of my first marriage, & finally near the end of my time there meeting Dennis & completing nursing school.  A lot of water has washed across the beach since then.

happiness is…

A damn fine summer.

That is how my friend, Mary Jo, described my life during the past few months & I have to agree!

In addition to the wonderful trips I took to Mendocino & Durango in July, I recently found out that I’ve been awarded a three week artist residency at the Grand Canyon’s North Rim in 2010!!! One of the requirements is that I create & donate a piece of work related to my experience there within a year of the residency; the Park proposed a special project that I weave a tapestry of a full size condor with the Canyon as the backdrop which they plan to exhibit in the North Rim Visitors Center. When I read the email I let out a yell that had Dennis’s hair standing on end! Condors are one of the largest & rarest birds on the planet, the Grand Canyon is one of my favorite places on the planet, & I have been given the opportunity to create a piece of art for one of our most famous National Parks. I cannot even begin to describe the excited state of my mind when I consider this.

An opportunity to continue studying with Silvia Heyden has also come to fruition. After a suggestion from another student that took the workshop in Mendocino, Silvia has created a “distance learning” project for all of us that studied with her there. I’ll be posting more about this experience after I’ve had a chance to dig into & explore the first exercise we’ve just received.

A new loom.

When the news hit about the Grand Canyon & the condor tapestry, Dennis made the mistake of uttering a phrase he has since learned should never be said aloud to a tapestry weaver, “I think you may need a bigger loom.” A full size condor can have a body length of 45” to 50” & the wingspan with wings fully outstretched can be up to 9 feet! Much to his chagrin, I will soon be the proud owner of a large Shannock loom!

An organized studio.

In preparation for participating in Silvia Heyden’s distance learning program, I recently (& finally) got the carnage in the studio under control & organized. After three almost back to back workshops, let’s just say the phrase “it looked like a hurricane just struck” couldn’t even do justice to describe the state of being in here! Now, my fiber shelves are organized by color, not by fiber, & my drawing & art journaling supplies are out of the cabinets & stored in a wheeled storage cart that I can easily access from the work table. Aaaahhh!

September.

My favorite month, the month of my birth, the end of summer, the beginning of fall, my favorite season. White winged doves have flown for hotter places & temperatures are falling... hey, 98 is great after 107!

An artists reception.

Receptions can be addicting… they are so much fun, especially when shared with friends. The reception for Wish You Were Here Fiber Art Postcards & the Días de los Muertos exhibits was recently held at Tohono Chul Park & I attended it with Olga Neuts & Susan Lawson. My soul garden tapestry was part of the exhibit, but I was more excited that this was Susan’s first exhibit & reception… what a lovely time we had!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

A trip to the mountains.

Dennis & I are leaving soon for a week at our mountain property in New Mexico, with Roger & Mo in tow. It has been longer than a year since we’ve been & it is time. Temperatures there at 8100 ft elevation will likely be a good 50 degrees or more cooler than here in the desert. I always dread the preparations, because we must bring everything we need, including drinking water, but once we are there the solitude & beauty are exactly what we need to give our minds & souls a rest.