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'!
