Tapestry in the Making

These are the first couple of pics of the tapestry I will be documenting as I weave it. Full detail of the colour is going to be dictated by just how fussy I decide to be as time goes on. However it looks as though this left-hand panel will be following reasonably closely to the script. 

The warp-up was a total pain as I haven't used this loom before. Although I won't go into detail here, the warp could prove to be a problem at a later date. I hope not!

Set at 12 e.p.i. on a coloured cotton warp. There is a small degree of fluting/corrugation in the warp, but I believe this is due to the warp-up rather than the weft materials being used as there is no actual splay in the warp spacing as I continue to weave at this stage. It will iron out fine once the spacing has been removed at cut-off time, which is hours and hours and weeks away. By that time I will have sorted it I hope!

Photo 1 The very beginning.

These three sections (the woman, the door and the teacup )will be woven as one complete panel.
 I will keep a visual record of the left hand panel to share with you on the blog.

Photo 2 Introducing the splashes of colour that dominate this design.

Franklin Annual Art Awards

My last post shows the sewing machine ready for action and the hand-made paper sheets drying on the cloths line outside, so best I up-date what they morphed into.

"A Day Well Spent"

This is the re-cycled tapa piece, that much to my surprise won a second placing in the Non-Functional Fibre  category of the Franklin Arts Festival last month. A most unexpected surprise on the night. So a big thank you to all the sponsors and volunteers involved with this long-running event. It was most satisfying for me to feel that the judge recognised my attempt to push traditional boundaries of what Fibre Art can mean. 

Recently I have been lamenting the fact that so few young/marginalised N.Z. women in particular are not well represented in the creative fibres. Why?

My latest series of work have been pondering this. As soon as I finish weaving the tapestries that go with these pieces I will hope to have purged this obsessive, youth oriented and simplistic design phase that has gripped me for the last few months.

As a child, comic books were very much frowned upon, so these pieces are part of a catch-up time for me as well as a salute to the often regarded "low-art" genre of the visual novel.

As an adult, street art is very much frowned upon, so I see this medium as a magnet for future comment......

Close-up showing detail.