Creating The Tapestries I Want To Weave And Pricing The End Result.

THE ORIGINAL PAINTING
This is the original small oil painting which was used as the inspiration for the weaving shown below. 

 

CREATING THE DESIGN
It was cropped to produce a width and height that I was happy with.

THE CARTOON

The image was then adjusted to create a weavable design. This is the most exciting and experimental phase in the design process for me. It is the time where the commitment to weaving time and detail is determined. How much do I want to deviate from the original painting? Do I want to pretty much retain the colour palette or do I want to change it completely? At this stage the warp count and all proposed materials need to taken into consideration as do the limitations of the actual loom it will be woven on.

THE COMPLETED WEAVING

This is the end result, and as you can see the weaving detail has been ever more simplified and altered as I have woven the piece. This is where the sub-conscious decision making processes of the artist-weaver takes control. It is where the auto-pilot kicks in and intuition takes over. You just go with where it takes you almost, and it is this some-what meditative state that becomes the tapestry weavers spell or magic that attracts different viewers to connect with each different weavers style of work, some more so than others.

Because I use my own images, during the weaving process there is often a certain amount of slimming down the details as can be seen in the finished weaving above “Beyond The Wall Of Melancholy”. If the tapestry were say 4 times larger than it is, obviously more fine detail could have been achieved also. As this weaving was a non-commissioned work that I was weaving to enter into an exhibition with a deadline to meet it was more a case of...Can I finish the tapestry weaving within the designated time frame I have allowed for. 

I think possibly over the years another reason I have tended to over simplify during the design/weaving process has been because I have tried to cut down on the time factor. I have always had a problem with the end pricing and in the past thought the price I ask for my work as very high for the size and complexity of the end weaving. The reality is that the prices reflect an hourly wage that sits somewhere between the minimum wage and the cost of hiring an average trades person. 

I think this constant endeavour to fine-tune and minimize the weaving time ultimately and quite unintentionally has led to the creation of a very distinctive personal style which can be readily attributed to my weavings. As my own particular genre and style has developed I have finally become comfortable with the prices I have to ask for my work.

I believe other artisans working with knitting, weaving, felting etc. who are practicing their art through fibre are beginning to value their own specialist work abilities by pricing the time they have taken to produce it,  including their design and planning time. I also feel the appreciation of these craft based art forms are becoming more and more valued as tomorrows fine-arts and hand crafted treasures. 

Craft And Quilt Fair- Hamilton

Running from Thursday 08 Sep 2011 to Sunday 11 Sep 2011, this event is open to the public for a reasonably small entry fee, and has craft related sales as well as the Quilt Exhibition which features quilts from Australia and New Zealand. 

Running in conjunction with this is the Creative Fibre Experience exhibition. This is a good opportunity to see some of New Zealand's finest hand spun, woven, felted or fibre based exhibits in one large exhibiting arena.

It is also an opportunity to network and catch up with friends for the day.

Where:

Claudelands Events Centre

Cnr Heaphy Terrace & Brooklyn Road

Claudelands, Hamilton

Creative Fibre Festival 2012 Marlborough

Here are the dates for the National Creative Fibre Festival 2012 in Marlborough. The team down there has set up a blog site that you can visit. Go to  http://fibrefestival2012.blogspot.com/   to find out all you need to know about their planning and activities thus far. The blog also has a link to their face book page if you would rather follow what they are doing that way.

The emphasis of this festival is to Interest, Educate and Inspire no matter what area of the fibre arts your particular interest is in.

The National Festival runs from 12pm Thursday 26th to Sunday 29th April 2012 and will be held at the Marlborough Convention Centre in Blenheim, with the Exhibition on display at the Millennium Public Art Gallery.

Where do the ideas for tapestry designs come from?

WORKING DRAWINGS/MACHINE EMBROIDERIED WORKS

Time 4 Tea

I decided that this exhibition was going to be used as an opportunity for the viewers to see where my future work was heading from a design series point of view. It is all very well to show the woven end result, but some people don't understand that there is so much going on behind the piece. 

These machine embroidered working drawings are part of the design process I have used for creating a future mini series of weavable designs. I have used tapa cloth, artist canvas, acrylic paint, cotton thread and my hand-made paper to produce fibre works that were fantastically playful to produce while at the same time are reasonably resolved fibre artworks in their own right. 

Male on Friday?

These stitched works have been photographed and then adjusted in Photoshop until a satisfactory colour and contrast has been achieved. 

Me standing next to the machine embroidered works, showing the  proposed cartoons I will be weaving from them on the right hand side. 

Keeping in mind that they will become weavings is an integral part of  decision making during this procedure. What yarns, colours and textures will best be able to be replicated with the new image I am creating? How will changing them add artistic value to the end weaving? How much will I be able to deviate from the exact image without losing the integrity of the design details?

Tapestry Exhibition Photo's

Taking it all in my stride.....NOT!!!
Friday putting up the tapestry weavings.

It is actually quite nerve wracking posting up the pics of the exhibition when you are not sure who is out there keeping an eye on what you've been up to.

You really do have to be brave to do this kinda stuff,  Ta da... it's me.... and this is what I do. I don't know that I will ever have a solo show again as I am hopeless at promoting myself and always fail in this area of my professional responsibilities.

This is a retrospective exhibition of my past works rather than a showing of the new. However I am o.k. with that, as this show has been cathartic in getting a grip on what I can do rather than what I can't do and it has led to a very positive need to get myself up and running again. Illness certainly works in mysterious ways and I thank you for bearing with me over the last nine months of reasonable inactivity on the loom. 

I put this in the exhibition because unless you have visited my studio and seen this piece on the wall, you probably won't have seen it. It was woven during the anti-G.E rallies down Queen Street, Auckland in 2000.

My focus has been on my drawings and design strengths and I know this has been a VERY important process that will now produce a flurry of activity back on the loom.

Sketchbook drawing

Allowing the design aspect of my process to take precedent over the last few months has been the right thing to do to allow me to move forward from this point and between now and February 2012 I will be sharing some of the making of five larger works I have to complete within this time-frame on the blog from time to time. Taking time to design  has been inspirational in allowing me to come to the conclusion that I actually only need to produce 4 or 5 larger and better weavings each year anyway. 

Woven shaped Tapestry panels, sewn on canvas and laced onto pohutukawa branch.
This sculpture is an idea that has evolved into the designing of a piece I am working on to submit for the NZ Professional Weavers exhibition next year.

This posting is a peep into the gallery during the set-up on Friday and at the opening on Saturday. To those who got there on the day a very BIG thanks to you all.

Waiuku Spinners and Weavers

I was less than enthusiastic during the build-up to this show for strange and varied reasons, but of course the whole point of exhibitions is to see your work through the eyes of others to help you move forward with your work, to identify any weaknesses, to ponder on what was perfect and what could have been improved upon. And exhibiting is the final stage, a reflection as a grouping of work that allows you to move forward from that defining point. It is a place to share with others where you are at with your work so that they have a comparison point from which they can mark future work you create.

Max at the opening, appreciating the fact that his Granky Steph appears to be as much into titties as he is.

Exhibition of Drawings, Sculpture, Hand-Woven and Embroidered Works. Franklin Community Gallery - Next door to the Library and Steel Gallery, Pukekohe.

 

To everyone who is interested in fibre-art. I would like to invite you to come and see my new exhibition. Join me at the opening for morning tea and cup-cakes and help me to celebrate my 50th birthday with good company, art and fibre.

Retrospective Works

These two weavings were two of the first tapestry weavings I ever sold. I remember both of these tapestries had a 3 dimensional quality about them as the advice I received on the warp count was a bit high for the weight of the weft I was planning to use, and my weaving skills were still very much being worked on! The result of this combination of novice beginnings meant that the darker areas which were of a thicker quality yarn, spread the warp slightly as I wove it, creating a puffed out effect around the eye area. As an artist it is often strange to think of these earlier attempts at creating art-works being bought in the first place yet alone still being enjoyed by the purchaser, however I do hope they are still in existence purely for the fact that it is part of the record of tapestry weaving in New Zealand. as there are so few of us involved with this specific weaving genre.

Looking back at these images now, I still like the theme but do not so much like the darkness they now appear to conjure up for me. So I am going to have a go at re-doing them by playing around in a different/faster medium to see if I can come up with a lighter feeling image. There are also separate elements within each weaving that I really do like so I have decided to weave a therapy scroll, a long narrow width of weaving that can incorporate different fragments of ideas, colours and designs.
 

 

  

Freda Brierley -Machine Embroidery

On The Edge   48x38cm

This image is the work of textile artist Freda Brierley whose work I saw in an exhibition with Aillie Snow at NorthArt Gallery on the North Shore in 2002. I found her art a  wonderful inspiration of subtle and somewhat dark images, and recognized it as a possible medium I might one day want to explore. I have played around with sewing images onto stiffened organza with reasonable success in the past.

The need for me to experiment further with machine and hand embroidery has now arisen again because of illness. As my hands have limited movement at the moment I am being very selective about how I spend my time on the loom, and machine embroidery gives me the opportunity to make pictorial works off-loom.

I have an exhibition of these new works as well as a retrospective selection of older drawings and tapestry weavings that will be on show at the Franklin Steel Gallery, in the small Community Gallery space. You are invited to join me for morning tea on Saturday 11th June, 10.30am, where I will be discussing the work on display, share where I glean my inspiration for my art, and talk about the technical side of producing my images.

Five small framed works measure approx. 6x6cm

I bought these five small framed Freda Brierley works which I selected from about 30, possibly more (if my memory serves me well) which she was selling at the time her exhibition was running. I am so very pleased that I bit the bullet and did. 

Often it is these smaller more affordable works that give you a very real and tangible connection with the artist. Although these are usually not as complicated or meaningful as larger pieces, they are still enticing and charming to have if you are a collector of fbre art, and purchasing these always helps the artist re-coup some of the expense involved in putting on an exhibition. It is this mutual benefit of inter-play between the artist and the viewer that really makes an exhibition successful and enduring, long after the exhibits have left the gallery.